PODHAMMER

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This episode is brought to you by:

Battlefoam.com, Paintedfigs.com, bitzbox.co.uk & Geeknationtours.com

well its time for another episode of Podh…umm Furyhammer! …Or is it? Find out the shocking details of our ultimate showdown.

This episode also features an interview with the lead developer of Armybuilder Colen McAlister and Teras from Geek Nation Tours about the upcoming UK tour.

One of the best ways to generate ideas for new podcast content is to be a content consumer. The more information you consume regarding your podcast topic the better prepared you will be to create new and exciting material for your podcast. I am going to give you 3 Ways guaranteed to help you generate new podcast content on a consistent basis.

Let’s assume that you have started a podcast about video games. Each week you talk about the latest developments in new games coming out for PCs and other gaming consoles. It may be easy to create 10 podcast episodes based on what you already know about new games coming out but at some point you will begin to exhaust your knowledge of the subject.

What do you do now?

1. Read Other Blogs

Find your niche’s community and dive in. There are other people out there who are interested in the same topics as you, find them. Many of them will have a blog or website dedicated to the topic that you are podcasting about. Make it a point to visit their site frequently and read on what others in the community are talking about. Don’t just stop with the blog posts themselves but read through the comments as well. Reading through the comments of a blog post is a great way to identify questions that the readers have about the topic that you can address in your podcast.

The important thing to remember when collecting podcast topics by reading other blog posts is that you never want to simply repeat what the blog author has already written. They put the time and effort into creating the content for their audience. You don’t want to plagiarize what they have done but use it as inspiration. Remember, you are now an expert in your field and you have a lot to add to this topic. Take their information and add to it, give your opinion or spin on it and do some research on your own to add to it. If there were questions unanswered in the comments for the post then answer those questions in your podcast. If you thought the article was really well written then mention the site in your podcast and link to it in your show notes. The blog author will greatly appreciate it.

I subscribe to over 100 blogs that I scan every day for new content ideas for my podcasts and for this site. Having over 100 bookmarks stacked up in my web-browser that I have to click on individually to visit all of those sites is completely un-manageable. One tool that makes this process much easier for all of you is using an RSS Reader. By subscribing to the RSS Feeds for the sites that relate to your podcast topic you can open your reader everyday and scan the headlines looking for something that peaks your interest and then develop your new content from there.

2. Listen To Other Podcasts

Listening to other podcasts offers to huge benefits. The first benefit falls right in line with reading other blogs. Listening to other podcasts is a great source for topic ideas but remember you always want to use another podcast as an inspiration for your own work, not simply to repeat what another podcast has already said.

The second benefit of listening to other podcasts is finding new segments for your own podcast. Each podcast host has different ideas on the structure and content elements of their podcast. You might pick up some great ideas for new podcast segments related to news, listener feedback, events, etc. Many of these might prove to be a great addition to the structure of your podcast episodes.

You don’t have to subscribe to all of these podcasts, just check in from time to time and catch an episode or two to see what you can gleam from them. After listening to a few episodes of the podcast, ask yourself, do I want to subscribe to this podcast? If you do, think about why. What was it about the podcast that appealed to you? What did you find unique or more interesting than the others. Was it the host? What was it about him/her that connected with you and how can you incorporate that into your podcast. Was it the structure? Use that too.

If you didn’t like the podcast, that can be equally as helpful. Think about what you didn’t like about the podcast and try to make sure that you don’t have those same problems with your content.

One last thing about listening to other podcasts, if you find a podcast in your niche that you really enjoyed, invite the host to come be a guest co-host on your podcast. Give them an opportunity to talk a little bit about their podcast and then the two of you can have a great discussion about whatever topic you choose. This will do a number of things.

Big thanks to Rojo for making this awesome video – A man truly able to get blood from a stone. Hilarious fun to make shame the game was such a fizzer! Hope you enjoy the video!

Choose a topic with depth

One pitfall that many first time podcasters fall into is choosing a topic that does offer any true depth of topics. You should be able to quickly think of at least 10 show topics for your podcast in roughly 5 minutes. If you can’t, then you have probably chosen a topic for your podcast that either does not have enough material to allow you to produce quality content for an extended period of time. You may be able to remedy this by broadening your topic a little bit.

Example: A podcast topic of reviewing coffee shops in your neighborhood will limit you to the 7 or 8 shops within a 5-mile radius. What if you decided to review all of the coffee shops in your entire city? By widening your category you may find a lot more to draw on when creating content for your podcast.

What is your anticipated release schedule? If you plan on releasing a new podcast each week then you need to make sure that you have enough material within your topic to create new, quality, content every week; and yes it must be quality content every week. If you have work hard to create new content for your podcast episodes, you will find that the time between podcast episodes grows from weekly to monthly or monthly to every 2-3 months and eventually the podcast will drop off altogether.

Does the topic have an audience?

Keep in mind that the goal of any podcaster is to have an audience listening to your podcast. This should definitely be taken into consideration when choosing a topic. There may not be a large audience for a podcast on insect species in South America, if there is an audience for that kind of podcast; how are you going to reach them? Reaching your target audience is something that I talk about in a number of posts under podcast promotion but you should be aware of it even at this early stage in the life of your podcast.

Does your podcast fill a need?

One of the best ways to ensure that you can attract listeners to your podcast is to find a topic or niche that is not already saturated with 10 other podcasts on the same topic. The less competition from established podcasts in the same topic the easier time you will have in growing your audience at a faster rate.

Do a little research, if you think that you have found a good topic then go to the iTunes podcast directory and do a search on your topic. See how many other podcasts are out there using the same keywords. If you find that there are 5-9 other podcasts then click on each of them and look at a few things.

This episode is brought to you by:

Battlefoam.com, Paintedfigs.com, bitzbox.co.uk & Geeknationtours.com

The final episode before the big Adepticon trip! Kent wasn’t allowed out of the house so we got Kendall and Rojo to step in. This week we chat about Kendalls first game with the new Orcs n Goblins book. Rojo also chats to us about his recent trips to a couple of local tournament events and the nature of 3000 point games.

We decided to let the ARMYBUILDER contest run a till the next show so make sure you send your entry emails with the subject “CONTEST” to podhammer@gmail.com we will announce the winner next show after Adepticon!

Thanks for listening. We hope to see you in Chicago! Follow me (@podhammer) and Kent (@kent_fury) on twitter to stay up to date with our adventures!

A podcast is similar to a radio show that you can subscribe to or download at any time. In fact, it may help to think of it as a sort of TIVO for audio programs. A podcast is a web feed of audio or video files placed on the Internet for anyone to subscribe to, or download. Search online and you’ll find a range of Podcasts available on nearly every topic imaginable. They range from entertainment focused to educational to business oriented and everywhere in between.

A podcast differs from a simple download in that new content may be automatically delivered. Users need not click into your website for important specials since all of this information may be automatically downloaded. A podcast show consists of a series of individual episodes that you can listen to and view on-line or offline whenever and wherever you want.

While podcasting has been around for about five years now remarkably, the term itself, has only been around since 2004. It’s a contraction of IPod (The most popular MP3 player) and broadcasting. However, you don’t even have to have an MP3 player to listen to programs. You can ‘subscribe’ to an entire podcast series using software on your PC or listen to a single episode at a time by using a web browser. Subscribing to a podcast ensures that all new shows are automatically downloaded to your computer as they are published, and even better subscribing is generally free. If you do happen to have an MP3 player, the next time you sync your device, your podcasts will be downloaded for listening on the go. If you don’t want to subscribe, but rather just want a copy of a particular episode, you can just click the “Download” button to save to your hard disk. Once downloaded you can then manage it and play it like you would any other audio file. What distinguishes podcasts from other audio or video media is that the content is accessible to its audience(s) whenever, wherever, and however they want.

What are the business applications of Podcasting? The podcast is a real advantage for business travelers and salespeople who are constantly on the go. Since they are frequently in transit they can learn about what a company is offering while they travel. They’re able to stay in the loop about changes that are occurring in the industry or a particular company while on the way to their next meeting. Whenever a business wants to change its marketing emphasis, their podcast will change with them. Podcasts enable potential customers to find out more about a particular company and its range of products and service without feeling pressured by a salesperson. Rather, a friendly voice explaining what makes the company unique will better serve to convert a potential client into a customer. Podcasts also save on manpower. An extensive sales force is typically required to detail a company’s newest offers and innovations. With a podcast, visitors click in and are directed to any new information the company wants to present. The other really great thing about podcasts is that they have an incredibly wide reach. Clients from across the world can access information on companies or products and learn about them in a simple, direct manner at any time, and without having to be tied to a computer.

Especially important is the utilization of pod cast directories which list podcast shows along with the links to their original websites. These directories publicize the available podcasts. Among the more popular of the podcast directories are Yahoo Podcasts, Odeo, Podcast Alley and Podcasting News. When using directories it’s important to select genre and content categories that make it easier for listeners to find your podcast. Once you are listed with a directory, you will begin to get visitors from these directories to your website. In order to encourage visitors to listen your podcast you’ll need to start by creating an enticing title that tells them just enough about your product to intrigue them. More important than having a great title though is having even better content.

An outline for your podcast will enable you to be sure you don’t lose your audience, and cover all the points you want to hit. How long your podcast will be is directly related to how much news you have to share and the extent to which you can keep that news fresh and exciting. Frequency of updates is also an important issue to address. This will likely depend on the nature of what you’re discussing and how quickly things change in that industry.

So we are at Adepticon. Day one starts tomorrow. If you are coming, make sure you say hello. If you aren’t get a dog up ya ….you missed out hahahahaha!

We will be recording a mega episode on sunday with 40k radio. So stay tuned.

We have done some great video content and we havent even started the event. Its 6am and I havent in 22 hours. I am fucked up! WOOOOT!

Navigating the store

One way to find the latest shows is to learn to navigate what’s available on iTunes. A few basic search tips can help you do this. iTunes has large coloured icons that link to collections of shows for specific interests available at the centre of the podcast page. These lead to attractive pages listing the top shows in the category.

You can also use the search field at the top of the iTunes browser, or the search tool that’s about halfway down the podcast page on the left-hand side. The latter lets you choose to search all podcasts, or by title and author. You can also search specific topics by category, using the drop-down menu above the Today’s Top Podcasts list, which updates the list below it to reflect your chosen interest.

Once you have subscribed to a show, you can set iTunes to check for new episodes every hour, every day, every week or manually. If you choose to do it manually you’ll need to click on the Update button at the top-right of the iTunes browser to get the latest shows. These settings are available in Podcast preferences, which you can reach from the menu via iTunes—Preference—Podcast, or by clicking on the Settings button at the lower-right of the browser.

You can also choose how many episodes to keep by using the Keep drop-down menu. Unfortunately, these options are universal; you cannot use different settings for separate podcasts.

Directory Services

iTunes isn’t a perfect search tool for podcasts. Podcasters must submit their shows, which are then vetted by the iTunes team before being made available through the service. iTunes relies on podcasters letting it know when they stop making shows, which means some that are available through iTunes are slightly out of date.

There are a growing number of online directories that can tell you about shows that haven’t made it to the iTunes list, which I will come to, but first you need to know how to subscribe to shows which aren’t listed within iTunes.

Once you have found the relevant URL for the transmission, you just need to select Advance—Subscribe to Podcast, then enter the URL for the show you want. The link is likely to be on the podcast’s website and probably ends with the letters .xml. You can also submit information about shows you like using the Submit Podcast link at the centre of the podcast home page.

To find new shows you should watch your favourite websites, and keep an eye on the growing range of podcasting news websites that exist online. Some recommendations include:

This episode is sponsored by:

Battlefoam.com, Paintedfigs.com, bitzbox.co.uk & Geeknationtours.com

So we are back. Kent and I have returned from a brief hiatus dealing with real world lives with a great episode covering our time in Adepticon. Sign up to the Inner Circle to hear the super secret “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” episode!

We also chat about the Tomb Kings, FineCast and do a great interview with James Sutherland who is heading up a great initiative to keep GW affordable in Australia and NZ.

Thanks for listening!

Promoting my podcast

Now that I had a podcast I had to get some listeners! I posted a request for help on an online network, Ecademy.com, and got some very useful responses. It seems that the main podcast directory is Apples iTunes so I started there. It is really easy to get listed as all they need to know is the links to your podcast, website and RSS feed. There is a vetting process so I had to wait a couple of days to get listed but by Sunday morning I found my link and was able to use iTunes to download, listen to and subscribe to my podcast.

There are loads of other podcast directories but one that caught my attention was Britcaster.com. As this only lists UK podcasts (most of the directories, including iTunes, are US centric) it should result in a more relevant audience.

As well as listing in the various directories I added a blog on my website and a mention on my Ecademy signature. The combined effect of these two items is to get a high result on google.co.uk when the search term ‘personal finance podcast’ is used.

I think that I had a fairly good story to tell the press now as this is a first for a UK podcast (personal finance from an Independent Financial Adviser). I have already had some positive responses from the trade press so this week I plan to move onto the consumer financial press.

What next?

Well, apart from working on show number two I plan to improve the production quality of the show as time goes on. I might consider getting some ‘jingles’ produced that I can mix into the show to improve the feel and quality of the production. There is, of course, a business motive for producing this podcast as (I hope) it will lead to new enquiries and a higher profile on the web and in the press.

For anyone who is considering their own podcast (or has read this article and thinks it might be something they could do) I would suggest go for it! Podcasting is still in a very early stage and not many people in the UK have caught onto the technology just yet. With the explosion in iPod and other MP3 player ownership all of the predictions are for massive growth in the podcast market.

Because relatively few people produce their own podcasts now is a good time to get your own show up and running before your competitors catch onto the idea.

This episode is sponsored by:

Battlefoam.com, Paintedfigs.com, bitzbox.co.uk & Geeknationtours.com

and our newest sponsor:

We are back at the brand new Casa de Carro…umm Birr…Carroll-Birrell! Thats right folks the brady bunch house has a quite the man-cave complete with studio!

This week Kent Fury and Rojo join me to chat about the last couple of months of gaming and wrap Castle Assault 2011. Heaps of stuff to talk about and more to come soon!

Thanks for listening. Be sure to spread the word that Podhammer is back on the airwaves

Use twitter or Facebook or old fashioned human conversation to get the word out!

No more searching and hoping to find a radio station that plays your favorite music. No more missing a talk show broadcast because you are sitting in class or in a meeting at the wrong time. With podcasting, you get just the content you want, from the sources you want, when you want. And there are no ads or commercials! What Tivo has done for your TV viewing, podcasting can do for your radio listening, and there is no FCC regulations either!

So what exactly is podcasting? A podcast is an audio file stored on the Internet that you can download to your computer or MP3 player and listen to whenever you want. It might be music, or it could be a talk show, a lecture, a recorded tele-seminar, a sermon, a football game, etc. Podcasting gives you the ultimate in choice and convenience.

Podcasting is all about… CHOICE

Podcasting offers you unlimited choices in listening. Even though podcasting is a relatively new technology, there are already thousands of podcasts to which you can subscribe. No radio station in your city that plays the indy music you love? Check out East Detroit Radio.

Now that I had a podcast I had to get some listeners! I posted a request for help on an online network, Ecademy.com, and got some very useful responses. It seems that the main podcast directory is Apples iTunes so I started there. It is really easy to get listed as all they need to know is the links to your podcast, website and RSS feed. There is a vetting process so I had to wait a couple of days to get listed but by Sunday morning I found my link and was able to use iTunes to download, listen to and subscribe to my podcast.

There are loads of other podcast directories but one that caught my attention was Britcaster.com. As this only lists UK podcasts (most of the directories, including iTunes, are US centric) it should result in a more relevant audience.

As well as listing in the various directories I added a blog on my website and a mention on my Ecademy signature. The combined effect of these two items is to get a high result on google.co.uk when the search term ‘personal finance podcast‘ is used.

I think that I had a fairly good story to tell the press now as this is a first for a UK podcast (personal finance from an Independent Financial Adviser). I have already had some positive responses from the trade press so this week I plan to move onto the consumer financial press.

This episode is sponsored by:

Battlefoam.com, Paintedfigs.com, bitzbox.co.uk & Geeknationtours.com

Hey folks! Sorry for the delay with episodes at the moment. We had some bandwidth issues that have now been resolved and I am currently in between moving house and starting a new job and all the drama that goes with that. We will get back to business soon. Better than ever. Thanks for your patience!

Anyway Kendall joins me this week to discuss his plans for MOAB and the challenges of running an event in two locations in one weekend ..eeek!

Thanks for listening and congratulations to our Armybuilder prize winners! You just scored yourself a copy of Armybuilder 3!

See you next episode!

The first step for me was research. I wanted to find out what other podcasts sounded like and what other people were already doing (particularly in my field of personal finance). This was also a useful activity to remove any fears that all of the podcasts already produced would be of a highly professional quality – some are, but most are not!

Once I had established that nobody else was doing what I planned to do (with the exception of Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, but this is more about saving money than financial planning) it was time to work out how to record my first show.

I planned to record ten minute shows which would cut down on production time and also keep the file size quite small. Because this is an audio file hosted on our website I wanted to ensure that it was not too large (to keep download times fast but also save on bandwidth restraints).

To record the content for my podcast I first tried using ‘Sound Recorder‘ that comes with Windows XP. This wasn’t ideal for a couple of reasons. The recording time is limited to 60 seconds which would have meant cutting my planned show into ten perfectly timed segments then editing them all together. It also wouldn’t have allowed me to speak over backing music (something I felt was important for a professional sounding show/introduction).

I searched the web and found some free to try software on download.com. This software is called Propaganda 1.0 and it offers a complete solution to the would be podcast creator. I downloaded the free trial to ensure it did everything I wanted it to and then shelled out the $49.95 to activate the full version.

I wanted to ensure that my podcast wasn’t ten minutes of me talking about pensions so I asked my sister to record some sound bites for me. These were just simple bits of audio that I could use to introduce the show, break up the content and use to finish the podcast (my regulatory warning/disclaimer).

In terms of hardware I just used a microphone headset; the same system I use for Skype. This cost me £10 in Dixons and does a good job in terms of recording a single voice.

Using Propaganda I could record content for the show, line up as many as 16 different audio tracks (including some backing music) and play with the timing. This whole process took just under 2 hours before I was happy with the final version.

This episode is sponsored by:

Battlefoam.com, Paintedfigs.com, bitzbox.co.uk, hobbyhub.co & Geeknationtours.com

This week Kent Fury joins me to discuss his time at MOAB and the great new game KINGS OF WAR. We played our first full size game this week and its quite good. Find out all about Kings of War in this weeks episode!

Another advantage of podcasting is that, because podcasts can appeal to niche audiences, they can cover their topics in much greater depth and be far more informative than regular radio broadcasts, which must appeal to a wide audience. Also, with a podcast, you can back up and listen to a segment again if you missed something the first time. If you come to a segment that is boring, you can fast-forward. You can listen as many times as you want to all or part of the podcast. And you can stop listening all together for a few minutes, hours, or even days if something else comes up.

Podcasting is all about… CONVENIENCE

MP3 files have been available for download from the internet for years. But what makes podcasting different and truly useful is that you can subscribe to programs you are interested in. This means you don’t have to check your favorite podcast web sites every day for new episodes and manually download them.

Instead, free podcasting software automatically downloads new episodes to your computer as soon as they are available. This makes it easy and convenient for you to stay up-to-date with your favorite podcasts.

Once your podcasts are downloaded to your computer, you can synch them to your MP3 player, burn them to a CD for playback on your CD player, or simply listen to them through your computer’s speakers. This gives you the ultimate convenience of listening to your programs at your leisure. You can listen to the podcasts whenever you want – as you are driving, walking, exercising, knitting, etc. With a podcast, you can be mobile, live your life, and listen to your content ANYWHERE.

Podcasting is… FREE & EASY

Not only are podcasts themselves generally free, but so is the podcasting software you need! Both podcasts and podcasting software are easy to find on the internet and are easy to use.

Podcasting is… waiting for you!

If you haven’t been exposed to podcasts yet, you soon will be! Podcasts are literally everywhere now, and more podcasts are being created every day.

Podhammer 97 Ireland High Glory

Well in true Podhammer style I lost the first half of this show hence the late upload.

In this month’s show we have

Start: Me with a ramble

Middle: Woody live from a dodgy pub in Ireland talks the local scene and his grand views of the HE book from an ETC perspective.

End: Live from April Newcastle Legion Meet. We had over 40 people that day with 5 tables of WH, 3 FOW, 2 BA, 2 Blood Bowl and a few other games in between. I have a chat to Jake from the Cessnock Slayers, Simon Wood and Turner about ETC and how I beat the number one WH player in Australia in one turn. Conrad comes and has a chat about FoW and Colin talks Infinity.

Be sure to join the FB group page Podhammer

Podhammer.net/forums is running again.

Podcasts are simply feeds of simple MP3 files that can be hosted by any web server. However, many podcast producers experience trouble keeping their sound files accessible to audiences, especially when podcast episodes become extremely popular. Most inexpensive web hosting providers do not necessarily specialize in podcast hosting. As a result, when many listeners try to access a single podcast file at once, hard drives can lock up, servers can seize, and hosting accounts can quickly run beyond their allotted bandwidth allowances.

Therefore, many experienced podcast producers host their podcast feeds and sound files at specialized services away from their main servers. That way, if a particular podcast gains national or worldwide attention, a podcast hosting provider can handle the load without charging excess overage fees. Likewise, many of the best podcast hosting providers charge far less for data storage than traditional web hosts, since audio files can easily be moved and copied within data centers. Here are three of the best podcast hosting providers on the market.

HipCast.com. Operated by Eric Rice, HipCast is one of the best podcast hosting providers for new podcasters. HipCast offers simple controls that let inexperienced users create and upload podcast files directly from their web browsers. With just a microphone and a live web connection, you can have your own podcast up and running in a matter of minutes. HipCast’s affordable pricing, with packages under five dollars per month, make it easy for budding podcasters to experiment without breaking the bank.

AudioAcrobat.com. If AudioAcrobat resembles HipCast, it’s because both services share a common technical infrastructure. The slightly more expensive AudioAcrobat does not share all of HipCast’s easy blogging features, but it does carry a few unique benefits. For example, users can give out a “guest line” phone number that allows podcast listeners to leave reactions as voice mail messages that can be incorporated into podcast playlists.

Liberated Syndication. While requiring a little more technical sophistication, LibSyn is one of the best podcast hosting providers because of its innovative pricing structure. LibSyn charges its users based on the number of new material they upload to the server each month, with no charges for data transfer. That way, podcast producers that experience a sudden surge of interest after receiving attention from a major site like Fark or Digg can rest easy. LibSyn’s powerful servers will handle a heavy load without putting an unexpected burden on the pocketbook.