Increase Your Podcasting Vocabulary
A popular section of the Blubrry website is the free, online Podcast Manual. It is a ‘must read’ for new podcasters, as it shares the steps and concepts behind podcasting’s best practices. It’s also a ‘recommended read’ for all podcasters as it describes the technical details and nuances of the craft.
An important section of the manual is the Podcasting Glossary, which includes key terms related to podcasting advertising, audio/video production, blogging and websites. Below are some of the terms found in the glossary and a sample of their definitions. Test your podcasting knowledge; see if you know the definitions of the terms below.
Podcasting Terms You Should Know
Aggregator – A website or software program that gathers (aggregates) and displays web content such as news headlines, blogs and podcasts from multiple websites to a single location. It allows searches by keyword and provides summaries for browsing. It uses RSS or other types of feeds to find the content and offers subscriptions to feeds, allowing new content to be automatically downloaded when it is available. Also known as a feed reader.
Feed – An XML-formatted file that specifies information and items contained in a blog or podcast and allows users to subscribe to that blog or podcast to read, view or listen to it without visiting the website where it is located.
Podfade – The unfortunate occurrence when a podcast begins to have longer and longer gaps between shows until it eventually disappears. The term is now used to describe any show that has ceased production, even without the actual “fade.”
Advertising Terms You Should Know
Click-through rate – The average number of clicks per hundred ad impressions (views), which determine what keywords are used and the marketing that attracts buyers.
Cost-per-click (pay-per-click or CPC) – A type of online advertising model for which return or payment is based on how many times the ad is clicked. Per-click prices can range from 10 cents to $10 depending on the popularity of the content and/or the advertising agreement.
Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) – The cost of an advertising deal per 1,000 impressions, or views, of an advertisement. The ‘M’ in CPM is a cause of confusion for many. M is the Roman numeral representation for thousand.
Audio/Video Production Terms You Should Know
Clipping – Occurs when an audio recording is distorted because the sound level (volume/pressure) exceeds what the equipment can accurately capture. You will hear clipping any time your waveform amplitude goes past zero (dB).
Intro – A short audio or video clip placed at the beginning of a podcast/videocast that can have music and/or an announcement with the name of the show and episode and any other relevant information, such as sponsors.
Outro – A short audio or video clip placed at the end of a podcast/videocast.
Website Terms You Should Know
CMS – Content Management System – A system that allows one or more people to easily manage the static content, images, audio files, documents, etc. of a website, without needing to be familiar with HTML, JavaScript or other scripting technologies.
Google Analytics – A free service to analyze the performance of a website, such as user activity and site usability, by providing statistics on the users of the website. It can be used to measure the success of online marketing campaigns.
Permalink – A human-readable URL (website address) that most commonly is used for pointing to a specific blog entry, but can also point to any other type of webpage. The permalink usually contains words or phrases relating to the content and is beneficial in Search Engine Optimization.
This is just a small sample of the terms included in the Podcast Glossary. And the glossary is just a small portion of Blubrry’s Podcast Manual. The Podcast Manual is available to anyone, for free. This is just one example that sets Blubrry Hosting apart.
What section of the Podcast Manual do you refer to most? And, as always, let us know what we can improve on.
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Troy Price is the co-founder of Front Porch Studio in Berea, Kentucky. He has been involved with podcasting for over a decade. Listen to his show Podcasting Tips from the Front Porch here.
Contact Troy by email at troy@frontporchstudios.com.