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by Bill AlbingI thoroughly enjoyed reading Podcasting Solutions: A Complete Guide to Podcasting by Michael W. Goeghegan and Dan Klass. I was able to digest the material quickly. The frustrating thing for me was that the title just didn't seem to fit the approachable and practical content that made the book such a treasure. For example, the subtitle "A Complete Guide" is a bit overstated, because it is not a compendium but a getting starting guide. Especially as time goes by and the field progresses, and more techniques and tools are developed, this book will become more out of date. That said, this is still one of the best books out there and will always serve as a great introduction. It is well organized in terms of stepping you through what you neeed to do, and it helps you realize how straightforward it is to post audio files on the web blog-style on a regular basis for others to download.
The history in the Introduction and first chapter will, I am sure seem cutesy as the field matures, with its reflection on the beginnings of the technology, but for now, it is motivating to see where the idea came from and how the early solution was crafted from existing technologies. Even the word "podcasting" is dependent on the newly available iPod as much as on the "broadcasting" from which it is trying to differentiate itself and with which most of us grew up. Similarly the second chapter that introduces places to find podcasts will certainly get out of date fast, but is a good starting point. The third chapter "Podcasting How To" is a brief summary of what is covered in the rest of the book and the authors should have just left this out and put the tiny paragraphs (a great example of microcontent) as the intros in the subsequent chapters. The paragraphs don't match exactly the outline of the rest of the book either, but are are quick read. What I was after was the content in the middle chapters.
Chapters 4 through 9 are the meat of the book. The practical set of tasks for real-world podcasting show how easy it really is, from "Planning Your Podcasting" to "Pulling it Off". Chapter 5 is a summary of tools, and just as with the second appendix on "Resources", this material will get out of date quickly but for now it's a great start. The middle chapters are good reading and are very encouraging. Planning and Recording are very good descriptions of what to do and also show the value of experimenting. Preparing the Files is practical and introduces thechnical infromation in an approachable manner.
Reading these chapters made me think of my high school chemistry class and how we experimented with chemicals and made mixtures that were called solutions. That's closer to what the title "Podcasting Solutions" has in mind. The book is not presenting a finished and tested solution to a problem, but a mixture of stuff with an emphasis on experimentation. This book is really about experimenting with the raw materials of audio files, computers, RSS feeds, and sample rates and creating web-able audio deliverables. There is not much in these middle chapters on editing and what makes the difference between what sounds professional and what does not. This is not a college level class on sound chemistry, but rather simply an introduction much like high school chemistry.
"Getting Heard" and "Making Money with Podcasting" (Chapters 10 and 11) assume that you know the audience toward which to aim and that you can appeal to a wide enough audience to make some financial success from your cration. As with any field, there is no sure-fire way of getting rich. But it is not so much a sure-fire method to get rich (again not a solution) but a realistic start and in that sense it is a sure-fire way of getting started, a sort of pilot light from which you can start your own fire. Maybe another title for this book would be "Podcast Pilot Light: A Sure-Fire Way to Get Started with Podcasting". The CD-ROM that is included, as with some of the chapters of the book, contains elements that are a good start but not as valuable once you get started. Most of the CD contents are already on the Web. The glossary and index were an afterthought and not very complete, but they fit the light tone of the rest of the book; nothing intimidating or complicated about them.
If this book convinces you to get started and to experiment with this new and exciting web technology, then I'm sure it has achieved the authors' purpose. It is not a solution but recipe for many solutions! As the authors say in the conclusion "We hope this book has sparked an interest in you to explore the medium, too. Podcasting has changed the way content is delivered. Let's keep pushing forward..." While I have my issues with the title of this wonderful little getting started guide, I highly recommend the book to anyone that wants to push forward the frontiers of sound on the Web.
(c) 2006 Bill Albing, All rights reserved.
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