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For those who haven’t looked into it yet, podcasting is a relatively new form of broadcasting in which anyone can record and transmit audio, distributed over the internet. It is automated by RSS, allowing listeners to subscribe to a web address and receive updates as they are published. Podcasting is not live, however this can be an advantage as the audio files can be stored on an iPod (or other media player) and be enjoyed at a convenient time. Most podcast-enabled applications, such as iPodderX and NetNewsWire, easily integrate with iTunes to support iPod synchronization. If you’re interested but unsure of how it all fits together, Peter Rukavina has a great illustrated tutorial showing how to subscribe to a podcast using NetNewsWire and iTunes. [via]

While podcasting may not seem like a big deal yet, Apple picked up on it and will be adding support for it in the next update to iTunes. It appears that Apple will be hand picking podcasts to feature in iTunes 4.9, and I’m hopeful that they won’t be too heavy handed about it. You can be sure that major news outlets featuring podcasts will be there, but I’d like to see some of my picks as well. A fan of podcasts myself, I subscribe to This Week in Tech, The Wizards of Technology, Make Audio Blog, and the occasional Dawn and Drew. With the release of iTunes 4.9, podcasting should see a huge boost, and I look forward to what Apple can bring to the table – hopefully more people, at the very least.