A Quick Start Guide to Podcasting

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”.

                                       The Windows of Heaven   

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.