Podcasting Software - Extend Your Reach Exponentially (Jul 06)

July 27, 2006 Cari McLean

Many organizations have employed podcasting as a strategic training modality and have enjoyed tremendous benefits as a result. Podcasting extends an organization’s training reach by enabling learners to decide when, where and how they want to receive corporate updates and/or training.

As podcasting continues to grow in popularity, especially by learning and development professionals, one thing is clear: Creating and publishing engaging, high-impact podcasts will be of the utmost importance. Let’s look at some the leading providers of software to create, edit and publish podcasts. jPodder is a news aggregator for audio content or podcasts. It allows users to manage the subscriptions of feeds, and create and publish podcasts. The jPodder software features RSS-feed management tools that allow users to add, remove, edit and sort feeds by name, as well as preview enclosures. It includes scheduled downloads, multiple simultaneous downloads, single enclosure download, resume partial downloads, manual download retry, feed authentication, proxy-server support and built-in BitTorrent. The software’s media-player interface supports transfer to Apple iTunes and Microsoft Windows Media Player, and includes a player plug-in facility and Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)-type association to players. jPodder podcast production tools allow users to manage production steps, auto-create RSS feeds, perform MP3 Tag editing, add enclosures to RSS feed, auto-test RSS feed and more. For more information, see http://jpodder.sourceforge.net .

Lionhardt Technologies is a provider of applications and solutions for both established and emerging computer technologies. WebPod Studio is an application to create, gather content and produce quality audio and video broadcasting over the Internet. User-designed broadcasts can be uploaded to existing servers and archived, or burned onto CDs or DVDs. Various output options are available for transcripts and other materials for the broadcasts. WebPod Studio can be localized into any language, reading and writing iTunes compatible RSS feeds, and imported into PowerPoint slides to create a video podcast out of the imported data. In addition, it includes a Screen Capture wizard that captures desktop and/or running applications, a Studio Director Wizard that helps users get started, and RSS management wizard that allows users to view local and Internet feeds, and add, delete and edit feeds with the built-in WYSIWYG editor. To learn more, see www.lionhardt.ca .

MixMeister Technology is a provider of software tools for playing, producing and performing audio productions. Propaganda 1.2 software streamlines the podcast production process by using one- touch recording, recording from a microphone or portable recorder or other analog sources, and using on-screen VU meters and automatic settings to prevent distorted recordings. Propaganda allows users to view recorded clips in sequence on a timeline display, rearrange clips by dragging and dropping them in place, trim clips easily with an accurate waveform display, add background music, and tweak the volume, tremble and bass of any clip. This software also automatically sets smooth, cross-faded transitions from one clip into the next. For more information, see www.makepropaganda.com.

NewsGator Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of RSS aggregation solutions for end users, enterprises, publishers and other online-content providers. FeedDemon is a Windows RSS reader equipped with an easy-to-use interface to keep users up to date on the latest news and information. Users can customize the way feeds are organized and displayed, as well as set up custom news watches based on keywords. With FeedDemon, users can download podcasts and audio files and have them show up on a user’s portable audio device. In addition, FeedDemon synchronizes with NewsGator Online and NewsGator RSS Suite. Other features include a newspaper format for easy reading and search channels. To learn more, see www.newsgator.com .

NotePage Inc. is a provider of wireless messaging software solutions. FeedForAll and FeedForAll Mac are the company’s solutions to create, edit, publish and manage RSS feeds and podcasts. With FeedForAll Mac, new RSS feeds, podcasts and iTunes are created quickly and easily. FeedForAll Mac includes pre-defined field defaults that enable users to keep feeds up to date, build-in support for RSS namespaces and RSS extensions, such as Apple iTunes, create special podcast versions and automatic publication date handling. The software’s WYSWIG editor allows feeds to be easily formatted and customized. In addition, FeedForAll Mac allows users to download existing RSS feeds from the Internet, load existing feeds, maintain and create an unlimited number of RSS feeds, and manipulate automatic image scaling, rotation and cropping. Other features include a built-in live spell check and a search and replace tool to make global changes to feeds. To learn more, see www.feedforall.com .

Podfeeder is a free online service to search and share podcast feeds. With Podfeeder, users can search the company’s repository for podcasts, and download and listen to podcasts free of charge. Podfeeder allows users to synchronize podcast subscriptions across multiple machines, integrate with the podfeeder.com Web site, give podcasts a default genre, set bandwidth limits and add private podcasts. Podfeeder requires iTunes 4 or better, Windows Media Player 9 or better and an active Internet connection. To learn more about this free online service, see www.podfeeder.com .

Primetime Podcast Receiver, created by Lance Robinson, keeps users up-to-date on the latest podcast feeds by allowing users to manage podcast subscriptions and schedule automatic scans for new podcasts. Its features will automatically importing subscriptions from OPML format, automatically updating feed locations if they change and automatically purging old items. A “Catch-Up” command allows users to mark all of the podcasts as already viewed, so that if the Podcast Receiver is not running for a while users will not have to download dozens of old podcasts the next time they scan. Using Microsoft Windows Media Player technology, users can listen to podcasts in the background while the receiver automatically downloads other podcasts. Primetime Podcast Receiver also adds book-marking capabilities, so that users can come right back to any position in any podcast. It includes Podcast Alley’s Podcast Library to provide users with a comprehensive, fast and easy subscription mechanism. To learn more, see http://geekswithblogs.net/lance/articles/PPR.aspx .

Reinvented Software is a provider of software for Mac OS X. Feeder is an application for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds on Mac OS X. This application allows users to create feeds from scratch, download existing feeds from Web sites and import files. With full support for the iTunes Podcasting Extensions, Feeder can publish feeds using FTP, SFTP or Mac to folders and/or disks. In addition, Feeder uploads feeds, any enclosure files and images. By dragging and dropping media files to add enclosures, Feeder can automatically tag and add artwork podcast file types including MP3s, M4As, M4Vs and QuickTime movies. For more information, see http://reinventedsoftware.com .