Podcasting/Vodcasting: Distributing Your Audio and Video Files Via the Web

Podcasting and RSS have taken the internet and its users by storm. Podcasting uses RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, which is an XML-based technology. Podcast creators describe new content in an XML RSS file which includes dates, titles, descriptions, and links to MP3 files; this is called an RSS feed. The key to making podcasting work with RSS is enclosures, a feature supported by RSS version 2.0. In order to create a Podcast, you must be able to create an RSS feed. In order to create an RSS feed, you must have some basic working knowledge of XML.

We will introduce XML as a basic platform that RSS sits upon. Then we will explain how Podcasting uses RSS and how you can exploit many of the Podcasting-specifc elements to get your content distributed to hundreds or thousands of visitors as often as you'd like.

We assume you already have your podcast content (e.g. your audio, video, or other files) created and put on a publicly-accessible server (such as your UW Student or Staff web publishing space). If you are looking for information on the hardware and software necessary to create spoken audio files (like those used in Podcasting), please visit our GaraBand or Intro to Acid workshops in the Audio Series or the iMovie or Windows Movie Maker workshops in the Video Series. Getting these files online is as simple as putting them in your public_html (or student_html) folder on your Dante account.

Let's get started...