Periscope and Podcasting
Periscope is a live streaming service from Twitter. It's pretty cool. My step-son is at Perdue and last week we got to see his first performance with the band via periscope. I had 36 people watching my cat in a baby's sleeping shirt. During the week I would open it up and just talk about whatever hit me. It's an interesting way to connect with your audience. In general, the video is recorded and can be viewed for 24 hours. You can download the file and upload it to YouTube or whatever service you would like to use.
I used an iRig device originally meant for guitar players to plug their guitar into their iOs device but it works for me. You will need a 1/4" to 1/4" patch cable to go from the mixer to the iRig, and then the iRig into the phone.
There is an iRig2, but it is overkill. Also when it comes to patch cables, as you will be doing this near your mixer, this is probably a case where a shorter cable is better.
Like most podcast equipment questions, there are about a billion different tools you can use to do this. The bottom line is, have something to say. If you don't bring value, you won't have people coming back to hear what you have to say. It's one thing to just hop on and test it out, be sure to mention that. For me, I like firing it up and having one topic, saying it, and get out. In the immortal word of James Brown, "hit it and quit it."
Blab.im is completely addicting. It also is a streaming service like Periscope except you can (if you choose) to let up to four people join you. There is a chat room where people can chime in and ask questions. They can also request to be part of the stream. I tried this last Saturday on Ask the Podcast Coach. Typically this is a call in show where my co-host and I talk and occasionally take a phone call. It's awesome as you are never sure what you are going to get . I think in the year that I've done that show we've had one caller, and one waiting twice. Last Saturday I had four people in the cue wanting to come on.
You still have control over who is and is not on the stream. You can mute people, or band them from the blab. You can start a blab on your computer (so it's easy to connect your mixer or microphone)or on your mobile device. It's best to use Chrome when you are on the computer. You can choose to record it (or not). If you record it, when your blab is over, you get a link to the audio file (mp3 file - 320 kbps stereo) or the video. When I compared the audio from Blab the to the WAV file I recorded on my portable recorder, the WAV file didn't win by much.
