Podtastic! Professional Podcasting for the Rest of Us

Using Audacity or CastBlaster to Record a Show

A full tutorial on the use of Audacity or CastBlaster is outside of the scope of this article, but the general steps, in quick-and-dirty format, follow.

Audacity

Main Audacity window with a show loaded and ready for editing

• Plug in the microphone/headset.
• Press the red record button and start talking.
• Press the stop or pause button to take a break. Note: pressing the stop button will terminate the current track and start a new one when you resume recording. Pressing the pause button will continue with the same track when you resume recording.
• If you don't like the way a track turned out, click the X button on the top left of the left-side control block for the track to discard it.
• Use the Project -> Import Audio menu item to bring in other pre-recorded audio files. Note: Use the time shift tool to move tracks around to the positions at which you want them. The time-shift tool is the button on the top left of the Audacity window with the double-arrow graphic on it.
• Use the mouse to select pieces of audio, and the Effect menu to apply filters such as echoes and silence.
• Use the Project -> Edit ID3 Tags to input MP3 ID tags. If you intend to export the file in OGG Vorbis format, you will have to manually enter the tags using a third-party application such as Easy Tag.
• Use the File -> Export As OGG Vorbis to create an OGG file.
• Use the File -> Export As MP3 to create an MP3 file. Note: Due to the aforementioned licensing restrictions, Audacity does not come with the ability to encored MP3s out of the box. You must find and download the libmp3lame library to encode MP3 and use the File -> Preferences -> File Formats -> Find Library button to tell Audacity where it is. Then you can export as MP3.
• Don't forget to do a normal File -> Save to save the native *.aup file. The *.aup file contains all of the individual tracks, which makes editing much easier. The MP3 or OGG file that you've exported will only be a single track, which makes editing difficult. Think of the *.aup file as the equivalent to Photoshop's *.psd file. If you have it, you can edit to your heart's content. If you don't, you'll need to be a wizard to edit your work.

CastBlaster

Remember that CastBlaster is in beta, but since it has such great functionality, I feel that it's worth covering.

Partial CastBlaster main window

• Plug in the microphone/headset.
• Go to the Create tab. If you know what kinds of external audio you're going to need, press any of the blank buttons to open a file browser window. Find the file you want and click OK. Repeat as necessary.
• Go to the Edit tab to set start and end points, editing out the bits of the track that you're not happy with.
• Go to the Describe tab to enter the ID tag information.
• Go to the Publish tab to save your show. You can also upload your show here if you've filled in the server details on the Configure tab.
• Go to the Configure tab to set the sample and bit rates, and enter the server information.
• As a convenient place to keep show notes, click the Show Notes text link on the top right of the main CastBlaster window to open a text editor. These notes can later be pasted into a blog entry.

Note that while CastBlaster has exceptional ability to import and control external audio clips, it lacks a lot of the granular control that Audacity provides. I also miss the ability to encode into OGG Vorbis format. Admittedly, Audacity's complete tool set can be overwhelming for some first-time podcasters, so perhaps CastBlaster's 'higher view' of things will appeal to some.

Producing the RSS Feed and Hosting the File

As mentioned before, the enclosure element is the lynchpin of the entire podcasting system. An RSS feed is just an RSS feed unless it has an enclosure element. Then, it becomes a medium for distributing binary files. For the technically inclined, the enclosure element is a sub-element of <item>. The enclosure element has three required attributes: the URL to the binary file (which must be http), the length of the file in bytes, and the file format. A typical podcast enclosure element looks like this:

<enclosure url="http://www.mypodcastsite.com/media/myshow_20060202_12.mp3" length="16276324" type="audio/mpeg">

As a podcaster, you need to provide a proper RSS feed with the enclosure element. This is the only way that listeners are going to be able to use their podcatchers to get your shows. We've already covered off the necessity of having a show blog or some other type of site to provide the show notes, so what's the best way to provide all of this?

There are basically two ways to look at the situation. I prefer to look at the show blog feed and the podcast feed as being one and the same thing, and provide them both from a single source (a single feed from my show blog). Others prefer to keep their blog feed separate from their podcast and indeed some networks require that podcast feeds contain only podcasts. I don't understand this requirement, since podcatchers will ignore the text blog entries and only act on the entries in which the enclosure element appears, but some networks insist on this regardless.

Some good starting points for all-in-one services are as follows:

• Liberated Syndication provides an integrated blog/podcasting solution starting from $5US/month.
• Podbus offers either a simple hosting and feed type service, or an integrated blog/podcasting service from $4-$6US/month.

Some starting points for "feed only" services are below:

• Podcaster Hosting provides a service that takes a podcast and produces an RSS feed that you can then use on any web site -- basically a "bring your own blog" type of service -- at $20US/month.
• Blip Media is totally free. I find it somewhat confusing to use, but the price is right.
• Ourmedia is also free and backed by the Internet Archives and Drupal.

I've used Blipmedia (back when it was r.Podcaster), Ourmedia, and Liberated Syndication. None of them are perfect, but Liberated Syndication is where I made my home. The bandwidth and disk space involved with hosting podcasts isn't trivial and many services underestimate the resources they will need. By all means, feel free to check out the free services, but be vigilant. A feed that gives your listeners trouble is a feed from which they will quickly unsubscribe.

The enclosure element is also now supported by some blogware. If you run your own blog on your own server (and you think you can handle the bandwidth), you may want to investigate whether your blogware can create enclosure elements. If so, you can host your own show.

Lastly, you'll likely want to know how many people are listening to your show. This is a tricky area of podcasting because of the mix of direct downloads and podcatchers. Direct downloads are fairly easy to count, but podcatcher hits are a little trickier. Since a podcatcher is essentially an RSS aggregator, it will check all its subscribed feeds every time it is launched. This check is generally counted as a hit, regardless of whether or not there are any new shows to be downloaded. At the moment, the two solutions that seem to work are to use Liberated Syndication for hosting (they've put a LOT of work into their stats) or to push your feed through Feedburner. Both services have made great strides in attempting to normalize their stats.

Listeners

Your listeners can download your audio files in two ways. They will either use a podcatcher application, or download the podcast directly from your site.

As I've already mentioned, "podcatcher" is the affectionate name given to those applications that can subscribe to an RSS feed, recognize an enclosure element, check whether it has already downloaded the file indicated by the enclosure element, and grab it if it hasn't. Podcatchers are what make podcasting seem like "casting". Ideally, the podcatcher runs at night and downloads all of the media to which the listener has subscribed. That gives the user the impression that they're able to "click and play" large media files.

To be honest, I'm not sure how many people actually use podcatchers. Certainly the idea of downloading media in the middle of the night is neat, but our statistics show that much less than 50% of our listeners actually use podcatcher software. Most choose the direct download method and just visit our site to download each episode. That stat changed slightly when iTunes 4.9 started to support podcatching functionality, but still, less than 50% of our listeners use any sort of podcatcher.

On the free side of the house, there is CastPodder for GNU/Linux, and iTunes for Mac and Windows. The music in the iTunes store isn't free, but for now, the podcasts are. I'm unaware of any commercial podcatchers on the market. Since podcasting is largely a grassroots movement at the moment, I'm not sure how well a commercial podcatcher would be received. I'd be surprised if we didn't see some attempted entry into the market within the next year.

Promotion

If you build it, they won't necessarily come. You need to promote your show so that people know they can check it out. Aside from marketing it yourself on your own blog, there are a few places where your podcast needs to be seen.

Thus far, this article has concentrated on the independent podcaster who's going solo. But there's another type of podcaster out there -- the network podcaster. At first glance, a network and a directory may seem the same, but there are some fundamental differences between them.

A network, such as The Podcast Network or the Tech Podcast Network, is generally interested in building a brand. One of the lessons we learned from the blogging explosion is that grassroots media has a high signal to noise ratio. It's hard to find the diamonds in the pile of coal. Podcast networks are attempting to alleviate this problem by trying to associate their brands with high quality shows. The idea is that if I want to find a podcast on fishing, I'd be more likely to check out a network than an open directory because such a show on a network would (theoretically) have a certain quality, credibility, and production frequency.

Open directories, such as Podcast Alley or the Podcast Pickle, are just that -- directories. There are no membership requirements or guarantees of quality or frequency. Anyone can sign up and his or her show will appear in the directory. To be fair, most directories have some sort of rating system that allows show listeners to indicate which shows they like, but that's a rather subjective measure. And just between you and me, I'd stake money on the fact that the most popular podcasts out there right now are independent and not network shows.

Both directories and networks have their advantages and disadvantages. An independent show in a directory can enjoy a tremendous amount of success if the show's listeners are apt to vote, but it's hard to get your show noticed. A network virtually guarantees high listenership, but in many networks you'll have to sign over part or all of your rights to the show, so you won't really "own" it. Want some numbers? Okay. My GNU/Linux user show on The Podcast Network averaged over 2,000 listeners per show. My indie podcast in a directory averages about 200. Where you publish your podcast depends on your answer to one very important question: what's ownership worth to you?

Monetizing

Podcasting for money. Some people look at me sadly when I utter this phrase, and I understand why. To be blunt, there is no money in podcasting. Yet. Much like the beginning of blogging, no advertiser wants to associate their brand with a rogue podcaster who might say all sorts of nasty things that will tarnish their reputation. A few names have embraced podcast advertising, however. GoDaddy, GoToMeeting, and Motorola have spent money on podcast advertising, but it's pennies compared to the money being spend on blog advertising these days, and it's all network advertising. There will be money in podcasting, but it's not here yet.

Before I tackle this topic properly, I should throw out a warning: in general, listeners aren't keen on the idea of advertising in podcasts. Since podcast advertising revenue is almost guaranteed to be tied to downloads, monetizing your podcast could hurt rather than help you if your listeners wander away. Only pitch to your listeners ads that they might actually be interested in, and keep the ads minimal.

There are two obvious ways to monetize a podcast:

1. Put ads in the body of the podcast itself. Since this can't be done automatically (yet), you will bear the burden of sourcing advertisers, getting an ad in the format you can use, and putting it into your show.


2. Tack ads on to the beginning or end of the show. This can be done manually, but many services are starting to emerge that will take care of this for you automatically. Some of the more obvious are Fruitcast and Kiptronic, but more are appearing on the landscape every day. With these services, the average payment per download is around 5 to 10 cents. You will have to decide for yourself where your line is, but I wouldn't consider putting ads in my show at those prices until I had 500 listeners or more. The other consideration for this type of service is your show feed. In order to put ads into your show, the ad insertion service will have to get their hands on your feed. In general this takes the following process: your original feed goes to the service, then goes through the service's feed to the end listener. Sometimes you can use Feedburner to get around these little issues, but changing the address of your feed when the show is in full swing is going to cost you at least some of your listeners.

The newer and perhaps less obvious way to monetize a podcast is to use a pay-per-download model. Services like BitPass have been built around the idea of charging small amounts for digital media. In industry terms this is called a micro-payment service, because the cost for these pieces of media is fairly low (under the $5 range in most cases). Some podcasters are starting to experiment with this method of monetizing their shows, but I don't think it has a bright future.

I'm skeptical about the pay-per-download model working for podcasts because it breaks the whole podcatcher model. Granted, our stats show a lot of people aren't using podcatchers, but using BitPass to intercept the download will guarantee that no one can use a podcatcher to listen to your show. Secondly, how much is a 45-minute podcast actually worth? This model might work for podcasts that are instructional or educational in nature, but I can't see a lot of people paying a quarter to listen to your typical rollicking entertainment podcast. The future will tell which monetizing options work best.

Try Your Own Hand

At the end of the day, podcasting is a lot of work, but it can be very rewarding. We're made a grand total of $110 dollars through podcasting in the last year, but the other rewards have been great. The exposure I received from doing the GNU/Linux show has brought me into contact with some of the movers and shakers of the GNU/Linux world such as Richard Stallman, Nick Petreley, Doc Searls, Marcel Gagne, and Mark Rais, to name a few. These contacts have blossomed and I'm now being interviewed every couple of weeks on the subject of podcasting and writing articles for publications like Linux Journal and SitePoint. This type of reward, in lieu of receiving a direct monetary gain from a show, might well be typical for some years to come.

Like many things, podcasting seems simple from afar but becomes complex upon closer inspection. It's important to remember that, in podcasting, content is king. As long as you have a microphone, an editor, and can produce a proper RSS feed for your show, you can get to work putting solid content on the airwaves. Ultimately, your listeners will stay or go on the basis of your content, not on the trappings of advertising, pretty show blogs, or expensive hardware. So sit down, generate some solid content, strap on that microphone, and let the people hear!