Introduction

What is Podcasting?

Podcasting is growing fast and Christian podcasting is on of the fastest growing genres of podcasting. I have received some emails asking about what podcasting is. If the term podcasting is new to you, hopefully this will answer some of your questions. To put it very simply, a podcast is like a VCR or TiVo for Internet radio. Podcasting is a simple way for content creators to produce audio content for an audience in a way that's very simple to listen to and/or download. Think of it this way: there are talk shows on the radio that you have to tune in at specific times to listen to. Podcasting takes away that time limitation and moves everything online. Instead of having to be somewhere at a specific time to listen to a show, you can download and listen to it after the fact. Better yet, listeners can subscribe to podcasts - this way, you don't have to check every day to see if there's a new show. Your podcatcher (special podcast software) will download every podcast as soon as they're released and organize them into your audio library for easy listening. To top it all off, if you have a portable audio player such as an iPod or iRiver or other mp3 player, podcatchers can be set up to automatically sync new episodes to your player when you connect them to your computer.

Do I have to have an iPod to get a podcast?

Not at all

Not at all! Indeed, the term podcast does come from iPod, but that is simply because iPods are currently the most popular portable music players on the market. Some people also claim that the pod in podcast means Personal on Demand or refers to the fact that episodes are like little pods of content. Nevertheless, you don't have to have an iPod to listen, and in fact you don't need any kind of portable audio player (also called an MP3 player) at all! If your reading this message, you already have an MP3 player, its called your computer. With the help of FREE software such as iTunes or Quicktime or Windows Media Player - You are already able to listen to a Podcast. You only need an iPod or other Mobile MP3 Player if you want to listen to a podcast while you are working out, driving to work(Which is what I do) or taking the dog for a walk.You can download or stream to podcast directly to your computer relatively quickly and easily, even on a slow dial-up connection.

So, How does Podcasting work?

Here we go with the Geeky talk.

Here's where it gets a bit technical, and it's not necessary to know about this, but just in case you're curious, it goes like this: a podcaster produces a podcast by recording and editing a simple audio file, in most cases an MP3, just like much of the music on the Internet. The podcaster must then host the podcast on the Internet and link to it on a blog or similar site. Usually at this point, there is an outside service that converts that post with a link to the audio file into a formatted markup document called a feed. This feed is constantly refreshed and when the podcaster posts a new podcast to the website it will update. Through technology known as RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, a feedreader or podcatcher will see the update in the feed file (an XML file, if you wanted to know) and send the software out to where the audio link points to download the file. Of course, there are some variations on this system, but that covers the basics.

Great, So how do I get the BTE Ministries Podcasts?

Here are a few different ways to get the podcasts depending on your situation.

I recommend iTunes. It's versatile for many things. First and foremost, if you already have iTunes, this is no doubt your best choice. It's FREE and available for both Windows and Mac computers. Through this method, you can subscribe to the podcast and iTunes will automatically grab all the new episodes, organize them under the Podcasts menu, and add them to your iPod when you sync it. To use this method, either click our iTunes Subscribe button on our Subscribe to Podcast page to quickly and automatically subscribe to the 'cast and download the newest episode with one click, or navigate through the iTunes Podcast Directory and search for BTE MINISTRIES. You'll find us there. Lastly, we have a direct RSS feed as an option for those of you with a bit more podcast experience. If you'd prefer to use this method or another podcatching method I didn't talk about here (you can find a list of podcatching methods on the Subscribe to Podcasts page - I recommend Juice.), just copy the RSS feed location http://feeds.feedburner.com/btestudies (Weekly Bible Studies) or http://feeds.feedburner.com/biblicalexegesis (Biblical Exegesis Class) into your podcatcher of choice. So evaluate what your best podcatching situation is based on your needs and follow the simple steps to get our episodes.

Watch this quick How-To for subscribing to the podcast using itunes.

Rate us on iTunes

The next time your on our Podcast page in iTunes please take a momment and write a review of the Podcasts. We appreciate the kind words and the information is helpful to other users.

Questions?

If you have any questions on Podcasting or just want to send in some feed back, you can do so by sending me and email on our Contact page. Select Podcasting Questions from the drop down menu.