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Tag: podcasting

Griffin MicConnect for iOS at CES 2013

Posted by Andrew at 5:51 AM on January 26, 2013

Griffin MicConnectJeffrey Powers goes all Pop Idol when he chats to Jackie from Griffin Technology about the newly announced MicConnect, which connects iOS devices to XLR mics with phantom power.

The Griffin MicConnect is a small brick adaptor with an XLR socket (input) on one side for the microphone and a 3.5 mm jack on the other to connect into an iPhone, iPod or iPad. A 3.5 mm socket provides for headphone monitoring of the sound source and for condenser mics, the unit takes two AA batteries to provide phantom power (48V).

(As an aside, I’m not 100% clear if this is iOS only – the 3.5 mm jack looks pretty standard and there’s no reference to special apps being required so if Android is your OS of choice, it might be worth contacting Griffin directly.)

Included in the interview is Griffin’s updated Mic Stand Mount, which is now compatible with all iPad models (not Mini), and unsurprisingly holds an iPad on a mic stand. Jeffrey reckons the MicConnect and the Mount are a great combo for the mobile podcaster. Pricing-wise, both the MicConnect and the Mount are $39.99 but the MicConnect won’t be available until June.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine for the TechPodcast Network.

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Posted in Apple, audio, hifi, iOS, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, podcasting, smartphone, Special Media, tablet

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New Media Expo University Offers Scholarship

Posted by geeknews at 12:40 PM on October 1, 2012

The folks over at New Media Expo are offering a scholarship to the New Media Expo University to up and coming content creators.  This is a great opportunity for someone just starting out podcasting, blogging & web streaming that may not have the financial means to get to New Media Expo this coming January in Las Vegas.

I have been asked to judge the entries that are being submitted in the podcasting category. While I will not be commenting on the process to pick the winners, please review the guidelines laid out on the site to apply. I look forward to reviewing the entries submitted.

New Media Expo needs to be commended in stepping up to the plate like this, it shows their support for the podcasting space and their commitment to the podcasting community.

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Posted in New Media

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TMS #49 Podcasters & YouTubers Success Questions?

Posted by geeknews at 11:36 AM on April 1, 2012

This week I am joined by Rob GreenLee of RobGreenlee.com and Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome.com on Saturday Morning Tech Show. We talk tech and try to decipher why there are great YouTubers / Podcasters yet very few of those two groups of content creators have been successful at both. Note this is a monster show but I think you will find this to be very enlightening.

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TMS #30 YouTube & Podcast Elite Debate

Posted by geeknews at 4:48 PM on August 14, 2011

The Morning Tech Show Video What started as a Google+ Hangout between TPN members resulted in a serious debate and discussion on YouTube and Podcasting when Michael Mozart joined the hangout.. It’s a great discussion probably one of the best Saturday Morning Tech Shows yet. Regular Guest Rob Greenlee is also onboard..

Check out Mozy’s YouTube Fail Toys Video Series!

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CinchCast iOS Beta

Posted by tomwiles at 7:33 PM on May 14, 2011

Podcasting since December of 2004, more than once I’ve thought of a podcasting “dream” device. It would be a small hand-held all-in-one device that would allow me to produce the perfect podcast and upload it and post it with a single tap of a button.

This perfect integrated podcasting device doesn’t exist as of yet, but with Blogtalkradio.Com’s free CinchCast iOS/iPod/iPad/iPhone app, the ideal software/hardware solution is closer than ever to actually meeting my dream for the ideal podcasting solution.

CinchCast is a free app available for download in the iOS App Store. Once installed, in order to use the software one must create a free account at CinchCast.Com. After the free account is created, it becomes possible to record audio from within the CinchCast application. Once you have finished making your recording, simply go to the next step and type in what you were talking about. The remaining and final step is to automatically upload your recording to the CinchCast server, where a real podcast is automatically created with an RSS feed.

CinchCast iOS Beta uses the built-in iPod Touch 4 microphone. The recording quality is decent, but the 64kbps bit rate the app uses is not adjustable. On the other hand, recording at 64kbps in mono results in compact MP3 file sizes.

The iPod Touch itself has a surprisingly good built-in microphone which works extremely well in quiet areas. However, trying to record audio in a moving vehicle is likely to result in heavily distorted recordings because of the deep bass frequencies generated by the tires moving against the pavement so depending on the microphone you are using be forewarned.

Of course, CinchCast iOS Beta has no way to play or incorporate pre-recorded audio clips or jingles. CinchCast excels in allowing one to record and immediately upload a podcast MP3 file with just a few taps on your iPod/iPad/iPhone/iOS device.

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Posted in Apple, application, audio, iOS, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, smartphone

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PowerPress Podcasting Plugin Updated

Posted by geeknews at 8:38 PM on March 7, 2011

My team at RawVoice this morning released version 2.0 of the PowerPress Podcast plugin for WordPress. The work committed to this update was well over 1 month of coding. I have been running the beta here at Geek News Central for several weeks, and many of you have already commented on the new video player experience as being superior to what you have seen on other podcasters websites. Now that the update has been made available to the 80,000 podcaster worldwide we are excited to watch the implementation across the web.

Folks making video will want to check out the new HTML5 video player, WebM support and Embeds feature! PowerPress 2.0 provides an optimized viewing experience for the widest spectrum of hardware/software including  web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari), mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android), and TV’s (e.g. Google TV, Roku, Boxee).

Some of the new features and enhancements include:

  • HTML5 video player
  • HTML5 audio player
  • Embeds your audience can take with them just like YouTube.
  • WebM video support
  • Ogg audio/video support improvements
  • MP4+WebM (for mp4/m4v video, a new alternative WebM URL field is available. This is ideal for supporting all browser based HTML5 video players)
  • Flow Player Classic can now play m4a audio and mp4/m4v video
  • New Video Player settings page added
  • Settings pages enhanced with new options such as location, frequency and T.V. options
  • Episode Entry box enhanced with new ‘isHD’ option when video entered into Media URL box
  • Episode Entry box now includes option to configure video player width/height on a per-episode basis
  • Upload image option added to supplement the video poster image field. Images are uploaded to the built-in image gallery in WordPress.
  • Plus a number of improvements

I have created a short video on some of the coolest features and hope you will take a few minutes to overview the update. Please note that the video embed below is from the actual posting on our official PowerPress site. No longer do we need Blip or YouTube we can share our content from our sites with the embed feature.

Make sure you Upgrade today!

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Posted in blogging, Software, wordpress

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Apple removes Ping Feature Podcasters Need from Itunes!

Posted by geeknews at 9:10 AM on February 11, 2011

Since Apple introduced Podcast in the iTunes application in June of 2005, there has been a feature where a podcaster could ping Apple to let them know that a new episode  had been published.  This guaranteed that time sensitive content was able to get listed and be available to subscribers with a few hours of its posting. Sometime earlier this week Apple removed that feature. It came to light when we discovered that pinging apple now redirects you to a online version of iTunes.

Completely unannounced to even their support people, Apple.com has removed the documentation how to ping iTunes when your podcast updates from the official  iTunes podcast specifications. I cannot even start to explain how bad an impact this is going to have. Apple says they will now update directory listings once every 24 hours. Problematic if  Apple just visited your site 5 minutes before you hit publish on the hottest story of the decade. Podcasters with evergreen content this change means little.

Since July of 2005 when Apple introduced Podcast to iTunes this has been a critical feature in more ways than one. From a tech support angle, it makes it much harder for my company to support podcasters when they are having trouble as well.

In recent days my audience members complained that the listings were not updating for a couple of days after the show was published which is suspect because once subscribed to a show the listing in iTunes should update automatically when you sync your phone. This is going to negatively impact on listener numbers either way, and also make shows that have time sensitive information less relevant. If you are a podcaster you need to voice your opinion very loudly with Apple. We need this feature re-instated to ensure that podcast listings on iTunes get updated in a timely manner.

For More Info on how this is going to impact you please read my companies official post on this.

Todd Cochrane

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Posted in Apple

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Big App Show For Android

Posted by tomwiles at 9:22 PM on October 10, 2010

Adam Curry is a clever guy. Back in 2004 he was working on the concept of podcasting. Now he is pioneering smartphone apps.

About 6 months ago, Adam Curry came out with a free iPhone application called “The Big App Show.” Each day, day in and day out, Curry records a new video of himself demonstrating an iPhone app.

The Big App Show is now available for Android. The concept is the same, except with the Android app the apps Curry demonstrates are obviously for Android and are available in the Android Marketplace.

The Big App Show is a very witty app that really takes advantage of the power of Android and iPhones. Curry is adding value by demonstrating the apps right on the screen as he talks rather than giving dry descriptions. He puts out a new app video on both the Android and iPhone platforms every day of the year.

Bravo Adam! I think you are on to something!!!

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Posted in adam curry, advertising, Android, Apple, google, iPhone, ipod, itunes, marketing, podcasting, podshow, smartphone, Software

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Tune In

Posted by tomwiles at 11:56 PM on October 9, 2010

The most useful computer is the one in your pocket.

What really makes any computer useful is the software that you are able to run on it.

When I was a kid in the early 1960’s, one evening my Dad brought home a battery-operated AM transistor radio. I was immediately transfixed. That simple AM radio and I were inseparable. That was the start of my interest in technology and gadgets.

When podcasts came along, I stopped listening to conventional radio back in late 2004. Podcast listening is a much more efficient experience.

Can conventional radio listening be made into a more effective, efficient experience?

The answer? Yes it can. “Tune In” available for free from the Android Marketplace turns your phone into the most effective, amazing radio tuner/playback device you’ve never had.

Want to “Tune In” to local stations? Tune In knows where you are, thanks to your phone’s built-in GPS chip. You are instantly able to pick from all sorts of local radio station streams.

However, it doesn’t stop there. Want to listen to a particular song? Type a song or artist name into the search box, and Tune In will present you with a variety of stations currently playing that artist or song.

Select stations based on radio genre, music genre, or geographic location. In fact, find stations broadcasting from virtually anywhere in the world.

“Tune In” turns your Android phone into a powerful radio capable of searching and tuning in to thousands of conventional radio stations that are broadcasting from across the world.

“Tune In” certainly isn’t the first app to present streaming radio stations. However, “Tune In” does a great job of presenting streaming stations in a format that can capture one’s imagination on a truly portable pocket playback device that is connected to the world 24/7.

I can only imagine if I were a kid today and had access to a smartphone…

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Posted in Android, application, Geek Culture, gizmo, google, GPS, podcasting, smartphone, Streaming, Toys

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OTT Tsunami

Posted by tomwiles at 10:28 PM on September 28, 2010

We’ve been hearing quite a lot about Internet-delivered video content lately. Trends sometimes seem to advance slowly over a long period of time but then tumultuous market shifts seem to happen overnight.

Blockbuster just filed for bankruptcy. Blockbuster was unable to reconfigure their business structure to compete effectively with Netflix. It seems that Netflix has won the ongoing war.

Streaming video and video podcasts have been around for several years – these are not new ideas. However, what is new is the proliferation and increasing popularity of set-top boxes.

Back in the 1980’s backyard satellite TV dishes were a hobby among people that were looking for something different and as many choices as possible. That quest for choice ended up going mainstream in the form of commercial cable and satellite providers offering hundreds of channels.

Starting in 2004 people began experimenting with Internet-delivered content in the form of podcasts. I believe that podcasting happened as a direct result of broadband availability getting to a certain critical mass, combining the existing elements of RSS, MP3’s, etc. into a new form of communication. This new form of communication offered something very different along with unprecedented levels of choice.

Internet-delivered content of all kinds is rapidly becoming mainstream.

I believe 2010 is the year of the app. Apps suddenly seemed to have come out of nowhere to seeming to pop up on every device imaginable. Why the sudden popularity of apps? Desktop and laptop computers have been around for a long time, along with full-blown applications. What has really happened is that computers have now shrunk down to the point where they not only are in our pockets in the form of smartphones, but they are also showing up in HDTV sets and plenty of other devices. These devices we are running these apps on are actually quite powerful computers in their own rights.

There is now a wide variety of content that is heading for every computer-enabled screen you own, especially your HDTV.

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Posted in application, geek, Geek Culture, geeks, internet, Netflix, OTT, RSS, smartphone, Streaming, video, videocast

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