Social Media University, Global (SMUG)
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As you can see in the post about Sharing Mayo Clinic being featured on FIR, it’s possible in the self-hosted version of WordPress to provide a Flash player for your mp3 files, which enables your users to listen to the audio track without downloading it and opening in another program, such as iTunes.
What you may not know is that it’s really easy to provide this functionality.
Continue reading “Blogging 369: Adding an Audio Player in WordPress”
The fact that we’re in the 200-level courses doesn’t mean we’re done with the 100 level, but that we’re talking about an unorthodox and somewhat creative use of the Yammer platform.
As I indicated in Yammer 110, Yammer now allows the upload and sharing of documents or files. And it’s not just limited to PDFs, spreadsheets or Word documents. You also can upload mp3 files, and I did one of those that was 18 MB.
That got me thinking: what if a company decided to use Yammer as a way of distributing “podcasts” to its employees?
It would be unconventional, which is why I put “podcasts” in quotes. A podcast is typically considered a series of audio or video files to which you can subscribe via RSS. By that measure, a Yammer “podcast” wouldn’t exactly fit the definition.
So I’m coining a new term:
A yammercast is an audio file you distribute through Yammer, and it has some significant advantages over other means of distribution.
Continue reading “Yammer 201: Yammer as Internal Podcast Platform”
In the 100-level podcasting courses, we used the built-in MacBook Pro microphone and Audacity as the source for audio files. (See Podcasting 103).
Here’s an example of one of those files, from Podcasting 109. You’ll note some hum and a bunch of background noise.
This course, Podcasting 201, is about a MacGyveresque hack that enables you to get much better sound quality.
One of the limitations of the Flip as a video camera is that it doesn’t have an audio input jack, so you’re stuck with its built-in microphone. That means that in a noisy environment, such as I experienced at the U.S. Transplant Games, background noise can be bothersome.
But if you’re not concerned about the video you’re getting, the Flip can actually be a pretty nifty audio recording device.
Here, for example is the audio from Podcasting 110, which I recorded using a Flip Ultra.
So how do you do that?
First, because you aren’t concerned about the picture, you can hold the Flip right next to your mouth to get maximum pick-up of your voice. Here is a frame grab from when I recorded Podcasting 110.
Nice angle, huh?
At any rate, once you’ve captured the audio by holding the camera nice and close to your mouth, all you need to do is open the .AVI file from the Flip in QuickTime Pro (for Mac) or a similar Windows program, and export the audio as a .WAV file.
Then you can open the file in Audacity and edit in the same way as you would in Podcasting 103, saving your edited file as an mp3.
It’s that simple. It does require the purchase of a Flip, but you really should get one of those anyway. But because this method does involve some expenditure (a Flip costs about $150), this is a 200-level course instead of 100-level.
If you have another kind of video camera, such as a mini-DV, that also could be used to capture audio, but the steps involved would be much more complicated. With the Flip, it’s just about as easy as using the built-in computer microphone, but with much better quality.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m still going to be mostly putting the Flip to its intended use. But until I get another source for audio in my personal podcasts, it will be my digital audio recorder too.
For more fun with podcasting, check out 10 Steps to Your Own Free Podcast.
iTunes, Podcast Alley and Yahoo are among the major directories that people use to search for podcasts that interest them. If you’ve created a podcast and want it to be widely heard, getting listed in these directories is important.
So just how do you go about doing this? Glad you asked! Podcasting 110 takes you step-by-step through the process of getting your podcast listed, and reviews how you can guarantee that your podcast can be found through Google.
Here’s where Chancellor Conversations is listed on Podcast Alley.
If you really want to impress the Chancellor with your thirst for knowledge, subscribe to Chancellor Conversations.