How to podcast | How to make a podcast

Video & Audio | Monday 29 October 2007

You’ve heard all the buzz about podcasts and their video counterpart, vodcasts…But what is a podcast and why should you add them to your site?

Podcasting is an easy way to broadcast multimedia content online to a dispersed group of people, who are then able to listen whenever and wherever they choose using a variety of easily-accessible platforms. Podcasts can be downloaded automatically as soon as they are available and listened to using a variety of devices, including computers, MP3 players, PDAs, and even cell phones. What’s more, podcasts can be produced and broadcast inexpensively, and, as a result, has made this media channel accessible to the broadcasting masses.

Podcasts are a great way to reach out to your visitors with captivating, personalized messages that subscribers receive automatically without an email or even visiting your site. When you upload your podcast, aggregators will be notified that your podcast exists and on a daily basis notify your subscribers of the new podcast.

How to Create a Podcast

SchoolSyte.com has a great podcasting tutorial that will have you podcasting in no time. It shows you how to use free recording software called Audacity along with your PC to create professionally sounding podcasts. Two video tutorials are included to take you step-by-step through the process of creating a podcast.

For a podcast to “officially” be a podcast, it needs to have an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed associated with it. This way people can subscribe and the feed is automatically downloaded, without notification by email or a visit to the site.

So how do you do that with WordPress? It’s easy…really.

Create the the podcast that you want to share using the the above tutorials.
Upload it to your server.
Make a link to the podcast in your blog post. Wordpress automatically includes the podcast link to the file in your RSS/Atom feed
Listeners “subscribe” with their podcast client application of choice (e.g., iTunes, Bloglines, MyMSN, MyYahoo, etc.) to your RSS/Atom feed and download your new files automatically.

That’s all there is to it! Now you’re ready to create your very own podcast.