London Regional ICT Champion

Podcasting is a great way of communicating stories to your audience – whether they be clients, service users, funders or casual listeners. Podcasting is also quick, inexpensive and with a little practice can be done by anyone.

In this article, we give a brief tour of podcasting, what it is, why your organisation should adopt it, and point towards resources and other articles for getting started.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to the excellent Jude Habib at SoundDelivery for her time and generousity and for pointing me towards the case studies listed below. They deserve to be heard.

What is podcasting?

According to urban myth the term podcasting derives its name from a combination of Apple’s iPod portable music player and to broadcast. Another urban myth suggests that former MTV video DJ Adam Curry is often referred to by the media as the “podfather”. Curry didn’t invent podcasting, but he was one of the first to popularise it and now has his own show, the Daily Source Code.

Podcasting describes the uploading or publication of audio files to a website and syndication, subscription or automatic downloading of those audio files to a computer or portable music player.

Why podcast?

• Powerful – audio is a powerful, exciting and emotive tool – great for getting your message across
• Ease of use – can be produced cheaply and quickly by anyone
• Widen your audience – easy to publish to iTunes, Yahoo!, etc and reach a wide audience of listeners
• Subscribe – listeners can subscribe to your service using RSS
• Convenience – can be downloaded so listeners can play your podcast anwhere anytime they like

Case Studies:
Still not convinced? Try the studies below which highlight the many different styles of podcasting from story telling, interviews, news reporting, panel discussions and how to guides.

Family Holiday Association: Hear what a London mum, her daughter and her daughter’s friend had to say about their trip in October last year to Flanders.

Podnosh: Nick Booth’s excellent Grassroots channel brings you first hand stories of people who get things done and change the places where they live and the people they live alongside.

Thames Reach: Homeless people interview each other before Christmas

Cancer Research UK: Mix of survivor stories, news and research

St. John’s Ambulance: iFirst Aid

Wandsworth Community Empowerment Network: A single mother tells her story

Tips & Techniques:
Some useful links to get you started on creating and publishing your own podcasts.

How and why articles
Simon Fairway of Juvi Media talks about the power of web audio here.
Check out Paul Colligan’s why podcast video.

Apple, iTunes and podcasting
Download Apple’s free iTunes software
Links to tips, technical specs, FAQs, tutorials and podcast forums

Check your podcast feed is correct
Submit your URL for an instant check.

Podcast directories
BBC Radio podcasts available for download
Podcast.net
Podcastalley.com
Mobilcast.com
Mypodcastcenter.com
Odeo.com
Yahoo! Podcasts

Equipment List:

Recording machine: Edirol R09
Microphone: Bayer MCE 58 (with leads) or similar. There are other microphones which will be just as good – take advice.
Headphones: Sony MDR V-150
Flashcards: Kingston or other 1-2GB Flashcards
Rechargeable batteries
Software: Audacity is open source and free to download for PC, Mac and Linux from other editing software includes Adobe Audition which offers charity rates.

You can also compare equipment prices at:
Dolphin Music and HHB.