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Reviewer: Chaim M Scheff

If you are contemplating getting into podcasting, you should get this book. Podcasts are generally audio files that one creates and then allows others to download-for eventual listening on home computers, iPods, and so on. More specifically, podcasts are professional and cottage industry quality recording products. They are often timely and informational, but can potentially be commercial, political, or educational. Alternatively, podcasts can be pushed on demand, and contain radio, television, e-book, multimedia, or similar noninteractive contents. This book walks readers through the information on hardware, software, planning, infrastructure, advertising, and business planning that one needs to get started with the many flavors of audio file creation and dissemination. There are many essential details conveyed here, so seriously think about using this book as a textbook for a beginner's podcasting workshop. (The book also comes with a companion CD, which is full of useful freeware podcasting tools.) Of course, like our not-yet-forgotten experience with getting started with Web pages and Internet sites, the greatest barriers to entry into podcasting are personal inabilities to learn all of the necessary technical aspects that are called for in successful podcasting. But, do not despair. Just as all the complexity of CB radio culture has quietly evolved into idiot-proof cellular phones for the ordinary person, the complexity of accomplishing quality podcasting is disappearing as we go to press. Ultimately, this is the book's greatest shortcoming because so many advancements have happened in the months since publication and the solitary year since text finalization; the usefulness of this book is fast becoming obsolete. Nevertheless, it does fill a very real, instant need for a handy reference book for the aspiring beginning podcaster. Blogs and the like are fast creating a knowledgeable podcasting community that shares the basics and competes at bringing advancements onto the scene. The happy result is that knowing all of the basics of podcasting may soon become unnecessary. One reasonably expects to see the external podcast hardware incorporated into ordinary consumer products, the podcast software becoming standardized and embedded, podcast management and production tools becoming idiot proof, and everybody taking podcasting for granted (much as email writing has become an "art form" for the masses). Personally, I wonder which edition of this book will teach the tricks of cooking up pod spam that can get through all of those clever filters that podcast enthusiasts are racing to configure. So, if you want to get into podcasting, you should get this book now, or else you may never need it. Online Computing Reviews Service