Gabcast Podcasting By Phone Or VoIP

If you’ve caught the bug for podcasting and can produce enough chatter to publish your own audio content online, Gabcast will host your files for you for free. Once you post audio content either using a regular phone or a VoIP service, you can access the audio files from your website or weblog (Blogger, TypePad, Wordpress, and more). The Gabcast service can also be used to host conference calls.

The basic service is free and gives you 200 Mb, but you cannot upload episodes. You can record 60 minutes per episode from either VoIP or telephone, and you’ll get automatic RSS Feeds, blog integration, and a couple of other features. Pro service is $6/month per channel, provides 400 Mb, all the features of basic service, and the ability to upload episodes, and have hidden episodes and channels, as well as some enhanced publishing features. Both of these services show “Gabcast” branding on the audio player and the MP3 files. Premium service is $12/month per channel, provides 1 Gb of disk space, all of the features of Pro service, plus password protected channels and episodes. You can also custom-brand the audio player and MP3 files.

There are access phone numbers to the Gabcast service for major cities all over the world (see overview), or you can use the numbers for Free World Dialup, Gizmo/ SIP, or dial the regular numbers from any soft VoIP client that has call-out capability. Note that there is a toll-free number for some areas, including all of the United States. You could also try the new Hullo soft client, which currently has free calling to anywhere. (Get it while it lasts.) It’s also gives really clear calling for pc2phone calls, compared to Skype.

If you decide to try Gabcast out and actually publish some podcasts, might I recommend that you actually read off of a script - even a rough one - or you’re likely to fall prey to the umm-uhh mumble disease.

I tested out the service, calling the nearest access number using Skype (free SkypeOut for Canada and the US until Dec 31st). Even with a script to read off, I found myself umming and ahhing. Needless to say, I deleted the episode after publishing it. The episode creation process is really easy, though: call one of the numbers, enter your channel number and numeric password, record away. When you’re finished, you can review your recording, save or delete it. Unfortunately, my experience was that if you review your recording, you have to listen all the way through. I was unable to stop it so that I could immediately save it (or whatever). Though that may or may not have had to do with my calling in with Skype.

The channel navigation on the site seems a little obscure. But once you’ve created channels and episodes, It’s relatively easy to embed a flash-based or HTML MP3 player onto your weblog, so that people can access your voipcasts/ podcasts from your site. There are a number of options for doing this, which are explained at the Gabcast site.

Go have some fun: Promote your own music, review movies or TV shows, or whatever.

P.S. If you want to know how to record your Skype calls, read 15 apps for recording Skype conversations. If you’re not interested in making your own podcasts but want something to listen to, here are 7 podcasts worth subscribing to.