Quick Start Guide

If you understand the concept of podcasting, then you can get started right now with your Bryght site. For a more in depth treatment, see "Setting Up Podcasts-Only Feeds" below.

1. enable the upload module under Administer (top menu) » Site building » Modules.
2. create a tagging vocabulary if you haven't already. We have instructions on how to do that.
3. set upload permissions under Administer (top menu) » User management » Access control.
4. set which content types (probably the 'blog' type) under Administer (top menu) » Content management » Content types.
5. create blog posts as usual, and attach MP3s to the posts (at the bottom of the screen).
6. tag the posts with 'podcast' or whatever you will use to call your podcast.

For more detailed instructions, including how to set upload size limits, skip down to the section "Setting Up Podcasts-Only Feeds".

Background to Podcasting

In late 2004, people looking for an easier way to create and host their own personal radio shows and/or daily rants in audio form in MP3 format came up with the idea to use the RSS syndication format to ease distribution and discovery of others' shows. They also wanted an easy way for listeners to transfer their shows from the Internet to their portable digital music player. Since the Apple iPod was the most popular digital music player at the time—and at this writing still is—and the new way of distributing shows is a lot like broadcasting but in a more distributed fashion, the innovators around the phenomenon dubbed it "podcasting". Note that you do not need an Apple iPod to listen to podcasts: the sound files should work on any computer or MP3 player.

What a podcast can be:

• a 'real' radio talk show, with people calling in and/or the host interviewing people famous to them and even commercials. This generally happens with professional-quality mixing hardware and software, but can still be accomplished with a microphone and a line-in.
• rants and raves about their favorite subjects
• a way to promote their band or music that you think deserves a wider audience
• a "letter to home" updating friends and family about the latest happenings in your life

It's not limited to the above things: podcasting is truly the unedited voice of the individual, meaning anybody with a microphone and a line-in can record their voice to their computer, upload the file to their site, and create a podcast.

Bryght sites come out of the box ready for podcasting: whenever you attach an MP3 (or any file) to a post, the RSS feed for that post contains an enclosure element with the URL of the first file listed as the attachment to that post. The following are some ideas to create your own podcasting site using the Drupal-powered Bryght platform.

Setting Up Podcasts-Only Feeds

What makes podcasting different than, say, just uploading an MP3 and linking to it from your weblog are RSS feeds with the enclosure element. That's a technical way of saying that some programs can get a machine-readable file that tells the program to download the MP3 at a time you specify, rather than having to check the site and download the file yourself.

Bryght sites will automatically create a URL for the MP3 you upload, plus it will place that URL in the enclosure element of the RSS feed without you having to learn the RSS format. Having a separate RSS feed for podcasts will let your listeners get only pointers to MP3 files, plus whatever notes you write out for the podcast.

1. Enable the Upload module under Administer (top menu) » Site building » Modules.
2. Make sure that you give the "upload files" permission to roles you would like to allow podcasting. This is done through Administer (top menu) » User Management » Access control.
3. (optional) Create a role just for Podcasters. That role would need the "upload files" permission as well as any other normal permissions to create content. If you're the only user of the site, then you can skip this step.
4. Change the upload settings to allow for MP3 uploads. Click Adminster (top menu) » Site configuration » File uploads.
5. If there are no roles listed, and you are the administrative user (the first user on the system), then you are able to upload as big a file as you want. If there are roles, however, you will see boxes for each role with a list of file extensions. Add a space at the end of the list, then "mp3" (without quotes) to the roles you wish to allow MP3 uploads.
6. Type in the maximum total size of files a user can upload.
7. Type in the maximum size of file, in megabytes (MB), that a user with that role can upload. The ideal size will depend on things like length of podcast, what type of audio is included, and the encoding of the MP3 file. Unfortunately due the limitations of today's Internet, with limited broadband access (still) and shaky browser uploading, 10MB is really the effective maximum upload limit.
8. Repeat steps 5-7 for all the roles on your system.
9. If you're using blog posts to attach podcasts to, either create a vocabulary for the 'blog' type if you haven't already. This can be done through Administer (top menu) » Content management » Categories.
10. In that vocabulary, create a taxonomy term specifically for podcasts. That way you can have an RSS feed just of podcasts. The name of the term is up to you, but you might want to call the term whatever title you are giving to your show's name, or "Podcasts" if you want to keep it general.
11. (optional but recommended) create a user-friendly URL alias for the podcasts RSS feed. Either:
• enable the Pathauto module under Adminster (top menu) » Site building » Modules. This will automatically create easy-to-read URLs for your posts and feeds. We have more detailed instructions on how to configure Pathauto if you need to tweak the settings. OR
• copy the URL of the link to the XML button at the very bottom of your podcasts page into your computer's clipboard memory. Then click Administer (top menu) » Site building » URL aliases » Add alias tab. Paste in the URL but remove the http:// and the domain. If your taxonomy URL looks like http://www.example.com/taxonomy/term/42/0/feed then you would remove the http://www.example.com/ part. In the alias box you can put something like podcast-rss. In this case, the URL of the podcast feed ends up being http://www.example.com/podcast-rss

Posting a Podcast

After you've setup a category for your podcasts, it's time to start recording and posting it to your site!

1. Record your podcast to your computer. Make sure you save the file on your hard drive for backup purposes. Here are some guides on how to podcast:
• Mac
• Michael Butler's ultra simple Mac recipe using LineIn, and Wiretap Pro
• Windows
2. If you have post-production software to mix in other audio or change the encoding or length of the podcast, do the editing before you post the podcast file.
3. Create a blog post through create content » personal blog entry This is where you can briefly announce the podcast or even add show notes like Roland does for Dogma Radio, where he includes comprehensive links to the people and ideas he mentions in his podcasts.
4. Type in a title of your podcast. It could include things like the subject of the podcast or who you interviewed.
5. If you have permission to, choose whether the post appears on the front page and whether you will accept comments on that post. If you accept comments, that blog post can be the point where people respond to your show in text form. (Some people may be inclined to respond in their own podcast!)
6. If you created a podcast category, select that category for the blog post. In our example, that would be the "Podcast" term.
7. In your main body, you can write some episode notes. These are useful for several reasons:
• it allows readers who may not have time to listen to the podcast to get the gist of what you are talking about
• you can add links to the people and ideas you discuss so that your readers (and listeners) can get more information
• you can link directly to the MP3 file, to make it obvious where people can download it for later listening. The URL of the file will be listed after you attach it. See the following steps.
8. You should see an "Attach file" box. Use this to browse your hard drive for the MP3 file you created for your podcast.
9. Click the "Attach" button. This will list the file on your blog post.
• As a convenience to your readers, adding a link to the podcast in the body of your blog post allows the people who don't bother scrolling down to the attachment link at the end of the post (or who don't use software that automatically downloads podcasts) to download the MP3 to their favorite audio player.
10. Click "Submit".

Roland Tanglao contributed in writing this article. He podcasts for Urban Vancouver, Dogma Radio and, of course, Bryght.