Tuesday April 9, 2019; 9:57 AM EDT
A podcast is a series of digital media files made available over the open web through an RSS feed with enclosures. Podcasts usually are audio, but you can distribute any media object this way. I've used podcast feeds to distribute videos, even code. #- If an audio file is not available over the web, or is behind a paywall, or is otherwise exclusive it may be a very fine worthwhile thing, but it is not a podcast. Being accessible openly in a standardized format, RSS, is essential to something being a podcast.#
- It's kind of amazing that until 2019 this hasn't been an issue. Everything that claimed to be a podcast actually was a podcast, meeting all these conditions. But now podcasting is being siloized by companies trying to dominate. It's understandable and predictable. But let's not dilute the qualities that make podcasting so useful.#