Podcasting Pocket Guide: Tips & Tools for Finding, Listening To, and Creating Podcasts

by Jack Herrington, Kirk McElhearn, Richard Giles

With more than three thousand feeds in the iPodder directory and at least ten more being added every day, podcasting is undeniably hot. Podcasting Pocket Guide is a non-technical guide for the non-geek who wants in on this revolutionary new online medium--for those interested in enjoying the best podcasts or producing them.

While podcasts seem like Internet "radio programs," they are definitely not radio. And that's a very good thing for...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596102305
• ISBN13: 9780596102302
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.4" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

This pocket book delivers...

I'm an O'Reilly fan and must own a few dozen O'Reilly books, so please take my prejudice into account. Still I think it is a rational bias considering the quality and reliability of O'Reilly products. Enough preliminaries, let's get into the review. This book definitely lives up to it's subtitle - "Tips & Tools for Finding, Listening To and Creating Podcasts" - 100%. It's also one of that rare breed, a "Pocket Guide", that actually fits in your pocket. It's a great introduction for someone seeking a brief overview of the whole field. Jack Harrington, one of the trio of authors, was known to me prior to reading the book from an excellent series of podcasts he narrated on podcasting technology. I'm more interested in podcast production than in the podcast "consumption" side of things. This book, as the subtitle advertises, covers both downloading and listening to podcasts as well as production. The consumption side comprises about 50% of the book including both discussion of podcatchers (podcasting listener clients, e.g. iTunes) and brief synopses of over 30 podcasts, none of which I listen to, nor am I likely to listen to despite the briefs. Most of us have our own pod tastes so the reviews just weren't important to me. So in a sense the 50% podcast consumption coverage is a 'weakness' from my point of view. The podcast production side is it's strength with discussion of hardware, software and producer workflow / content issues. By far the strongest link in this threesome is the software discussion with the hardware discussion being the weakest link. In fact the hardware discussion, "what microphones should I be looking at?", is really just barely touched on and readers are referred elsewhere. Okay, I understand this is a complex topic but even some technical basics would have been nice. There is excellent brief coverage of the software side of podcast production that is up to date and targets the core issues wannabe podcast producers are interested in. They discuss Windows, Mac and Linux environments so the coverage is "OS agnostic".The discussion of how to organise and plan your podcast is great too. The book focuses on audio podcasting only, no video here. It gives you enough to get going with a simple audio track podcast without the devilish details generated by multi-person roundtable interviews, outside interviews, skype calls etc. Still a great intro to the basics.

MUSIC TO YOUR EARS!!

Do you want to be a listener or a podcaster? If you do, then this pocket guide is for you! Authors Jack Herrington, Kirk McElhearn and Richard Giles, have done an outstanding job of writing a pocket guide that shows you how to tune into podcasts and download them to your favorite portable device so you can listen to them when you want. Herrington, McElhearn and Giles, begin s by taking you through the process of using iTunes to find, subscribe, and listen to podcasts. Then, the authors briefly introduce you to creating, recording, and editing your own podcast. Finally, the authors review some of the most interesting and unusual podcasts available. This most excellent pocket guide is intended to guide you through getting started in the world of podcasting, both as a listener and as a creator of your own podcast. More importantly, like this pocket guide, podcasts fit nicely in your pocket.

Good quick & dirty introduction, but...

Quite clearly, this pocket guide does what it's supposed to do. It gives you a quick & dirty intro into the podcasting world. I already know a thing or two on podcasting but for beginners, this is a nice introduction. Why the 'but...'?? Well, there is a small chapter on 'Fixining common audio problems'. This was a very small chapter but I'd like to have that one a bit bigger. Perhaps in an other pocket guide? I liked that part because it kinda gives you shortcuts to some specific solutions to improve your audio, without going in the technical stuff. Very nice.

Easy intro for the podcasting novice...

If you're new to the podcasting arena (either as a listener or producer) and you want a quick overview on the subject, you can find a pretty good one with Podcasting Pocket Guide by Kirk McElhearn, Richard Giles, and Jack D. Herrington. Contents: Finding, Subscribing to, and Listening to Podcasts; Starting Out in Podcasting; Formats for Your Podcast; Editing Your Podcast; 30 Great Podcasts; Index Because it's a pocket guide and meant to be small, you're not going to get a lot of technical detail in this volume. The authors cover getting and managing podcasts primarily through iTunes and an iPod, which is a relatively common combination. The chapters on creating your podcast are also fairly high level, but there's enough there to at least get your feet wet. The Audacity software is the primary choice they have for sound editing, but they also list a sizable number of options in addition to that. I'm not sure I would have included the 30 Great Podcasts section, however. Everyone's tastes and interests are different, and that seemed to be 30 pages that might have been better spent with more technical detail on creating podcasts. Still, if you happen to find one or more in that list you like and didn't know about, then you'd probably disagree. :) If you're an experienced podcaster, or if you've been listening to podcasts for awhile and have no desire to create your own, there might not be much appeal in this book. But given the right target (podcast newbie), it's a non-threatening intro to the subject.

Great Resource for Beginners

Back in October, I had the opportunity to review Jack Herrington's book Podcasting Hacks. This book is a sort of condensation of much of the information in that book, though it's presented differently and is targeted at beginning podcasters. This book shouldn't be thought of as a replacement for the other book. This is a great beginners manual, and has actually been useful for me in explaining what podcasting is to people who are less technologically astute than I am. I wish that this book were required reading for anyone who wants to podcast. I've listened to several shows that would benefit from this book (and no, I'm not mentioning names). One of the most valuable sections is on How To Be a Critical Listener. I mentioned before that to podcast, you have to listen to podcasts. But you don't listen to them the way a music fan, for example, would. You are looking for tips and ideas -- suggestions for your own podcast. What's the format? What software are they using? What mic do they use, and how does it sound? How are they promoting their podcast? Listening to podcasts can only help you in creating your own. To that end, a list of 30 Great Podcasts is included in this book. I was pleased to see many of the podcasts I listen to included on the list, including several fellow-members of the Association of Music Podcasting. What surprised me was that many well-known podcasts were not included. What is there is a wide variety of styles, formats, and genres of podcasts produced by amateur podcasters who are doing it because they love it. And that is the best example of what podcasting is all about that there is. The book will fit in your pocket, right next to your iPod. If you aren't sure about this podcasting thing, and want to find out more information about it before you start doing it, this is a great reference for you. And in no time, you'll graduate to Podcasting Hacks.