What is Podcasting?

Posted by Angelo

May 11, 2008

What is “Podcasting“? This is a common question from a non-techie who hears about podcast. Podcasting is now common in the world wide web. Podcasting is commonly associated with blogging and that’s one of the reason podcasting become so popular. But it is not as popular as blogging, though podcasting is known in the net. Podcasting and blogging is different in many ways. This varies from the pre-production to post production and then posting the whole file. Podcasting is also used to the method by which the post with a podcast or the file itself being syndicated. The author or the one who speaks in the audio file is often called Podcaster.

Podcasting term is a portmanteau of the words “iPod” and “Broadcasting“, iPod is from Apple INC in which the first podcasting scripts were developed. These scripts allow podcasts to be automatically transferred to a mobile device after they are downloaded. Podcaster may offer 2 different ways on giving the contents to the listeners, a direct download or streaming it in their website. A podcast is distinguished from other digital media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added, using an aggregator or feed reader capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom. One example of the feed reader is the FeedBurner in which I am using right now with my blog. This is often referred to as a padcatching client.

While Blogging have turned many bloggers into a journalist, Podcasting have the potential on to turn podcasters into a radio personality if podcasting will bloom tremendously. Podcasting have many uses, it can be used for:

Tour (Podcast can be a tour guide)
Music/Band Interviews (If you have a favorite band and you missed their interview(s))
Training (Instructional materials specially when you are learning a new language)
Blog Posts (The very common thing in the world of podcasting)

This are not all but this is the 4 uses I can think of. (If you have more ideas then don’t hesitate to comment and i will look on your suggestion ASAP)

There are only a few steps on creating podcast but it is a very difficult thing to do without much knowledge on audio editing. The steps includes:

Pre Production
Recording and re-recording (This is 2 different steps. I will explain it here too)
Post Production
Publish the File

Pre Production

Pre Production is where you will make and think of the line you will say in the file. This will be your content so make sure to think and make it good.

Recording

Recording is where you will record your content using a Microphone, A software that will record your voice and a handy speaker where you can listen on to what you are saying. A Microphone can be a built in or can be a stand alone product that you will install in your PC. A software is an Audio Editing Software where you can edit the file, slice the and can be used on the Post Production. A speaker can be a head phones, or a 2.0 speaker or anything where you can listen to what you said on your file.

Re-recording (optional)

Re-recording only comes in where you have mistakes in your finished product.

Post Production

Post Production needs you to be able to use audio editing softwares and you should have knowledge in this field. Audio editing is not as easy as it sounded and you will need enough skill to edit your mistakes. Here you can slice up the mistakes in your content and replace it with a new one. You can also add some background music in your file so your file won’t be boring to listen to.

Publish the file

Publishing the file isn’t as hard as the previous steps. Here you will only post you file in you site where you will put a link for the listeners to download you file or you can alternatively put a page dedicated for it to stream so others will just need to listen to your content.

If you intend to do a podcast then you can follow this simple steps and make sure to save your file in MP3 and AAC Formats.
Note: AAC is the default audio format of Apple iPod

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Comments

Pingback by Podcasting Do's and Don'ts | Random Batch on May 23, 2008 @ 5:13 pm

[...] Podcasting is now a new thing on the web that is used by many bloggers. Podcasting, of course have Do’s and Don’ts just like blogging but not the same as blogging, Podcasting is not a very popular thing for some professionals and Beginners. Let’s not tackle that right now instead I will give you some Do’s and Don’ts to help you boost a kick off your podcasting experience. [...]