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Did you know podcasting is as easy as making a phone call? There are a whole bunch of podcasts services out there that let you record episodes of your podcast by dialing a number and leaving a message. I spent a little time trying out a few of these services today. I’ve summarized my findings here. I think if you just want to effortlessly start creating podcasts on the fly you should be able to find what you need in this blog post.

Cinch

This is the most simple podcast tool you will every find anywhere until they invent some way to telepathically publish podcasts from brain-to-mp3. All you do is make a phone call, record the message, and hang up. You don’t have to set anything up. Cinch even sets up your RSS feed using your phone number… http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/yourphonenumber.

You can literally pick up your phone right now and call +1646.200.0000, leave a message, hang up, and then go to http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/yourphonenumber to find your podcast.

You can attach a phone number to a word so that you don’t have to make your phone number known to the public. For example, I changed my RSS feed from http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/myphonenumber to http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/dailysplice. But that’s the ONLY setting up that you can do.

There’s two problems though:

1. They put their own audio signature at the beginning of the recording. It’s only a second long, but if you absolutely can not have a 3rd party message in your podcast (I guess it’s an advertisement), then you can’t use this service.
2. It’s a little too simple. I mentioned that the only setting you can do is change the RSS url for your phone number. You can’t log into your account, you can’t do episode titles or show notes, you can’t delete a show if you screw up, and if someone knew your phone number I guess they could change your RSS feed url. Also, it’s one phone number for one RSS feed, so you can’t make updates to your feed from multiple phones.

My Cinch RSS Feed

• recorded using my cell phone (long distance charges apply)

Gabcast

This is one step up from cinch in terms of complexity, but the complexity vs features you get is totally worth it. Basically, you have to set up an account to start, and then you have to deal with an automated menu when you call in to identify your podcast. This lets you call from any phone to update your podcast, and you can playback your episode over the phone before publishing it. Then you can log in after the fact and ad show notes and manage recordings.

The problems with Gabcast are:

1. The free part is limited. If your show gets popular you’ll need to upgrade for a minimal costs to increase your bandwidth allowence
2. It didn’t work reliably when I tried it. The first test I did worked beautifully, but then when I called back to record the real deal I got a busy signal. Later when I tried again it just kept ringing. Then site went down too. Maybe I just got unlucky, I don’t know. I’ll try again another day and update this post if it works.

GCast

GCast is about as easy or easier to use than GabCast, but there are a couple advantages.

1. It doesn’t look like there are bandwidth or storage limitations
2. You can upload audio files, so if you want to record and edit your podcast professionally and then upload it rather than recording by phone, you can.
3. It’s done by the folks at GarageBand.com, so they’ve integrated some mixing tools that leverage their huge database of royalty free music. This feature isn’t really in the scope of this post, so I’ll mention it but that’s it.
4. It actually works =)

The only disadvantage of this service is that they mention in the description that they make money from adding audio or video advertisments. I didn’t get any ads attached to mine though… maybe those get added later? Probably at their discression anyway. However, they do also say they will probably come out with a paid option to get rid of the ads.

My GCast RSS Feed

• recorded using skype (free, terrible quality, but probably has more to do with the fact that I’m just using my dinky built in laptop microphone)
• recorded using my cell phone (long distance charges apply)

Hipcast

With hipcast you can record your podcast by phone, skype, the on-site recording studio, or even by uploading an mp3 file. You can even do video. You can have multiple podcasts and you can call from any phone and update any of your podcasts using the automated phone menu. It’s not as simple as some of the other ones, but it really does have all you’ll need to get podcasting effortlessly and still get high production quality when you need it. The problem is… it costs money. 5$ per month will get you a basic startup account. If your podcast gets popular you’ll have to start upgrading which means more $$$. Of course, if you get to the point where you have to upgrade then it’s probably not a bad thing.

My Test Hipcast RSS Feed (this may not work eventually because I canceled my account so I don’t keep getting charged)

• recorded with skype (free, terrible quality, but probably has more to do with the fact that I’m just using my dinky built in laptop microphone)
• recorded with a mobile phone (long distance charges apply)
• recoded on the hipcast site (free)

Tags: cinch, gabcast, gcast, hipcast

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under General Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.