A friend – a journalist with decades of experience – asked me about starting a podcast – but nothing too complicated. She needed a simple podcasting tool that didn’t require a lot of setting up, carrying equipment, or lots of faffing around.

I had a look around for something that is new, uncomplicated and effective. I found Opinion – an iPhone app from a Swedish company.

 

It is as good a place as any to start; better than most.

Advantages:

• You can interview
• You can record a talk piece
• You can edit the recording – proper editing not just top and tail.
• There is a music library! Hurrah! But … see below
• You can get unlimited space for <£3! The first 10 minutes is free.
• You can manage all the content from your iPhone
• Easily share content on Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) and email
• There appears to be an option to share on SoundCloud
• There is a browser version of your content anyone can see. (http://davy-sims.madewithopinion.com/)
• It it iTunes friendly (i.e.you can fill in minimal information and submit to iTunes – I guess you have to do that separately.

 

Disadvantages:

• It’s iPhone only.
• Being an iPhone you can’t easily monitor the recording.
• You can’t sign into the website.
• You can’t embed to a blog, however you can share on Twitter and embed the Tweet into the blog.
• Difficult to record a group of people.

My initial impression was that the sound from the website is a bit “mid range”. But I have listened more on other devices and actually the sound is pretty good.

My guess is in time they will offer “professional” services options packages

… 10 minutes later the music library hasn’t loaded. 

If you decide to test it, be careful as you fill in the information on the first window. We casually talk about a podcast as if that is the same as a programme. A podcast is the strand (Book at Bedtime) and each edition is an “episode”. So the Podcast title will be something like “My Mobile Impressions” with episode titles like “Air line strike”, “My book of the year”, “Why we need to eat more chocolate” and so on.

This is a good simple starting tool which sticks to the principles and doesn’t get too complicated.

Not sure about the music library – 20 minutes later, still leading.

If you have an Android phone, then Soundcloud is your best bet.