Definition, History, and How to Make a Podcast

Bambang Winarso - 20 June 2021

Term Podcast We often encounter it on various digital media platforms, so many people are starting to understand and are curious about what a Podcast is. Podcasts are a series of digital media files in the form of audio or video that are published from time to time and often downloaded via web or internet syndication.

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Podcasts are considered as audio broadcasts with a certain topic that are uploaded to various media and platforms that can be enjoyed anytime and anywhere. This certainly makes podcasts one of the content that is quite popular with the community.

See also:5 Combat Tools You Must Prepare to Become a Podcaster

Almost the same but not similar, podcasts have several differences from radio. One of the most notable differences is that on radio we have to listen to all the content that is broadcast on the radio, whereas on podcasts we can choose the topic we want, can even repeat, and skip parts that we don't like.

History of Podcasts

Podcast is an abbreviation of the combination of the words iPod and Broadcast or broadcasting. This idea first appeared due to the anxiety felt by Adam Curry, a former American MTV VJ in the 198s and a former poet. Curry bemoaned how he could gain by simply talking his heart out.

At the same time, Curry is reminded of a software developer who embraced the idea of feeding audio into a really simple syndication (RSS) feed system, Dave Winer. Curry finally made an appointment with Winner.

Unfortunately, during the meeting Winer did not allow Curry to use his software. But on the other hand, due to Curry's proposal, Winer has made efforts to further optimize the audio blog idea by relying on the RRS system.

In October 2003, Winer finally created an RSS channel containing audio recordings of interviews between former NPR journalists and technologists and politicians. Unfortunately, at that time many parties felt less interested in the concept offered by Winer. Until finally Winer made a series of explanations of his ideas regarding audio containing a sound blog method that can be done by everyone.

Despite being unable to use Winer's software, Curry eventually hacked into an Apple script that made the computer view a single feed. As a result, Curry worked on the Daily Source Code which is considered the first popular podcast in the world because it can be played and downloaded directly on the iPod via iTunes.

The term "podcasting" first appeared in an article by Ben Hammersley in The Guardian newspaper in February 2004, along with other terms proposed to name this new technology.

In the article, Ben writes news about audio that can be downloaded automatically, and when the article wants to be published, Ben is asked to list 20 words that could be the name for the phenomenon caused by Curry. Podcast then becomes one of the words contained in it.

Until the end of 2005, new podcasts emerged, reaching 3000 podcasts. In fact, at the time a US president named George W. Bush had his own podcast.

Articles about Podcasts

In Indonesia, the first podcast appeared in 2005. At that time, Boy Avianto made his first podcast called "What's the Podcast" through a blogspot. Along with the development of the internet in Indonesia, podcasts are becoming increasingly popular. This is marked by the presence of a number of podcasters (a term for people who make podcasts) who are considered the originators of podcasts in Indonesia, such as Adriano Qalbi.

The development of podcasts in Indonesia is growing after Spotify finally opened a special channel for podcasts. Everyone can upload their own audio content to Spotify through hosting channels like Anchor or Gimlet.

In 2018, a survey regarding podcasts was conducted by Dailysocial. From a survey conducted with a total of 2.032 smartphone users, it was found that several interesting facts such as content (65,00%) and flexibility of access (62,69%) were factors considered attractive to respondents, so they chose podcasts.

In addition, Spotify (52,02%) is the most popular service used for listening to podcast content by respondents. And on average those who listen to the most podcasts in Indonesia consist of the millennial generation aged 20-25 years.

According to data released by Spotify quoted from Kumparan.com, Indonesia has the largest number of podcast listeners in Southeast Asia. More than 20% of users in Indonesia listen to podcasts every month, which is a higher percentage than the global average.

Carl Zuzarte, Spotify's Head of Studios for Southeast Asia explained that ""Podcasts in Indonesia are arguably one of the most interesting in the world today, the number of users searching for and listening to podcasts continues to grow,". Carl also mentioned that podcast listeners in Indonesia have their own characteristics.

The growing development of podcasts has made many people interested in trying to become a podcaster, because actually making a podcast is not that difficult. There are many ways you can do to create a podcast, but in this article, we will provide several ways you can do it create a podcast through the Spotify application :

Prepare the narrative or topic for the podcast.
Do a voice recording in the order of the narration that has been made.
Edit the sound recording that has been made and will be uploaded to Spotify.
Create an RSS Feed for each episode's MP3 files.
Go to the Spotify for Podcaster website page.
Login using spotify account.
Click the Get Started button, then Submit your podcast.
Fill in the name in the column Your legal name.
Check the Terms and Conditions box, then click Continue.
Enter the RSS feed link in the field provided.
Send the confirmation code to the email, then enter the code.
On the Add podcast info menu, enter country, language, category and service provider information, then click Next.
Finally on the Review page, make sure there are no errors in entering information, click Submit.

You can read the tutorial in this article: Guide to Making Podcasts Easily Using the Anchor App

Definition, History, and How to Make a Podcast

History of Podcasts

How to search and play podcasts on Spotify (smartphone)

How to find and play podcasts on Spotify (desktop)