In this post, we are going to talk about a podcast publishing platform. If you want to start with finding the right podcast recording platform, refer to previous blog post.

Publishing a podcast involves not only uploading the audio files to a web server, but also having a web presence and generate a validate podcast feed for your podcasts. The process may seem complicated at first, but really the whole process is not very difficult.

Add to the fact that right now there are a lot of integrated podcast publishing platform to choose from. It should be painless and easy.

Using a hosting platform, you can start podcasting just as easily. Thanks to the great podcast feed technology, which actually is an extension of RSS 2.0 feed. It allows end-users to access podcast files through HTTP — the usual Web protocol — instead of using proprietary mechanism.

Another factor that makes it painless is the maturity of blog platform.

Let’s back up a bit.

Publishing a podcast involves uploading the audio file to a public web server where it is available for download across the Internet through a simple web browser. A podcast feed needs to be updated to include information regarding the location of the audio file. It is the podcast feed that helps podcatching software automate the entire podcast consumption process.

Finally, the RSS feed should include text summary or excerpts of the podcast episodes so that people can read it before deciding if they want to proceed to download the podcast.

The first step is easily done, just like uploading a web page to a server. There are some critical points to consider when choosing a web hosting platform to maximize availability and robustness. That will be in another post.

For podcast feed generation, there are software that can help you fill in the necessities and generate a validated feed, ready to upload to the server.

The third part is just like publishing a web page. Any web publishing platform will do that.

Blog platform solves the hassles from doing step two and three repetitively. Imagine that you are able to type in information just like writing email, filling in some information about podcast file you just uploaded and press “publish,” and all is done. That is what a blog software will do.

Another benefit is that blogs are automatically archived, indexed by blog search engines and include an internal discussion for individual posts as well as remotely through trackbacking.

I can’t stress this enough. Using a blog for publishing a podcast really helps. You can easily make the podcast available through Flash player for streaming to end-users’ web browsers.

So, what is the advantage of web-based podcast publishing platforms? They usually have all the components very tightly integrated one another, including an industry grade hosting that is specially created for high volume data transfer.

Having your own independent blog and hosting platform allows more flexibility and control, although it requires initial setup and maintenance of server side software if updates are necessary.

It is a matter of choosing a platform that suits you the most, both for your workflow and interaction.

Also read: Podcast Tutorial.

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