 ommuting
to the hospital yesterday, my car radio played National
Public Radio’s “Story of the Day,”
a discussion by the Society of Critical Care Medicine
on abdominal compartment syndrome, and finally,
the amusing, satirical Onion Radio News. Today I
listened to an interview with Princeton economist
Uwe Reinhart about the American health system, then
“Dorktones,” a selection of music from
the 1960s assembled by a Dutch disc jockey. What
may surprise you is that the hospital is in Cape
Town, South Africa, yet I tune in each day to an
eclectic mix of free, up-to-date professional and
entertainment programming from the United States
and elsewhere. How? A broadband Internet connection
at home, lots of podcasts downloaded
to my iPod, and a small plug-in gadget (iTrip) that
transmits the podcasts from the iPod to my car’s
F.M. radio receiver.
Podcasting is a convenient new way to get information
and entertainment when, where and how you want it.
It blends trendy but relatively inexpensive portable
technology with the remarkable distribution power
of the Internet. In 2005 the Oxford American
English Dictionary proclaimed "podcasting"
its “Word of the Year.”
What Is Podcasting?
Podcasting has spawned a host of new and sometimes
confusing technical terms [Table 1]. The word is
an amalgam of “iPod,” (the enormously
successful Apple media player) and “broadcasting.”
You do not need an Apple iPod, though — other
players (or even your personal computer) will do.
| Table 1: The Jargon of Podcasting2 |
Aggregator —
Software that retrieves syndicated Web
content that is supplied in the form of
a Web feed.
Episode
— An individual file, such as an
MP3 audio or MP4 video file, that is posted
on a Webserver and available for podcasting.
Feed — A specially
formatted document with content items
with Web links to longer versions of those
items.
Podcast — A Web feed of audio or
video files placed on the Internet for
subscribers.
Podcatcher
— A form of aggregator software
that automatically downloads podcasts
and can also transfer received files to
a portable media player.
RSS,
Atom — Forms of Web syndication
used by news Web sites, Weblogs and podcasters.
Syndication
— Methods for making a portion of
a Web site available to other sites or
individual subscribers.
Vodcast
— Emerging term for the online delivery
of “video on demand” (also:
vidcast, video podcast, vcast) |
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Podcasting became popular with the
introduction of RSS,1
software that enables syndication.
In traditional media, individual newspapers or magazines
syndicate their content by allowing the repeat publication
of their material in other newspapers or magazines.
Similarly RSS enables content from a Web site to
be syndicated to other sites or individual subscribers.
When RSS was combined with audio and video content
on the Internet, podcasting was born.
A podcast is analogous to a recorded television
or radio program or series. Subscribing to podcasts
allows you to collect these “programs”
from a variety of sources for listening or viewing
offline at whatever time and place is convenient.
The information provider, or podcaster,
chooses which program files to offer, and you, the
subscriber, choose among them based on your interests
and preferences. You save the podcast to a device,
e.g., an iPod, and play when desired.
How Does Podcasting Work?
The podcaster makes a file (e.g., an MP3 audio or
MP4 video file) available on the Internet by posting
that file on a Webserver. This file is often referred
to as an episode of a podcast.
The podcaster acknowledges the existence of that
file by referencing it in another file known as
the feed. The feed is a computer-readable list of
the Internet addresses from which episodes of the
show may be accessed. In RSS format, this list provides
publication dates, titles and text descriptions
of the series and each of its episodes.
A user enters the feed’s Internet address
into a software program called a podcatcher
or aggregator. This program retrieves
and processes data from the feed. It determines
the location of the most recent episode and automatically
downloads it to the user’s computer. Some
podcatchers, such as iTunes, also automatically
make the newly downloaded episodes available to
a user’s portable media player.
The downloaded episodes can then be played, replayed
or archived.
What Podcasts Are Available?
Podcasting has been used to communicate from space,
to deliver political messages and to spread the
word of God. Many thousands of podcasts exist on
all imaginable topics, and many are free. The number
of medical podcasts will grow quickly [Tables 2,
3]; before long, expect most major providers of
medical education content to offer them. At the
time of this writing, there are few podcasts specific
to anesthesiology, but ASA is deciding what it should
offer in this format and how to price it. This might
someday include the annual ASA Refresher Course
Lectures.
How Do I Get a Podcast?
• Get a device that can play
audio files. These are sometimes known generically
as MP3 players, after the most common audio file
format. The newest can play video, too. Most popular
are the Apple iPod family of devices; alternatives
are available from Creative, Dell, Phillips and
others.
• Obtain podcatcher software
to download new content automatically and organize
the podcasts. Apple’s iTunes and Juice are
both free downloads [Table 4]. iTunes is available
for Mac or PC, but you must have an iPod. Juice
can run on Mac or PC and with any MP3 player.
• Use a broadband Internet connection (e.g.,
cable modem or DSL) because the files are large.
• Subscribe to the program of your choice
by manually entering the Internet address of a
feed into your podcatcher or by clicking a feed
link in a Web browser.
• Set your podcatcher software to transfer
the podcast into your media player.
How Do I Create My Own Podcast?
Traditional broadcasting requires significant resources.
Like the Internet itself, podcasting radically lowers
those requirements, enabling a kind of “homebrewed”
approach to the creation of radio. With a broadband
Internet connection, basic equipment and inexpensive
or even free software [Table 4], you can put out
your own talk show, read segments of your new book
online or record and distribute lectures for your
students.
What’s Next?
Podcasting is revolutionizing radio. TV is probably
next. These new technologies enable small organizations,
and even individuals, to become broadcasters. They
offer consumers a highly customized and personalized
listening and viewing experience.
In health care, podcasting creates interesting new
possibilities for media production and distribution
by and for providers, educators, publishers and
patients all over the world. The key, as always,
will be the quality of the programming offered.
Many will embrace podcasting for education and entertainment.
The only real limiting factor will be the size of
the appetite for new information and the number
of hours in the day.
Editor’s Note: iPod,
iLife and iTunes are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Apple Computer, Inc. iTrip is a registered trademark
of Griffin Technologies. The mention of certain
brand-name products is not intended to be construed
as an endorsement by ASA and is essentially the
personal preference of the author.
References:
1. An abbreviation referring to various standards,
including Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary,
and RDF Site Summary.
2. Definitions adapted from Wikipedia <www.wikipedia.org>.
3. A list of medical podcasts is available at <http://kraftylibrarian.blogspot.com>.
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Gareth
S. Kantor, M.B., Ch.B., is Assistant Professor,
University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case Western
Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and Consultant
Anaesthetist, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town,
South Africa. |
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