Abstract: Improved techniques that facilitate use of podcasts are disclosed. The improved techniques can pertain to creating, publishing, hosting, accessing, subscribing, managing, transferring, and/or playing podcasts. According to one aspect, a client application can facilitate discovery of a podcast of interest from a plurality of podcasts, subscribe to the podcast of interest, and provide subsequent management of the podcast of interest. The management of the podcast of interest can include acquiring updated podcast data with little or no user interaction required. According to another aspect, some or all podcasts locally available to a client application can be copied (e.g., synchronized) with a portable media device so that the podcasts can be conveniently available and played by either the client application or the portable media device.