Do you need .mac to publish podcasts on a mac computer?

Question

okay well i have a mac computer and people say its free to publish podcasts.....but it says that you need a .mac package thingy (program) that you need to buy which costs alot

Answer 1

You can keep things simple if you think of a podcast as just a sound file. That can be stored on any web host server. If you don't want a Dot Mac account, you can get free web hosting through Yahoo (Geocities), www.freewebservices.net or any number of others. When you just upload a sound file and give people the web address to download it or to play it within their browser, you can use any web hosting company so long as they offer you enough space for all you want to upload. But if you want to offer streaming content and prevent people from actually downloading the file to their computer, you will need to setup your page on a streaming server and that takes a lot more expertise.

Do everyone a favor, though, and convert the sound file to MP3 if it isn't that already. That's easy to do with the free iTunes software. Other formats such as WAV, AAC or MP4 may not be compatible with some computer systems. And heaven knows we hate RealPlayer files since they often seem to need some special twist of fate to make them play.