There are many ways to listen to Internet Audio

One of the most common formats for audio on the Internet is mp3. It's probably the most portable music format in existence today. Virtually every type of media player will play mp3 audio, including all sorts of computer software as well as portable mp3 players such as the familiar iPod.

A term that crept into the vocabulary of the Internet within the past year or so is the term "podcast" or "podcasting". Podcasting is a particular delivery mechanism for online audio designed to make it convenient for the listener in every conceivable way. The three most common ways of listening to a podcast are

• by clicking an audio link via your web browser
• by listening via the ubiquitous music program iTunes (from Apple)
• via a portable device such as in iPod

The first of these 3 methods is automatic. Pretty much any computer purchased in the past several years (with an Internet connection, of course) should be able to play mp3 files without any necessary configuration or installation. Just click the link, and the audio should play. (However, the specific software which plays the audio will vary from one computer to another depending on how the web browser is configured and what software is installed on the computer.)

The way that iTunes accesses podcasts is somewhat different. First you have to "subscribe" to the podcast series. This is a lot like subscribing to a magazine. After you subscribe, the magazine is automatically delivered to your doorstep without you needing to go out and get it. In the same way, once you subscribe to a podcast series, every new audio file that's posted to the series will automatically be loaded into the "podcast" listings in your own iTunes library on your computer. (You have a great deal of control over how this happens via the podcast preferences in iTunes, and I won't go into detail here. Basically you can control the extent to which downloads are automatic, as well as how long downloaded podcasts remain in your music library.)

Most folks who have an iPod use iTunes for the purpose of moving audio files from computer to iPod. Depending on how you manage this process, you can instruct your iPod to automatically grab whatever podcasts you prefer from your iTunes library. So, for example, you can subscribe to a podcast series so that every episode (as it appears on the Internet) will be automatically transferred first into iTunes and then onto your iPod without you needing to request it.

So how does the "subscription" process work? At each of the podcast series pages at this web site, you'll see two buttons that looks like the ones pictured below:

Clicking the "subscribe" button will automatically communicate with iTunes on your computer and subscribe you to the series in question. So after you've subscribed, any time you have iTunes open you can look at the podcasts in your iTunes library, see what episodes are already downloaded and which others might be available, and download any others of interest (if your preferences aren't set so that this already happened automatically). The RSS button is similar in function but works with other "news reader" type software in addition to iTunes.

So, if you're a novice and all this is Greek to you, just use your web browser and don't worry about the other options. But if you know about iTunes and iPods and have usage patterns typical of the under-30 crowd, be aware that all the audio posted at this web site is available via iTunes subscription and other RSS-capable software.