Intagration with our Site

[dakotagts]

I am new to podcasting and understand the basics, but reading all of these "How To's" are confusing me completely. Let me explain our situation and if I could get feedback on the best way to setup our site I would really appreciate it.


What we want is a dual podcast system, one for creating a true Itunes rss feed and the other for quick download on the page itself.

This is the site page that it will go on.
http://www.midwestrea.com/Podcasts.aspx

I am not the designer of the site, I have backend access to a built in HTML editor with the ability to add to the content source. I do work with the designer, so if there is any other scripts or add-ins needed I can get that to him.

What programs do I need that will setup the feeds and the html for the page?

Again any help would be great since I am in need of some guidance.

[RobotsLove]

You'll need to generate an RSS file, this is the podcast file people "subscribe to" when they want your show. There are programs and free online generators and iTunes specific specifications that a few google searches can take care of.

An RSS file for podcasting in its most basic form holds when the file was last updated, entries for each show, and link information for the audio or video file.

As far as quick downloading, just link to the audio or video file itself, no complicated system for that.

I hope that kind of clears up what you were asking as far as the design element.

[dakotagts]

as far as rss feed builders what am I looking for as far as ease of use? I would like to be something that I can just add a file to and it will populate on the feed. Also is there any html designers for setting up a control center with buttons to subscribe to and download the audio/video?

[dakotagts]

I have been working on the design part, let me know if you think i should format anything different

[RobotsLove]

as far as rss feed builders what am I looking for as far as ease of use? I would like to be something that I can just add a file to and it will populate on the feed. Also is there any html designers for setting up a control center with buttons to subscribe to and download the audio/video?

What you're looking for is a program that you type in the filename, description of the show, size of the file, and a few other things. It'll then generate that into an rss file that you can upload.

What a "podcatching" program does during set intervals is retrieve that file, checks if its a new version, lists the new media files, and then may or may not automatically download the newest listed files.

An RSS file is programmed with XML, basically the same thing as HTML but you can add custom tags to suit your needs. RSS is a specification designed to take advantage of the XML format.

I personally program my RSS files by hand so I'm sorry I can't recommend an application off the top of my head.

[WyethDigital]

The simplest way to go is to set up a blog on your site using something like Typepad or Wordpress. You can even use Google's or many other free blogging tools, just so long as you have a place to host the files and they support RSS with enclosures (RSS 2.0). I believe there are also online services that let you generate RSS XML code based on information you provide to a form on a website. I don't use those, so I suggest a Google search.

Wordpress has a popular plug-in called Podpress which is supposed to make things easier on the podcaster. You should look at the documentation associated with whichever platform you choose and discuss this more in depth with your designer.

Eric