What software do I need?, what hardware do I need?
A crafty blend of the essence of blogging and MP3 technology - Podcasting is an upcoming Internet prodigy offering inexhaustible content in terms of both variety and magnitude. With Podcasting, any aspiring artist can realize his/ her dreams of becoming a Disc Jockey (DJ), a Radio Jockey (RJ), a singer, a talk show host, a recording artist et al. All one has to do is to create his/ her own podcast and upload it on Internet for mass audience, which is fairly easy.
If you are a novice to Podcasting, you can think of Internet audio programs and Internet broadcasting. Invented from a combination of “iPod” and “broadcasting”, pod-casting is a digital recording of any radio broadcast or similar program that is made available on Internet for review on PC, as well as, download to personal audio player. Just like blogging allows anybody to write at any length and breadth to gratify the writer within, Podcasting allows you to record your audio or video, mostly in MP3 format and upload it to a website to show off your talent as a RJ, DJ etc. Like the one who blogs is called a blogger, the one who podcasts is known as podcaster.
The content matter of podcasting is not susceptible to any kind of rating or screening. This also means that you may find the quality of podcasts widely varying from very refined to absolutely dull and dry.
From a low-profile start, the phenomenon has caught on like a wild fire with all the well-known websites online. The wider and richer prevalence of Pod-casts is all thanks to its tremendous and still-growing popularity, predominantly by way of word of mouth publicity. This not only explains its extensive reach, but also its immense potential. Consistently, it is inviting the attention of larger sections of general public, which is as a result bringing about a plethora of talent being showcased across the net for free of cost mass distribution. And you can be easily one among them.
The entire procedure to create your own pod-cast is extremely simple and straightforward. Anybody can create a pod-cast, even those who do not possess any knowledge of programming or other norms of computer wizardry. All one has to do is collect the basics that comprise of a recording software, a microphone and/ or web camera, a topic and a web space to upload or make available your podcast.
Podcasting may incur you a little or no start-up cost. The software can be freeware or paid software. For example, while FeedForAll, WebPod Studio, ePodcast Creator, ePodcast Producer and BlogMatrix Sparks! are paid software available on net, Audacity, GarageBand, Propaganda and Easy Podcast are free of cost pod cast publishing software tools. Both hardware and software are characteristically very easy to install on your personal computer/ laptop. The topic may be just about anything - from music, comedy, sports, philosophy to even your individual reviews.
To define the procedure step-by-step, first you plug a Universal Serial Bus (USB) headset with a microphone into your computer and install a MP3 recorder for Windows, Mac or Linux. Then you record your voice (optionally video) and save it as MP3 file. And at last, you upload the MP3 file to one of the podcasting sites. You can go through a tutorial on how to upload MP3 file at FeedForAll website.
A revolution in the Internet technology, Pod casting is an opportunity - a window to showcase your talent - that must be explored and exploited by you, particularly if you are talented and ambitious.