Starting a technology podcast / netcast

Hey Buddy.

Where do I begin here? There is so much to look at when pursuing the idea of making a quality podcast. There is so many ways of going at it, but what is interesting to me is that your looking at taking a live show and turning it into a podcast and archiving them so that people can view them. You did not mention if you would like to upload both the video and audio of your podcast but if it is both then the option I give you below will accept both. Personally on this idea I would take the video part away so that you can edit that audio and make it extremely good and professional.

One major detail to nail down is finding your niche, I have heard this said to me so many time that it is not funny. Maybe you do not want to exactly talk about technology in general only (maybe you do) because there is a chance that less people will want to listen to all the content you have provided because you may talk about something they do not like and they click away. Generally people find it more interesting to listen to something they like better. So if you say, talked about AT&T cell phones and service as your show (not sure why anyone would make a podcast of that) it has more of a potential of receiving a large following and people who enjoy the topic. With that being said do not feel as though you need to limit yourself, in reality this show is yours and you are in control with it and therefore you get to customize it in anyway you want. (The idea of finding your niche, I need to contribute to @GenMom.)

Some great ways to record your podcast would be to do it with Garageband on a Mac and Audacity with on Windows. If you are on a Mac let me know because I have some great ways to make your audio sound so crisp and professional.

If your looking for a good place to host your podcast, that raises the question of where do you host it? For my webcasting, Streaming, and Podcasting class we are required to use Mevio and it is the worst site in the world to do anything with, it cannot work at times, it chooses to close out on you, or not even load. Mevio on the other hand does tend to give you more views then the other option I have provided you. Mevio also lets you submit video and audio, which will work fine together. Then there is a site that I like that is called PodcastMachine where you can sign in with your Google Account.

Then next thing is getting your podcast into the best podcast database in the world "iTunes!" To do this you will want to go to iTunes then press iTunes Store followed by clicking Podcasts on the top menu bar. After doing that simple task you will then want to press on the left hand side "Submit a Podcast." Here comes the tricky part you need to submit your RSS feed to iTunes. To do this you would want to go to whatever host you have decide to use to store your podcast at, then press the RSS button, copy the URL, and past it into the box in iTunes. If you cannot find the RSS feed and are left in a bind then you can download Safari (if your not on a Mac) and in the URL bar click the RSS button! After doing this it can take a bit for apple to check that your RSS feed is genuine and not Broken. They will email you when it has been approved and from there you will have your podcast automatically show up in iTunes after uploading your podcast to your host site.

The next step is to make sure that your podcast has been taken care of. What I mean by this is you should not upload a podcast and leave it hanging there. You will want to tag it with the things you talk about as well as give a good write up in your description section to make sure it help people to find things online for the topics you talk about and gives a good idea of the show. Here is my podcast that is due out tomorrows link, take a look at how me and my friend who make this podcast both tag and fill out the show notes to give our listeners the information of what we talk about: Application Nation.

I hope this has been a help to you! Let me know if there is anything that was unclear and needs more explaining. Also, feel free to reach out to me with more question about Podcasting.

Thanks, Brandon Denison @Bdenn

Be sure to also make sure you have a quality microphone and a room with little to no echo.

Then for all speakers, perform noise reduction as needed (just make sure it is not done in a way that causes noise reduction anomalies to be created.

if possible have your voice on it's own track, then have each speaker on a separate track. After that perform noise reduction and adjust the audio levels as needed.

While I have not really done a podcast, I have recorded meetings through skype.

Since I was not a host, what I did was to record my voice separate by having adobe audition record from my microphone. I then had another recorder, record the what you hear audio source.

I then used my pocket pc record a few seconds of me talking and someone replying over skype (I used that to sync up the tracks later on)

I then adjusted each track to sound as good as possible, then mixed everything down to a single mp3 file.

it takes much more work than just using a tool designed to record entire skype calls but it offers better results in terms of keeping all speakers at the same audio level (it is a lot easier to adjust volumes if each speaker is on a separate track (if possible) if not and you need to correct levels, you will end up having to deal with volume envelopes which adds a lot of extra work if you need to deal with a single track that contains both loud and quiet speakers.

Did you create your program yet? Let's hear it!