How to Post Your Podcast

Now that you have recorded and edited your audio file and exported it as an mp3, you are ready to post it on the Internet for all to listen. This can be as easy as uploading the file to the Internet and creating a link to it from one of your existing html pages. While this is not a true podcast as defined earlier- who is keeping score. It is now accessible to anyone who has access to the Internet.

However, we would also like to see how we can make this into a true podcast. That is, it is accessible from an RSS feed created through xml coding. This is relatively simple as you can copy any RSS coding off the internet. The code you see below was taken from the New York Times RSS feeds. We will use this code to explore the basic structure of xml coding for RSS.

Code from New York Times

Looking at the Code

Every code is a little different but you will notice that each section has an opening tag (<tag name>) and a closing tag (</tag name>). These must be matching tags. That means for every opening tag, there must be a closing tag. The basic structure of the feed is as follows:

Set up RSS Feed: You can see this in the example above as that which is highlighted in yellow. This section sets up the code as xml version 1 and RSS version 2. It creates a "channel and allows you to place the title for your feed. This is because a feed can have multiple items in it with each item being a separate audio post. Think of the channel as being a radio station. There are many stations on the dial, each with a different type of programming. This is also where you would place information for any images that you might include. We are going to ignore all image tags as you will see in the edited code listed below. The code starts with the opening rss tag and channel tag. You will have to remember to close these tags at the end of all your code (see the sample below). There are two items showing in the NY Times code above. Notice that the tags used in each of these is the same but that the content between the tags is different. This is what you would do if you where to create a podcast with multiple files available for publication. You can check out the current code for this sample feed at the Education RSS feed site. Look at the feed at this site and notice that you can open and close sections of code based on the matching tags. This will help you to understand the structure of the code.

Now to create your own code. Using the code below (from the NY Times), you will need to copy it and edit it so that it points to your material or in this case, where your material would be if you had posted it on the Internet. We will have you make the following assumptions:

  1. You have a web site where you have your podcasts. The address for this site is www.yourpodcast.com
  2. You will have placed your file at the root of this directory meaning that the address for your specific podcast of the training file will be www.yourpodcast.com/the name of your file.
  3. You can name your podcast in the header information (Yellow above) with your name.
  4. The address that you will include in the link tag in the header will be www.yourpodcast.com/index.html. This represents the index page for the entire channel.
  5. I have edited the code below so that it is simpler and contains only the tags you will need to manipulate. If you only have one recording, you will want to delete the second item tags and all that is between them.

Working code:

Copy the code below and replace key sections with your information so that is represents a podcast for your files following the assumptions listed above.

- <rss version="2.0">
- <channel>
<title>NYT > Education</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html?partner=rssnyt</link>
<description />
<copyright>Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company</copyright>
<language>en-us</language>

- <item>
<title>Here’s Your Syllabus, and Your Condom</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/fashion/24condom.html?ex=1316750400&en=aa288d6e2f990052&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss</link>
<description>Fall also happens to be back-to-school season for the condom industry.</description>
<author>STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM</author>
<pubDate>Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EDT</pubDate>
</item>

- <item>
<title>The Playroom of Modern Art</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/fashion/24art.html?ex=1316750400&en=ae71bc5bdbd2e8ea&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss</link>
<description>Purchasing fine art for toddlers is the latest way for Hollywood parents to nurture little A-list intellects.</description>
<author>GINNY CHIEN</author>
<pubDate>Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EDT</pubDate>
</item>

</channel>
</rss>

If this was a real podcast, you would upload a page with the code you created. This would be the page that others would subscribe to if they wanted to subscribe to your podcast feeds. The magic is that when you change the content of this page, the subscribers will be notified and they will automatically receive your new content.

Additional Resources