I am in the process of producing a series of PodTherapies, which are five minutes, self-help MP3 audio files.
Q) How can people who like my PodTherapies find out, automatically, when I publish a new one without them having to keep checking my page or me having to tell them?
A) i) I create an RSS feed which
ii) they load into their podgrabber.
The podgrabber runs in the background on their pc and, while they are on-line, checks my feed for updates and when it finds one, it tells them.
RSS stands for Really Simple Synchronization which, I think, is RVM (Really Very Misleading!).
An RSS feed is a page on a website written in xml source code rather than html source code. The page is not meant to be read. Its purpose is to exist so that its URL can be entered into a podgrabber. Here’s my feed.
http://mindsci-clinic.com/PodTherapy.xml
If you go to the page you will see that no one would want to read it. No one does. They simply put the URL into their podgrabber.
Writing the (xml) code for the page can be done in a text editor and then published on your site however you publish the rest of your pages. But it’s easier to do with a little applet designed specifically for the task. I use Feed For All. It’s free for 40 days and then you have to buy an access code which costs £28.14 inc VAT.
The other bit of kit you will need is the podgrabber. I use iPodder. It’s free, easy to use and has a cute little icon for your desktop.
http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php
One other download worth mentioning is and MP3 encoder called LAME.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Lame_Encoder.htm
I record my PodTherapies as .wav files and then use LAME to convert them to MP3 format. LAME does a much better job than the encoder in my sound-editing software. So this one’s optional, but it’s free and I recommend it. (And, in fact, it was recommended to me by BlueChip.)
Now you have everything you need to publish your RSS feed, and check that it works, let’s do it.
Feed For All is not completely intuitive if, like me, you don’t have a fully formed model of PodCasting resident somewhere in your neocortex. So I’m going to walk you through it step by step because I think that’s better than using their wizard.
First you have to decide what to call you feed. Let’s suppose you want to call it PodTastic.
Go to Feed - New
On the Feeds tab
Enter PodTastic as your Title.
Enter something like ‘Parls of wisdom for the pod generation’ or some other Description that will serve as a general description for all your podcasts.
Don’t worry about the fact that it still says untitled.xml It will stay like that until the feed is saved, and you can’t do that yet.
On the Items tab
Go to the Item menu and select New
On the Required tab
Enter (for example) “Be Nice To The People You Meet” as the title (this will automatically amend the Item name in the left hand frame) and
Enter (e.g.) “In this 10 minute podcast I explain that you should be nice to the people meet on the way up in case you meet them again on the way down” as the description
NB – The item refers to the specific PodCast.
Enter the link for the page which is your podcasting homepage; i.e., http://www.mysite.co.uk/pearls.htm
On the Optional tab
(This is where, if I recall correctly, the Wizard let me down and the applet is counter-intuitive. There’s an element on the ‘Optional’ tab that is absolutely bloomin’ essential.)
Ignore the first three lines, and
Click the dropdown arrow for Enclosure
URL, enter the location of the relevant MP3: i.e., http://www.mysite.co.uk/benice.mp3
Length, enter 8543 (where the kb size of your file is, e.g., 8543)
Type, enter: MP3
Close the dropdown box
For Author, enter: Marc Thomas Hogan
No comments are necessary
On the Images tab
I have yet to figure out what this is all about and as doing nothing is not detrimental to my podcasting, as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing to do!
You are almost ready to publish. First go Feed – Save As, and save the feed as PodTastic.xml (or whatever else you may have decided to call it). It’s case sensitive so make sure you know exactly what you are calling it. Once saved you will find it listed on the Feeds tab instead of the old untitled.xml. Now you are ready to publish.
Publishing is done by ftp (file transfer protocol).
Go to Feed – Upload
Enter your ftp server. Mine is ftp.mindsci-clinic.com Yours might be ftp. www.mysite.co.uk but it might be something else. If you don’t know, check with whoever you buy your space from (your hosts).
Enter the username you normally use to publish to you site.
The password may be the same one you normally use to publish to your site. Some hosts, however, require you to register a specific password for ftp activity. You may choose to use the same password or you may choose a different one. Again, if your regular password doesn’t work, check with your hosts (if you have them).
Leave the mode as Passive
Leave the Path blank
Enter the filename: PodTastic.xml (case sensitive)
Click Upload
Grin inanely when it says “Your file has successfully uploaded.”
If now you enter http://www.mysite.co.uk/PodTastic.xml in your browser’s address bar you should see a page of xml source code like the one you saw earlier on my site.
It’s not compulsory, but you might also like to add a little XML button on your general podcasting page, hyperlinked to PodSuasion.xml so that podders can find the page, grab the addy and feed it to their podgrabber.
This is easy.
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/
are the most popular outside of Apple who seemed too complicated and expensive. The others are free. The registration process is pretty intuitive but if you have a problem let me know.
iPodder is the applet I use to let me know when sites I am interested in, update. I also use it to make sure my updates have worked. Essentially, you ‘subscribe’ to http://www.mysite.co.uk/PodTastic.xml by feeding it into your iPodder and it ought to list the available downloads. Every time you publish a new Item in your Feed, ipodder will find it and tell you, and everyone else who is similarly subscribed to your feed.
As far as possible, that’s the guide I wish I had had when I first attempted podcasting.
For enquiries and appointments call 020 8948 2439
or email bt@mindsci-clinic.com