Do I have to pay to upload my podcast in a website?

I'm new in this world!

Tony.

Hi Tony--

Welcome to podcasting! It's a great place to share your point of view with the world.

The simple answer is "Not necessarily". What you're looking for is called "hosting" and there are plenty of options both free and cheap.

Finding a host is only part of the process, though. You'll also need to have an RSS feed so people can use their podcatcher (programs like Juice and iTunes) to download your 'cast.

A good place to start learning about all of this is in the tutorial at:

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/22-...ast-hosting.htm

Good luck!

Keep in mind, tho, that not all hosts can handle lots audio so be sure to ask specific questions of your host. Tell them specifically you want to host a podcast and can they handle it.

If you create an Audio Acrobat account, you can host unlimited amounts of audio for a monthly fee. Then you just need to create a download link, place it on your website, and it plays from Audio Acrobat rather than take up your valuable website space.

Godaddy.com. That's all you need. Done.

I'm leaving GoDaddy hosting. My site keeps timing out. I've heard of others with the same problem. You should see my feedburner feedmedic feed. It's a mess with multiple timeouts each day.

Thanks for the link. I think it's all that I need. Well, I wish!


Tony.

Really? That's crazy. I have multiple sites hosted through them and have never had a problem. Weird.

You are concerned for no reason. Everyones Feedburner feed looks like that. It's perfectly normal. Just because you sneeze doesn't mean you have a cold.

Well, my quick reply is to simply head over to Libsyn and open up an account. My One Minute How-To podcast costs all of $5 per month and I have no bandwidth concerns. Libsyn takes care of the RSS and you can point to it using Feedburner. You really don't need more than that (although I'd recommend having a website), so it's about as simple and cost effective as you can get.

Cheers -

george

Libsyn gives you a blog, too. It's not even close to anything you'd get with, say, Wordpress, but it's functional enough; I've been using their blog feature for both my podcasts for two years and it's served me well enough.

Yeah, but it often times out when I go to the site, too.

I keep hearing these things about Godaddy and I think it works fine, well at least for me. What else would you suggest for the newbies

For newbies (and anyone else, for that matter), in my mind the obvious choice is Libsyn. Costs start at $5 per month (the amount I pay for my One Minute How-To podcast) and you don't have to concern yourself with bandwidth. If you post your podcast to a website that monitors bandwidth and your show takes off, you probably will not be able to continue to maintain it. Both of my shows are posted to Libsyn (Eclectic Mix started in July 2005) and I have had little problem with them.

Cheers -

george

It is possible to produce a podcast completely without paying anything, as long as you don't mind it being non-profit. (Creative commons or public domain.) Simply upload the files to Archive.org (or a free website if the files are small enough), post a link in Blogger or some other blog site, and use Feedburner for the feed. There's a little bit of work in setting it up but it's fairly simple once you're use to it.

This is a good way for a newbie to go since it doesn't cost anything. So if you decide after your third or fourth podcast that it's not worthwhile, you can drip it without loosing any money. If you decide you want to keep it going, you can stay with the free system or opt for a paid system.

There are a few around that offer everything with limited free service. These are good for the first few podcasts but after a month or so the limits become a problem unless you pay. They're generally only worthwhile only for first time podcasters.

Or you can use podango.com

I don't like that model. It's "free" because they're basically making ad money from your content. The big problem with this model is that there's no guarantee they will pay you the money they owe you. And it's Paypal payment, which fees make it nearly useless outside of the US.

Besides, do podcasters really expect to get $15 for every 1000 downloads? There are numerous problems with this model.

1) An advertizer paying $30 for every 1000 would have to thousands if they hope to reach even a modest audience. That would drive away alot of the small companies which could best use podcast advertizing such as a home based craft business.

2) A podcast putting out 5 episodes a week might get 1000 downloads but from only 200 people. That's a cost of approximately $1 per person. And what if that 1000 is from 20 episodes of 50 downloads each? The longer it takes, the less effective it is for the advertizer.

3) Payout wouldn't start until a podcast had produced ($100/15 * 1000=) 6667 downloads. A podcast with only 100 downloads per month might never get paid despite making at least $15. A weekly podcast with 100 downloads per episode (which I think may be above average) would only have about 5000 downloads per year. And any podcast getting 1000 downloads per episode should be handling advertizing directly.

4) Likewise, an adverizer might be paying $30/1000 downloads, but those downloads could come from 1000 different podcasts. So each podcast gets only 1.5 cents. And since they don't pay for less than $100, it could be a long time before some podcasters see any money at all.

For 1000 podcasts to get $15 each would mean there has to be about one million downloads (1000 podcasts X 1000 downloads each), which would require ad revenues of 30 million ($30 X 1000 podcasts X 1000 episodes each). But payout wouldn't start until each had reached $100 (6.7 million downloads), so ad revenues would have to be 200 million. (Because there are 1000 podcasts, the company gets 1000 times more money than each podcast.) Although it appears that if you produce 6,667 downloads you'll get $100, the reality is that the company would not have enough ad cash to pay for all your downloads; they're likely to pay for just some of them.

And even if it's legit, for every $100 each podcaster makes, if there's 1000 other podcasters involved they make $100,000. That also means they have to generate $200,000 in ad revenue. It might work if there's only 100 other podcasters involved ($20,000 ad revenue), but that's only about 1 percent of the number of podcasters out there.

It looks like really nothing more than a fancy pyramid scheme.

Agreed 100%, plus I like having control over my ad content, but for someone looking for a free server for a hobbycast, podango's it.