Podcasting

What is a Podcast?   from

A podcast is an audio mini-program, in MP3 format, broadcast over the Internet. You can download and listen to the podcast on any MP3-compatible digital music player, preferably an iPod, hence the name. The key innovation is that subscribers can subscribe to lists of MP3 podcasts and choose when to download them, taking their recorded shows on commutes, treadmills or flights, unlike traditional Internet radio, where music or other audio content is streamed at particular times and is not always made available for free. You can either download a podcast once or subscribe to the RSS service for regular doses of your favorite shows. Your podcasting software checks for new content and begins to download when you say so. Ideally, you connect your iPod to your computer and have it automatically sync the latest feeds via iTunes.

The beauty of podcasting is that it’s easy and generally free for listeners, while costing relatively little to producers. At least, this is true for listeners with unlimited broadband Internet access and large hard disks, since a 30-minute feed can mean a 20-Megabyte download. This means that podcasters also have to host large files. But podcasting means you, the listener, are your own radio program director: you can decide when, where, and how often to listen to an audio program.

How Podcasting Started

Podcasting is the brainchild of Adam Curry and David Winer. Curry, formerly of MTV Music Television fame, last year wrote iPodder software that could organize and download to his iPod newly posted audio files from websites of his choice. He encouraged others to improve on his coding, and volunteers from all over the world subsequently helped him perfect iPodder. He started his own half-hour podcast in the fall, “Daily Source Code,” featuring talk on new and interesting podcasts, tech news, and general chit-chat, with small bits of music in-between, and has attracted some 50,000 listeners.

Podcasting is a natural extension of the blogging phenomenon, which has continued to grow over the past few years. Many podcasters start out as bloggers, only to expand their platform further to the audio blog.

Listening to a podcast for the first time from the author of a blog you’ve been following religiously for months can be an almost surreal experience: suddenly you can match a voice to the name. This is how people must have felt when they first heard the voices of beloved actors after the silent movie era came to an end.

From

you can read poetry all over the web. you can get poetry on CD, online or off. and yes, we're going to have poetry by video available to you as well in future days.

you can even have your own podcast.

so, you might be seeing all the developments in technology and your head is spinning with the possibilities. but are you really ready to take that step?

you might be. if your poetry is published at a few places on and offline, if you've performed in some poetry venues as a feature act, if you have your own web site where you sell your wares (in ebook or paperback form), sure, you might be ready to take some of those techological advances by the throat and really get your work out there.

and, even if you believe your pieces are primed, and that your popularity has reached a peak where you're positive that it's time to move forward, having a website, marketing a book, making a podcast popular is not a walk in the park. it's not the type of thing you can study two or three resources on and be ready for the world.

as a professional web promotions site specialist, i've seen way too many people jump into the world of web marketing way before the rest of their project was ready, and crash and burn. and ow does that landing hurt.

this is not to say that you are doomed to failture if your podcast or site is already up - far from it. just know what you're getting into.

let's take the example of podcasting.

our podcast has been ready for three months. we're in the process of transfarring, with each artist's permission, many of the works you see on the site, into our podcast format. i got together with three of the foremost experts in the world on podcasting (friends of mine - hi pakii and thank you!) to pick their brains on the subject of having a podcast. then i did one at my commercial site, wrote about it, talked to more experts who have successful podcasts.

and what i found out is that timing is everything. you can hit the ground running and fall on your face. or you can make sure All of your ducks are in a row, that everything is in place and proceed from there.

so how do i know if i'm ready? you might be wondering.

here's a brief checklist of what you need for a successful poet's podcast:

popularity and interest

just as when starting a site, building it does Not mean they will come. is your web site in the alexa top 100,000? or at least the top two million? do you even know how much a third party measurement of your traffic matters? or do you really believe, as so many make the mistake of doing, that it's just a number that has nothing to do with your results?

are you ranked in google? yahoo? hell - excite? do you have links back to your site?

make sure you have a Real audience before you proceed with your big plans. if you don't have one, get one. a station only you and your friends listen to is only useful if that's its only purpose.

if you're attempting to make sales or have a real community, you need interest before you proceed. our podcast has been ready for months. but it would be stupid to be so over-zealous as to release it when it's not ready, when we can already say that we're the first ones in the world within the niche we created.

shows in the queue

putting together a show is hard work. and yes, if you have no life, you might be ready with yours overnight. but you should really have a month's worth before you go live. be working on the one for august when you put july's on the air.

marketing skills

just because you built it... oh you remember do you? well remember this too. get someone who knows what they're doing to promote your site, CD, forum, book, podcast, rss feeds, blog, whatever.

a support group/staff

sure, it's your podcast and you want to feature you. but even your biggest fans will get sick of hearing just your voice and about just your projects. get other poets on with you. interview someone semi-famous. of course, if you have no audience, this will be a lot harder to do.

the proper equipment

heard of audacity? do you have a full understanding of rss feeds? can you build and promote a blog? do you know what a blog is? can you put pdf files into a podcast? do you have intro and outro tracks?

unless you're doing a commerical venture just to promote your site and provide free information, study up and learn all the tricks of the trade. dropping a few poets mp3s in your podcast, wrapped with your voice isn't enough any more. i bought everything from cool edit to adobe audition, just to make sure we had our bases covered. if you can't afford all of that, your best bet is to get on a show that already has numbers behind it.

find a poetry podcast (and there are very few right now) that has the potential to be re-broadcast on air, that has an audience who actually listens to the show, that is in all the major markets for poetry....

and never, Ever get on a station that has, now or in the past, made poets relinquish the rights to their own work to be played on air. anyone who tells you that they'll only promote you if you work exclusively with them doesn't have your best interests at heart. it's your work.

and true, you shouldn't be streaming your words from someone else's servers without their permission. but if you're serious about having your audios played then shell out the bucks and buy a server where you can upload your work and have total control over it.

or use services like my good friend Rodney's Podblaze system to house clips of your art.

the ability to stream (automatically or manually)

everyone ain't on hi-speed. not everyone loves your work enough to wait four minutes to download it. give your listeners an option.

a set format

what are you going to say each week? what's your tagline? who are your dj's? how long are they with you for?

some type of schedule

your best bet is to have one major production at least once a month, and then add other smaller ones over time.

dedication

in my work with small businesses, i've seen that most people start up a podcast, learn how to market it Properly, enjoy the initial push... and then abandon it within 3 to 6 months. that's sad. you're putting all that work into it - you might as well go the distance. or do us all a favor and don't start at all. (hint: proper preparation in advance will stop this from happening.)

ability to measure your metrics

if you don't know how many listeners you have, you can't sell advertisers or convince people that there's any good reason that their words should appear on your show. i'm running out of time and space so i can't go into those particulars now. but i'll have a guide for our artists coming up soon.

the thing to remember is that you're not in competition with other sites or even other poets.

if you're really good at what you do? your only competition is yourself...