Finding Podcast Hosting

For anyone who wants to begin creating a podcast, podcast hosting is the most important part. Before anyone can begin distributing a podcast, they need a place to store the files and keep the feed file that will tell their subscribers about the new episodes available.

The first thing required is a domain name where the site will be located. Many domain registrars are available who will help one register a domain name for a small fee. Once the domain is registered, hosting is required, and again there are many different companies willing to do the hosting for a small fee. One of those is bluehost.com, but many others are available. When looking for a host, the most important thing is to make sure that a lot bandwidth and storage space is available and cheap. Since podcasting deals with large media files, a lot of disk space will be taken up storing the files and bandwidth will be eaten quickly when they are downloaded by the subscribers.

After podcast hosting has been acquired, it needs to be used and the site needs to be set up. The DNS addresses of the site need to be set to the addresses that the host provides you so that the servers that underlie the internet will know where your site is. DNS addresses can be set by going to the domain registrar that was used to acquire the domain and inputting the addresses provided by the host. After that is done, it will take a few days before the master list the domain registar updates will be shared throughout the internet and all name servers know where to find your specific domain. You can then go about setting up your own podcast.

Using the podcast hosting you now have, you will need to look at the disk space allocated to the site using something called and FTP browser. The host may provide one as part of their hosting plan, but if not there are many available free to choose from. Using the FTP browser, log on to the host and upload a file called dircaster.php after editing it to fit the specifics of the site. Dircaster.php is an easy to find piece of coding that generates a feed file by looking at the contents of its directory or folder. The individual episodes to be podcasted can then be uploaded to the same folder as dircaster.php for cataloging. Make sure that all the meta data, or information about the mp3 file is correct before doing so.

The podcast hosting you now have will allow you to distribute a podcast. It would be best to upload more to the site, such as an index page that tells visitors about the podcast and provides the address of the file dircaster.php on your site. When they subscribe to that file, the podcast client thy use will access it and recieve information about the latest podcasts available.

A Podcast Client

A podcast client is the software used to access and download podcasts. Podcast clients are also known as media aggregators, programs designed to automatically access an online file, or feed, and download the audio or video file associated with it. Hundreds of these programs exist, with names like IpodderX, Juice, Nimiq, and PodSpider.

These podcast clients are easy to find, and because there are so many available for free, it is easy to find one that suits an individuals needs and style. These programs run on the users computer, periodically downloading a small RSS file from sites that it has been told to monitor. The file tells the program about an audio or video file stored on the server, and the podcast client then downloads that file for the user to view or listen to.

The podcast client thus allows the user to view information on a wide range of topics from their computer, without even using a web browser. Just like blogs let people find writers they enjoyed for any niche topic they were interested in, podcasts let people do them same for audio and video. Its as if a thousands of radio and television channels were created to serve every possible interest, and more were made every day.

Using the podcast client to access and download the files makes it as easy to keep up with the sites one likes as it is to publish the feed.

Podcast RSS Feeds

A Podcast RSS feed is what allows the entire system to function. To begin at the beginning, a podcast is a regular distribution of audio or visual files, called episodes, to a users podcast client. The people who use a podcast are called subscribers, and the podcast client is what allows them to subscribe to a feed. The podcast client is a program that connects to the internet, looking for a specific file the user has subscribed to, or told it to look for. That file is an RSS feed, a machine readable piece of coding that sends information back to the podcast client. RSS feeds can be used to distribute many kinds of information, and were originally used for blogging and distributing blog posts to subscribers. As time went on, however, a few people had the idea of enclosing information about media files within the RSS feed so that software could be written to find that information and download the files described.

The Podcast RSS feeds became a hit, and podcast clients were quickly written to allow people to use the new encoding. Podcasting became a means of quickly and cheaply sharing episodes with subscribers. Rather than requiring subscribers to visit the site that hosted the files everytime they wanted to know if a new episode was released, users could rely on the podcast client to do the work for them, keeping track of numerous podcast rss feeds that interested them and downloading the files to be viewed when they wished.

Podcast RSS feeds are now used to distribute a number of different types of podcasts. Some producers use it as way to share a comedy or news program that they produce, others podcast in order to share music files they create, and some podcast to share video files they have created and to showcase their work. Podcasting allows the producers to become radio or television stars without the large investment in time and money that wuld be required to do that. Because podcasting has such a low entry cost, requiring little more than a server and a domain to host the site and a way to record the media, thousands of people who otherwise would not have a chance to work in a media environment have a chance to do so through their podcast rss feeds.

In this way, podcast RSS feeds allow media publishing over the internet at a fraction of the cost of other forms of media distribution, permitting people with much smaller budgets to compete in some way. However, podcast rss feeds are also attracting more established companies and groups as well, bringing people from NPR radio stations and news organizations like CNN who use podcasting as yet another means to distribute their product to end users.