Setup a podcast on WordPress.com in 2 minutes

Until recently I had my podcast hosted by Podomatic. It was a free, 500 MB storage service that worked decently for the basic needs of a podcast.

Following PAB2008 I knew I need more, but I was procrastinating because of 2 reasons:

1. I didn’t want to spend $1,000+ for a professional website. Podcasting is just a hobby for now. If I had one grant to put into my hobby, it would probably be for a Neumann microphone.

1. I also didn’t want to follow the complicated, less costly, do-it-yourself setup on WordPress.org. I read a great tutorial (presented at Podcamp Arizona) on how to setup a podcast on WordPress.org, using Amazon S3 to host the media files (I don’t have the link handy but I can find it for you, just ask). But I am not that techie and I don’t want to learn just yet on how to setup a database.

For those of you that:

• have no podcast yet but are considering

• have a podcast on a free hosting service (like podomatic) and want more, with little money

• have a WordPress blog and want to add audio and video to it, including self-produced podcasts,

here is a quick how-to.

I googled ‘how to podcast on wordpress.com’ and found it’s incredibly simple:
1. setup your wordpress.com account
2. pay 20 USD (per year) for an upgrade that includes: 5 more GB of storage memory on top of the existing 3 GB; the ability to upload audio and video.
3. publish your podcast using the WordPress.com blog editor.

That’s all!

What do you get for 20 bucks a year?
You get the fabulous editing powers of WordPress (hear that, Podomatic?), a huge storage, cool stats. Can’t really beat that.
You also get to be out there in no time, publishing your cool stuff, without headaches related to maintaining a website.
And you can bit-rate your audio files at any quality you want (I do mine at 256k, but Podomatic would downgrade to 96k).

And then, when you’re comfortable spending a few grant, call a pro to set you up with your own domain and personal website.