Podcasts

Why podcasting?
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  • Listening to stuff is easier. Several people (such as myself) might prefer to listen to audio books and listen to lectures (perhaps during long walks or commutes) rather than read or watch them.
  • There are many popular tools in a variety of platforms to subscribe and listen to podcasts (see subscription guide SB16.). (I use Doggcatcher paid on Android). It turns out to be easier to listen to audio files in this way without the chores such as manual downloads and checking for updates.

History.
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Given audio files hosted in some internet site (like archive.org), creating a podcast feed involved some manual labor (adding posts to a blog etc.. as described in this guide SB15.). This manual labor can be eliminated using the new open source web tool presented in this page.

Format, standards
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Feed URL limitations
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  • ITunes accepts only usual http ports 80 or 443(?)
  • tunein submission form : podcast url box can be too short - if so, use comment box.

Generating RSS feeds from archive.org items
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Upload and update archive item
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  • Upload your audio files to archive.org items. Update your archive items by adding new episodes as and when you create them (perhaps right from your android phone as shown in this subtitled YT video). This is a periodically repeated step.

Create a podcast feed
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One of the following options should work:

  • In case of frequently updated feeds
    • Use or replicate the build_feeds.sh pipeline of rss-feeds github repo to automatically and periodically generate rss-feeds.
  • In case your feed is rarely or never updated
    • just use a convenient REST API server, by supplying the necessary archive item links in the prescribed format.
    • You can then copy and serve the RSS feed output from some other page (eg. pastebin or rss-feeds github repo).
    • Be wary of directly using the REST API url-s. With the vedavaapi server, besides the frequent breakages, time-outs used to occur.

Other feed-generation techniques
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  • Publish directly from archive
    • Archive podcasting forum here.
  • Items in a “collection under podcasts” (collection creation requires: 50 item minimum)
  • Archive → wordpress → feedburner → play/ itunes etc..

Publicity
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  • Share your shiny new podcast feed URL to your subscribers, and publish your feed to Google Play, ITunes, Stitcher and TuneInRadio. This is a one time step.
  • Finally, let us add your podcast to this podcast collection if appropriate, by one of these routes:
    • using this form
    • inserting a comment in that spreadsheet,
    • or by opening an issue here.
  • Discussion - podcast-bhaaratii