One of the first things required is a domain name where the website will be located. Many domain registrars are available



who will help one register a domain name for a small fee. Once the domain is registered, hosting is required, and again there are many different companies willing to do the hosting for a small fee. One of those is bluehost.com, but many others are available. When looking for a host, the most important thing is to make sure that a lot bandwidth and storage space is available and cheap. Since podcasting deals with large media files, a lot of disk space will be taken up storing the files and bandwidth will be eaten quickly when they are downloaded by the subscribers.

Once podcast hosting has been established, it needs to be used and the website needs to be set up. The DNS addresses of the website need to be set to the addresses that the host provides you so that the servers that the internet will know where your website is located. DNS addresses can be set by going to the domain registrar that was used to acquire the domain and inputting the addresses provided by the host. Then, it will take a few days before the master list the domain registar updates will be shared throughout the internet and all name servers know where to find your specific domain. You can then go about setting up your own podcast.

With the podcast hosting in place, you will need to look at the disk space allocated to the website using something called and FTP browser. The host may provide one as part of their hosting plan, but if not there are many available free to choose from. Using the FTP browser, log on to the host and upload a file called dircaster.php after editing it to fit the specifics of the website. Dircaster.php is an easy to find piece of coding that generates a feed file by looking at the contents of its directory or folder. The individual episodes to be podcasted can then be uploaded to the same folder as dircaster.php for cataloging. Make sure that all the meta data, or information about the mp3 file is correct before doing so.

The podcast hosting allows you to distribute all your podcasts. It would be best to upload more to the website, such as an index page that tells visitors about the podcast and provides the address of the file dircaster.php on your website. When they subscribe to that file, the podcast client they use will access it and receive information about the newest and latest podcasts.