Secrets of Podcasting
Finding a podcast book today is like trying to find a book on this years football season, the information is too new and too much in a state of flux. Given those restrictions, Bart Farkas gave it a noble effort in his books Secrets of Podcasting, but this book doesn’t quite provide what the title indicates. For obvious reasons, his writing style seemed like a blog that was turned into a published book. The structure lacked a consistent flow and jumped from place to place. He included interviews with many of the key players in the podcasting world,that were interesting, but not relevant to the content being discussed in the chapter.
In his efforts to be thorough, I found Farkas wasted valuable space talking about information that wasn’t very helpful and was probably out of date by the time the book was printed. Reminding me of the sketch in the movie Airplane! where the guy talks about the earth cooling, dinosaurs, and Mercedes Benz, Farkas actually discusses the invention of the home computer and Internet! An example of this information overload is the fact he spent 30 pages talking about every podcast agregrating software out there for Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, and Mac. That’s a bit over the top. I would have rather he named three or four ones he liked than giving me a dizzying array of options, especially since most people are probably going to use iTunes. The same over-attention to detail was his anaylsis of mobile MP3 players. He listed every popular one on the market and gave a description. Hardly a secret, especially since they were old versions and models! With iPods having 70% of the market share, why go on from there? It’s podcasting, not MP3 casting.
Ironically, the chapter on creating podcasts is significantly shorter than the introduction of podcasting. Farkas doesn’t even get to creating a podcast until you are halfway through the book. Again, we are faced with too many choices in software and hardware. When he finally gets to the instructions of creating the podcast, he uses both a Mac program and a Windows program and gives great step by step guidelines. Here, his thoroughness really pays off, but creating a podcast is only half the equation.
In the last section, Farkas drops the ball and doesn’t explain enough about how to distribute your podcast via RSS feeds. This is the shortest section of the book. There is no step by step guide. Not even the dizzying array of software like in the other sections of the book. Maybe he ran out of time, but why run the ball down the field, and then fail to make the goal?
This book is a good overview of the podcasting universe and perfect for someone who might ask, “What is a podcast”, but if you know what a podcast is and understand the basics of recording audio content, look elsewhere for a book on the details (see my review of Podcast Solutionsfor a book that picks up where Secrets of Podcastingleaves off). Hardly a book about secrets, more appropriately it should have been titled Podcasting for Beginners.
Pros: Great overview of podcast options and ideas to create your own podcasts.
Cons: Skimps on details of how or what to do after you create your own podcasts. Bores you with lots of details on software and hardware options that are out of date by the time the book was published.
3 out of 5 dog cows
