Occasionally an invention comes along that makes a big impact on your daily lives, but isn't really an invention at all, but rather the convergence of existing technologies, processes, and ideas. Podcasting might be the perfect example of that idea - and it's changing the relationship people have with their radios, music collections, books, education, computers and more.
Podcasting is generally considered to be a spin-off of another communications boom: Blogs (or personal Weblogs). Blogs have sprung up right and left, providing non-programmers and developers a clean, elegant interface that left many on the technology side wondering why they hadn't thought of it sooner. Everyday now has the ability to chronicle their lives, hopes, dreams, and fears, and publish them online to anyone who cared to read. Oddly enough, many people did care to read - and still do.
Podcasting combines the instant information publishing of blogging with audio files that can be played on a computer or MP3 player. When you make your podcast publicly available on the Internet, you are exposing your thoughts to anyone with a personal computer and an Internet connection. To put that in perspective, the global online population toped 1.2 billion users in 2006 and portable media players (diven largely by the popularity of the iPod and iPhone) are continuing to surge in popularity.
Popular podcasts like the 'Ricky Gervais Show' which started in late 2005 have become hugely poular and influential on a global scale. It entered the Guiness Book of Records in 2007 as the most downloaded podcast having gained an average over over 261,000 downloads per episode during its first month.