One of the most complicated aspects of podcasting is getting great sounding recordings of people over phone lines or through a remote VoIP connection. Battling latency is a constant possibility with VoIP and landline services vary from house to house, to the point you may end up with some callers sounding great and others sounding lousy because their particular line is bad. I address this issue in an answer to a question about Long Distance Podcasting.

Another key component of phone recording is voicemail. If you want listener feedback, voicemail is the easiest way to get audio sound bytes. Like phone lines, all voicemail is not created equal. While its popular to use free voicemail service K7.net for podcast voicemail, my experience is that the audio quality of recordings is lousy. For The Chris Pirillo Show, we use a Vonage line to record questions and comments. A new service called GotVoice might be the best alternative to all these options. It turns any voicemail account (landline or cell phone) into a Web accessible voice account, with both a browser interface and an option to email MP3 files of your messages. There’s also a GotVoice desktop app if you prefer to skip your inbox. While I’m not ready to give out my home number to callers as an alternative to other options, GotVoice is an awesome solution for turning an existing voicemail account into a useful podcasting tool.

Tags: voip, podcasting, voicemail