MediaJoltz

For the past month I’ve been traveling and giving some seminars on podcasting. To help my audience and you guys, Cammon from CopperRain put together a Step by Step guide to podcasting to help make sure the podcasting experience was as much fun and successful as possible.

Just like we went and explored other blogs, we need to also explore other podcasts to decide what things we like including:

-the length

-the format

-the intro music

And so here is part one of the Step by Step on how to find and listen to podcasts.

When you subscribe to a podcast you are actually subscribing to what is called the RSS feed. RSS stands for “really simple syndication.” What RSS does is attatch a piece of code to your podcast to let the computers belonging to those people who are subscribed to your podcast know that there is a new episode.
Having all the RSS do all the download work for you is great when you have nine or ten or more podcasts that you like to listen to on a regular basis.

The last thing you need in order to listen to a podcast is something that I have
just barely touched on, it’s called a podcatcher. In other words, some kind of program that will read the RSS feed and then allow you to watch or listen to a show after it is downloaded. A favorite seems to be iTunes and it is available on both Mac and PC. One nice feature about iTunes is that it has a built in Podcast directory.
You can go to www.apple.com and downloading iTunes if you don’t already have
it and taking a look at all the podcasts that are ready to be consumed.
Download itunes.

Once you have downloaded iTunes go ahead and open it up. It will ask you a
few questions like “do you want to make this program your media player?” Get past all those options we just want to get to the podcasts.

When the program opens up click on the “iTunes Store” it’s to the left of the
screen.

Next, find the Podcast section just to the right.

You are now ready to start browsing the thousands of podcasts from all over.

You can also browse to find podcasts that interest you:

Or you can search for specific podcasts

So now you can start listening to some of your favorite podcasts and see what you like about them. Write that down. Keep track of how often they produce an episode. Pay attention to the topic and if they stick to it or wonder on the show. How about the quality, is it good, bad, does it bother you if it isn’t radio quality? Start formulating what you like and don’t like and try to implement that into what you want for your own podcast.

Posted in New Media, Podcasting tips, Beginning podcasting |