Category Archives: Week 6

Week 6

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Student Presentation & Discussion

  • Students present completed TODO List items (homework) on the Project Wiki
  • Students and Professor discuss missing data and suggest next actions for Podcast Project.
  • Tasks are given to each team member for in-class and out-of-class (homework) refinements.
  • NOTE: Please keep in mind the project is due on March 23rd. Grades will be determined not only by project completion and quality, but by effective collaboration and the completion of scheduled/assigned tasks. Not completing your assigned tasks on schedule affects all project members.

Lecture

Production Phase II: Releasing the Podcast

  1. Optimizing your audio file: Once your file has been edited and is ready to go, we need to make sure it’s in a format that is acceptable to iTunes and other podcast aggregators. Formats exported by Garageband (.m4a) and other audio applications (.mp3) are acceptable for audio podcasts.
  2. Distributing your Podcast: Once your podcast has been optimized for the web, you need to look at the different options for distribution.

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW:

  • Podcasts are distributed using FEEDS.
  • Popular types of feeds are RSS and Atom (Common Craft Video: RSS in Plain English)
  • Many podcasts and blogs use a service called Feedburner for syndication. Here’s a example from RadioLab. Feedburner makes sure your content is properly formatted for all of the major podcatchers and directories, like Google, Yahoo, Odeo, etc.
  • Many Podcasts also available exclusively through the iTunes Store. Here’s an example from Realtime with Bill Maher (caution the link on this site will attempt to open iTunes).

Distributing your Podcast:

Let’s look at few different ways of making our podcast available to the public: 1) Using a free podcasting service, which incorporates hosting, blog and RSS feed creation;  2) Using a separate free hosting service, a free blog (like WordPress), a free feed service (feedburner); 3) Using your own host and creating an xml file by hand (the old fashion way).

1) Using the free podcasting service like Podbean.com

      2) Finding a “free” option using WordPress.com, free file hosting service, and feedburner:

      1. Create a new blog on WordPress.com for your podcast (for example)
      2. Upload  your audio file to a free hosting service that allows for hot-linking  (http://www.fileden.com)
      3. Create a new post on  your blog using the audio support technique described here.
      4. Login to Feedburner (if you already have gmail account you can use that otherwise use the student.citytech.cuny account mentioned in class) and add a new feed using your blog rss feed.

      3) The old fashion way: If you have your own web host, you can upload your audio file, create an RSS/Atom xml file, and submit the URL to iTunes or Feedburner for distribution.  If you create your feed the old fashion way you need to make sure  your XML file validates.

      This is an example of an audio file and corresponding XML file posted to my server:

        1. Audio File: http://jennaspevack.com/podcasts/jenna.mp3
        2. XML file: http://jennaspevack.com/podcasts/artisttalks.xml
          Please choose View Page Source from the browser menu to see the actual XML file
          • Compare these two completing feed types: RSS feed and Atom feed
          • This Feed Validator will make sure your XML file validates: http://validator.w3.org/feed/
            Test this feed using the validator: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ArtistTalk

          Submitting your Podcast to iTunes Store

          In order to submit a podcast to iTunes it needs to be on a server with a publicly accessible URL and it must include the necessary tags. Any of the three options above should work.

          1. Test your podcast in iTunes:
            • Login to iTunes
            • Go to Advanced >Subscribe to Podcast
            • Enter your PodBean podcast feed URL (http://yourusername.podbean.com/feed) or location of your feed on your blog or host.
            • If your podcast starts to download in iTunes you can proceed to the next step
          2. Submit a Podcast to iTunes Store

          Lab / Homework

          Finish audio recording and effects/intro/outro

          1. Record Mamalade and Steel Dragon.
          2. Remainder of Dr. Sussio
          3. Mix and edit intro and variations
          4. Update TODO list

          Question: Have you commented on a classmates blog in the last 2 weeks? If not, we will have to return to the weekly posting and commenting schedule. Sorry Matt.