Podcasting is all the rage right now. I use Power MP3 Recorder on my laptop with a Y-connector to my phone to record. While I thought the recording was the challenge. It's not. The challenge is in wrapping the podcast is a professional package with lead-in music and intro as well as closing music and notes. You can tell the difference between a polished podcast and the amateur kind.

I've noticed that recordings of conference calls have poor quality as well. Lots of things affect the quality of a conference call. For example, if you call into a conference bridge via a cell phone, Skype or a VoIP line, there tends to be a quality issue, especially if the bridge is VoIP. I have had people dial in to a bridge while driving with the window down. People have put the conference on hold resulting in a soundtrack for the call from that company's on-hold music (or worse recording). When the sound quality of the recording is poor, it affects the product.

After you get through post production of the podcast, there are 3 factors left: hosting, distribution and marketing.

Get on iTunes. Utilize an RSS feed. Take advantage of the 20+ podcast directories. Blog about it and list it on your website (use a text link). Add it to your newsletter. Marketing is telling people about it. From the podcasts I have heard, a couple of hundred listeners is medium sized. Just get your story out there.

Hosting requires a lot of storage and bandwidth. The average podcast I have seen is about 40MB. One hundred people listen weekly you have pushed 16GB in a month.

There are a number of companies that can help you podcast including Podworx, Podgarden, Podpress, and Podbean. If you want a little intro into Podcasting, go here or here.

BTW, you can thank the iPod for making podcasts more mainstream. WIthout the advent of the MP3 player going mainstream, podcasts would still be by and for geeks.