Internet & Hosting

How do you get started with podcasting? A simple question with a simple answer: Just start! Time has taught us that the biggest reason for people not to podcast is because they don’t know how to start. Starting with podcasting sounds like a daunting task until you realize that podcasting is not that difficult. In this article, we’ll show you what equipment and software you need to start recording your first episode.

A descent microphone

How do you record a podcast episode? For that, you need equipment of course. You can start with your smartphone or invest in a descent microphone right away. If you are willing to invest, start by investing in a decent microphone first. Audio is of course the most important thing in podcasting. What kind of microphone do you need? Do you only record audio via your computer or your phone, or do you want to combine the two? When only recording on your computer, choose a USB microphone, when only recording on your smartphone, choose a microphone with a 3.5 jack connector. If you have an iPhone, make sure it is compatible. The Rode Smartlav + is available for iPhone and Android.

Software to clean-up the recording

You’ve put your new microphone to good use and recorded your first episode. Now it’s time to edit the raw recordings. Make sure you have intro music and a spoken intro and outro recording ready. Now you can use Audacity to edit your recording into a podcast episode! By dragging the right files into Audacity you can start editing. Cut the parts of your recording you don’t want to use and drag and drop the audio tracks so there is a clear order in your podcast episode.

Automated Transcriptions

You should also provide transcripts to your audience. The best way to do it is to convert your podcast audio file to text. You can do this with automatic transcription software that converts mp3 tot text. Doing this will make your podcast more accessible to different audiences. Help people with hearing problems access your content. It’s a great way to get more subscribers and grow your following!

Hosting and Publishing

To post your podcast online, you need a podcast host. There are a lot of hosting services like Soundcloud, Libsyn, Blubrry, Podbean, Simplecast, … Though a lot of hosting platforms allow you to publish your content directly on various podcast directories, you must be aware of certain popular podcast publishers. When people browse for podcasts on iTunes or Spotify, they only see the content that has been added to the directory. You only need to add your show to the directory once. From there, whenever you add new episodes, the RSS feed and the directories will update automatically. Though most directories only need one episode on your RSS feed, you must add at least 5 to create a good first impression. If someone listens to one of your podcasts and likes it, you must have enough content to encourage them to listen more and subscribe to your channel. As soon as you have your first podcast online, you’ll see that you’ll be motivated by the response you get to your podcast! Of course, you need to make sure that people know your podcast is online. Post some messages on Facebook, Twitter and your website and let everyone know you’re ready to conquer the world of podcasting!

Hey there, you are either in a state of extreme panic at the moment, or you are someone who is making sure he is prepared for everything.

One of the worst things to happen to an internet entrepreneur is that his website crashes, just at the moment when business was supposed to be so good. You traffic was spiking like crazy – conversion was great, and money was pouring in. And then bam – your website crashes and you have no idea what to do.

The good news is, this happens to pretty much every new company out there. Even very huge organizations, including government websites, crash.

But the bad news is: You’re losing business. Fast. For most big companies, an hour of down-time can literally mean thousands of loss in profit.

In most cases, websites will hold up fine. If your settings are configured correctly, your site design is ok, you should be good to go. However, after a big PR push or lots of attention, an increased volume can wreak havoc on server set-ups that are geared toward a much less trafficked site.

There’s never a 100% guarantee that your website will remain up and running. In fact most hosting providers will always give you a 99% guarantee. But in case of a huge traffic spike, things are a little different. Here is how you should prepare.

Also read: How to monitor your website’s uptime

Preparation is key – do tests

There are multiple ways to simulate traffic and to do tests, as if a traffic spike is occurring. That way your developers can test where the weaknesses are, and what can be done about it. This is something you really have to do. It is fairly simple.

A CDN is a must.

CDNs are cloud-based data services that scale themselves automatically to optimize web hosting and incoming traffic. And it does not have to be expensive. Some of them even work on a flexible basis, and only charge when you get more traffic than you expected, and will return to normal as soon as the traffic spike is over. There are ton of solutions out there, like Cloudflare, Maxcdn, Amazon etc.

Daily back-ups will help you sleep at night.

Keep daily backups of the website’s files, including all databases being used. If the site crashes, having a recent backup will ensure the site content will remain current. This means that none of your hard work goes to waste, and makes sure you feel safe.

Do a basic check on your server.

Contact your webmaster (or look to yourself) and ask to ensure that you don’t have basic data caps in place with your website host. Lots of web hosts impose general data caps that limit the capacity of data transfer to and from a website. While this normally wouldn’t present an issue for regular usage, sites that expect to come under heavy traffic should manually request removal of the caps. This might require some additional expense but it will be well worth it to ensure that your user experience is seamless.

Keep all software up to date

Keep all website software like content management systems, shopping carts, message boards, etc. up to date with their latest versions. Sometimes bugs or security holes are found in older versions which can cause a website to crash or operate unexpectedly.

When shits hits the fan anyway

Now, let’s say you’ve done the steps above and thought you were in the clear—only to get word that your site couldn’t handle the influx of clicks, got overloaded, and suddenly quit. You need some damage control, pronto. Here’s what to do:

Don’t panic.

See above about yours not being the first or the last website to experience an outage. These things happen. It’s just part of doing business.

Don’t hide.

Work as quickly as possible to repair the problem, while sending a message to all your key audiences letting them know that your site is so popular, it crashed due to overwhelming demand.

Contact the web hosting company

Find out more about their uptime policies and guarantees. They may offer credits towards your hosting fee if the site goes down.

Utilize your social media channels

Communicate with your customers and take responsibility for the outage. Post an apology on your business’ Facebook page. Send an email to your current mailing list. Do everything you can to let your clients know that you understand their frustrations and your business is working hard to resolve the outage.

Mobile billing allows people to charge their online purchases to their phone bill. It is also called direct to bill payments. It is different from mobile payments as these require the user to have a bank account or credit card to link to their mobile. This has caught on is Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. You can do it do it in many webshops, but also in many different sectors like in a mobile billing casino. However, there is still a lot of apprehension in using any mobile payments, be it mobile billing or otherwise. Some people still do not like to enter their account details online which may be due to fear of security breaches, previous experiences with fraudulent accounts or merchants, or just plain laziness, while others do not have credit cards so it is possible for them to purchase a lot of things online.

Companies that are mobile billers

Companies like BilltoMobile, Zong, and Boku are examples of mobile billers. They offer their mobile payment software to merchants and they usually charge 10% to 20% of the transaction price to process it and charge the purchase to the user’s phone bill. Phone carriers usually put a cap on the billables, around USD 100 to prevent bill shock. So purchases are limited to online games, music, videos, and other data products.

To grow, mobile payment companies have to gain the trust of businesses and consumers alike. They need to be endorsed to consumers by merchants and they need to prove to consumers that mobile billing transactions are secure and legit, and all transactions will be transparent and itemized.

At this time, mobile payment companies vet merchants by visiting sites physically to ensure existence and veracity of the business. There is also a standing commitment to process refunds as efficiently as possible. And it has been agreed between phone carriers and mobile payment businesses to suspend mobile billing should a user report his phone lost or stolen