Find Your Niche » PodCasting

Finding Podcast Hosting

ZZul — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 11:00:54 +0000

For anyone who wants to begin creating a podcast, podcast hosting is the most important part. Before anyone can begin distributing a podcast, they need a place to store the files and keep the feed file that will tell their subscribers about the new episodes available. The first thing required is a domain name where the site will be located. Many domain registrars are available who will help one register a domain name for a small fee. Once the domain is registered, hosting is required, and again there are many different companies willing to do the hosting for a small fee. One of those is bluehost.com, but many others are available. When looking for a host, the most important thing is to make sure that a lot bandwidth and storage space is available and cheap. Since podcasting deals with large media files, a lot of disk space will be taken up storing the files and bandwidth will be eaten quickly when they are downloaded by the subscribers.

After podcast hosting has been acquired, it needs to be used and the site needs to be set up. The DNS addresses of the site need to be set to the addresses that the host provides you so that the servers that underlie the internet will know where your site is. DNS addresses can be set by going to the domain registrar that was used to acquire the domain and inputting the addresses provided by the host. After that is done, it will take a few days before the master list the domain registar updates will be shared throughout the internet and all name servers know where to find your specific domain. You can then go about setting up your own podcast.

Using the podcast hosting you now have, you will need to look at the disk space allocated to the site using something called and FTP browser. The host may provide one as part of their hosting plan, but if not there are many available free to choose from. Using the FTP browser, log on to the host and upload a file called dircaster.php after editing it to fit the specifics of the site. Dircaster.php is an easy to find piece of coding that generates a feed file by looking at the contents of its directory or folder. The individual episodes to be podcasted can then be uploaded to the same folder as dircaster.php for cataloging. Make sure that all the meta data, or information about the mp3 file is correct before doing so.

The podcast hosting you now have will allow you to distribute a podcast. It would be best to upload more to the site, such as an index page that tells visitors about the podcast and provides the address of the file dircaster.php on your site. When they subscribe to that file, the podcast client thy use will access it and recieve information about the latest podcasts available.

The Podcast for This American Life

ZZul — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 05:15:45 +0000

The podcast for This American Life allows listeners to download the the shows and listen to them at their discretion. The This American Life team contracts with a site called audible.com to distribute the shows to listeners who want to hear them. Despite calling their offering a podcast, however, it is not, at least in the normal sense of the word. A podcast refers to an online setup with an RSS feed that is regularily updated, can be subscribed to, and provides links to sound or video files that can be downloaded and watched by the subscriber. Audible.com and This American Life do not offer that. Instead, the show’s team allows audible.com to receive money for allowing listeners to download the sound files to the computer from audible.com’s web site. The only RSS file involved is one specific to the user which allows that user access to the shows they are interested in. Even odder than charging for a supposed podcast, the sound files downloaded are tied to the specific user who downloads them. Unlike the vast majority of podcasts, which allow the files to be distributed and redistributed as the end user wishes, without placing limitations on such, the This American Life podcast restricts the file to a single user.

The podcast for This American Life misses the point of what a podcast is intended to be, the free distribution of information. The This American Life team is exploiting the term podcasting, and the credibility and hipness that is associated with the term in order to boost their own popularity.

On the other hand, the podcast for This American Life may be where the rest of the industry is headed. Although the technology was first adopted by independent media groups that enjoyed it because of the low cost of distribution and the close possible ties to end users, that may change when podcasting becomes a wider phenomenon. If podcasting is adopted by more mainstream, corporate entities, the face of podcasting is likely to change to one where a profit plan is required. Audible.com’s plan of forcing users to subscribe and pay for the feeds they want may be the way the corporate world decides to latch on to and use podcasting. The advantage of podcasting, direct distribution of the media files to the user’s home computer quickly and easily, is not lost if the system moves to one revolving around profit.

Regretfully, the podcast for This American Life is probably an example of what podcasting will be in a few years. As much as locked media files that restrict distribution may be repugnant to many of the free information activists that curently dominate podcasting, there is little to stop those who want to use the system to make a profit from doing so.

Getting Into The Podcasting Bandwagon

ZZul — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:01:03 +0000

There are 22 million owners of portable mp3 players in 2005. 29% of them have tried downloading and listening to podcasts at one point in time. We’re talking about 6,380,000 people who have been exposed to podcasts during a period when podcasting was just in its infancy.

These statistics alone will show you the vast potentials that can be found with the podcasting medium. As an online marketer, you’ll be able to reach a lot of people with downloadable podcasts. Not only this, but podcasting offers a slew of benefits that can only gain momentum in the coming months:

* People respond more to what they could hear rather than what they simply read.
* Podcasts offer a more exciting experience compared to conventional written works.
* Podcasts will attract prospects that you will normally fail to tap.
* Podcasts offer you more leeway in delivering your business message.
* Podcasts would give your business an instant boost in credibility, as people will get to listen to a real voice instead of having to read mere words.

The problem that many Internet marketers face when it comes to the prospect of creating podcasts is the seeming difficulty associated with their preparation. This is borne from simple unfamiliarity, however. The fact is, anyone – yes, ANYONE – can create their own podcasts without having to avail of special software programs for the same. Just follow the steps below:

1. Choose a subject.
2. Choose an engaging aspect of that subject, one which your target market would be interested to know about.
3. Prepare an outline detailing the important points you wish to discuss about the said subject.
4. Do some research, if necessary.
5. Prepare index cards which should contain some summaries of your points. You will refer to these to ensure uninterrupted recording that would streamline the process.
6. Attach a microphone to your computer. This is the only hardware you will need, aside from the PC terminal itself, of course.
7. Set up the Sound Recorder program that is bundled with your Windows operating system.
8. Begin recording.
9. Once you have finished your podcast, review the same using the Media Player which should also be bundled with your Windows operating system.
10. Enhance your podcast with the free tools that can be found at www.odeo.com/inbox .
11. If you wish to earn from your podcast itself, enroll it with www.fruitcast.com . They will include advertisements within your podcast, but you’ll get to earn a certain amount every time it is downloaded.
12. If everything sounds well, convert your file into .mp3 format.
13. Use Microsoft Front Page to upload the file to your web server.
14. Include your podcast link in website repositories like www.ipodder.com and www.podcastalley.com .

Just like that, you could have your own podcast ready to be downloaded. You would want to limit the length of your podcasts to 10 minutes per episode, however, so that the file size can be kept at a minimum. Additionally, you would want to serialize your podcasts into installments to capture the continuous interests of your listeners. They will then become your leads for some marketing purposes.

You could create podcasts for any topic you want. There is no limit, and each subject should command a healthy audience if the podcast is marketed correctly. Submitting the same to the websites we have mentioned above would be a start, but try to look for more avenues where you could promote your podcasts and you’re bound to reach more people in the process.

Afterwards, you could sit back, relax, enjoy all the benefits that podcasting can offer, and realize that yes, indeed, podcasting is as easy as 1-2-3.

How to Start Podcasting?

ZZul — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:30:08 +0000

So, you have finally decided that you are going to ride the Podcasting wave and launch your own Podcast. Let me congratulate you because you have taken a decision that will allow you to use the latest technological advancement. There are number of Podcasters airing their shows these days. Many more are coming up every day to join them. But this fact should not stop you from beginning Podcasting. You should have no fear of competition in your mind because the potential of Podcasting is immense and there is still lot more to be done.

Podcasting has become so easy today that you need not be a genius or a hard core techie to start Podcasting. With any body entering this field, many of the Podcasts available are nothing but plain junk. Do not be afraid of the competition. Just try to produce quality that will keep you stand tall among the quantity produced by the crowd. However, in the process you will be able to create a crowd of fanatic subscribers, who will provide a new dimension to your Podcast.

Choosing the Right Topic
First of all, pick up a sheet of paper and a pen, and note down the subjects of your interest for starting your Podcast. Here are few tips on how to add more topics to this list. Think about the things that you do when you are free. Also think about the things on which most of your money is spent. Note down the movies, music, TV shows, games, political parties, philosophies, books and religions that are interesting to you. You will see that your list is getting bigger and bigger. If a particular topic interests you, possibilities are that it will be of the interest to some other people also and they will listen to your show. After listing the topics, you can shortlist a few and then pinpoint a theme and topic for your Podcasts.

Visiting Pod cast Directories is Very Helpful
Alternatively, you may visit different Podcast directories. http://www.howtostartapodcast.com/ has a big list. This can be very helpful and give you some brain storming ideas. Visiting them will also let you know that how many people are interested in your potential Podcast. There may be a lot of competition in it or there may be no competition at all. However, you need not worry in either case. More competition is the indication of the fact that the number of potential listeners is more.

It is also advisable to download some shows of different Podcasts that you find really interesting. Analyze them carefully. Note down what attracted you and what are the drawbacks in the existing Podcasts. Try to imagine had you prepared the show how would have you improved it. When you have to compete with an already established show with loyal subscribers, it is better to start a complimentary show instead of directly competing with them.

Podcast Yahoo, a Podcast Directory

ZZul — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:30:19 +0000

Podcast Yahoo, is an example of a very full featured podcast directory. Yahoo’s beta offering presents podcasts from many professional organizations including NPR, Slate Magazine, and others. They also organize their listing by categories, offer a list of the most popular series and episodes currently available, and let users search through the entire database. Yahoo’s site is professionally done, and likely has people permanently assigned to work on it, and so it differs from many of the other podcasting directories available. Many directories are little more than listings of amateur podcasters, but Yahoo’s site brings out a number of feeds done by mainstream organization, raising the level of quality available.

For anyone who wants to find a podcast, Yahoo is certainly a good choice. They have a slick, well done site that is easy to use. Yahoo even includes software at the site so that podcasts can be listened to from within the web browser. After logging in, Yahoo allows users to subscribe to feeds they enjoy, letting them be notified when new episodes are available. Yahoo even has a detailed walkthrough to help visitors create and begin publishing their own podcast.

Podcast Yahoo clearly demonstrates the ability of a corporate group to create a well made site. While it’s very unlikely that Yahoo or a company like it would have been able to come up with podcasting, once they know what to do, they can do it well.

Finding a Podcast on PSP

ZZul — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:33:07 +0000

There are many podcasts on PSP available. Some of them simply share information on the PlayStation Portable and distribute it to people interested in portable gaming. These podcasts serve as news organizations, sharing audio or visual files talking about the PlayStation Portable and speculating about updates to the PSP. The vast majority, however, take advantage of the ability of the PlayStation Portable’s ability to download and play quality videos on the gaming screen. Developers of the program PSP Video 9 first created a program that could change videos from computer types like .avi and .mpeg to the format used by the Play Station Portable.

Once that was done, it was quickly possible to create podcasts for the PSP. Podcasters began creating video files, changing them to a format readable by the PlayStation Portable, and distributing them by podast feed. These podcast feeds are subscribed to by people interested in the feed, who download the episodes as they come out. After the video files are transfered to the PlayStation Portable, they can be viewed whenever the end user wishes, just like the other movies and professionally done videos available for the PSP. The PlayStation Portable has thus been changed from simply being a portable gaming platform to a piece of full featured media hardware capable of playing games, storing information, and playing videos and movies, moving toward a more complex future.

Podcasting: The Hottest Online Word of The Day

ZZul — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:04:27 +0000

If you are a frequent Internet surfer, then Podcasting should not be new word for you because it is the hottest online word today. Though the word Podcasting resembles the word broadcasting in pronunciation but its meaning is very much different from the concept of broadcasting. Putting simply, Podcast is a method of automatically downloading audio files from Internet to your IPod, computer or any other portable media device like MP3 player. The audio file is published using the RSS feeds. The enclosure field of RSS feed includes the details of audio file making it totally different from the ordinary RSS feed. You can imagine it as a talking feed.

Podcasting- Growing Very Fast
Popularity of Podcasting is growing in leaps and bounds. Forrester Research says that the number of Podcasting listeners is going to cross twelve million by the end of this decade. Doesn’t it look like an impressive figure?

List of topics for Podcasting is also endless. You can have a Pod cast on a wide range of subjects from business, hobbies and rents to obsession and fantasies. Duration of a Podcast show may vary from ten minutes to thirty minutes normally. However, there are some shows that are much longer than thirty minutes. Costly music licensing and red tape has been a hurdle in coming up of much music Podcasts. Some musicians have found an escape route and using their own recordings on their Podcast.

You do not require any kind of special instrument to listen to the Pod casts. If any software is capable of playing the sound file, you may use it to listen to the Podcasts. However, if you want to listen to Podcasts while you are on the move, then you have to buy a portable media player such as an iPod, compatible mobile phone or a MP3 player.

What is RSS?
If you are new to computer terminology, then the word RSS might creating confusions in your mind. But you should not bother about it even if you do not know any thing about the computer programming. RSS is nothing but simply a kind of XML computer code that lets the listener subscribe Podcast shows and keeps them aware of latest developments.

There are several web sites on the Internet where you can find list of Podcasts. Some of these are podblaze.com, podcastalley.com and podcastbunker.com. You may find other directories also while searching on MSN, Yahoo, Google and other popular search engines.

Finding Hip Hop Mix Podcasts

ZZul — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 06:30:07 +0000

Many music podcasts are available online for downloading; if one wanted to find, for instance, a hip hop mix podcast, there are a few sites available to help. The first possibility would be to go directly to a site which creates one and subscribe to it using a podcast client which automatically checks the feed for new episodes and downloads them for the user. If, however, one did not know of any hip hop mix podcast sites, or simply wanted to find new podcast sites, the best possibility would be to check a podcast directory, a list of podcasts that can be browsed.

Hip hop mix podcasts could easily be found at one of these podcast directories. A podcast directory stores lists of podcasts which have been submitted to the site, and categorizes them by genre, type of podcast, region, and other meta data. To find a hip hop mix podcast, visiting a podcast directory and checking under music podcasts, and then under hip hop music would find many podcasts which play that type of music.

The hip hop mix podcast could then be subscribed to by inputting the feed address listed into one of the many podcast clients. The music will come in episodes, the name for each downloadable portion of a podcast. Some of these podcasts may feature independent artists, musicians trying to break into the music industry who have chosen podcasting as a way of sharing their music and gaining a following. Others may be remixes of popular songs that have been changed in some way to give a different feel to the music. Often, the artists may already be established, though, and they still see podcasting as a way to introduce themselves to a larger audience. They may grant rights to pay certain hip hip songs to a podcaster, letting them play the music as part of their mix distribution while requesting a link to a site where more information can be learned about the artists and music can be purchased. Artists that have done this include alias, edan, outerspace, RA the rugged man, roots manuva, and outer space.

A large number of podcasts featuring hip hop mix podcasts are actually radio stations, however. These broadcasters have found that podcasting their shows and selections is an easy way to reach more listeners and gain a greater audience. These podcasters can reach more people easier and cheaper than they can by playing hip hop mix music over the airwaves in their local areas. Playing hip hop music over the internet is probably the way many future artists will do their work, and there are many ways available even now that they can do so and make a profit. For instance, some podcasts are designed to work on a payment basis. A hip hop artist who wished to share his music could charge for addition to the feed list, then issue a unique feed address to the user, allowing them to hear new pieces of hip hop music released. The hip hop music file could even be designed so it could not be copied and used by another user at a different computer, to ensure that the artist could maintain control over his work.

What is Podcasting and How to Start it?

ZZul — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:15:06 +0000

Podcasting is a system that lets you download audio programs directly to your iPod or other media player. You may listen to these audio programs later on whenever and wherever you want to listen to them. In this way Podcasting allows you to listen to the audio content of your choice without any charge and as per your convenience. Therefore, Podcasting has proved to be a far better alternative to the traditional radio.

How to Start?
Now, how could one start Podcasting? It is a very easy process. You do not need any thing other then an Internet ready computer and a portable media player. Even if you do not have a portable media player, you may start Podcasting with a computer only that has an Internet link. So many sites on Internet help you in getting started with Podcasting. For example, you can get information regarding links to the newest audio files from famous Podcasts on the sites like Podcasting News.

It would not be good to believe to the people who call Podcasting the wave of the future. Simply, because Podcasting has already gained the ground and the growth rate is sky rocketing across the continents. Pick any topic that strikes your mind. You will wonder that a Podcasts is already available on the net for this topic. Ranging from cooking to the video games to religion, Podcasts are available on a variety of subjects. If you still have any doubt in your mind, just make use of Google search engines to make search for the term “Podcasts”. More than two hundred million results returned by Google will wipe out any such doubt from your mind. However, it does not mean that Podcasting is nearing any saturation point. In fact it is just the beginning and there is still a vast scope for immense growth in the future.

Great Tool For Home Based Business Owners
If you run your business right from your home, you can make use of Podcasting very effectively to grow your business. It helps you reach new customers in the market. If you really have a passion about your product or service, Podcasting lets you share your passion with others. Sharing the information with your listeners makes you an expert in their eyes. Later on, they start believing you and this is the time when you can use this audience to promote your business. The best thing is that you need not to be a software expert or have any other technical expertise to start Podcasting.

Pod casting: Answers to Some Frequently Asked Questions.

ZZul — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:00:03 +0000

What is Pod Casting?
If Podcasting is a new word for you the very first question that will naturally strike to your mind is what really this Podcasting is? Podcasting is a very simple process to understand. Podcasters upload audio files to Internet in such a way that the end user can download these audio files automatically with the help of software. For those who are interested in technical details also, Pod casting becomes possible with help of RSS 2.0 news feed. These RSS files store the information regarding the audio files and help the software to download required audio files.

Do I Need to Have Technical Expertise to start Podcasting?
You are not supposed to be a technical expert to start Podcasting. Neither you need to have any kind of special instruments. If you have a computer with Internet connection and a microphone you can begin Podcasting right now and publish your audio shows. People all around the world can listen to your voice. Podcasting is becoming more and more popular because it is free and you can listen to these audio files at you convenience after downloading them to portable media players.

What is the Meaning of Word Podcasting?
Combining two words makes up pod casting. First one is iPod and the second one is broadcasting. IPod is the name of a digital music player manufactured by Apple. However, you need not to have an iPod to listen to the Podcasting today because Podcasting clients are capable of working with most of the digital audio players now. Furthermore, you also do not require any special kind of software to listen to the Podcasts.

Where Do I Find The Podcasts?
There are many Podcast directories on the web. Name of some popular directories are iPodder.org, PodcastAlley and Podcasting News. There are number of methods used to rank the Podcasts. Ranking of the Pod casts vary with the method used for ranking. One method counts the number of clicks at famous Podcast directories. Another method compares how many times a particular Pod cast is downloaded. Third method asks users to vote on to rank the Podcasts.

How Do I Make Effective Podcasts?
While you are recording your Podcasts always keep in the mind that the environment produces a great effect on the quality of the sound. You should choose a location for recording that absorbs the sound instead of echoing it back. How close you keep the microphone when you are recording your voice also makes a big impact on the sound quality of Podcasts.