The Audacity to Podcast

This is the launch of a miniseries about live-podcasting. Before we get into the "how to podcast live" specifics, it's best to answer why you should podcast live.

My favorite WordPress plugins that enable me to effectively podcast. This is not just another list of plugins that all do the same thing, but each plugin has a special purpose and all work together.

I have almost never had problems with Audacity, except when I did something stupid. If you'd like similar success, try these and share any suggestions and experience you have.

Whether you have a small or large podcast, you can make money from it. While this is not an exhaustive list, Daniel J. Lewis shares his top five ways to monetize the content you're posting on the Internet in your podcast or blog.

Listeners share their software and tricks for podcasting, as well as get their questions answered.

Your website is the Internet home for your podcast. Here are several easy things you can do to make your website appeal to gain more listeners and make it easier for current subscribers. I'll use my own recent design of The Audacity to Podcast's website as an example. The new website is built and designed over the powerful and easy Genesis Framework. I used CSS3, which will make the site beautiful on modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 9), but it gracefully degrades for older browsers (Internet Explorer 7–8). 1. Use the front page Quickly tell new visitors what your site and podcast are about. This helps them know whether they should stick around. Give them something to do with a call to action, like "subscribe," "buy," or "download." 2. Explain yourself and your content in the about page The "about" page is your second-most-important page because this is where you can explain in more detail who you are and what your content are about. 3. Make it easy to contact you Don't hide your contact information or make it a puzzle to read your email address. A couple simple WordPress plugins can simplify your life, maintain your privacy, and be friendly to your visitors. CryptX to encrypt your email address but show in plain writing for human visitors. Contact Form 7 to embed a contact form on a page. 4. Make your podcasts (or whatever you offer) visible Put it in the navigation menu, have an icon for each episode, or include your media player in excerpts so they'll appear on the front page. 5. Put repeatable, accessible stuff in your sidebar Your sidebar is for stuff that should appear on every page of your site. In order of important, this could be any of the following. Search form (or put this in your header) Subscription links (iTunes, RSS, etc) Follow links (Twitter, Facebook, etc) Contact information Latest or popular posts Affiliate links You can do these yourself, or hire me These steps are easy and I'm confident you can do them yourself. But if you'd like me to do them for you, I provide a variety of website services tailored for podcasters: simple design changes like a header, background, and color scheme; complete website design; subscribe and follow widgets, and podcast cover art. If you'd like to hire me to design stuff for you, email Daniel@Noodle.mx and I'd be delighted to help. PodCamp Cincinnati on October 22 PodCamp is a social-media "unconference" and I would love to have you attend, or especially sponsor or volunteer for PodCamp Cincinnati on October 22 near Cincinnati. If you're interested in sponsoring, please email Daniel@PodCampCincinnati.com. Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™, the Ramen Noodle™, and Christian Meets World™. Find more podcasts about technology on the Tech Podcasts Network.

Learn how to effectively use three ways of recording more than one person in a podcast, and how to avoid ineffective ineffective applications of the same three ways

I share the full list of changes in Audacity 1.3.13 and personal experience with several of them. Ron Eastwood shared a fun special effect in Audacity.

Make your voice or music sound crazy with these special effects that you can apply post-process (after recording) or in real-time with a mixer.

It's now possible and easy for you to upgrade your podcast website to support an HTML5 audio/video player, but not leave Flash Player behind. Adobe Flash Player solved many problems Websites and media are maturing faster than web browsers and web standards. So in order to support the vast amount of media appearing online, sites had to rely on third-party technologies like Adobe Flash Player or Microsoft Silverlight. Without these plugins, the web browsers wouldn't be able to directly (or "natively") play these media files. But this was mostly all right because Adobe Flash Player was almost ubiquitous on all computers. A "new" problem: iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads (iOS) Because Apple mobile devices (based on iOS) do not run Adobe Flash Player, this meant that the "whole Internet" that Apple wanted you to experience did not include all of the prominent interactive and media-rich content. Apple's mobile devices (iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads) do not support Flash, so any website media, such as audio or video, would not play on these devices. The popular solution: HTML5 Although not a set standard yet, Apple has embraced HTML5 and has been pushing (or maybe even forcing) others to conform—in fact, they prefer their own proprietary standards (H.264 and AAC). However, HTML5 presents wonderful opportunities in that it presents a media-rich experience without requiring website visitors to install plugins to make it work. To better understand HTML5, in simple terms, I recommend reading "What is HTML5, and Why Should You Care?" or the HTML5 entry on Wikipedia. Blubrry PowerPress 2.0 supports Flash and HTML5! I've previously praised Blubrry PowerPress and version 2.0 brings a load of new features. Most notable is that you can now select an HTML audio and video player, which will fallback to FlowPlayer Classic for Flash on browsers that don't support HTML5 media. Read the PowerPress 2.0 announcement for more information. Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™, the Ramen Noodle™, and Christian Meets World™. Find more podcasts about technology on the Tech Podcasts Network.

What you've heard about iTunes's auto "unsubscribing" and pingPodcast is probably wrong. Hear some truth plus two new launches for podcasters.

I'm rethinking the "podcaster's theme" for WordPress, the podcast megasite, and weekly podcast schedule. I also share more podcasts about podcasting. Rethinking the podcaster's theme for WordPress Although well-meaning, I've decided to no longer pursue my pursuits of programming my own WordPress theme for podcasters and instead design on top of a WordPress framework. I'm currently leaning toward Genesis, but there are also Standard Theme and Thesis. Read my original blog post here. Rethinking the podcast megasite After my original blog post and great discussion, I've decided to split the Noodle.mx Network podcasts back into separate sites, but this time run by WordPress Multisite. Switching to biweekly podcasting In order to keep up with my life, I'll be switching The Audacity to Podcast™ to be a biweekly podcast, with the Ramen Noodle™ in between. So the next The Audacity to Podcast™ will be on March 7, then March 21, and so on. More podcasts about podcasting Just because I'm dropping to biweekly doesn't mean you'll miss your podcasting fix! Here are the other podcasts about podcasting, which I enjoy and recommend (listed alphabetically). The Audacity to Podcast™ with Daniel J. Lewis—in-depth explorations of topics, only podcast to feature Audacity Podcast Answer Man with Cliff Ravenscraft—questions and answers about podcasting Podcast Quick Tips with Ray Ortega—short tips for improving your podcast Podcast Starter with James Kennison—podcast tips for the hobbist podcaster Podcasters’ Emporium with Australians James Williams and Dave Gray—thorough overview of topics, presenting lots of options The Podcasters Studio with Ray Ortega—more discussion on topics with some questions and answers Podcasting Advisor with Andy White—in-depth explorations of topics Podcasting from Scratch (possibly podfaded) with Hank Davis—how to podcast from start to finish (listen chronologically!) School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson—covering multiple topics Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the new Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™, the Ramen Noodle™, and Christian Meets World™. Find more podcasts about technology on the Tech Podcasts Network.

How you open your podcast episodes could be turning people away from your podcast. I share elevent potential elements of an opening/intro, examples, and my suggestions for an effective podcast opening.

If you want to highest-quality audio in your podcast of two more more hosts, then you have only two options: Record in-studio with multiple microphones and a mixer Record separately and combine in post production (called a double-ender) “Double-ender” comes from the pre-satillite days of television when two personalities would be recorded with audio and video in their separate locations and then the two videos later combined. Sometimes, they would even edit to make it appear as if the two personalities were in the same studio. Although the technique is no longer used for television broadcasts, it still works great for podcasting when you want the highest-quality audio without bringing all of your hosts in-studio. Set up for best quality The best microphone you can get for each cohost (even the cheapest mics will produce better quality than Skype) Audacity or other means of recording for each cohost Record your podcast Skype, Google Voice, or even a phone call between cohosts Clap as you count to ten to synchronize Share the files Dropbox to easily synchronize folders, or other file-sharing services (Box.net, Senduit, Ge.tt, and more) to transfer the recordings to the producer (probably you) Mix it together Import all the separate recordings into Audacity or your program of choice Align the clap-offs Listen to random points throughout your podcast to ensure the dialog is not overlapping Edit and export as normal! Fishy Behringer mic on Amazon Maybe this is from when Maxwell Smart started podcasting. Amazon.com has a photo glitch on their Behringer B-1 Large-Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser Mic. Read the funny reviews and post your own (share them here, too). Free calling in Gmail extended through 2011 When you combine Google Voice and Gmail, you can make free computer-to-phone calls right within Gmail. This has been free for 2010 and Google announced it will be free for 2011. I'll talk more about this in a future episode, but it present another free way to bring in live phone calls for your podcast. New podcast: Christian Meets World™ We're happy to have Jason Rennie join Noodle.mx Network with his podcast that connects the Christian worldview to the everyday. Subscribe to Christian Meets World™. Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the new Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring Daniel to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view his portfolio and request an estimate.

I comment on feedback regarding another sound cart manager (soundboard), friends made through podcasting, listeners giving back to podcasters, and a podcasting goal for 2011. Audacity tip: importing M4A (AAC), WMA, FLAC, and other special audio files.