By Heather Whittle
The sight of students walking with headphones firmly pressed into each ear, or falling asleep in class may soon come to indicate something entirely different from the stereotypical music junkie.
The turn of the century saw the rise of personal, portable broadcasting technologies. At the forefront was the iPod. Originally developed to replace the old, clunky digital music players, it soon became a means for all sorts of technological advances, especially podcasting.
In 2006, the Horizon report, a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, identified podcasting as one of the most significant emerging technologies with regards to higher education.
Since it was coined in 2004, “podcasting” has caught on remarkably fast as a way to get content from the Internet. Podcasts range from the professional to the personal, from the educational to entertaining, and can be downloaded to any device capable of playing mp3 files.
Mike Jensen, web content manager at BYU Broadcasting, says what sets podcasting apart is that it is “individual. You can subscribe and just get those episodes you want. The user is able to get content they want when they want it through various podcasts that are very specific.”
Podcasts are not just media files on a Web site. Podcasting works by allowing consumers to download files – from audio to video to image, PDF, text, and virtually any other file – from certain URLs, called feeds, from the Internet via feed-reading software. This factor separates podcasting from other broadcasting technologies.
This software collects all the feeds of the sites you subscribe to and locates them in one place, making it more efficient for you to consume its’ content. Instead of searching through all of the files to find the content you are interested in, all the new files are gathered and broadcast to your iPod or other music software-containing computer. With iTunes, the podcasts you subscribe to are automatically downloaded and organized. With other devices, you must manually download the specific podcast from the website.
Without getting too technical, Real Simple Syndication is the most popular web feed format used to publish podcasts. There are certain images a web source will display to indicate the presence of a feed: the letters “RSS” or “XML” in an orange box, the words “Atom Feed” or “RSS 2.0” in an orange and grey box, an orange square with waves, or a purple “i” with radiating circles.
In the past few years, BYU has expanded its podcasting services. BYU Broadcasting offers audio and video podcasts featuring news, devotional talks, academic and gospel discussions, and BYU sports. New content is regularly added to each feed, allowing busy college students to keep up to date in all areas of interest.
When asked what is special about BYU’s podcasts, Jensen replied that BYU offers podcasts that include a lot of specific, religion-based material. For “Cougar fanatics,” Jensen said, BYU’s True Blue audio podcast provides supplemental information that can only be found on the podcast, as opposed to it’s counterpart, the popular television series. As a result, he says, BYU’s podcast repertoire appeals to many people who aren’t necessarily associated with BYU.
Subscribing to BYU-offered podcasts is free atbyub.org/podcasts.
As BYU continues to expand its podcasting capabilities, Jensen said he is looking for new ways to increase access to conferences and symposiums, campus news and media, distance learning, and marketing and recruitment opportunities.
