Web-Site Packagers

If creating your own Web site and managing RSS files are things you would rather not do, several online options can ease the pain of learning RSS. Web-site packagers (as I call them) offer up complete packages for hosting an RSS feed so that your podcasts can be available to the masses with little effort on your part. The rub, of course, is that most of these Web sites charge a fee for this service.

This section looks at a pair of Web-site packagers that offer services to enable you to get your podcast and Web page up and running in a very short period of time with relatively little blood, sweat, and tears. This field is changing so rapidly that a search on Google is likely to yield a large number of companies willing to host your podcasts.

Liberated Syndication

Liberated Syndication (www.libsyn.com; Figure 4.15) is a Web hosting company designed specifically for podcasting. Libsyn.com goes beyond simple Web-site hosting; it offers a podcast-specific product that includes storage for media (podcasts) and an easy-to-use interface for publishing your podcast.

Figure 4.15. Liberated Syndication is an excellent Web-hosting service that's dedicated to podcasters.

Although Liberated Syndication doesn't offer a front-end Web page per se, it does offer an easy solution for publishing your podcast to an RSS feed for a relatively low cost. The costs of the company's services range from $5 per month (100 MB of storage space) to $30 per month (750 MB). Liberated Syndication takes the attitude that it doesn't want users to be penalized if their programs become popular. Therefore, it does not charge for bandwidth use only for the space that users' podcasts take up on its servers.

Liberated Syndication is my No. 1 choice for this sort of service. The prices are very reasonable, and you would be hard pressed to find another service that offers so much for so little.

The list of features, as noted on the Libsyn.com Web site, are as follows:

• Unmetered bandwidth

• Easy-to-use interface

• No lock-in (users are not tied to Libsyn.com for their podcasting needs)

• Quickcast feature that immediately creates a podcast feed for an uploaded media file.

Podbus.com

Podbus.com (www.podbus.com; Figure 4.16) is another outstanding commercial Web-hosting service for podcasters. For only $4 a month, Podbus offers 300 MB of storage space and 10 GB of bandwidth. For noncommercial podcasters, this is a very good start in terms of both storage space and bandwidth, and at $4 a month, it's not exactly a financial risk. Additionally, if you happen to exceed the 10 GB bandwidth limit, each 10 GB of additional bandwidth costs just $4.

Figure 4.16. Podbus.com is an outstanding service for hosting podcast feeds.

Podbus also includes automatic RSS feed creation. In other words, when a podcast is added to its server, a podcast feed is generated automatically (saving you the pain and suffering of creating your own). The one thing Podbus.com offers that Libsyn.com does not is Web hosting. For a measly $2 per month, Podbus.com allows you to use your 300 MB of space to host your own Web page. Like Liberated Syndication, Podbus is an outstanding service for podcasters, whether they are newbies or seasoned veterans.