Episode One... sort of.

Here is the new ep. Done in the way mentioned in my previous post.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6VnvQxYOTtsdnRGNWFnWFNuMk0/edit?usp=docslist_api

How to podcast for free from your iPhone.

The broad strokes. 

NOTE: The enclosure menu has stopped working in blogger from my mobile browser. Will update ASAP. 

What you'll need:

A Google Drive account. (Free)

A Blogger account. (Free)

An app called Voice Recorder Pro from Dayana Networking LTD from the App Store. (Free)

What you'll do:

Set up the Google Drive account. Create a public folder. Title it "Podcast". 

Next:

Set up the Blogger account. (This should be done through browser and not app as the app does not have access to many of these settings, as far as I can tell.) Create blog. You can use the title of your choice but it should probably reflect the title of your podcast. Go to Blogger dashboard. Under Settings, choose Other. Look for “Enable Title Links and Enclosure Links.” Select  "Yes". Save changes.

Next:

Use Voice Recorder Pro to record podcast and upload to Google Drive.

 Next:

In Google Drive, move podcast into "Podcast" folder. Get info and copy Link. 

Next:

Create new blogpost in Blogger. (Again, use browser acces to blogger, not app.) Click the Links section under Post Settings. Paste URL of your podcast file under Enclosure Links. Tag as Podcast. 

CONGRATULATIONS!

You now have published your first podcast and most importantly you've done it free of charge. Now, Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

A little more info now.

What we've done so far: recorded and published a podcast. What we haven't done: gotten the podcast on iTunes. I'll get into that in a future entry. 

I've read probably 100 articles on how to podcast for free. None of them, individually, worked for me. There was almost always some cost on the back end or compatibility issues with my needs. My needs are simple: must be able to create, upload, and publish podcast from iPhone and iPhone only and it must be free from front to back. Well, okay, I had to pay for the phone and the service, but all free after that. No PC or Mac involvement, no paid hosting or apps. None of the articles I read had this info in totality but several articles touched on different aspects of my problem. You will find longer articles out there that go in depth on apps and services and different approaches to free podcasting but you'll be hard pressed to find a more effective and immediate technique that this. And you won't find any, that work, cheaper than this. This is not a perfect method, probably not a good long term solution, but it will get you started. You can find your own way from there. 

There are drawbacks to my method. Google Drive only has so much free space. You release enough podcasts and you'll max that. The best free hosting option I know of is Archive.org. If you have access to a PC or Mac this will be your best solution for free hosting. I have yet to figure out how to get my iPhone to talk to Archive in such a way as to get podcasts uploaded here. This is something I'm still working on. 

Voice Recorder is not perfect. It's great and a great solution for my needs but it's not a perfect solution. The sound is great. Not, I believe, quite as naturally good as GarageBand, the free app I have been using, but very good. With the right control of your environment you should be able to get very good sound. Another plus over GarageBand is file size. My recordings before conversion were huge in GarageBand. I had gigs and gigs of my tiny 16gig iphone consumed by 8 30min recordings. Average recording size for around 30min of recording with Voice Record is only about 15meg so a big plus there. Alas, there are trade offs.  Effectively mixing in opening music, for instance, is nearly impossible with Voice Record. It's doable, but the results are crude. GarageBand is great for this but GarageBand is ultra limited as far as what websites and apps it talks to and how. 

I hope this helps some of you who may be in similar circumstances to mine. Good luck and let me know how things work out. 

Edward.