I got into a heated discussion w/ Jef the other day about the difference between “audio MP3 downloads” and “podcasting.” Until then I had no idea there was even a difference. I’m pretty sure most people offering them and the people listening to them don’t either.

I don’t know if it’s better to educate or let it go, but let’s try educate.

On a very basic level…

An audio MP3 download is simply an MP3 file that you save to a folder of your choice on your computer. You right click on the link (on a PC) and save the file to your computer. Once the download is complete, the physical file is on your computer and you could either listen from your computer or transfer it to an MP3 player of your choice (iPod, etc.) for listening on-the-go. Simple enough, right?

A podcast, on the other hand, is a subscription based service that allows you to automatically receive your audio via special free software. That way, you no longer have to seek out and manually download your favorite audio content (radio programs, audio books, educational content, etc.) - it comes right to you. Once the file is on your computer, it’s the same as above, you can either listen from your computer, or transfer the file to an MP3 player for mobile listening.

The difference between these two has been difficult for me to wrap my brain around, mainly because of the “special free software” involved in podcasting (that’s another post all together). Why couldn’t you just call an audio MP3 download a podcast and be done with it? In all honesty, I think most people do because if they called it an “Audio MP3 download” it would probably confuse a lot of people and they’d get less traffic. If they call it a podcast, even if it’s not TECHNICALLY a podcast, people would recognize it’s an audio file, and no matter how it got to their computer, eventually they’d listen to it, probably on an MP3 player, and that’s all that matters.

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Add’l resources:

What is podcasting – Wikipedia
Podcasting – From Yahoo!
ABC Radio National - An Australian radio station’s FAQ that has suprisingly good info