How to Podcast

Seeing as I couldn't find any instructables on this, I decided to start an instructable on how to make your own podcast and get it discovered by the world!

The first step in creating a podcast is... coming up with an idea for the podcast! You should probably talk about something that you're interested in. Whatever you choose, make sure you have a lot to say about whatever topic you choose.

So, you're going to need a microphone to record your podcast. It doesn't matter how good it is! You can use a really expensive microphone, or a really cheap one. I use a cheap headset mic that I got for $15. You're also going to need some sort of audio editing software. The one I use is Audacity, but if you have a Mac, you can use GarageBand. If you're willing to shell out the cash, you can get Adobe Audition. Now, all of these programs can record audio into your computer box thingy, so you don't need anything else to record. Also, to be a little less of a douchbag, you may want a pair of headphones.

Now, you want to edit your podcast! You can use the same software that you used to record to edit your podcast, but you'll want to edit music into your podcast as bumper music or intro music, etc. A good place for license-free music that you can use is Freeplay Music, who also have some sound effects to use as well. You could also search for sound effects to use and Broadcast Production Music to use in your podcast.

This is a very important step. You're going to want to publish your podcast so that people can listen to it! To publish a podcast, you'll need to create a blog on a site such as Blogger or WordPress. Publish your podcasts onto your blog in an mp3 format, and spread the RSS feed around for people to pick it up!

OPTIONAL:

Using the RSS feed, go to FeedBurner and enter the RSS feed into the podcast section and use the SmartCast function to optimize your feed for podcast aggregators like iTunes. Go into iTunes and in the podcast sections, you can submit your own podcast. use the FeedBurner RSS URL and use that as the URL, and wait for the podcast to show up (This should take about 3-7 days) and voila! You've got a podcast!!!

Here are more detailed instructions for iTunes