When trying to decide
on a book and web 2.0 app I begun to take a close look at my blog and asked
what was missing. Besides more content
and blogs from yours truly, I realized that it needed another dimension, to bring
my Christian commentaries to life.
Something special added that would draw readers to the word of God and
The Windows of Heaven. I selected
Podcasting for my web 2.0 topic and my report is on a digital book from our
Safari Tech Library, entitled “A Quick Start Guide to Podcasting” written by Mark Harnett and published by
Kogan Page on Oct 28, 2011. Podcasting
is a type of digital media
consisting of an episodic series of files (either audio or video) subscribed to
and dowloaded through the web or streamed online to a computer or mobile
device. I found this to be very
easy to read and the instructions provided to get you starting your own
podcasting was just as the title said “A Quick Start”. I’ve had some experience with Podcasting, as
I self-taught myself using another book I purchased from Borders, and I must
say it was anything but quick. It
contained so much technical jargon, and in depth information on sounds, acoustics
and analysis that you feel like you a have to be a musician, rather than a
blogger to learn the application. But
not so, with “A Quick Start Guide to Podcasting”, as this is written for the
everyday blogger, website owner, fundraiser, aspiring broadcaster, shop or
service that want to quickly learn podcasting to enhance their product. And that’s how the introduction of the book
reads, as it enlightens readers on the array of uses for Podcasting and
Vodcasting (video podcasting). Next
this book gives you the keys to recording yourself naturally, without sounding
scripted and rehearsed. It simply
explains how you to write the ear, and create a story that the listener, and
finding the right words and voice to create a great podcast. Without being scientific this book
illustrated to science of podcasting. Next the book teaches you how to conduct
interviews, as you may not be telling the story, but instead recording a
conversation with clients, suppliers or someone else, at which time they would
be the storytellers. This is especially
helpful for aspiring broadcasters and the like. However in my opinion, the only drawback to this book is there
too much information of interviews. The
who and how to interview is enough instruction to me; but it gets too much in
depth with the interview relationship, with lengthy commentary that I thought
was a bit too much. Nevertheless, the book makes up for it the next two
chapters (Chap 3 & 4) as it gets
down to the meat and potatoes; “How to
Record your Podcast” and “How to Edit Audio”.
It starts out by advising that podcasting does not require expensive
equipment, like recording devices, microphones etc. especially when they can’t
save you from sounding lousy. But
instead you’d be much better off with a cheap device set up properly. It continues by giving some brief
information on how to get good sound quality, where to record and where to
place the microphone. It then finalizes your production with instruction on
converting your file to mp3 format, with free software and uploading your
finished recording, even to iTunes or other free host sites if you so
desire. This is all done while holding
true to the books true claim that the object of the book is not to blind you
with science, but to teach you the secrets the professionals know, so you can
see how easy it is to produce your own podcast. But enough talk about the instruction, please click the podcast link below
that I created using the information in “A Quick Start Guide to Podcasting”.
I trust that you see by
the quality of the recording that this book was very informative and believe me
it was quick and easy. In conclusion,
the final chapters of the book informs you how to set up your podcasts for the
“Big Time”, RSS feeds, syndication and understanding copyrights for your
work. All in all I thought this was a
quick and easy read, and I would recommend it to anyone who want to step his or
her product up to a top notch Podcasting.
