So you want to catch the podcasting craze, eh? Not sure where to start? I found this via Nicole’s Useful Sounds blog—Eric Rice — How to build a 10 minute podcast. Very simple and straight forward. Here’s the basic plan:
00:10 date/promo/tease/banter/ad00:20 theme music/intro00:60 preview00:30 ad/promo05:00 small stories/top story00:30 IDENTIFY02:00 feedback/secondary stories00:15 thank sponsor00:15 outroNow go out there and kick some ass!
But this is my favourite piece of advice:
QUICK TIP: Stressed about saying ‘um’ and ‘ahh’? Don’t be. You’re human. Relax. Just don’t do it in the intro to your show. You should never, ever, ever, ever have a reason to hesitate when you are saying your name and your show. It’s an absolute! Practice saying, “Hello, my name is ____, and welcome to _____, the show about ______ and _____!”
Seriously don’t worry about the ums and ahhs. Just relax. And I agree, practice your intro. A lot. Do it over and over until you really like the way it comes out, or you’re comfortable enough you can do it with out faltering.
Beyond that all you need is a basic microphone and software like Audacity–open-source and free–and you could be the next podcasting sensation!
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The content part is the easy part, its the record and sound quality which makes it difficult, even with audacity.
Yes and no. I think there is a certain rough quality that’s okay. All podcasters don’t have to some professionally produced, IMHO. For example my first podcasts were recorded while I was walking into town and talking into a MP3 palyer/voice recorded. Rough, lots of background, but the effect was actually great cool.
Ummm, no ummm–the umms matter. I got lots of feedback when I first started that it got to be painful to listen to–it’s just like spelling on a blog. Combat umms and pauses and ahhs this way,
1. Preperation–know what you’re going to say and write show notes and print it out on paper–this also makes it easier to write the description for the show.
2. I talk in short bytes and then put sweepers (little pieces of music) at the end. I breaks things up. I also edit out a lot of the umms and ahhs.
And it’s much harder to be a podcast sensation than a blogging sensation. Why? No searching. You’re podcast is not indexed like a blog entry that makes more old skol positioning, placements, endorsements, etc more important. Then their is just the fact that it takes a lot more time to do a podcast well, than write a good blog entry.
PS-I’ve learned shorter = better.
http://www.e-church.com/podcast.asp
Tim, I agree with you on shorter is better–I shoot for 15 mins max. On the umms, my point really is relax and just do it. After a while, once you’ve been bitten by the podcast bug, then the umms, ers, and ahs will disappear on their own, or, as you aptly pointed out, edited out.
i am still surprised to see podcasting music is not much prevalent yet.