What is a Podcast?

An audio podcast is a radio show that is put online for anyone to download for free.  I believe that the format is ideal for reporting news and creating engaging entertainment, especially when it features Pixar Animation Studios!

Common Podcast Myths

• It costs money to subscribe to a podcast. Subscribing to a podcast is not the same thing as subscribing to a magazine or newspaper.  In the iTunes Music Store, you can find hundreds of podcasts on any topic, and the way you download past and future episodes of a particular podcast is to click the show’s “subscribe” button.  (Of course, the fact that you’re in a Music “Store” doesn’t help to assure you that you won’t be charged.)  The word “subscribe” makes sense when you consider that you are setting up iTunes (also free) or whatever podcatching software you use to look for any new episodes and download them automatically as they become available.  Just remember, don’t let words like “subscribe” or “store” fool you: podcasts are always free.

• I need an iPod to listen to a podcast. Podcast episodes are simply mp3 files that you download from the podcast’s website or through iTunes.  Unlike the audio programming you hear live on the radio, once an episode has been downloaded to your computer, it’s yours forever.  That’s why you don’t need an iPod–any mp3 player or music program on your computer itself will allow you to listen to episodes.  You can even even burn episodes to  a CD!  At The Pixar Podcast, we try make sure that episodes are of short enough length that you can burn them to CD for car trips.  However, you don’t even need to download anything to listen to The Pixar Podcast.  On the show notes for each episode on ThePixarPodcast.com, you can stream every episode for free.

• If I start listening to podcasts, I will start to prefer to perform all my tasks alone, and my social life will suffer. This one is, unfortunately, true.  Once you start listening to podcasts, you will look forward to long commutes and prefer to go on walks alone than with your friends, just so you can catch up on the latest episodes.  But there is, however, silver lining to this: podcasts are also really fun to listen to with others.  Just look at that picture!  Don’t they look happy?  With podcasting, you and your family can re-live the joys of a second age of audio programming.