PODCASTING PRODUCTION

IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF

THE GROWING NEED TO COMMUNICATE YOUR MESSAGE

OVER THE INTERNET

AS WELL AS TO MARKET YOUR PODCAST

By Sara Pentz

Sara Pentz Production provides podcasting services to businesses, trade and educational associations, non-profits and individuals. We coach, train, create, interview, record, produce, market and post-produce Podcasts. We create Podcasts with content for an audience that wants to listen when they want, where they want, and how they want. We also bring advertisers together with podcasters who would like to make money on their show.

Using our marketing expertise we allow our fully produced Podcasts to be optimized for the search engines. We customize programs and solutions designed to increase Podcast visibility for key audiences by generating highly targeted, well qualified search-engine-generated leads and inquiries. These include keyword research, Google Sitemap Feeds, usability analysis, web analytics, pay-per-click management, contextual advertising, email marketing and ROI tracking.

Producer Sara Pentz works with clients to create relevant formatting and content for Podcasting. She is a professional journalist with a background as a television news reporter/anchor, a radio show host, magazine writer/editor, and newspaper writer.

A podcast is generally analogous to subscription to a recorded television or radio series. Multi purpose podcasts can fill a company’s needs in many ways including making them an authority in their field. You can send your podcasts to employees, subcontractors, business associates, consumers, potential buyers or the media ––– and target each with a specific message.

As a content provider we make a podcast file available on the Internet with an RSS feed. The only requirement is that the file be accessible through some known URL.

HISTORY OF PODCASTING

(With Thanks in part to Wikipedia.com)

Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using RSS or syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. Podcasting, as such, has evolved from the original concept, and initial appeal, that allowed individuals to distribute their "radio shows" over the Internet. The process was officially labeled podcasting in early 2004.

The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary declared "podcasting" the 2005 word of the year, defining the term as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player." It is now generally accepted that the term podcast also includes video.

The concept of podcasting was suggested as early as 1994 but its technical components of using an RSS feed became widely available by 2001. In 2003 regular podcasts started showing up on well-known websites and software support spread.

The system quickly became used in a wide variety of other ways, including distribution of school lessons, official and unofficial audio tours of museums, conference meeting alerts and updates, and by police departments to distribute public safety messages.

Today, podcasting presents a way for individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses and corporations to communicate in a meaningful way to the many millions who participate in the reception of podcasts. It is a powerful marketing tool for those who know how to take advantage of its many benefits.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

(With Thanks again to Wikipedia.com)

The term podcast can mean both the content and the method of delivery. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Though podcasters' websites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading feeds like RSS.

RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Using RSS, a webmaster can put content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through a RSS-aware software.

The publish/subscribe model of podcasting is a version of push technology, in that the information provider chooses which files to offer in a feed and the subscriber chooses among available feed channels. While the user is not "pulling" individual files from the Web, there is a strong "pull" aspect in that the receiver is free to subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) a vast array of channels.

Podcasting is an automatic mechanism whereby multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client, In general, these files contain audio or video, but also could be images, text, PDF, or any file type.

Interestingly, it is estimated that perhaps only 20% of podcasts are actually consumed on portable media players; 80% are consumed on the PC onto which they are downloaded. Some applications, such as iTunes, also automatically make the newly downloaded episodes available to a user's portable media player.

The downloaded episodes can then be played, replayed, sent to others or archived as with any other computer file.

To conserve bandwidth, users may opt to search for content using an online podcast directory or Podcatcher. Some directories allow people to listen online and initially become familiar with the content provided from an RSS Feed before deciding to subscribe. For most broadband users, bandwidth is generally not a major consideration, it could fairly be stated that Podcasting itself is a technology that came with the increases in global bandwidth and broadband popularity.