Links to helpful interview resources

There are no affiliate links here because I don’t think it’s worth the trouble.

A few readers of the Interview Your Heroes guide pointed out that I didn’t say anything about how to broadcast live and that I didn’t include enough links. I hope this little addition will help.

If there’s anything else I left out of the guide, email me and tell me. I’ll add as much as I can.

Broadcasting live interviews

I don’t recommend doing live interviews until you have a lot of experience first because the technology to do it is undependable. But since many people asked about it these links should help.

MAC ONLY: This is the guide that showed me how to broadcast my audio.
http://asaha.com/ebook/UMzcyODE-/Using-Skype-in-a-U-stream-Broadcast.pdf

MAC ONLY: This is the program I use to broadcast my video.
http://camtwist.en.softonic.com/mac

WINDOWS & MAC: I haven’t tried Wirecast, but for $450 I hear it creates a professional-quality broadcast.
http://www.telestream.net/wire-cast/overview.htm

Transcripts

I use Speechpad because it’s quick and very accurate:
http://speechpad.com/

I used to use a dirt cheap option that Andy Baio describes in this link, but it took me too much time and wasn’t very accurate. Still, if you need a cheap solution, follow this link and give it a shot.
http://waxy.org/2008/09/audio_transcription_with_mechanical_turk/

Microphones

The Blue Yeti is my current favorite. Antonio (aka ATailoredSuit.com), a Mixergy viewer, created a useful review on Amazon. Fast forward about 5 minutes into his video for an audio comparison that will help you understand why this Mic is so important.
http://amzn.to/c5LmoZ

Blue Snowball, which costs about 40% less than the Yeti, was what I used for about 2 years. It’s a great mic, but it recorded my volume a little too low so I replaced it:
http://amzn.to/9HB20T

Recording

MAC ONLY: This is the program I use to record my interviews on Skype:
http://www.ecamm.com/mac/callrecorder/

WINDOWS ONLY: The founder of Vodburner gave me a demo of his software and showed me features that I still wish my Mac setup had. (My favorite is the option to automatically show the video of the person who’s talking.) There’s a free demo so you can try it before committing to it:
http://www.vodburner.com/

Editing

MAC ONLY: ScreenFlow is one of the big reasons I switched to a Mac. It’s elegantly simple and makes editing my interviews and adding effects so simple that I rarely have to spend more than 10 minutes editing my work. (Though exporting a video, which happens in the background while I do other work, takes about an hour.)
http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htm

WINDOWS ONLY: If you use Vodburner.com, it will let you edit your interview too.

iTunes / podcasting

If you’re publishing on WordPress, podcasting can be automated for you. Check out this article:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Podcasting

If you’re not on WordPress or don’t have enough bandwidth, this company is cheap and effective:
http://libsyn.com/

I’m talking to Wistia.com about doing my video podcasting, so they might be an option for you in the future.

My friend Jess of Fusionapps, is working on a custom solution for my audio podcast. I’ll blog about the results when I have them.