Podcasting gets its name from "iPod" and "broadcasting". It is essentially a way to distribute audio or video as an ongoing series. It is easy to think of podcasts as if they were a TV or Radio program, except they are distributed over the Internet.
Podcasting got started as a way to easily distribute audio into iPods. However the mechanisms are not limited to iPod's, and can be viewed with lots of different software applications on many different devices.
The simplest way to start using podcasts is through the iTunes application, however there are other ways to do it. In iTunes, under the 'Advanced' menu, is a choice labeled 'Subscribe to Podcast'. Simply copy the URL of the podcast into this dialog box. Some podcasts publish a button to automate subscribing to the podcast using iTunes. Once you have iTunes subscribed to the podcast it will wake up every day or so and check to see if there are new episodes. If new episodes are available these will be downloaded. You can listen to (or watch) the episodes in iTunes itself, or you can download those into an iPod to carry around. Additionally in the iTunes Music Store there is a directory of known podcasts which you can browse and subscribe to the podcasts of your choice.
These pages are my notes to myself about podcasting. If someone else finds this useful, then that's wonderful.
