An idiots guide to Podcasting and iTunes
I have just spent 24 hours geeking out about Podcasting. I got my podcast set up, and you can subscribe by clicking here.
It ain't all that complicated to do, but my poor brain gets confused by long lists of instructions and I start skim reading which is never particularly good.
You want to know how to do it? Here is an idiots guide.
You need four things. 1) An mp3 file of your podcast (obviously) 2) Somewhere to upload it to 3) a blog and 4) an RSS feed.
i) Start up a new blog from blogger. This probably works with other blogs too but we are keeping it simple here. Mine is http://cotcsermons.blogspot.com/
ii) Upload your podcast to somewhere (if you don't have web hosting Ourmedia offer free hosting, but i found it very slow to upload). Now write a post in your new blog and link to the mp3. My links look like this: http://www.midwinter.org.uk/cotc/sermons/Isaiah1.mp3
iii) The critical part of this process is something called an RSS feed. You get one by seting up a feedburner account, which provides just such a feed. Sign up, then tell feedburner to your blog address.
iv) Feedburner will give you an RSS feed with a name something like http://feeds.feedburner.com/cotcsermons.The RSS feed is what people need to subscribe to your podcast. You can type it into iTunes, or Firefox or whatever you use to listen to podcasts.
That's it. You are podcasting.
v) Optional - Go to the itunes music store, click podcasts and submit a podcast, type in your RSS feed address, and they will (hopefully) list it for you.
And finally a geek trick which is brilliant - create a link to your RSS feed but instead of a http:// prefix like normal, use an itpc:// prefix instead like this:
itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/cotcsermons
and when people click on the link it will open itunes and automatically subscribe your listeners to the podcast. Click here to try it.
It ain't all that complicated to do, but my poor brain gets confused by long lists of instructions and I start skim reading which is never particularly good.
You want to know how to do it? Here is an idiots guide.
You need four things. 1) An mp3 file of your podcast (obviously) 2) Somewhere to upload it to 3) a blog and 4) an RSS feed.
i) Start up a new blog from blogger. This probably works with other blogs too but we are keeping it simple here. Mine is http://cotcsermons.blogspot.com/
ii) Upload your podcast to somewhere (if you don't have web hosting Ourmedia offer free hosting, but i found it very slow to upload). Now write a post in your new blog and link to the mp3. My links look like this: http://www.midwinter.org.uk/cotc/sermons/Isaiah1.mp3
iii) The critical part of this process is something called an RSS feed. You get one by seting up a feedburner account, which provides just such a feed. Sign up, then tell feedburner to your blog address.
iv) Feedburner will give you an RSS feed with a name something like http://feeds.feedburner.com/cotcsermons.The RSS feed is what people need to subscribe to your podcast. You can type it into iTunes, or Firefox or whatever you use to listen to podcasts.
That's it. You are podcasting.
v) Optional - Go to the itunes music store, click podcasts and submit a podcast, type in your RSS feed address, and they will (hopefully) list it for you.
And finally a geek trick which is brilliant - create a link to your RSS feed but instead of a http:// prefix like normal, use an itpc:// prefix instead like this:
itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/cotcsermons
and when people click on the link it will open itunes and automatically subscribe your listeners to the podcast. Click here to try it.
