From the course: Producing Professional Audio and Video Podcasts

Choosing a podcast host

From the course: Producing Professional Audio and Video Podcasts

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Choosing a podcast host

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- When it comes time to choosing a podcast host, you have many choices to choose from. A simple web search will reveal many companies that are willing to sell you podcasting services. Some offer audio, some offer video only, and most provide both services. The pricing between audio and video plans, though, tends to differ significantly, so be sure you weigh this when you're budgeting out your show. Now, a lot of these services are going to provide different levels of service. Some are just going to be a repository for the media files. Others will do everything for you, giving you production tools, or at least the ability to automatically build your RSS feed without needing to write code. One service that I like to use is a tool called Libsyn. Libsyn has been around for a very long time and they offer a lot of different price points depending upon what you need. They can even build a webpage for you and a mobile app, if you would like. Libsyn has been around from the very beginning with podcasting and has a good reputation in the industry. I personally use it, so if it's a tool that you want to try out, it's one that I find to be very reliable. Another tool that I've tested that's been very satisfactory has been PodBean. They too offer flat-level pricing, depending upon what you need and their tiers are there for individual podcasters, as well as large businesses. So depending upon the services that you need, you can find a good fit. Some of the things you're going to want to think about when you're choosing a podcast host are some of these key features. First up, what is your audience going to be accessing on? What's the primary makeup of them? Are they mostly mobile or accessing from desktop computers? What sort of connection speeds are they going to use? If you tend to be very appealing towards a mobile user, well, you may want a faster network so you don't hit extra lags with the slower cellular speeds. Does the content need to be embedded on a webpage? You could, of course, also upload to Vimeo or YouTube, but many podcasts hosts will give you an embeddable player that allows you to not just embed the current episode, but a nice playlist with all of your episodes. Do they offer any redistribution options? One of the things that I like about Libsyn is that I could republish my show to many other services, including Audible from Amazon, other podcasting hosts, iHeartRadio, and even YouTube, which gives me extra distribution points. You also need to decide if things need to be copy protected. With most podcasts, you're not worried about protection, but you may want to explore what sort of options are available. There are also some other hosts that do provide premium options, including the ability for subscriptions, but this opens up a whole new area that means that you won't be listed in popular podcast directories, like iTunes. Bottom line, be sure to explore some of the features and read reviews. These companies come and go and change over time, So what's going to work for you way require a little bit of research.

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