Grand Rapids, Mich (March 29, 2006) - The Acton Institute is making it easier to access its latest news and multimedia offerings through a new video podcasting service. The video feed, which is available directly from the Acton Web site or through Apple Computer's online iTunes Music Store, expands on the institute's audio podcasting service begun in April 2005.
Acton's first video podcasting offerings include a Fox News interview of Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the institute; a video report on the recent Samaritan Awards program in Washington; and a new 60-second advocacy piece titled, “Solutions to Poverty.” Find Acton's podcast online at http://www.acton.org/podcast.php or in the iTunes Music Store at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73801323&s=143441 .
A podcast is a file containing links and descriptions of audio files that can then be directly downloaded and played or viewed in a supporting web-browser, special aggregation program, or in a music player like iTunes. Video content within a podcast is still a new phenomenon but allows for the easy transfer and sharing of video content through the Internet. Unlike other popular Web-based formats that try to protect video content from being downloaded — such as flash and Windows Media files - podcasted files can be easily shared or downloaded onto a capable media player (such as an iPod) and viewed on the go.
Simultaneously with the introduction of its podcasting service last year, Acton launched the PowerBlog, a daily offering of insight and analysis on economics, theology and culture. Within weeks, the PowerBlog became the most popular feature of the Acton Web site. Today, it receives more than 200,000 hits per month, more than twice as many hits as all of our publications pages combined. And, because the blog is updated several times a day with newsy and relevant content, visitors spend triple the amount of reading time there than on any other page.
Visit the Acton PowerBlog at http://www.acton.org/blog/ .