Pod Casting for Fun and for Profit

Believe it or not, Pod Casting has nothing to do with the iPod. I know that
everything these days seems to center around the apex of the iPod culture, but
Pod Casting isn't one of them.

Pod Casting is the idea of distributing audio files (wav and mp3's mostly)
or video content (as in Shout casting) over the Internet using RSS syndication.
RSS syndication is the use of an XML index file which gives titles to the Pod
Cast, a short description and a link to where the sound file is located. These
XML files are read by Pod Catcher programs, such as WinAmp and others (yes,
the iPod is also a Pod Catcher), and either listened to directly through streaming,
or downloaded to listen to later.

Several reasons, the most popular use of these Pod casts are for creating audio
blogs, putting out news casts, school lectures, political commentary, expressing
art (music, poetry, short books on tape), publishing that inspiring sermon,
or just because you can.

Some pod casting sites have gained a large following. Several casters are consultants,
and personal trainers who share their general philosophy in an attempt to bring
in new business.

Use of "podcast" to describe both audio and video feeds seemed natural
to some users, while others preferred to reserve the word for audio and coin
new terms for video subscriptions. Other "pod-" derived neologisms
include "podcasters" for individuals or organizations offering feeds,
and "podcatchers" for special RSS aggregators with the ability to
transfer the files to media player software or hardware.

Podcasting's essence is about creating content (audio or video) for an audience
that wants to listen when they want, where they want, and how they want.

Resources for Pod Casting

The amount of resources out there for the creation, and distribution of your
Pod Cast are tremendous, and like just about every other fun thing that hits
the Internet, most of the tools you need are free; although there are plenty
of people who will sell them too you.

First off you need something that will record your voice or conversations.
A microphone connected to the sound card of your computer will do the trick.
There are several digital recorders out there as well. Your computer might have
come with a microphone. This hardware area can be very inexpensive and it can
be very costly, depending on the quality of sound recording you are looking
for. I have a friend who has a small sound booth in his house. I have a USB
microphone, and an Olympus Digital Voice recorder. My quality is never as good
as his (not ever), but I don't really care, and he does, because most of his
files are really just demos so he can get voice work, where mine are just thoughts
I've had to share with my clients.

There are setups like GabCast take care
of much of the hassle factors to get your started. If you are new to computers
or just want to keep the hassle factor down I highly recommend heading over
to their site and getting setup. Gab Cast has it down to the point that all
you need to do is call in on the phone, state your cast, approve it and its
published. What can be simpler than that? You don't even need to have a computer
in front of you to send a cast.

The next step up is the microphone and sound card with some file transfers.
Sound cards are not that expensive these days, so if your computer doesn't have
one already (hard to believe) or its not a very good one (easier to believe)
I recommend getting a very good one. SoundBlaster
is a good company to look at, and Turtle
Beach. The new Turtle Beach Montego DDL supports 2, 4, 5.1, and 7.1 multi-channel
speaker configurations. Montego's Dolby® Digital Live (DDL) real-time encoder
converts PC audio into a 5.1 channel Dolby® Digital stream with no analog
noise or distortion. Much more than we need for a pod cast, but could be just
the thing we want for listening to some of the others out there.

Now we have our hardware, you can record the cast with Audacity,
a free audio file editor. There are many others out there that will cost you
a few bucks, but nothing that has anything we need.

Once we have our cast in MP3 format, we make our RSS feed file and send our
cast to our website. You can use Filezilla
for the file transfer, or your favorite FTP program; and you are done! You are
now a pod caster.

There are several places to list your cast so that you can gather in your audience.

Pod Casting News

Pod Feeder

All Pod Casts

Podcast Bunker

Pod Cast Directory

Pod Cast Network

So get out there, share your news, share your thoughts, share your world. Who
knows where these will take you. Bloggers are now authors and news commentators.
Where Pod Casting will take us is anyone's guess.