Can someone explain the Iota seed?

[TryAngle]

I want to buy some Iota and to download the wallet and receive coins, you need to generate a seed. Is this the same as a private key for bitcoins?

If that's the private key, then what is the public key? Do we need both for Iota?

Just trying to understand Iota.

Thanks

[Morguk]

I'm also in a similar situation. Have some IOTA on bitfinex and want to get it off but haven't used the wallet yet. I think I'll wait until the new wallet is out as it is easier to use, there was a blog post about it the other day.

Hopefully someone chimes in with the exact info, but all I know if the IOTA seed is very specific and only allows certain characters and numbers.