Saturday, September 16, 2006

Listen to your blog and blog podcasting

I have recently added a “Listen to this article” link in my post footer and a link to my podcast feed in my blog’s sidebar. Using the link in my post footer, you can listen to my articles by way of streaming mp3 audio. Isn’t that cool?

Yes. But how did you do that?

I was never into podcasting and had no clue about it. However, while browsing instabloke, I came across a link in its post footer which read “Listen to this post”. Through that link I found out about Talkr.

Talkr is a podcast server that’s very easy and free to use. To learn more about Talkr click here registering at Talkr, you can submit your blog’s RSS feed to them and the. Aftery will create a podcast feed with your posts converted into speech perhaps using some “text-to-speech” software at their end and it’s pretty fast too. So you don’t have to use podcast creation software, host the prepared MP3 files somewhere and setup a feed to it. Talkr will take care of it all. Talkr will also contain instructions on how to add the “Listen to this article” link and a Talkr chicklet to your blog. However, you may use the following piece of code for setting up the post footer links in your blogger beta blogs. (To learn more about working with post footers refer to my previous article

<a expr:href='"http://www.talkr.com/app/fetch.app?feed_id=
[Your Talkr Feed id]&amp;perma_link=" + data:post.url' target='_blank' title='Click to listen'>
Listen to this article</a>

However, I have also faced certain problems. For example, even after setting up the feed over a day ago I still don’t see all of my articles in my podcast feed. Pronunciation of certain words by the automated voice it not very good (I love it when she pronounces my name :D).

Moving on, once you have the podcast feed, you might want to use FeedBurner to dress it up i.e. optimize it and publicize it using chicklets and other features that they offer. To publicize you podcast further, just submit its feed link to podcast feed crawlers. A quick search for “submit podcast feed” in Google will bring up a number of such crawlers/ search engines. When submitting you podcast feeds to crawlers or blogging communities etc I prefer using a well dressed feed like feed burner’s and not the source podcast link because clicking on a feed burner feed link displays a page that your potential readers might like to go through unlike the code gibberish that they would see when they click on the source feed’s link.

Why podcasts?

Podcast is one of the few technologies that entered main-stream from obscurity in a very quick fashion. It’s in and people use it to keep a track of whatever they like. In addition, podcast feeds, promise a wider reach for an average blogger by way of supplying readers with downloadable audio file which they can store in their MP3 player and listen to anywhere or share with others. Such audio files may also be shared on P2P networks, BitTorrents and IRC thus giving you a wider reach. So isn’t that a reason enough?

Podcast feed reader

Well I am pretty new to this stuff but I think I have found a good feed reader for myself and it seems this one is pretty popular too. I am talking about Juice. Juice is a cross-platform podcast receiver which is available for free under the GPL open source. For more features of Juice, you may visit its website.

Click here to learn more about podcasts. If you find more examples of podcast servers (with text-to-speech ability) or a better podcast logo (see the subscribe section in the sidebar), please leave a comment about the same here. Thanks!

16 comments:

Blog Bloke said...

Good article Vivek. You might find that some of your older posts won't be picked up. To help, make sure that you have your settings to "full" feed, and I found that using Atom instead of RSS gave me better results.

Cheers!

...Blog Bloke

Vivek Sanghi said...

Hello Blog Bloke. Thanks for stopping by and sharing the info.

Anonymous said...

hi vivek!another good hack!bt i face some problem when trying it !i follow your step bt the content all gone!and hw you make your google translate to small font and picture!thanks for sharing!

LOUI$$ said...

thanks vivek for sharing,i face some problem,the code doesnt work for me,the content in home disappear,help?

LOUI$$ said...

vivek,i have just fix it,the code problem!thanks a lot man!

LOUI$$ said...

please view my blog at www.moneylah.blogspot.com ,help me fix the code,what wrong vivek?help!thanks

Vivek Sanghi said...

Hello LOUI$$. I have replied to your e-mail. Let me know if the problem persists

Deepa said...

sorry to bother you vivek.. but when i use the code u gave me
perma_link=" + data:post.url'
i am getting the error mesage
----
Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: The reference to entity "perma_link" must end with the ';' delimiter.
--
can uhelp me to fix this
it would be a great help

Vivek Sanghi said...

Hello Deepa. I am copy-pasting the code directly from my template code. Do cross-check it word-by-word even if you copy paste it. If it still does not work, send me your template's (expanded widget) code via e-mail attachment.

<a expr:href='"http://www.talkr.com/app/fetch.app?feed_id=19198&perma_link=" + data:post.url' target='_blank' title='Click to listen'>Listen to this
article</a>

Deepa said...

Thnks vivek..for helping me though the audio version of posts.I have included backlinks to this post and also mentined you in my credits for this feature

Sid said...

I dont think this technology is quite ready for the prime time, I am not going to add it in to my blog. Its pretty amazing how fast its processed, but listening to some of my posts, they sounded like gibberish.

Vivek Sanghi said...

@sid

I recommend contacting Talkr if you are facing any problems with the quality of audio etc.

Marc said...

Hi Vivek,
Am quite new with all these blogger add-ons. Am interested in installing this podcast chicklet. Have done all I need to do with Talkr, but it doesn't seem to work when I paste the code that they give me in my blog. Can I just put it anywhere? Do I have to modify anything in the code?

Sorry am quite a novice, as you can see!

Thanks in advance,

Marc

Vivek Sanghi said...

Hello marc! The code that Talkr gives you to paste in the template does not work with blogger beta. Thats why this post of mine contains the code to be used in blogger beta. If you are new to templates and wish to familiarize your self with it just read this (it might be time consuming but one time investment worth every minute). Once you are clear with this you can understand my posts very easily.

As a one time gesture, I will insert this code for you in your template if you can send its HTML code (expanded widgets) and the talkr code in two separate text attachments via e-mail. Cheers!

The Avenger !!! said...

hi vivek, i am unable to add the listen to my post code to my blog, can you help?

here is the link where you can view the code http://www.freewebs.com/acesudhir/podcast.htm

i did a diagnostic test as explained at talkr page and linked it to one of my post and it worked.

please do email at acesudhir@gmail.com, if you can point out where i am gng wrong.

thanks,
The Avenger

manetsute said...

Hi Vivek!
I implemented this on my blog and it worked but the audio plays short. It only goes on until "posted on" i think. Is there something wrong with the feed I'm using on Talkr. What did I do wrong? Sorry for the bother. But pls, help!:)

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