University of California, San Francisco

Podcasts & Feeds

UCSF Public Affairs

UCSF Human Resources

UCSF Library and Center for Knowledge Management

UCSF Medical Center

UCSF Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

UCSF School of Pharmacy

UCTV (University of California Television)

What are podcasts?
Essentially, podcasts are audio or video files (video podcasts are sometimes called vodcasts) bundled with descriptive information, associated text and other content, and distributed (or "syndicated") in a way that allows users easily to subscribe to series of related content, and download and play them on a computer or a handheld device (like an iPod or similar).
What are feeds?
Feeds are also known as news feeds, web feeds, or RSS feeds. RSS (for Really Simple Syndication) is an umbrella term for a variety of XML-based formats for quickly and easily syndicating news and other content online. Feeds also are used for distributing multimedia content like podcasts. Most major media outlets, like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN, now use RSS feeds to distribute content.
Why use feeds?
Feeds make it easy to access updated information from your favorite sites and news sources. When you subscribe to a feed, it is automatically updated whenever there is new content; you don’t need to check all your favorite sites separately, but can manage all your subscriptions in a single place.
How to use feeds
In general, you need a news reader (also called a feed reader or news aggregator). A variety of news readers exist for Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms; some are web-based, displaying in the web browser, while others are available as downloadable applications. Some web browsers include built-in functionality for locating, subscribing and reading feeds.
For more information

Let us know if you’re publishing a UCSF feed that’s not listed here.