Gadget and Technology

Archive for the ‘Podcast’ Category

Podcasting is the fresh affair in broadcasting nowadays. Practically anyone can actualize his own podcast and accomplish himself accepted to the world. Perhaps the best affair about podcasting is that it is meant to be free. In accession to that, podcasts transcend the boundaries of acceptable broadcasting. You may be from the US but anyone with admission to the internet can accept to your podcast. A being may be in Timbuktu and yet accept admission to your podcast.

Music is inherent to the success of any podcast. It adds aroma and acidity to an contrarily banal broadcast. That is why a ample basin of assets has been developed by bodies in the podcasting community. Beginners and veterans a like chase for the absolute accomplishments music or accompaniment sounds for every podcast they make. So how do you go about attractive for that spice?

Despite the abandon provided by podcasting, there are some issues you allegation abode afore jumping into the appearance and creating your own podcast. Absorb and bookish acreage rights accept been a capital affair in all aspects of broadcasting for some time now and podcasting is not absolved from that. As a result, the appellation podsafe has appear into existence. What absolutely is podsafe? This appellation encompasses any actual that may be acclimated for podcasts after actionable any absorb or license. A appropriate affair about podsafe actual is that the actual aforementioned actual ability crave some array of authorization in added media but absolutely safe for podcasting. Due to the accessible association attributes of podcasting, abounding songs, music, and added blazon of abstracts are accustomed to be acclimated for chargeless alone for podcasts. While you ability accept to access the permission of the absorb holder for added broadcasting media, with podsafe material, you can use it advisedly in podcasts. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you who accept already launched your antecedent podcast, it may booty a while afore you activate to see an admission in cartage to your site. But it may be a acceptable abstraction to alpha because how you’ll acknowledge back you do. Afore you bulk out how to absorb your fresh revenue, it’s all-important to alternation your agents to cope with the added bulk of absorption and added chump inquiries, so that they can become annoyed and loyal customers.

First of all, it is important to bethink that your podcast is alone one allotment of the business mix. So annihilation that you acknowledgment or highlight in your podcast should be reflected elsewhere. There’s no point in administering bodies to analysis out a fresh ambit of articles online if they aren’t featured on your site. And alike if the artefact is listed on the site, you charge to accomplish abiding that it has arresting adjustment and is not hidden in some arenaceous bend of your armpit that’s harder to admission than Fort Knox. It seems obvious, but it’s usually the acutely simple things that get overlooked. It’s additionally important to agenda that your sales force or chump assembly will crave training so that they too are appropriately abreast about fresh developments and accessible to acknowledgment any questions that may arise. This is analytical because associates of the sales force are the ambassadors of your company: if they don’t apperceive about the product, no one abroad will either. To accomplish things easier, it may be advantageous to adapt a account of Frequently Asked Questions and their adapted answers, so that anybody is abreast and constant in their replies to inquiries.

More importantly, back those inquiries alert sales (your ultimate goal), you absolutely appetite to be able to amuse added chump demand. Be abiding that your artefact or account is readily accessible and that administration channels are in abode for barter to bound accept what you accept to offer. After all, it doesn’t amount how abounding barter you allure if the basement to serve and absorb barter isn’t in place. Read the rest of this entry »

With the rise of podcasting, many individuals and organizations are finding that podcasting is a great way to distribute information, from music and comedy shows to talk shows, even podcast news. CNET is one of the groups that is distributing a news podcast. CNET, being an online technology site, naturally found a niche distributing a tech news related podcast. CNET’s recent podcasts covered such topics as viruses that attack cell phones, problems with Google’s software, China’s web restrictions and the “Great Firewall of China”, and the FTC’s attack on spyware. These news items were distributed in a sound file called an mp3 file that is downloadable to a listener’s computer for listening whenever they wish. While these files were available straight from CNET’s site, the majority of them are shared through the use of an RSS file. An RSS file is a small piece of XML coding that is downloadable by programs designed to read it. These programs are called podcast clients, and the user can input the address of the RSS files that hold the information on the feed. The feed will contain links to the media files of the podcast, and will download the new updates automatically.

More sites than CNET are finding that podcast news is an expoitable technology. The British Broadcasting Corporation podcasts some of it’s programs, as well as the US radio network NPR. The NPR, because its work is created by a variety of different groups, treats podcasts differently from show to show. The NPR show “This American Life” distributes a podcast of the show through a site called audible.com, which allows feed listeners to subscribe to the feed for a small fee and download the show . The NPR Hourly News show, on the other hand, shares a short 5 minute broadcast that summarizes the news for free. Since the NPR is taking a radio show and converting it into a file that is downloadable by the user, little is lost in the translation.

The sound is designed to convey the entire story, and so podcast subscribers are able to treate the podcast as nothing more than TIVO for the radio. ABC’s podcast of the news show Nightline, on the other hand, is simply the sound track from the television show. This has been one of the criticisms of the Nightline podcast, because by merely stripping the sound from what is designed as a television show, much information is not given to the users. Listeners have problems telling who is who because they miss the visual cues that were supposed to be there, and there is no truly easy way to convert the shows. For this reason, some news shows have been moving from audio podcasts to video ones. They can take the video information directly from the show that is broadcast, lower the visual resolution to shrink the file, and distribute it online as a podcast.

ptPodcast – 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 receive information about the latest podcasts available.

ptPodcast – A podcast is an easy way of distributing media files over the internet, and this article will tell how to make a podcast. The first thing necessary is a domain, and a host on which to store the media files for the podcast. Getting a domain is simple and easy, there are many domain registrars that can register a domain for someone for a small fee. Some of these domain registrars are GoDaddy.com, Dotster, or Network Solutions are some that provide domains. The domain registrar will, for a small fee, enter the chosen domain, provided it is not being used, into the computers that form the backbone of the internet.

These computers will be told where the domain is located on the internet; what host it is that holds the domain’s information. In order to give them that information, the name servers that are held by the host need to be associated with the domain. Once the domain is in place, a good host should be found. The host that is chosen should offer a large amount of both disk space and a much larger amount bandwidth. Disk space is neccessary because the site which holds the podcast will be storing large media files; audio or video files that take up a lot of space and are difficult to compress. The large bandwidth is necessary because transferring these large files many times to many different people will use up the quota quickly. A good amount of diskspace would be several GigaBytes, bandwidth should be in the tens or hundreds of Gigabytes. Once the host is set up, it should offer you a couple of addresses called nameservers. Inputting these server addresses into the site where the domain was registered will complete the domain setup and allow the site to be found on the internet.

The next step for people who want to know how to make a podcast is installing the software necessary to maintain the podcast. A small piece of coding called dircaster.php can be used to set up a basic level of podcast. Dircaster.php can be found easily by searching for it in any search engine. Once it is located, it should be edited to reflect the particulars of the domain and uploaded to the site. Dircaster.php will generate an RSS file, or feed, that tells the subscriber about the new files available for downloading. To begin podcasting, create the audio files that should be podcast, fill in the information about the file such as date, author, etc, and upload them to the same directory that contains dircaster.php. You now have a podcast, and all that is needed is to publicise the address of the file dircaster.php. To update the podcast with new information, just upload the new files. Other things to make the podcast better might be a site that contains information about the podcast, but it isn’t necessary.

PtPodcast – There are many podcast software programs available to use. Many of them are even free. Because of the decentralized, geek adopted nature of podcasting, a wide variety of programs are available, from large
programs with a big footprint that do many different jobs to tiny little software packages that do the bare minimum. A package is available for podcast subscribers of almost any type, and more are being created everyday.

While some podcast software is designed for home user computers, much of it is designed to be used online. There are many packages created so that feed
subscribers can view the podcasts they enjoy from within a web browser. These software packages contain both the feed reader like the home user software does, but usually also incorporate a way to view or listen to the podcasts online from inside the browser. Much of this software is used at the podcast directories that maintain listings of podcast feeds.

Another type of online podcast software is the category of feed creators. PHP scripting is usually used to create the RSS file that tells the feed readers where to download the podcasts from. The scripting can either create a hard copy of the RSS file and write it to the server disk when the feed is updated, or it can make it virtually. When the RSS file is generated virtually, it doesn’t actually exist on the host’s server. Instead, the address of the PHP script is distributed as the address of the feed. When the script is accessed, it generates the file by looking at the recent posts at the site and sends the results to the feed subscriber.

Podcasting, unlike other media forms, almost never has charges for services, and the vast majority of feed producers distribute free podcasts. This puts at odds with, say, online radio stations, news sites that offer media to subscribers, or the online music industry general. Even though podcasting has very direct correlations with industries like news and music that have strong business models, podcasting differs.
Podcasting does not really have a business model, and hardly anyone is podcasting in order to profit from it. There are some businesses and news sites that podcast, but they do it as a way to supplement their companies
and to gain technological geek credibility, not to make money. This is an odd thing, but explainable in light of what podcasting is.

The free podcast problem is not difficult, and podcasting differs in several key ways from other media areas. First, podcasting involves the physical transfer of a file from the host to the users computer. An online radio station does not do this; all that they provide to their listeners is a streaming sound file that cannot be saved without difficulty and work. If someone did manage to do so, the station would have strong grounds for suing them since they were never given the rights to keep and store the files.

By podcasting the complete file to the users computer, express permission is granted the user to copy and use as they wish. Second, the podcasts are, for the most part, made by individuals who have low costs involved in creating and distributing the files, as opposed to a news broadcast or song by a music company. These individuals have little reason to charge for their work since there is little cost to them to do so.
Because the files are distributed in a way allows their copying and does not control the media, and since podcasting is a very low cost media outlet, feed
producers have little reason or ability to charge for their work.