What makes you a podcaster?

I saw a post on X the other day which basically asked the question, when can you / should you call yourself a podcaster?

I’ve been creating podcasts for about 9 years now, and although there might be some vanity metrics in the use of the word, the definition of ‘a podcaster’ is pretty clear to me.

If you have a podcast RSS feed, then you’re a podcaster. That’s it.

An RSS feed (stands for Really Simple Syndication) is a text document which you will likely never see, but it’s what allows your podcast players to ‘see’ the episodes you have released, and know if you’ve got a new episode to share.

It’s a little like a shopping list. It just lists out all the details of each episode. It looks a little bit like code, but it’s really much more human readable. It displays things like date, title, description, the audio file, and all the other things that your podcast player needs to show your podcast episodes.

Every single podcast platform will give you this out of the box, and you really won’t even need to know that it exists. You just tell services like Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and other podcast players that it’s there and they will serve up your content, to every-single-human with a podcast player – which is likely billions!

It’s one of the most sublimely wonderful things. It’s open, free, and owned by nobody. This is what makes podcasting so wonderful; there’s no ‘mega-corp’ locking you in, or limiting your reach. Make episodes when you want, where you want, as professional or unrehearsed as you want. Your podcast host will put them into your RSS feed. If you don’t like your podcast host, find another one, there’s no lock-in.

A podcast is the most egalitarian form of content creation I can think of.

So in answer to the question, what makes you a podcaster, my answer is simple – you’re a podcaster if you have a podcast RSS feed. That’s it.