Four women, four languages

We hear English, Persian, French, and either Cantonese or Mandarin. Nice teamwork!

The team made this recording using the free Odeo account I set up for the session. Odeo provides a very basic online voice recorder - a start and stop button with no opportunity for editing. While this gives you almost no flexibility, the good news is that Odeo provides free unlimited hosting and distribution of your recordings. So you can record using Odeo, and then put the link to the audio file in whatever blog or webpage you like. It’s working for me now!

http://media.odeo.com//files/4/0/7/267407.mp3

Four women, four languages – Round two

We hear English, Persian, French, and either Cantonese or Mandarin. Nice teamwork, again!

We all, myself included, thought that something had gone wrong with Odeo, that it had not recorded and stored their first effort. But there was no problem after all.

I’m impressed by how similar the two recordings are! You’d think they were following a script.

This recording was also made with the Odeo account and stored on their servers.

http://media.odeo.com//files/4/0/7/267407.mp3

Tanya, Mike, Tara and Susan

Also recorded using Odeo’s online recorder

They each introduce themselves and then Susan plays with the microphone a little, moving it farther from and nearer to her mouth.

This recording was made with the same Odeo account.

http://media.odeo.com//files/4/1/5/267415.mp3

Tanya, Mike, Tara and Susan – Round two

Much like our multilingual foursome above, it seemed like the recording had not been saved when in fact it had. Here is their round two.

Also recorded using Odeo's online recorder

http://media.odeo.com//files/4/1/5/267415.mp3

There were three people in the group, one of them was named Hakima I presume

They made this recording using the free PodOmatic account. They were the only group to try this option. I can understand that. PodOmatic and Odeo offer the same functionality, but with Odeo you get all free the bandwidth (number of downloads) you might want. PodOmatic provides very little free bandwidth.

Thanks to these three for trying PodOmatic out!

http://www.bibliopod.com/BCLAcast/Hakimastestpod.mp3

Another by Hakima’s team

Here is another by Hakima, Jim and their trusty teammate whose name I cannot catch.

The team made this recording using the free Odeo account I set up for the session. As I said above, Odeo provides a very basic online voice recorder - a start and stop button with no opportunity for editing. While this gives you almost no flexibility, the good news is that Odeo provides free unlimited hosting of your audio files. So you can record using Odeo, and then put the link to the audio file in whatever blog or webpage you like. It’s working for me now!

http://media.odeo.com//files/4/0/8/267408.mp3

A quick test of Odeo

Leslie and her partner (Adrianne?) quickly test out the process of recording

http://media.odeo.com//files/4/2/1/267421.mp3

Podcasting over the phone

Aubri interviews her teammates, Pamela and Derek. Then Pamela interviews Aubri.

These three phoned in their recording. Telephoning in your recordings, leaving what feels like a lot like a voice mail message, is another of the ways that Odeo provides for people to create and post their podcasts.

While I am thrilled with the content here - they interviewed each other - as you will hear, the quality of the recording is not very good. I think this likely had to do mostly with the phone, because the next two recordings, also phoned in, were less rough.

http://www.audblog.com/media/114050/345570.mp3

Janis, Donald and Jean over the phone

These three introduce themselves and then Janis does a practice promotion of the teen summer reading club.

This recording was made over the phone. It sounds better than the interview, above, but it still isn’t something you would want likely want to send out to library users.

http://www.audblog.com/media/114050/345576.mp3

A little flattery

An unidentified woman tells us that I gave an ‘amazing’ (I’m just quoting!) session on podcasting.

This recording was made over the phone and it actually sounds OK. Not good enough for really wide spread distribution, but better than the two above.

http://www.audblog.com/media/114050/345579.mp3

Podcast Directories – Finding shows rather than episodes

Indiepodder.org – Likely one of the more complete directories. Browse for shows from about 75 subject categories. Different people are responsible for different subject categories, making sure to keep them up to date.

iTunes – Directory and aggregator. Because of the massive popularity of iPods, and the fact that iPods rely on iTunes software for file management, this directory has the greatest market reach. Less complete than others, though.

Podcast alley – One of the first directories. It has a voter-driven top ten list, lists of five random podcasts, five brand new podcasts, and 17 subject categories to browse.

Podcast pickle – Much like Podcast Alley, except it has a top 100 list instead of top 5 and there is a rating system for how family-safe the content is.

Yahoo podcasts – 13 categories to browse through, but lots of ads on the page. You can play (stream) the podcast off the page to decide if you want to subscribe.

Odeo – Subscription site. Has a top 40 list, staff picks, tagged audio and category called ‘The Zeitgeist’.

Podcast.net – Browsable like the classic Yahoo interface. You can also search by audience-generated tags.

Podnova – Stripped down search interface like Google, with a directory and two top forty lists only a click away.

Podfeed – Directory with about 17 categories to browse. You can search within a category or across the whole directory. You can also browse by user-generated tags.

Podcast Search Engines – Finding episodes, rather than shows

Podscope – Voice recognition software renders the podcasts into text and Podscope indexes the text. Search results provide a media player that will play the audio around your search term and a link to the podcasts’ show notes.

Podzinger – Same indexing approach. Includes both audio and video. Stripped down search interface, with a directory only a link away. Search results display the show title as a link, the episode title and description below that, an abstract, the length of the episode, a link to the show and links to your search term in the context of the show. There is also player on the left, along with buttons to the RSS feeds and the one-click subscription through iTunes or Yahoo podcasts.

Blinkx – Same indexing approach as Podscope but Blinkx indexes both video and audio, with more of a focus on video. Promotes mainstream sources like NBC news, BBC news and the Biography Network.

Singing Fish – Indexes the blog or webpage. You can limit by audio or video or search both. Also can limit by file type (MP3, Windows Media…) or genre of recording (music, movies, news…). You can save your searches and see what the most popular recent searches have been.

Loomia – Membership service. Listeners can rank your individual episodes. More a tool for ranking podcasts than a search engine.

Feedster – Indexes blogs, podcasts and news. You can limit by medium and rank results by date or relevance. With regard to podcasts, it indexes the accompanying webpage / blog.

Casting words – Primarily a transcription service. Podcasters can pay for the service, but Casting Words indexes all the transcripts made of their shows. Small database as a result.

Podcast Review Sites

Podcast bunker – Browse categories for news and information, sports, computers and technology and the top 20. I am not sure how they determine which podcasts get ranked and how they rank them. They rank a lot of re-purposed media from the likes of NPR, BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Podcastreviews – A blog controlled by one person, but with reviews of specific episodes provided by many. Reviews are several paragraphs long, shows are given 1 to 4 stars and the author says whether they would or would not subscribe.

Aggregators / Podcatchers

A distinction can be drawn between an aggregator and a podcatcher. Aggregators group and list your feeds, whereas podcatchers manage the downloads. Usually a single tool handles both tasks.

Compare podcatchers at http://www.podcatchermatrix.org/

Juice (formerly known as iPodder Lemon) Cross platform aggregator / podcatcher – so it works on a Mac. Has a directory as well. You can schedule your downloads or download on demand. Recommended.

iTunes – Directory, aggregator and podcatcher all in one. Because of the massive popularity of iPods, and the fact that iPods rely on iTunes software for file management, this directory has the greatest market reach. Has been unreliable, although may be better now. It can drop feeds or stop downloading in the middle of a file.

jPodder - Much like Juice.

Doppler - Like Juice. They have a version for pocket PCs/PDAs’

iPodder X (Mac) – Combination aggregator / podcatcher for text and media files. Not free, like the others. They are changing their name and brand, so currently unavailable.

Odeo – Aggregator not podcatcher. Free subscription service. You manage your RSS feed list on a webpage, so you can pick up or drop a feed from any internet connected computer. If your aggregator is set to download on schedule, this feature might be handy.

Castpodder – For Linux based users.

FeedStation – An add-on to Newsgator. If there is a media file in a blog you are reading, then with one click you download it, the file gets put in a folder in ‘My Documents’ and then gets pushed over to iTunes if that is your default player.

Some library-related podcasts

Talking with Talis – A British ILS company that doing technology-oriented shows about once a month with good guests.

OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries and All Library Users) - OPAL is “an international collaborative effort by libraries of all types to provide web-based programs and training for library users and library staff members.(text from site) They podcast some of their programming.

Open Stacks – Greg Schwartz, public librarian from Indiana discusses library issues in the mainstream news as well as the library blogoshere.

Check This Out – Law librarian at University of Buffalo releases content weekly. Includes guidelines to legal research, lawyers in film, and news on Tulane University post-flood.

Listen Up – David Free from Georgia Perimeter Campus uses it to interview guest speakers visiting campus, cover a campus-wide writing competition, discuss Freedom to Read Week, lists newly received books and announces changes to library hours for holidays.

Thomas Ford Memorial Library- Illinois – 2 feeds. Librarians read copyright-expired stories aloud and teen patrons review books.

Dowling College New York State - “Primary Source Theatre” – Has included interviews with computer helpdesk, a piece on computer safety, and interviews with visiting authors.

Western Kentucky University Library – Has included coverage of Black History month, scholars doing research internationally, author visits and the ‘one campus one community one book program.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute library – Has included an interactive tour of the library, spotlight on the OED online and reviews of library search tools and databases.

Teen Librarian – Miranda Doyle from San Francisco does author interviews.

Lansing Library Teen Podcast Illinois – Has included preparation for science fair projects and interviews with teens about library programming.

Recording software

Audacity – Starting podcasters’ most popular sound recording and editing software. Mac and PC versions. Open source = free. Fairly easy to use. Highly recommended, at least to start. Need “Lame” encoder to make MP3s

Garageband – Mac only. Part of a suite of media software called iLife. Free on newer Macs and about $100 dollars for registered Mac users. Reportedly very easy to use and certainly popular with Mac-owning podcasters.

Audio Recorder 3.0 – Mac only. Free. Very flexible and easy. Highly recommended by CBC podcasting guru, Tod Maffin.

Castblaster – Designed specifically for podcasting, quite simple although there are a distractingly large number of buttons on the interface. Poor editing functionality. Free to download, test out, and create podcasts of up to ten minutes. Record more than ten minutes, and you are asked to pay for the software.

Adobe Audition (Formerly Cool Edit Pro) Used by professional broadcasters. $350 U.S.

Freecorder – Very simple free recording software, although you can upgrade to a $20 version as well. Sound quality with the free version is not wonderful since it limits your sampling rate. It also severely limits your options for labeling the files - you can define the file Title but Album and Artist are set to ‘Freecorder’. Fittingly, perhaps, it labels the genre as ‘Blues’.

If you are ready to pay for software, names and reviews of various audio recording software packages available on the ‘Electronic Musician’ website: http://emusician.com/editing/

Audio file management software

Dircaster – Reportedly easier of the two. Once it is set up, you create a directory and upload your podcasts. Dircaster recognizes the new file and automatically updates the RSS feed. Software is found at http://www.fwbf.info/code/dircaster_0_4b.zip

Podcastomatic –After downloading and unpacking, create the configuration file by generating the show’s metadata. Upload your podcasts and Podcastomatic recognizes the new file and automatically updates the RSS feed.

(Both options are for the technically minded or for those of you with mediated access to servers.)

RSS feed validator

Before you put your feed up, check it by putting it through feed validator. (http://feedvalidator.org)

Podcasting through a blog

Podcasting through a blog -

WordPress – Recommended. You can house your Wordpress Blog on the Wordpress servers or on your own server. Wordpress blogs are already RSS 2.0 compliant. Simply paste your podcast enclosure at the end of a blog entry. This is a nice simple option and there are many plug-ins available to simplify things further and provide more functionality.

Blogger – Like WordPress, you can house your Blogger blog on Blogger servers or on your own server. Unlike Wordpress, Blogger does not support RSS 2.0., but there is a free web service called Feedburner that will make your Blogger blog podcast friendly. Listeners will have to use your Feedburner feed to subscribe to your podcasts, but if you already have a Blogger blog, then you need not migrate.

Movable Type – Must set up on your own server. Single non-commercial license is free, but I believe a library would have to pay for an institutional license. Movable Type supports RSS 2.0, but you need a plug-in for it to handle enclosures. For this plug-in, see Brandon Fuller’s MT-enclosures plug-in page: http://brandon.fuller.name/archives/hacks/mtenclosures/

Housing files on a hosted service

Fee based services:

Liberated Syndication, aka Libsyn – Five to thirty dollars, U.S. per month, depending on how much storage you want. No charge for bandwidth. You have to use their blog software, but you should be able to take insert you Libsyn enclosures into your feed of choice. I understand that your Libsyn blog would have advertising.

Audioblog – Five dollars U.S. a month. Upload your own MP3s, record using their web-based recorder or phone in your podcasts. Limit on each file’s size but not on storage or bandwidth.

MyPodcasts.net – 500 megabytes audio/video storage and unlimited transfer for ten dollars a month. Two gigabytes of audio/video storage and unlimited transfer for twenty dollars a month.

Free services:

Ourmedia - Run by the Internet Archive. You upload your file and apply a creative commons license to it. Ourmedia provides you a link to the file, an enclosure. There is software available to facilitate the uploading and applying of a license: http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/software/publisher/

Odeo - Provides a web-based recorder that is very simple to use but which provides no editing options at all. Free storage and bandwidth, though. Requires a free account. Odeo is more than just a hosting service, though. I encourage you to take a look at it.

PodOmatic – A poor cousin to Odeo. Five hundred megabytes of storage allowed but, more importantly, only seven point five gigabyes of bandwidth per month. Ten dollars buys you fifty gigabytes of bandwidth which is still too little. Fun to play around with, though and you can download your recordings and post them where you have better bandwidth. This is an unusual option you do not have with Odeo.

Click Caster - Very basic service is free. The more you pay, the better your storage, bandwidth and service plan.

Usage statistics

Podtrac – They are motivated by a desire to connect your podcast with advertisers, but they do offer some use-statistics for free.

Kiptronic – They are motivated by a desire to connect your podcast with advertisers. It is not clear if they offer some use-statistics for free.

Podbridge - They are motivated by a desire to connect your podcast with advertisers. It is not clear if they offer some use-statistics for free.

Audible’s Wordcast – Audible is a provider of electronic books. They offer a service whereby for three cents per downloaded podcast, they will report if the downloader listened, and for how long.

Feedburner – If you use Feedburner for your RSS feed, they can provide numbers for feed circulation, what kind of aggregator users use and number of click throughs (streaming / downloading from your blog rather than through your RSS feed). You can get more services if you pay.

Label your files

Release your podcasts as MP3’s. This format is non-proprietary; all players will recognise this format. MP3 files have internal tags that store title, artist album and so on. These tags are called ID3 tags, and they make file management simpler for the consumer, allowing them to sort by artist or album or title. We all work in libraries, so we need to provide an example and apply these tags consistently, if not across shows, at least within our own series of shows.

This is the emerging standard for ID3 tagging of podcasts:

Title: Name of episode (name/date combination)

Album: Name of your show

Artist: Your name / Guest’s name / episode name

Year – Year

Track – Episode number

Genre – Podcast / Vocal

Comments – Free form. URL of the bog or of the show itself

Reference List

“How to Podcast” http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/ last viewed March 9^th, 2006

http://www.podcastingnews.com/

http://podcastusermagazine.com/

Anderson, Chris. (2004). The Long Tail. Wired. Issue 12. October. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Anderson, D. (2005). The Pod People. Brandweek. 46(42), 16-17. (Introduction to podcasting)

Campbell, Gardner. (2005). There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0561.pdf Educause. Nov/Dec p33

Gordon-Murnane, L. (2005). Saying "I do" to podcasting: Another "next big thing" for librarians? Searcher. 13(6), 44-51.

Herrington, Jack D. (2005).Podcasting Hacks: Tips and Tools for Blogging Out Loud. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media Inc.

Cochrane, Tod. (2005). Podcasting: The Do it Yourself Guide. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.

Geoghegan, Michael and Dan Klass. (2005). Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Podcasting. Berkeley, CA: friends of Ed.

(Sample chapter: http://www.friendsofed.com/samples/1590595548.pdf)

Farkas, Bart G. (2005). Secrets of Podcasting. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.