Norgdom

Yesterday, I did my first Skype podcast. While doing the Podcast was relatively easy, setting it up was not as simple as I was led to believe. So I thought I’d share my little lesson with everyone out there, because I would love to see more people have a go at doing one.

First off, there are other VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) products out there, but I had a Skype account already so this is what I decided I would use to conduct and record my phone interview.

Skype, for those of you who aren’t aware, is a great way to make phone calls over the internet. If you are calling someone who has a Skype account then that phonecall is free. What you will need though, is either a built-in microphone on your computer, or preferably a headset with microphone - like they wear in call-centres and bank ads these days.

The person I was interviewing did not have a Skype account and while I was keen to say “well get one” I took the plunge and paid for $16 credit to make a call from Skype to a landline. $16 is the minimum credit I could purchase, but given that the two-phone calls I have made have cost be a grand total of 4c it’s probably going to last a while
That was the method by which I was going to conduct the interview all sorted out. Now I had to figure out how I was going to record it. Foolishly, I had thought this was something Skype itself does, but that is not the case. Hint Skype people, this would be an awsome future feature (yes I am fully aware they are not actually going to read this :P)
To record the interview I was pointed in the direction of Audio Hijack Pro, which cost me AUD$43.58. There is a demo version, but it limits you to recording 10 minutes and since I want to be doing more podcasts I thought it was worth the investment.

From what I know about it, what it does is “hijack” the audio from a number of different applications  and record it for you. But before it can record both you and the person you are interviewing in Skype you need to install Soundflower (which is free), which just runs in the background and allows both audio streams (you and the interviewee) to be recorded. I realise this is  a very basic explanation about how it works and why, but it just works … well it did for me anyway.
The final part of the podcasting equation is then to edit it if you like. Personally I went for the raw thing, but as my skills get better this will be an area I will pay more attention to. I was recommended Audacity for this job and from the little play I had with the program this seems pretty simple to use.

Then it was a case of hosting the podcast somewhere so I could provide an audio link for the norg. I found Podbean to do the trick and those of you familiar with WordPress should find this pretty simple as well.  It did take a while for it to upload the file, but once it had it was all pretty easy.

If your head is spinning (mine was for a while) Richard Giles also recommended the Gizmo Project to me, which is a Skype alternative and rumoured to be easier to use and record with. Neither of us have used it though, but if anyone has, be sure to tell us about it.

Any other far more experinced podcasters out there be sure to drop us a line here. Also if you like the idea of podcasting and are interested in having a go the place to get inspiration is The Podcast Network, set up by Cameron Reilly.

On that note, I hope to hear all of you around the norg ….

PS. I work off a Mac so I’m not sure all my instructions translate to Windows …

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.