EWAN SPENCE does a weekly rock podcast, a films podcast and another with the news and gossip on mobile phones. The Edinburgh dad fits all this inbetween running a business from home and looking after his children. Mark Hunter makes a regular music-show podcast, featuring Scotland's unsigned and littleknown bands. He's also Scottish, a dad and has a full-time job.

Hunter, 33, is one of the most popular podcasters in the world.

Both men are typical podcasters and part of the latest technological phenomenon. Put simply, a podcast is a radio-esque recording that is distributed on the internet. These audio-file "shows" can then be tracked by listeners with a type of software known as a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) reader.

Among other things, RSS allows users to watch their favourite websites for new podcast postings, which are downloaded in the background ready for users to listen to at a click. The files can be listened to on the computer, or transferred on to an iPod or MP3 player and played wherever and whenever users prefer.

Podcasts - and the trend for podcasting itself - are fast growing.

The Podcast Network, a leading podcast subscription website, claims that one MP3 file is downloaded from its site alone every 30 seconds, delivering 92,000 shows to 40,000 unique visitors.

David Winer, the US software pioneer, and Adam Curry, a former MTV host, are two of podcasting's pioneers. Curry runs Daily Source Code, a 40-minute audio blog that receives about 100,000 hits a day. Paul Nicholls, a lawyer and podcaster from Birmingham, is soon to host the UK's first podcast conference in London, the aim being for podcasters to discuss "what was first simply thought of as a geeky hobby, that will eventually affect us all".

Podcasting has caught on rapidly in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US over the past year, but the podcasts made in Britain are the ones that are really making an impression. This is for one simple reason: our accents. "Americans love all the British stuff, and they're living up to the old thing of being suckers for the Scottish accent in particular, " says Nicolls. He adds that one of the most popular is Mark Hunter at Tartan Podcast.

Hunter, from Glasgow, only began podcasting in March. His wife thought it was just another one of his daft hobbies. His reason for podcasting? Mostly because he could. "It's not like the radio in the sense that you need a studio that costs tens of thousands of pounds and FM transmitters, " he says. "My whole set-up probably cost [pounds]200 and I can podcast CD-quality shows. You don't need money, you don't need a licence, you don't need to adhere to a station's playlist policy, you can play what you want and talk about what you want."

He says the typical podcaster is male, in his early thirties, "who can't get out much". "There are more and more females doing it as well. Stay-at-home mothers talking about their day, that kind of thing. But I think the reason that it tends to be guys my age who are podcasters is that you reach a certain time in your life when you want to expand your horizons. If you're settled down, those horizons are going to be what you can do from home, not necessarily travel or things you did in your twenties. I don't remember the last time I was in a pub."

These days, when he's not running his window-cleaning and office-cleaning business or looking after his two children, he is making his hit music show podcasts. The response he's had from both the bands he features on his show and the listeners has taken him by surprise. "I get regular e-mails from people who've gone out and bought things they never would have otherwise, " he says. "I got one the other day from someone saying he bought all three CDs by one of the artists on the last show.

There is one listener in Rhode Island in America who buys every CD that he can that is featured on the podcast. Some bands have sold their first CDs overseas as a direct result. They couldn't get that kind of international exposure any other way."

This kind of rapturous feedback is common. One podcaster mentions that a TV producer heard an unsigned band on his podcast and auditioned them for a prime-time BBC show. Hunter's accent, he admits, is a help.

"Part of the reason podcasting took off is that people are fed up with hearing the same radio shows all the time, " he says. "Unfortunately, things are now beginning to sound samey; it's mostly white North American thirty-something guys. So when they hear a Scottish person doing one, they immediately feel it's very different. A Scottish podcast stands out from the crowd, you get noticed."

His wife was so impressed with the success of his side project that she started helping him out. For now, they toil over his show for the sheer fun of it. "This is all still in it its embryonic stages, " he says.

"There's no money in podcasting and most people are still doing it because they enjoy the buzz of getting e-mails from people who've heard the show. That will eventually wear off, but as people are investing more and more time in it, they'll be looking to get a financial return.

"I heard about one popular podcaster who'd just spent Dollars20,000, looking to making that back within the year and then some."

The evolution of podcasting mirrors that of blogging, which started out as being the domain of technology wizards, came to be used more widely for distributing information about special interests and is now used for publishing chat on all conceivable subjects. Podcasting, too, started out as "technology for talking about technology", says Nicolls. "But now, one minute you can listen to a guy from a church in Dallas, preaching to his congregation, and the next you can hear two people talking about their sex life in Norway. You can hear what's happening in New Zealand, the deep South, Scotland. It's such an insight into the way people live. I haven't listened to normal radio for four months."

THE SIMPLICITY OF THE SOFTWARE means that those beginning to podcast now aren't technology experts with other special interests.

Rather, they are people with special interests who think it's worth getting clued up on the equipment to be able to reach so many people so quickly. Unlike Hunter, who makes podcasts on his own, Ewan Spence is part of a podcast network, which provides informal support for new podcasters.

"The barrier for entry is now so low that different kinds of people are joining in all the time, " Spence says. "Someone does a show for cranky middle managers. Matt Freak does a show - and he's not a geek, he's a comedian. Someone else does a show called Dead Serious, which is basically a show about death - how to talk about it with children and so on. The people behind that are in no way technology-minded. Because it started with the IT types, they can help new people on board."

Nicolls doesn't see podcasting as a threat to broadcasters who have to apply for licences or satisfy advertisers, but rather as something that could strengthen it. "It's not used for the same thing that mainstream radio is for. Podcasting provides more variety and gets you away from commercial radio, which will surely die, " he says.

Even if it were a danger to traditional radio, the BBC has moved to pre-empt it. The broadcaster is already sussing out how the technology can benefit it with a series of trials which will run until the end of the year. In fact, the broadcaster has been so quick off the mark that many have first heard about the possibilities of podcasting through the BBC.

"The aim is to give listeners greater control of how and when they listen, and respond to their changing tastes. The profile of podcasting may have been raised as a result but obviously that's not why we did it, " says a BBC spokesman.

It is too early to say how listeners are responding to podcasts of the Today programme, among others, but if their internet distribution of Beethoven symphonies is anything to go by, it should be a triumph. Almost 700,000 people downloaded the symphonies in one week. To put that in perspective, the entire paid-for downloads in the same week was around 450,000.

I put it to Spence that the BBC could take advantage of the trend further. With all the wannabe broadcasters out there, maybe the Beeb will find its new John Peel.

Spence doesn't like the comparison. "Bands send CDs and say please listen to this and play it. If I get exposure for them, then it makes me feel nice, " he says.

As if to confirm the alleged lack of ego involved, one podcaster refuses to have his picture taken. "I just feel that the whole thing is that it's not about me, " he says, earnestly.

"It's all about the podcasting."

Sites of interest

unsignedukmusic. com

podcast. net

podcastpaul. com

britcaster. com

podcastalley. com

podcastcon. co. uk

ipodder. org/directory/4/ipodder

Software - (for the software that automates downloading a podcast and putting it on iTunes and iPod)