When I first heard of podcasting I didn't understand what made it different from simply searching and then downloading a music file and listening to it much like I had been doing for years with MP3 music tracks. I had a knowledge gap because I still didn't understand RSS and content syndication. After playing with RSS feed readers (which you should know about if you followed my instructions and read my primer article about RSS before reading this article) I understood the difference between searching and downloading music files and subscribing to podcasts. It's all about having the files come to you through syndication instead of you going to the files through search.

You subscribe to podcasts much like you subscribe to blogs. In fact often podcasts are distributed through a blog and provided your feed reading software handles podcasts you should be able to either instruct your reader to download new podcasts whenever they become available or manually choose which podcasts you want to download by clicking a link to the audio file. These files can then be listened to on your computer or you can transfer them to your portable player to listen to later. Some podcast feed reading software are configured to download and transfer the podcast directly to your portable player automatically so you can plug it in and walk away a few minutes later with your latest podcasts downloaded and ready to digest.