Listening to podcasts is a great way to consume information, including everything from physics lectures to current events to old-time radio rebroadcasts. This week we want to hear about your favorite tool for managing your podcast subscriptions.
Update: For the five most popular tools, check out the Five Best Podcast Managers; then take a look at the most popular tool for the job from that bunch.
For those unfamiliar, podcasts are the audio/visual—although primarily audio—equivalent of RSS news feeds. You subscribe to a particular podcast, and that podcast is delivered to your podcast manager to be enjoyed at your computer, over your networked radio at home, or loaded onto your phone or portable media player to listen on-the-go. If you, for example, are a fan of a particular NPR show that is on while you're at work, you can subscribe to the podcast for the show and a podcast manager (or podcatcher, as they're sometimes called) will download the podcast to your desktop, ready for you to listen to at your leisure.
This week we want to hear about your favorite software for managing your podcasts. What application do you use? Why do you use it? What features make it stand out among other podcast managers?
Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Podcast Manager. Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.
About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get: "Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Five Best Public BitTorrent Trackers.