For several years now,  people and organizations have been listening to programs on the internet by finding an audio file,  clicking on it to either download it onto their hard drive for listening to later (download) or listening to the program right away (streaming).

Podcasting provides a third option – you can subscribe to your favourite program.  When you subscribe, your computer will automatically download the next episode.  You can either listen to it on your computer, or load it onto your .mp3 player or iPod (which is why they’re called podcasts). 

The advantage of podcasting is that you don’t have to look for the next episode.  Your computer finds it and downloads it automatically.  And if you download it onto your iPod or .mp3 player, you don’t have to sit in front of your computer to hear it.

What you need to subscribe to podcasts is a special program to download and manage your subscriptions.  These programs are known by several names - -  podcast aggregator, podcast client or podcast receiver are the most common ones.  These programs are available for free on the internet.  Instructions vary from program to program, but it’s not hard to do.

There are dozens of different kinds of podcast receiver programs on the Internet. Two of the most common ones are:

iTunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes/  (Mac and PC)
Juice: http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/ (Mac, PC, Linux)

And, if you don’t want to download and listen on your portable device, you can always click on the “listen now” button on our main podcast page and hear it on your computer.