Electrical Trades Union of Australia launches podcasting

The former independent federal member for Wills, Phil Cleary is now the voice of the Australian Electrical Trade Union podcast. Launched last month, the union’s podcast was designed to unite workers. “Podcasting is just a great way to communicate with our members” says Phil Cleary.

So what is Podcasting and why is it becoming more popular?

Podcasting is a method of publishing audio and video programs that are downloadable onto portable players. It is distinct from other types of online media delivery types because it uses a feed, such as RSS or Atom, to deliver the enclosed file.

RSS, Real Simple Syndication, is used by many websites to push their headlines and videos to users who have special reading software installed. The importance of RSS is continually growing as shown by Microsoft’s decision to make it a native feature of Vista, its next generation Windows operating system.

This new trend of increasing technology has been called “Web 2.0” – the next iteration of the web. Web 2.0 refers to a transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform that serves many different applications.