Podcast: a reality full of ideas

It’s quite common these days to come across intriguing podcasts. You may spot some ads while surfing the internet or perhaps a friend of yours suggested that you should try one out, but why have podcasts become so popular over the last few years?

Podcasts started back in 2004 when, thanks to the advent of the internet and revolutionary devices, Adam Curry, a famous American TV personality, with the help of Dave Winer, a software developer, found a way to download radio broadcasts into their iPods .  Immediately after, Curry decided to launch his own podcast which he called Daily Source Code where, on a daily basis, he delivered recent news and communicated with his public as well as promoting other upcoming podcasts. Big companies like Apple didn’t lose out on this incredible chance and featured a new support for podcasts in their new iTunes 4.9 in 2005. This phenomenon became so big that the word “podcast”, which is a combination of the words “iPod” and “broadcast”, was even chosen as the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary that same year.  

Nowadays we can find many different kinds of podcasts, some of them include more than one speaker, in fact we can find either a group of people having a conversation about a specific topic or being interviewed, but there are also podcasts with only one set host who will take you through the show.

Podcasts can be about a variety of themes, the prevailing ones being:

• News where we are given information about the latest reports from all around the world, these are generally published every day to keep the audience up to speed with everything going on.

• Society and culture where political and cultural changes and developments in our community are discussed, statistics and financial data are frequently debated as well. 

• True Crime where, thanks to the help of journalists and witnesses, scandalous criminal cases are investigated in the attempt of bringing the listener into the story; these podcasts are usually divided into episodes.

• Health where doctors and life coaches give you guidance and suggestions in order to improve your lifestyle in terms of mental and physical health.

The above-mentioned are just a few examples of topics in a podcast, on the internet thousands of other types can be found and I’m sure one of them will satisfy your expectations as of right now. The success of podcasts is possibly due to their incredible flexibility and the fact that they don’t require all your attention at all times, you can listen to them at any given moment, in your free time, while doing housework and even while doing sport, all you need is a wifi-connected device, it’s as simple as that.

All of these aspects have made the podcasts' popularity grow over the years and become trending on a global scale, so if you still haven’t tried to listen to one you really should and you won’t be disappointed.

Martina Carulli