Cellphones are quickly becoming an integral part of our lives. They increase the convenience factor, help us stay organized, and keep us in touch with the people that we love. They can also help us keep informed!

As cellphone technologies increase, cell phone manufacturers are finding new ways to pack great programs into their cellphones. One such program that is being built into cellphones now, and will increase in the future, is the RSS feed capability.

Having this capability will mean that your cellphone can act like an MP3 player, and perhaps you already have a cell phone that has MP3 player capabilities. But in a cellphone with RSS feed capabilities take the MP3 player format one step further.

The word “podcasting” was coined in 2004. It is a technology that no one heard about until recently but is gaining popularity at an exponential rate. A podcast is like a radio program that broadcasters create in an MP3 format and attach it to an RSS feed on their web site. Computers and cellphones with RSS feed capabilities can grab the MP3 file and download it automatically. This means that every time the podcaster makes a new show, your computer or your cell phone can automatically pick it up.

(A quick note on terminology: podcasts and punchcasts are virtually the same thing except that podcasts are typically the "radio show" that goes to your computer, while punch casts are considered the ones that end up on your cell phone, even if they are the same show in the same MP3 file.)

The value of listening to podcasts on your cell phone is tremendous. While most people have not heard of podcasts, there are literally thousands and thousands of podcasts out there, and each one is designed for a specific niche: the baseball enthusiast, a wine lover, a news junkie, an entrepreneur, and the list can go on and on. If you have a hobby or interest, you'll probably find a podcasts on it… or 10 podcasts on it!

Aside from topics, podcasts vary in length and quality: just like television shows, they can have an interview format or a quiz show format or a monologue format, to name a few. They can be well done or poorly done.

Here's how it works: you find the podcast you are interested in and subscribe on your cell phone (it's free) and every time the podcaster creates a new podcast and attaches it to the RSS feed, it gets automatically loaded onto your phone.

So now you can stay on top of all the exciting news in your industry, or in a hobby or an area of interest that you might have and you can do it all on your cellphone!

This article was posted on October 07, 2005