Beware Mobilcast, Pod2Mob, VoiceIndigo and others like you. Nokia is working on a podcatching application for Series 60 phones. Besides recent discussion around the blogosphere, I've also received an email directly from Nokia requesting information on desired functionality.

Word is that this will be a free app. I've tried the currently available mobile podcatching software with very mixed results. So if my phone supports this app I will definitely give it a try. If it works I may just have to upgrade to a 2GB memory card.

I wanted to take a few moments to lay out the steps for publishing a video podcast for free using the very cool Google Video service. There are several free video hosting services out there, but Google is the only one that provides features like multi format conversion and a flash player that will work in almost any browser.

The steps to use Google Video to create a podcast are not patently obvious, but all the tools are there and I believe that I've figured it out. In fact, if you head over to http://www.podcastnyc.net/video then you can see it in action.

This little tutorial does not address the actual creation and editing of the video. My assumption is that you've got a piece of video ready for the web.

Step 1: Sign Up for Google Video. Head over to https://upload.video.google.com and apply for an account if you don't already have one.

Step 2: Google Video Uploader. Download and install the Google Video Uploader on your computer.

Step 3: Upload your media. Take your finished media and upload using the Google Video uploader. It's important to note that I've had the best success with uploading WMV files. I've gotten errors when trying to upload most QuickTime files but you might get better results than me.

Step 4: Edit video information. Once upload is successful you need to edit the video information before it can move to the next step in the process. Go to https://upload.video.google.com, login and proceed to fill in the details of the video. There are two key

There are two key fields in the details that will allow you to use Google for a video podcast. The first is the video title and the second is the production company name. Make sure that each video title contains common elements that can be accessed in a search. Check this search of Brother Love Notes for an example. The same thing goes for the production company name. Make this field as unique as possible as in Far Far Away Entertainment, Inc.

When filling out the video information, there are advanced options that are selected by default. No need to change these as you want the video to be free, downloadable and shareable.

Step 5: Wait for verification. Submit and wait for verification. Once you've entered the video information there is a verification period that can take from 1 to 3 days. The only way to know if the video is live is to periodically check your dashboard at Google Video. This is important time to factor in when you plan on publishing for your podcast.

Step 6: Create your RSS feed. Google Video supports RSS but doesn't necessarily make it easy. RSS is supported via search results. This blog post explains how it works. Start off by doing a search at http://video.google.com using the unique video or production company name in quotes. For example, a search for "Flow Video" would yield the following url: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22Flow+Video%22.

Now we turn these results into an RSS feed by adding &num=20&output=rss to the end of the string resulting in http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22Flow+Video%22&num=20&output=rss. This url will return RSS for the last 20 items captured for this search. Adjust the num=20 element to change the number of items present in the feed.

There's one issue with this feed that you may want to correct prior to taking the next step. The r results aren't sorted by date. Most podcasters want their newest post to show up first. You can correct this by adding a sort order element of &so=1 to the string. So your corrected feed would look like this: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22Flow+Video%22&so=1&num=20&output=rss. Now you've got results sorted by date.

Step 6: Make it iTunes compliant. What good is a video podcast if you can't list it with iTunes? I recommend that you run any podcast RSS feed through FeedBurner to add the necessary iTunes podcasting elements.

If you haven't used FeedBurner before just head over to their site, enter your Google Video RSS like, click the "I'm A Podcaster" checkbox and click the Next button. Check Feedburner's help on Podcasting for more info on getting this set up.

If you've done everything right your resulting feed should look something like this. Look for the "Play Now" link associated with each post. This means that there is a podcast enclosure that iTunes, Yahoo Podcasts! and other podcatchers can pick up on.

Step 7: Rinse and repeat. You're pretty well set to go at this point and you should only need to repeat steps 3 through 5 for further posts.

There are a few pros and cons to this approach that you should consider.

On the Pro side: You get free bandwidth, statistics, a shareable flash player and multi format support. So if you upload a Windows Media file (or non iPod compliant QuickTime file), Google does the conversion to support the Video iPod format.

On the Con side: This approach only yields an RSS feed but not a blog with commenting support. Your RSS output is dependent on a unique name to search on. So choose your name wisely. Some folks would rather not wait a couple of days for their video to be ready in the RSS feed.

There are other options for free video hosting which you may want to consider. Two popular sites are:

YouTube - Free hosting, flash player, sharing and statistics. Supports RSS but uses .SWF files for enclosures that aren't iPod video compliant.
Blip.tv - Free hosting with stats. Podcast RSS feeds supported but only ten items allowed in each feed.
OurMedia - Free hosting and very basic stats. Podcast RSS feed supported. No embeddable sharing. Uploading ability and download speed very inconsistent.

There are other sites that provide similar functions and free hosting including MySpace and YouAre.tv. Some say they are multiplying like rabbits so you might be able to find another one that works well for you.

Tags: Google Video, Video Podcasting, Video Blogging, Blip.tv, YouTube

Despite what some folks might believe, the market for podcasts is growing at a healthy pace.

Feedburner issued a report earlier this week that shows significant growth.

And now LibSyn has issued their own report which comes to the very same conclusions.

Seems like the reports of the death of podcasting have been greatly exaggerated to say the least.

Great night last night at Arlene's Grocery. The occasion was the Brother Love show. Mr. Love put on a rocking show featuring tunes off of his latest CD Album Of The Year as well as featuring several tracks off of a forthcoming album. A good time was had by all.

The evening also served as an impromtu gathering of the local podcasting community. James Donnelly of MadPod was in attendance. Jason from Gothamcast was there with the missus. Mike Talmadge of iPod accessory maker ThoughtOut.biz was in the house. Lee Ann from The Lascivious Biddies made an appearance. I even met someone new to the scene. Peter from the music podcast Jesus On The Radio stopped over to say hi.

Expect plenty of pics and videos of the show to be floating around the podosphere over the next few weeks. I took a video of the whole show that I'll be sharing with the world soon enough.

The funny thing is that in all the excitement and acknowledgements of those in attendance, Brother Love forgot to plug his own podcast Brother Love Notes.

Charlene Li of Forrester Research is trumpeting the death of podcasting. I've got two three word pairs to describe Charlene and those who share her attitude towards podcasting.

He He He. Yeah. Right. Podcasting has only a few narrow uses. No one is watching or listening. Sure. We'll follow your weak analysis and narrow, underinformed research like lemmings to the sea.

NOT!

A person's satisfaction with their job can usually be gauged by their general attitude and the amount of time that they spend actually doing what their supposed to be doing during the work day.

Using that theory as a baseline and then hearing about Rock n' Roll Geek Michael Butler's actions makes me wonder just how happy this dude is with his place in podcast nirvana.

Jason from IRN reports on IR77 that Mike showed severe disdain for a band he was about to interview, complaining that he was tired and didn't want to deal with asking questions to a band that happen to be his label mates. I listened to the recording and the dude did not sound happy doing what he was doing. That's a shame because there's nothing fun about listening to a guy bitch about having to interview a band.

Jason also offers up that Mike said he spent a good part of an afternoon working on his MySpace page instead of signing up labels to be on the Podsafe Music Network. I didn't hear this in the audio on Jason's show but if it's true then I'd say that's a problem.

Do these actions constitute a bad day for Butler or signs of a pattern of demotivation among PodShow employees? Only time will tell my friends.

Just wanted to note that LibSyn has added What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editing to their publishing system. This is a very nice feature and just another reason to go with LibSyn for hosting if you're interested in either starting a podcast or moving your files to escape high bandwidth charges.

Eric Rice weighs in on Podshow.

The dude is taking a hard line. Can't say I don't sympathize with his position. Eric's a guy who has a genuine interest in podcasting. And he's helping to make it happen via his AudioBlog.com (soon to be renamed HipCast) service.

vs.

Keith and the Girl, who are fellow NY'ers but certainly not my favorite podcasters have taken on the almighty PodShow. Check out the post here.

What Keith and his gal Chemda have done is read the standard PodShow contract for podcasters on their show. They don't think much of the contract. I have seen the contract and had it in my hands. I hate to say that I agree with them.

The contract is highly restrictive and only guarantees small payments for podcasters who reach 100,000 downloads a month. It's certainly not enough money to quit your day job or even your night job.

My initial thought on seeing the contract was that it was pretty insulting. The thing that was insulting was the fact that it was so obvious that this was just a legal way of acquiring content with very little risk. You basically give away anything and the most you can get is $400 per month. That's not going to allow anyone to quit any job.

All that said, people have the right to make their own choices. And there's no gun to anyone's head who is signing this contract. In fact, many people are very excited about "signing" with PodShow. So Adam, Ron and Co. must be doing something right.