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Title: Podcasting: Do-It-Yourself Guide (ExtremeTech)
ISBN: B0015DCQSA
Author:
Todd Cochrane
Publicate Date: 2005-06-10
Publish: 2005-06-10
List Price: $19.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.87
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $7.90
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.49
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Pure Gold for the enthusiast
This is a D.I.Y. guide to podcasting. Wikipedia defines podcasting as a digital media file, or a related collection of such files, which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.
This book described the do's and don'ts of podcasting and how to go about creating and keeping functional your own podcast. It tells step by step what a person needs to have to keep their podcast up to date and functionsing.
It gives you ideas of how to find a host to how to find a good topic for your podcast to be about. I believe the author's ideas on how to go about podcasting was fairly similar to Paul Gillin's ideas.
According to this book, podcasting is becoming more popular day by day. People are podcasting on more topics that one can imagine."When deciding on the type of podcast to produce ask these questions: What do I enjoy the most? What subject am I passionate about?
What topics can I speak about as an expert? What are subjects that people seek me out for? What do I do for fun? What topics do I have a lot of fun talking about (Cochran,2005,pg.72)? Buisnesses use podcasts to reach consumers about thier products.
This book was good because it is a fool proof guide to podcasting.
A. J. Baltes
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2: Podcasting the do it yourself guide
The cover made me do it. The appealing green shiny cover and great looking microphone sucked me right in on this book. It did not weigh a lot, allowing me to carry wherever I wanted. Basic enough for the beginner, good step-by-step info. Good information on the history of podcasting, although I wish he had used that information in other areas. I didn't really care about the history of it, just tell me how to use it, was my direction.
It really bothered me that it was so out of date. My first thought when I began to read this was, why am I reviewing a book that is two years and two months old. Everyone knows that technology moves so fast that when this book hit the shelves it was already out of date. I talked with a friend of mine who is into podcasting quite heavily and asked him if we could read together and then discuss it.
Well we did and we had very different views. He told me to put it in the trash. Everything I needed to know could be found on line and would most assuredly be more up to date than this "piece of junk." Yes he was quite unimpressed with it. He started talking about all kinds of other stuff that is out now like Garageband 3 (even the version that I just got 3 months ago was to old he said, Garageband 2). He started talking about other new things that are out now and I know I didn't read about them in the book. And no I can't tell you what they are casue I didn't understand.
This is one of the reasons I enjoyed this book somewhat. It was quite simple to read, no big lingo or stuff, just the basics. It was lacking in luster, the cover was what got me. The pictures in it were black and white (lame) but the content and description of how to do things was good for me, a serious beginner.
I on the other hand found some good information on it. I am new to podcastig and can still be swayed by older stuff, just because it is more information that I have. However, I do know that technology moves extremely fast and so I kept that in mind while I read. "Most of this stuff is out of date and may not be applicable anymore, especially the websites he tells me to go to." Ok enough slamming about it, what did I get from it?
I am new to podcasting and therefore I am new to Mac's also. One of my big complaints was that it seemed that a lot of the stuff in the book was geared toward PC users. I found small sections dedicated to Mac users, but all the screen shots were on PC's for sure. Since I am new to Mac's it would have been helpful to have Mac info clearly delineated. I kept wondering, where all my peeps were?
Another thing, I hate my voice on my podcast. I looked at the section on microphones and Todd does give ample amounts of information on microphones to choose from, so I really liked that. Info on how to change my voice to sound better would have been appreciated. The information on the many websites is good. I didn't get to check all of them but some are still up for sure.
I think it lacked some information on how to work on personal websites. I just put mine up and a bit more information on that would have greatly helped me out. Perhaps its in there and I didn't see it.
Overall I got some information that I can apply when conducting my own podcast. So its not all bad... if we were allowed to use fractions or halves. I would definitely go right in the middle with this one with 2.5 out of 5. But I am not allowed to use halves so Ill give it a 3; I know the author had to put a lot of work into it.
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3: Unfortunately, out of date...
The tough thing about tech books is that they are out-of-date as soon as they make it to print. While this book gives a great overview of the origins of podcasting and the different technologies that lie behind the craze, it's almost a history book now. With the advent of GarageBand (which isn't even mentioned in the book) and free podcast hosting sites, information about the ins and outs and nuts and bolts of RSS and FTP upload sites is woefully archaic -- and unnecessary.
Still, it's a great overview for the geeks out there who want to know everything from the ground-up. And Cochrane's writing is entertaining, light, and self-deprecating. I look forward to an updated version soon.
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4: I looove podcasting
This is the book that got me started. I have a very popular podcast Food for the Soul and this was the book that everyone recommended. It is a great starting point and makes the process much easier.
If you are thinking about getting into podcasting this is a must read! I could never have done it without Todd's book.
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5: Good Solid Intro
Worth buying if you're deciding how and why to do podcasts, and not up-to-speed on the technology. I had to do telephone interviews, and this book solved a lot of problems for me.
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