Podcasting

Cindy Li & Jason Garber

What we'll be covering

• What are podcasts?
• Finding and viewing podcasts
• How to create a podcast

What are podcasts?

• RSS with enclosures

  <enclosure url="http://www.mysite.com/podcast.mp3" 
     length="9543417" type="audio/mp3"/>

• Podcasts are not just for the iPod
• May be audio or video (vidcast/vodcast/vlog)

The brief history of podcasts

• Adam Currey - Daily Source Code, PodShow
• Dave Winer - helped develop the technical specification for RSS enclosures
• First suggested in 2000, spec was in place in 2001, started taking off in 2003

So who's podcasting?

Everyone, it seems!

• News: Newsweek, NPR, Discovery Channel
• Sports: ESPN, Major League Baseball
• Entertainment: MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network
• Technology, Religion, Education, you name it, someone's likely podcasting it.

Popular podcasts

• Rocketboom
• This Week in Tech
• diggnation
• Ask A Ninja

How to find podcasts

• iTunes Music Store
• Podcast.net
• Podcast Alley
• Look for any of a variety of 80x15 buttons and orange “POD” icons
         

Consuming podcasts

• Podcatchers - aggregators that regularly check your podcasts for new content
• iTunes
• Juice (formerly iPodder)
• Odeo - web-based service for publishing and consuming podcasts
• NetNewsWire and other RSS readers often support podcast feeds

Podcasting: How To

So you want to podcast?

• What will your subject matter/focus be?
• What format will your podcast take?
• How often will you update your podcast?
• How long will your podcasts be?
• Why do you want to podcast?

Things to consider

• Bandwidth/hosting (your site, Libsyn,...)
• File formats (mp3, mp4,...)
• Transcription (Casting Words)
• Copyright issues (music, graphics, personalities, content)

Producing your podcast

• Microphone or all-in-one recording device
• Recording/edit software (GarageBand, Audacity)
• RSS feed creation (Feeder or GarageBand)
• Hosting of media (Libsyn) and feed (Feedburner)
• All-in-one solution (Odeo)

Marketing your podcast

Promotion

• Directory listings
• Blog posts

Monetization

• Advertising
• Free and premium channels
• Early release of content to subscribers

Questions/comments

What are some of your favorite podcasts?