Episode #13 of the Out-Smarts Podcast was posted this week and it was a milestone for us. Our interview with Louise Desmarais was the first one recorded remotely with Louise in Calgary and me in Vancouver. It was another new experience in podcasting.

Our first attempt at recording the podcast using Skype to communicate and Audio Hijack to record failed dismally. Audio Hijack is great technology that allows you to record your Skype calls in MP3 formatt. Its perfect for uploading easily to Garageband to edit and enhance.

Unfortunately the best laid plans don’t always come to bear. Part way into our call, the Skype connection was lost and we had to abort. Not wanting to risk the same happening again, we went to plan b. I would use my podcast doohicky on my iPod and we would record it over speakerphone. The result, a great podcast with better sound quality than some of the in person one’s we’ve done in the past. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

Links:
New Experiences in Podcasting 6
New Experiences in Podcasting 5
New Experiences in Podcasting 4
Podcasting – Dead or Alive
New Experiences in Podcasting 3
New Experiences in Podcasting 2
NewExperiences in Podcasting 1

Nothing to do on a rainy weekend? Then check out Spark, a CBC blog, radio show and podcast that focuses on technology and culture – hosted by Nora Young. Of particular interest is the podcast with Merlin Mann of 43 Folders where they discuss how you can build a great online presence. This week’s episode looks at writing a good blog. Here’s an excerpt – I highly encourage you to check out the podcast:

“The best thing you can do for yourself, and for anybody who’s ever going to read what you do, is to really narrow your focus by thinking about who your audience is. Who is it that I think is going to be following what I do, and who specifically do I want to reach with this?”.

You’ve put together a great podcast. It is creative, interesting and adds value for your intended audience now what? What do you do with your podcast to make it available to intended recipients. In order to explain this I like to use the newspaper analogy from traditional media. Its all very well that you have a great rag but without newsagents, newspaper boxes and delivery services it doesn’t have a chance of being read.

By creating an RSS feed you can solve the delivery services component but where should your podcast appear so that people can find it. The answer is by listing your podcast in with the major podcast engines. These are:

iTunes
Blubrry
Odeo
Podcast Alley
Podcast Ready
Yahoo Podcasts
Podnova

It takes a bit of time and effort and you have to register with most of these to do so but the benefits are multiple in extending the reach of your podcast. Just be patient as the process is far from instantaneous.

Good podcasting!

If you have more to add to the list – please let us know.
Links:

New Experiences in Podcasting 5
New Experiences in Podcasting 4
Podcasting – Dead or Alive
New Experiences in Podcasting 3
New Experiences in Podcasting 2
NewExperiences in Podcasting 1

Out-Smarts has been working on a really exciting podcast project with local branding evangelists and business coaching firm LeapZone Strategies.

The podcast is called Rise and it tackles the issues companies and entrepreneurs face as they grow their company and establish their brand.

Each episode is short and to the point and covers pertinent issues such as getting more done in less time, effective time management and learning tolerance. Even more important, the podcasts are entertaining and well worth a listen so visit the site and subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast reader for some valuable insights that will help you raise the bar in your business endeavours.

After a brief hiatus over the summer, our podcast is back and once more were having some great adventures producing and presenting the feed. This week we tackled branding and next week we’re looking forward to discussing some design and development tips to make your website more magnetic.

The hardest podcasting lesson we’ve learned lately is that if you set up an RSS feed for your podcast, there is a good chance that RSS readers (like Google reader) will pick up blog posts as well as podcasts. This isn’t ideal, especially if you want to promote your podcast channel effectively.

Thankfully we came upon a great solution thanks to the good folks over at WordPress. Simply categorize each podcast in a dedicated category (ours is podcast) then add some code to your .htaccess file to redirect the traffic. The result: a dedicated podcast feed featuring only your audio work.

Our next New Adventures in Podcasting post will tackle how and where you should promote your podcasts until then check out the previous posts in this series and good podcasting!

New Experiences in Podcasting 4
Podcasting – Dead or Alive
New Experiences in Podcasting 3
New Experiences in Podcasting 2
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If you have listened to our latest podcasts you might have noticed something. We’re getting much better at it! Finally, all of the trial and errors embarking on our podcast adventure are beginning to pay off. Here are some of the podcasting best practises we have learned on our journey so far.

1. Get good equipment – make sure its all compatible and easy to use. You’ll need podcast editing software, a recording device and a place to post.
2. Record in a quiet place – there’s nothing like a baby crying in the background to put your audience off.
3. Be prepared – a podcast should be natural and in the moment but it doesn’t harm to be prepared upfront with a list of topics to discuss.
4. Streamline the process as much as possible – avoids having to have too much time editing and manipulating.
5. Keep it short – that way you avoid having a colossal file to upload to your server.
6. Promote your Pod in all the right places. Do it separately from your blog or site to build links and remember to submit it to iTunes.
7. Interview industry experts and vary the topic but try to keep within your chosen theme.
8. Don’t get cocky. Don’t assume everything is going to go right just because it did last time. Be prepared for curved balls. Do a sound check to make sure your equipment is recording and the sound is good.

I came a across this great video from Common Craft on the Twist Image blog. The clip explains social media in an easy to understand way by putting it into a context the beginners can relate to: ice cream .

And if you like that you should also check out their podcasting, Twitter and wiki explanations too.

The latest Out-Smarts’ podcast tackles the relatively new concept of crowdsourcing with Monica Hamburg, social media evangelist, writer and comedian. Crowdsourcing is a way of tapping into the online masses and collaborating with them.

[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/Podcast5.mp3]

Here are some of the links Monica mentions in the interview.

Monica’s websites: www.monicahamburg.com, Me Like The Interweb

Crowdsourcing sites: Sellaband, istockphoto, Crowdsourcing

Neat Sites: My Name is Kate, Read Write Web, Problogger
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-405455b2ebaa02e9550208025ef3f134}

Podcast: Download

A recent Information Week article asks the question – Is podcasting dead?. The article cites that “there is no easy way to sample podcasts without an excessive and irretrievable investment of time” as the reason that podcasting hasn’t taken off.

Lets look at the numbers to see if podcasting is indeed dying a death. eMarketer estimates that the total US audience for podcasts reached 18.5 million in 2007 and is expected to grow by 251% by 2012. These statistics hardly reflect the death throes of a dying medium but the growth rate isn’t exactly stellar if you compare it to other web 2.0 technologies.

The reason for its slow adoption rate is indeed, as Alexander Wolfe of Information Week suggests, a result of podcast complexity. And this doesn’t only apply to users.

Creating and publishing a podcast is not as seamless or as simple as it should be either. If you’ve read any of my new experiences in podcasting posts you will know of my own frustrations with the technology and I am relatively tech savvy. It seems to me that if you want to podcast you have to be a true propeller head. At this point that is podcasting’s main barrier to entry.

iTunes has tried to streamline the podcast publishing process but even using Garageband to create a podcast on a Mac doesn’t guarantee simple podcast submission.

On the bright side for podcasting, more and more traditional media outlets are using the technology to disseminate audio so that users can listen on the run and users are recognizing the benefits of being able to listen on their terms (coincidentally, one of my first ever blog posts back in 2005 touched on this). Global TV in Vancouver offers video and audio podcasts of its news content.

Podcasting is not dead but its not exactly burgeoning either. As podcasting is promoted more to the mainstream it will become more prevalent (it is slowly gaining popularity, especially in the 35-54 age group) but until producers can create and publish podcasts efficiently and users can access them as easily as turning on the radio, podcasting growth with remain slow.

I bet you’ve been dying to find out how I finally managed to get the podcast up last week. It was no easy feat let me tell you….

I got several responses to my request for tips. One very intuitive one was to use iTunes to reduce the size of the file. Choose Preferences and Advanced and Importing (click on custom to set the rate) in iTunes should get you there then Advanced and save as to complete the process. Too simple perhaps – alas the file was too gargantuan.

The final resolution? I ended up using ftp to post the podcast directly on to the website server and then link to it from there. And I claim to not be a propeller head…

Along the way I also learnt that iChat can be very useful for supporting podcasts over the Internet. And received some great tips on how to make the podcast experience better for the user: more juicy stuff for you to look forward to in future New Experiences in Podcasting as I put these suggestions into action (or try to at least).