Sammy says, “I have produced my first podcast, and it is now listed with iTunes. My dumb question is what do I do with the second edition? I have recorded my second podcast, uploaded it to my server, and have created the RSS file for the second podcast. But I don’t know what to do with that second RSS file. Do I upload it to my server, and put the number 2 on it? How do I get iTunes to recognize that there is now a second podcast available? As I said, I hope this isn’t a stupid question, but I have scoured a dozen “learn to podcast” sites, but none talk about posting a podcast, BEYOND the first one.”
This is most definitely not a stupid question. One of the most confusing things about creating RSS feeds in general is the process of creating them in the first place. When you create your RSS feed, you are essentially creating a running list of entries rather pointing to each new entry with a corresponding new RSS file.
Ideally, you don’t want to manually edit this file at all, you want software to the work of adding new information to the RSS feed and properly appending it.
The first time you created a podcast was likely the first entry in your RSS feed. This entry is defined as being a single item by surrounding it with <item> and </item>. Now that you are ready to publish your second entry, you want to add a second <item> to your RSS feed. This way, you only ever publish one URL that people subscribe to and as you add new podcast episodes, every subscriber will get notification of the latest update.
Ideally, using an online publishing service like WordPress or BluBerry will automatically generate an RSS feed you can use for your podcast.
If you have your own CMS that doesn’t directly support podcasting, you can probably still configure a template that outputs your uploads in valid RSS that could be used as your podcast feed.
