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Are you looking to add professional impact to your website and
newsletter for almost little or no cost. How about introducing an
audio ezine or other informative audio stream to your web site
With the amount of email and documentation that is being passed
around, people are becoming overwhelmed with the information
overload. I know of a number of people who because of their hectic
multi-tasking schedules find it difficult to make the time to sit
back and read the books, magazines and articles that keep piling up.
Instead they pop in an audio book (CD or tape) while they are
working, driving, or exercising and “listen” to their books.
This is an ideal way to maximize productivity and learning in a short period
of time.
What can you do with streaming audio?
Record tips and tricks relevant to your field of expertise
Record your entire ezine or portions of it in streaming audio format
Record interviews with other business owners, subject matter
experts, and/or customers
Make announcements about new products, services or specials
Record a speech or talk that you have given
Start your own “radio station” or web cast.
Post your audio on various MP3 audio sites just like you would with
articles.
Streaming audio is another effective communication method to share
your knowledge in an interactive way. You are reaching out across the
world and adding warmth and a trusted voice to your loyal visitors
and readers. You are only limited by your imagination because you
probably already have the tools on hand to create some great audio.
If you haven’t thought about this because you think that it might
cost you too much time or money, let me give you an idea of how easy
it is.
What do you need?
1. Microphone
2. Audio Recording Software
3. Sound Card
That’s it! It's rather easy to do and won’t require too much
of your time or require a fancy recording studio. Your computer, an
inexpensive microphone and audio software that lets you record, edit
and mix puts you in full command of your own home recording studio.
There are quite a number of free to inexpensive audio shareware tools
that you can download. For example, MP3 Audio Mixer
is a great tool that helps you record and mix your audio. So, if you want to add a music intro or do fading
between segments, MP3 Audio Mixer makes it a snap. You can add
background music, intro and outro music or just about any other
sounds you think would add impact to your streaming audio
presentation.
Another good tool you might consider is Super MP3 Recorder
which lets you record through your microphone, record an existing streaming audio file from the Internet
or even music from your CD player or MP3 player.
With your software of choice and a decent microphone (in my
experience a simple $10 microphone has been more than effective for
voice recordings), you plug it directly into your sound card, hit the
record button on your audio software and start recording.
After you have finished recording, a rather large file known as a
wave (.wav) file will be written to your hard drive. Wave files take
up about 10 megabytes for each minute of your recording and your next
step will be to convert this file into an MP3 audio file. This
process known as encoding (MP3 converting) will compress your wave
file at a 10 to 1 compression ratio into an MP3 audio file. This
compression is what makes MP3s such a big hit and so easy to
distribute. So, as you see, each minute of audio will now only
consume 1 megabyte of hard drive space. In the case of voice
recordings, you probably won't need the same high quality output as a
music MP3 thus reducing your file size even more.
Whatever software you decide to use, most software developers include
very detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to create very
professional audio sound files. For example, take a look at MP3 Audio
Mixer’s on-line help for a detailed walkthrough of the recording
process. Super MP3 Recorder also offers a step-by-step recording tutorial
that will have you up and running in a matter of minutes!
After finishing your recording, creating an audio stream using
an .m3u file is easy. An .m3u is a play list file that points to a
specific MP3 audio file on your server. First, you simply upload
your finished MP3 audio file to your server. Next you create a simple
text file (using NotePad) saving it with the file extension .m3u. All
you need to do is add one line of text to this file, which will be
the pointer to the mp3 file you just uploaded to your server.
For example:
1) Marketing-Minute.mp3 is your newly recording Internet marketing
tip that you uploaded to your server. The file is saved on your
server to a directory called audio.
2) The .m3u file you just created, which you will name
Marketing_Minute.m3u, will have one line that points to:
http://www.yourwebsite.com/audio/Marketing-Minute.mp3
3) Create a regular link like you would for another web address (URL)
i.e. [a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/Marke
ting_Minute.m3u”]Click here to listen to today’s Marketing Minute
When a user clicks on this link, their MP3 player should open and
your newly created audio file should start streaming through their
speakers.
Very easy for both you and your listeners and a great way to promote
your business and share your knowledge.
Pretty easy! Once you start learning how to record using the software
of your choice, it only gets easier. What I have described covers
MP3s, you may also consider using Real Audio, Shout Cast or Windows
Audio Files (WMAs) as your audio file format. The process is very
similar, however because of popularity and compability, MP3 has
become the audio standard.
For a very good audio primer, visit Deliver Your Media
and check out our descriptions of the various audio formats that are currently in use.
Have Fun!
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