Podcasting

“Godcasting”
Are you ready to Podcast?

Preacher at podium

Podcasting is the newest rage in distributing audio (and video too) over the internet. And “Godcasting” is possibly the hottest zone in Podcasting. A “Godcast” is a podcast of a religious sermon or message. As you can imagine, many churches are very anxious to get on the bandwagon. So, what is podcasting, and how do you do a podcast?

A podcast is a simple and automatic way to download an MP3 file so that listeners can play Man with laptop in church

it on their computer or transfer it to their personal MP3 player. A podcast can be as simple as creating an MP3 file and placing it on your website for listeners to download. But the idea behind podcasting is that you set up your MP3 file to be available to be automatically distributed using an internet process known as an RSS feed. “RSS” stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it really is simple to use. This process means that you can publish your latest sermon recording to your website and have listeners automatically receive it if they have “subscribed” to your podcasts.

So, exactly how do you publish a podcast? The first step is to create an MP3 file of the sermon or message you wish to distribute. CCI Solutions has a vast array of products and information to help you do this easily and effectively. The next step is place your MP3 file on your website in an RSS file. You can create this manually as a text file if you are comfortable with creating an XML file. Or, there are several freeware applications that you can use to create your RSS file in a step-by-step fashion.

You just fill in the blanks with information to identify your podcast, and the XML file is created for you automatically. We recommend M-Audio’s Podcast Factory for Windows, which includes RSS software. If you prefer, there are also commercial software applications which you can purchase, such as FeedForAll (www.feedforall.com). Once you have your RSS file created, you upload it along with the MP3 file of your sermon or message to your website. That's it!

To listen to a podcast, your listeners can go to your website and download the file directly, or they can use an RSS reader to get your podcast automatically. This is known as “subscribing” to your podcast. Again, there are several freeware reader programs available, such as Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net), formerly known as “ipodder”, for Windows and Mac. The most recent version of Apple’s iTunes also includes the ability to subscribe to podcasts.

So, what are you waiting for? Contact your CCI representative today, and get going with this latest technology.

Click here to take a look at a couple of podcasting kits CCI has available for you.