An easy way to put together a podcast.

I have spent some time looking for an easy way to put together an audio podcast. I think I found a pretty decent, no-cost way to do this. I am posting the steps here hoping it would help others who are starting to think of doing some basic audio podcasts.

Please note, this little post doesn't go over how to get one's podcasts showing up on iTunes and such. (If you know how to do that, please send me a note!)

There are 3 major steps to get a podcast ready for public consumption.
1. Recording.
2. Hosting.
3. Sharing/Publishing.

1. Recording

a. I use Google's G-talk to do the recording. If you don't have it, get it from this link.
b. In G-Talk, add your second (dummy) Gmail account as a contact and use the "Send voicemail" feature to record and send the audio file to that account. G-talk automatically converts the voice file into a low-quality MP3 file that is sufficient for podcast purposes.
c. Login to your second Gmail box and retrieve the MP3 file and save it locally.
d. Rename the file to be a more descriptive one so it is easy for you to identify in the future.

2. Hosting

a. You can use Google's "Google Pages" for hosting the files. If you haven't set it up yet, follow the easy steps at http://pages.google.com/ Please note, you don't have to create nor publish any web pages at this site for what we are trying to do.
b. Once your Google pages are set up, Use the "Uploaded stuff" link to upload the MP3 file.
c. Right-click on the newly uploaded file and select "Copy Shortcut" -or- "Copy Link Location".
d. Now the public URL for your podcast is in saved in the clipboard, and can be published in your blog.

3. Sharing / Publishing

There are various ways of sharing your podcast. One is simply to provide a link to the file (as shown in 2.d above.) If you would like to share it in a more elegant way, you could make use of the services of the Podcast Pickle people :) Here is how:

a. Go to their website available through this link.
b. In the text box where it says: "Input the URL of the file you want to play here" add the link to your MP3 file from 2.d.
c. Make sure to check the box with label: "Instantly Load the Media"
d. Click on the button "Get Your Free Single Episode Player" This will generate a code that can be embedded into your blog. Copy/Paste this code into your blog and then you are all set!

Please try these steps and let me know how it goes. If you don't have a second Gmail address, please feel free to send your voicemail to podcast (at) empran (dot) com and I will send the MP3 file back to you in a timely manner.