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Blogher Session: Podcasting and Video Blogging

My favorite session, offering two outstanding presentations on podcasting and vblogging, with advice, tidbits, and forecasts for every level of expertise. Much encouragement to do it on the cheap and focus on the content.

Lisa Williams, podcastress extraordinaire, walked us through basic terms, hardware, software, copyright and music tips, and her predictions for the future, including a prediction about all-in-one podcasting suites. And she did it in less than half an hour. Also, she showed us a Berringer Eurorack ($60-$80). I don’t quite get what it does, but it has knobs and inputs and outputs and gleaming metal housing, and even if I don’t need one, or I will never figure it out, I still want one.

Lisa says that in six months podcasting will be less RubeGoldbergesque; she predicts full-fledged all-in-one suites that will offer editing and publishing (think TypePad for podcasting). Meanwhile, she walked us through the slightly kludgy podcast forest, and got a good laugh with her slide showing no less than seven devices she ties together to podcast over a headset to her iPod while she’s in the car.

Ryanne Hodson, queen bee vlogger, was equally informative and reassuring. She pointed out that many digital cameras and PDAs have built-in video cameras capable of making perfectly reasonable entry-level vlogs, but most people have never used them. That would include me!

While displaying her website and her tutorial site (good tips for both Macs and Windows), Ryanne offered a great marketing idea: make a screenshot of each video blog to attract readers.

She also offered practical advice about bandwidth issues, cautioning against hosting videos on your own site: a popular file, even if it’s small, can overwhelm an account. ourmedia.org offers free hosting for videos, and enclosures in your own feed can point to URLs from other sites. (Slapping forehead–of course!)

Ryanne also walked us through FireANT, a vlog aggregator, and both Ryanne and Lisa talked about how to get an RSS feed that supports vblogging and podcasting.

Watch for the first FRL videoblog–starring no other than Danah Boyd!

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