What the heck is a podcast?
A podcast is just an audio recording stored on someone’s website that you can listen to online. You can also download it to your computer or iPod (or mp3 player) and listen to the podcast later. It’s called a podcast, because people can listen to the recorded audio on their iPods. But you don’t need an iPod to listen to a podcast. If you have speakers on your computer, you can listen to a podcast.
And anyone can create their own podcast, all you really need is a microphone and some software. In fact, some of the software out there is FREE. So you just need to buy a good microphone and your in business.
There are tons of podcasts now available. And of course, pod casting directories have compiled huge lists of this recent trend. All of these podcasts relay information via a talk format. As I write this post, I am listening to an interview as well.
That ability to multitask to me is one of the major advantages of podcasts versus just reading websites. For me, I can listen to a podcast and work on the computer at the same time. It’s a way I use to multitask. I have yet to develop the skill to read multiple websites at the same time. The other major advantage of podcasts is that you get to hear the creator of the podcast. You can tell alot about listening to someone’s voice. Communication is 45% tone and words. The best option is video, where you get to see the other 55%. By the way there are video casts, those are called vlogs.
So podcasts are usually just mp3 recordings. mp3 is a way to compress the audio into a smaller file size without losing tons of quality. You’ll need special software to compress your recording into a mp3 file format. One free program out there is the open source program audacity. You can use audacity to record and save your recording in an mp3 format.
Once you have a saved recording in mp3 format you can upload that to your site. Now many people also include that mp3 recording in an RSS feed. We talked about RSS a couple posts ago. That way, people can subscribe to your podcast. Whenever you release a new podcast, you can have subscription based audience to podcast to.
For example, after creating your podcast and the relevant RSS information, you can submit this information to various podcasting directories. So you can literally, today, start your own talk show and your own podcast.
Now, you just need something interesting to talk about…