What is “Podcasting?” Check out what Wikipedia has to say about this subject HERE.
I’ve had several requests for Podcast help over the past few weeks, enough in fact that I can’t imagine considering it a coincidence. Something’s in the air and people are excited about Podcasts again. Cool.
I’m going to try to cover a lot of ground in this article, and while I will make a sincere attempt to keep it as “down to Earth as possible,” please note that this can be a very technical process.
I’m going to outline a few options, as there is no “one way” to get your Podcasts out there. There are a few questions to consider, such as:
Do you already have a website?
Is it setup to support RSS 2.0/XML feeds?
Was that last question make sense to you?
Do you personally possess any web skills of your own?
Is your website set up in a manner which allows you to easily add new links to the home page?
This is the shortlist of questions, by the way.
Okay, let’s dive in. I’m going to assume here that you already know what a Podcast is, and that you have already considered what putting out a regular episode can provide for you, your business, and your customers. I’m also going to assume for the sake of this article that you know how to produce the audio and/or video files which will be your Podcast content. If these assumptions do not apply to you, let me know, and I can cover all of that in another article next month.
Option #1, and the cleanest way to handle Podcast syndication. This is the Host-It-Yourself option:
Use a blogging platform, such as WordPress to build your page (or your entire site) with. Then install Spiral Web Consulting’s free Podcasting plugin.
A list of Podcast’s features include:
- Adds a dedicated Podcasting feed with full iTunes support
- Includes the ability to have multiple podcasting feeds based on file format or other factors
- Includes both an audio and video player for in-post listening/watching
- Fully integrates with any existing enclosures already stored in WordPress
You can read more about the Podcasting plugin here.
You can read more about WordPress here.
A note on WordPress: we love it. WordPress is incredibly flexible, easy to build for, easy to design on, and very easy for the end-customer to update and operate after the build job is complete. We’re building more and more websites on WordPress for those reasons. WordPress has enabled us to reduce our normal web development fees by thousands per job. No, really. A site which used to charge $4,500 for can now be built in half the time for $2,500. Websites that would have cost $2K are now costing $1,200.
In fact, our eZine website (foleypod.com), and our main site (foleypod.com) are both built on WordPress.
Option #2. This is the paid-service solution:
One client I’m working with already has his own site, and doesn’t wish to create new pages at this time. My solution was to use a service such as SwitchPod. SwitchPod is one of many services providing basically the same functionality, and while there are many such services out there, I feel that SwitchPod offers the highest cost:value:quality product. Some of my colleagues like Liberated Syndication, but I have not been impressed with their user interface. Also, I’ve used Liberated Syndication in conjunction with Option #1 described above with excellent results, but I find the setup process to be a little bit arcane for the common user.
SwitchPod is a subscription service, and ranges in cost from $FREE per month to $30 per month, depending on which plan you choose. If you’re producing video content, you’re going to need the $30 “Tera” plan, which offers you 2GB of uploads per month. If you intend to release a monthly audio Podcast, you might start with their free plan, which gives you 450MB of uploads per month.
Either way, the process is very easy. You create an account, give your feed a description, upload your first Podcast, and Switchpod does the rest, including adding you to iTunes’ index of Podcasts. Switchpod then spits out a subscription link which you add to the home page of your website, and that’s it. With this solution, there’s are no changes you would need to make to your site.
For anyone who’s ever uploaded content to YouTube, FaceBook, or MySpace, etc, this process will be very familiar for you. I’ve setup Switchpod accounts in under 20 minutes and had them up and running. These guys do Podcasting right.
The only issue with a service such as this is price. If you’re creating video Podcasts, and you’re on the $30/month “Tera” plan, that adds up to $360 per year. This is, obviously more costly than hosting it yourself, and more costly than hiring someone (like me) to build it for you. Also, if you expect your Podcast to take off, and become very popular, paying Switchpod to deal with the server maintenance and bandwidth load caused by high-number downloads from customers is well worth the annual costs.
Learn about Switchpod here.
Learn about Liberated Syndication here.
Option #3. This is the really complicated version.
I’m covering this option only because I know that I’m going to get developers emailing me about it. For clarity, I write this column for normal people, not for technicians already working in the field. Geeky laypersons may also enjoy reading this section too, because it is sorta interesting to think back on how we used to have to do this as recently as 2 years ago.
Podcast syndication is nothing more than adding a encapsulated audio or video file to an RSS 2.0/XML feed, with the iTunes namespace declared in the RSS tag. This is a good place to use services like Liberated Syndication or Feedburner to setup your feed, and link it to a new webpage you can add to your site.
If this last paragraph sounds like fun to you, and not like a trip to the dentist, you can read more about this process in this great article, hosted over at DevShed.com.
Lastly, and I add this option begrudgingly because I know I’m going to get complaints about it…
Option #4. Publishing a Podcast using Apple’s iWeb software. Yes, you can do this. And yes, you can do this quite easily. iWeb comes on every new Mac as part of their iLife ’09 bundle, and many older Macs have it already as part of iLife ’08. You can host your iWeb site on your MobileMe (formally .Mac) account, or you can export your iWeb site to another hosting service, such as DreamHost, GoDaddy, etc.
Please trust me when I say that iWeb is a TOY. iWeb is a piece of software created to allow people without any web skills or experience create a very very simple websites for the purpose of sharing their iLife with their iFriends and iFamily.
We’ve been hired on more than a few occasions to fix iWeb sites after their creator had quickly reached the very end of the road of what iWeb is able to do. If your purpose for creating a site, and a Podcast are professional in nature, iWeb is not for you. It is slick, and fun, and easy to use to a point, but has huge limitations, and is very glitchy. iWeb is cool and fun, but remember, you can not expect a sheep to run like a Leopard, just as you cannot expect professional results from a toy.
If you want to build a quick site to chronicle your family’s trip to wherever and share audio and video with friends, well, okay.
If you are looking for a cool and easy blogging platform to post your articles and your Podcasts you may want to have a look at the new Squarespace platform, which is very cool, and cutting edge.
Check out Squarespace HERE.
There you go. I hope this helps you out. Feel free to call or email with further questions. Also, I encourage you to add your questions to the comments field below so that others can read them, and I’ll post my answers there as well.
Thanks for reading.
~ Chris
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