It didn't take Jonathan McKinnell long to realize he wanted to be a podcaster.
The Toronto resident and multimedia student started using his iPod to listen to Internet radio programs in the fall last year. By January, he had launched a show of his own and joined the legions of Internet users to try podcasting.
A fusion of the terms broadcasting and iPod -- Apple's popular portable audio device -- podcasting is a method of creating personal audio programs which are then distributed to digital audio players and computers through the Internet. With the help of the content delivery system known as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and media aggregators that seek out and deliver audio files to subscribers, users can download content from the Web to their computers or portable devices and listen at their convenience.
"Podcasts are very much an extension of blogs," Mr. McKinnell says, referring to the chronological on-line journals called weblogs kept by millions of Internet users. "They're like audio blogs. Some people take it to another level and create actual radio shows. Others just record their thoughts. That's what I do."
Mr. McKinnell's Canadian Perspective includes excerpts from his classes and musings about Canadian news. He's one of the first in the Toronto area to publish a regular podcast.
The concept of podcasting emerged in August of last year, when Adam Curry, a former MTV host turned entrepreneur, and David Winer, the inventor of RSS, launched a media aggregator called iPodder. Mr. Curry then started Daily Source Code, his podcast about Internet technology. Canadian Tod Maffin was among the first to follow suit.
"Podcasting appeared out of nowhere," recalls Mr. Maffin, a Vancouver-based producer and tech columnist with the CBC. "We had Internet radio and RSS feeds, but no one had put them together."
Mr. Maffin's first podcast consisted of audio recordings he took during a string of international speaking engagements. His CBC column is now available via podcast as well.
It's estimated that there are already more than 4,300 different podcasts around the world covering a variety of subjects and the number of listeners is also on the rise. Calgary graduate students and brothers Andy and Matt Skinn's podcast, The Skinny on Sports, is downloaded 2,000 times a week. Each of the three weekly episodes of the Coverville podcast that Brian Ibbott produces about the best and worst cover songs is downloaded well over 4,000 times.
"It doesn't matter where someone is," says Colorado-based Mr. Ibbott, an operations specialist with a software company. "You can get the content wherever and whenever you want it."
For the moment, podcasts and software programs like iPodder remain free of charge. Budding podcasters can refer to on-line guides such as Tod Maffin's Podcasting 101, found at ILoveRadio.org, and How-To: Podcasting from consumer technology Web magazine Engadget.com.
But fee-based services such as BlogMatrix are also springing up. The Toronto company is the first to offer a podcasting application that allows Internet users to record podcasts and skirt issues such as file conversion and costly bandwidth by hosting the recordings on the company's server. A basic version of BlogMatrix Sparks! 2.0 is available starting at $5.
While most podcasts are the product of hobbyists, the technology is starting to be used for commercial ventures, too. Mr. Ibbott started his Coverville podcast in September. He had been listening to Daily Source Code and thought, "This is something I can do." Shortly after the launch, Mr. Curry mentioned Coverville on his show, Mr. Ibbott's traffic spiked, and in December he was approached by his first sponsor.
"I'm trying to be very careful," he says of the advertising. "It has to be a product that appeals to people and that I believe in."
At the same time, he would like to see the podcast become profitable. "Right now I'm enjoying doing it as a hobby, but I would love to make a business out of it."
He's not the only one. In addition to the CBC, high-profile radio stations such as the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and Boston Public Radio (WGBH Boston) are already making some of their broadcasts available through podcasts. Morning Stories, a show on WGBH, now has a paid sponsor -- Ipswitch Inc., a U.S. software developer.
Mr. Maffin predicts other businesses will pick up on the potential of podcasting as well.
"Just think of the way [professionals]consume radio broadcasts on the way to work," he says. "Now imagine a world where you can subscribe for a fee to a very specialized newscast. People will pay good money for that."