Podcasts, iTunes, and U !

Podcasts, iTunes, and U ! Mark Branom, IT Services Tech Briefing 10/26/2007

Topics Introduction What Is a Podcast? Why Use and/or Create Podcasts? Obtaining and Using Podcasts Creating Podcasts Planning a Podcast Recording Audio Podcasts What You’ll Need Audio Software Publishing Podcasts at Stanford iTunes at Stanford Main iTunes at Stanford Community iTunes Web space (AFS, departmental, etc.) RSS Feeds What is an RSS Feed? An RSS Feed Example Submitting RSS Feeds Resources Table of Contents

Introduction • What Is a Podcast? “Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.” (wikipedia.org) • Why Use and/or Create Podcasts? • For Staff, podcasts can deliver information about a department or group internally (to just the department), to Stanford as a whole, or to the entire world. Podcasts can be used for newsworthy events in the department, for highlighting special events and/or people in the department, and for presenting and disseminating other information to the desired audience in an engaging manner. • For Faculty (or staff supporting Faculty), podcasts can deliver educational content for listening or viewing on a computer and/or iPod, freeing learning from constraints of the physical classroom. Content could be anything from curriculum-related presentations to professional development ideas and used to disseminate best practices between other faculty. Instructors can easily create a podcast of daily assignments and class lectures from class, and publish it for all of their students. Media File + Advertising via RSS = Podcast

Introduction, continued Locating and Obtaining Podcasts • Podcast search engines allow you to find podcasts: • www.apple.com/itunes/ • www.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Podcasts/Directories/ • podcasts.yahoo.com/ • www.podscope.com/ • getapodcast.com/ • podcast.net/ • podcastdirectory.com/ • ipodder.org/ • www.allpodcasts.com/ • Podcatcher software automatically downloads podcasts to your computer and/or iPod or other media device: • www.apple.com/itunes/ • juicereciever.sourceforge.net/ • www.podcastingnews.com/topics/Podcast_Software.html

Creating a Podcast Planning a Podcast • Research your topic. • Write out what you plan to say. • Block out the segments of your podcast. • Typical 60-minute radio show: • Introduction and “hook” (a snapshot of what is covered and why listeners would want to listen) • Segment 1 • Break • Segment 2 • Break • Segment 3 • Break • Final points and summary of podcast • Typical 10-minute podcast: • Introduction and “hook” • Main segment • Summary of segment • Final points

Recording and Editing Podcasts To record a podcast, you’ll need: • A computer (any modern computer will do – Mac, Windows, Linux) • A microphone (a good microphone will cost around $100) http://radio.about.com/od/podcastin1/a/blcomparemikes.htm • Software to record and edit the podcast. For audio podcasts, Audacity is a good choice. For video podcasts, Windows Movie Maker (Windows) and iMovie (Mac) are good choices. • Storage for the audio file you create (iTunes at Stanford, a web server such as your Stanford AFS web space, etc.)

Software Audio Software • Free tools • Audacity (Mac/Windows): http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ • GarageBand (Mac only – it’s part of iLife, and is free with new Macs): http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/ • Other tools ($35 - $500) • Audition (Windows only): http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/ • Soundbooth (Mac/Windows): http://www.adobe.com/products/soundbooth/ • SoundEdit Pro (Windows only): http://www.rmbsoft.com/sep.asp Video Software • iMovie (Macintosh only): http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/ • Windows Movie Maker (Windows only): http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/create/default.mspx • Avid FreeDV (Mac/Windows): http://www.avid.com/freedv/ • MovieWorks (Mac/Windows): http://www.movieworks.com/ • Quicktime (Mac/Windows): http://www.quicktime.com/ • Director (Mac/Windows): http://www.adobe.com/products/director/ • WindowsMedia: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/

Publishing Podcasts at Stanford At Stanford, there are several ways you can publish your podcasts. • iTunes at Stanford • Main iTunes at Stanford web site: http://itunes.stanford.edu • This is the public site, visible to the entire world. It is most appropriate for things like concerts, faculty lectures, sporting events, and other things that the general public or alumni might be interested in. • If you wish to contribute to the main iTunes at Stanford website, the rules and configurations are listed at https://www.stanford.edu/group/adci/contribute/ • Community iTunes: http://itunes.stanford.edu/community/ • This is the Stanford-only site, visible only to people with valid SUNet IDs. • If you wish to contribute to the Community iTunes site, contact Jeremy Sabol at jsabol@stanford.edu. • On the Stanford AFS Web server • Stanford University provides each employee and student 200 MB of disk space on the AFS Web server account to use as they wish. • Instructions for publishing to your AFS Web server account is at the websiteFile Transfer at Stanford, http://filetransfer.stanford.edu/.

RSS Feeds • What is RSS (Really Simple Syndication)? “RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.” (wikipedia.org) • An excellent 2-minute video explaining RSS in plain English is at: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

RSS Feeds, continued • RSS feeds are XML files. Here is a sample RSS feed: <?xml version="1.0"?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Title of Feed Goes Here</title> <description>Description of Feed Goes Here</description> <link>Link to the Feed Goes Here</link> <item> <title>Title of Podcast Goes Here</title> <description>Description of Podcast</description> <link>Link to Podcast</link> <guid>Link to Podcast</guid> <enclosure url="Link to Podcast" type="audio/mpeg" length="file size in bytes" /> </item> </channel> </rss>

Submitting RSS Feeds • Doing it yourself:

Submitting RSS Feeds, continued • Using a service • http://itunes.apple.com/ • http://www.submitrssfeed.com/ • http://www.feedsubmitter.com/ • http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html • http://allrss.com/rsssubmission.html

Creating a Transcript • Be sure to create a transcript of your podcast. • Having a transcript is important for accessibility reasons, but also since some people might not have the time to listen to the entire podcast, they might prefer to skim through the transcript to see what your podcast contains. • Further, if you add a transcript to your podcast, you can make searching through your podcast much easier by search engines as well as human beings (i.e., at timestamp 3 minutes, 22 seconds the speaker begins talking about the influence of computers on society). • While it is time-consuming to do it yourself, here are some places you can go to have transcripts created for you: • http://castingwords.com/ • http://www.docsoft.com/ • http://www.automaticsync.com/

Resources • Hands-on Podcasting class – ITS-2652 Podcasts: Creating Audio Podcasts at StanfordInstructions for signing up for the class are at http://techtraining.stanford.edu/ • A list of 70-plus resources on creating and using podcasts (tutorials, how-to guides, hosting sites, advertising sites, etc.):http://mashable.com/2007/07/04/podcasting-toolbox/ • Validate a podcast RSS feed:http://www.allpodcasts.com/Tools/RSSValidator.aspx • Validate any RSS feed (including podcasts):http://validator.w3.org/feed/ • IT Services Tech Briefing iTunes at Stanford – includes podcasting resources:http://techbriefings.stanford.edu/itunes/ • Learn how to restrict access to podcast mp3 files (or any other file):IT Services Technology Training Course Web Design: Protecting Documents on the Web • Books: • Abel, Jessica, and Glass, Ira, Radio: An Illustrated Guide (Chicago: WBEZ Alliance, 1999) http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Store.aspx • Mack, Steve, and Ratcliffe, Mitch, Podcasting Bible (Indianapolis: Wiley, 2007) • Herrington, Jack, Podcasting Hacks (Sebastobol: O’Reilly, 2005)

Podcasts, iTunes, and U !