Inventing New Media--the podcast.(Tech Forum)

* THE OLD MASS MEDIA--printed word, radio, television, photography, movies--have been shaping our culture for the last 500 or so years. The new mass media have only been around for a few decades, but they also have been transformative. Words have become digital, radio is beamed from satellites to devices with memories, television and film can be streamed to your desktop or pocket, and film photography is disappearing fast. A lot is happening in ever-shortening cycles of time. And every now and then there emerges out of this turmoil a brand new device, technique, or means of communication that resembles a new media type.

Sometimes the innovation results from nothing more original than combining older, established technologies. So it is with the podcast--a hybridizing of Marconi's (radio) and Filo Farnsworth's (TV) efforts with the Web. The name explains the process. Podcasting is a portmanteau for iPod broadcasting.

Originally the podcast was an additional outlet for audio only, but with the new video-capable iPods, film, television, and a wide variety of audio are all now traveling in pockets and on lanyards around people's necks.

But the iPod part of the name is something of a misnomer. Audio podcasts can be downloaded onto any MP3-capable device, including your desktop. The choice of the name probably has something to do with the fact that Apple sold 32 million iPods last year--that's one every second.

What's impressive about podcasting is how it has swept up so many of the older mass media and redirected them out of its own broadcast horn. You can download podcasts from The New York Times; Wired magazine; The Family Guy television show; Nova, Now, and Frontline from PBS; content from e-zines like Salon and Slate; and countless original "radio" broadcasts from amateurs as well as experts in various fields. Its reach certainly hasn't yet exceeded its grasp.

Radio Libre

Todd Cochrane's Podcasting: Do-It-Yourself Guide describes one of the most attractive elements of the medium: "Podcasters don't have to make advertisers happy. They don't have to worry about FCC regulations. They don't have to adhere to play lists. They don't have to pay attention to the corporate bottom line. They broadcast what they love ..."