As some of you may know, I have been putting in time and effort, on and off, to create, edit and upload video content to YouTube for a vlog. Recently, a potential business client/employer asked me to make a short (approximately two minute) recording detailing my technical background/experience and skill set. Having managed to trim it down to two and a half (from nearly ten minutes of waffle and over-explanation) and not having access to YT during the work week (not that I particularly wanted it there anyway, since I try to keep my business and personal lives and personas separate), I uploaded it to my business Website. I also figured that I can embed/incorporate it into one of the existing pages I have there when I redo the site to use MVC (likely with F3, Laravel or Symfony). I sure as hell don't want to embed Youtube or Vimeo content in my site, have taken pains not to incorporate/use any of their tech on it (or those that I have built for others). Besides, hosting content off-site on something like YT and then embedding it strikes me as tacky and amateur.

Since I have the technical know-how to upload content to my own Website and the means to do so, why don't I add a podcast/vlog section to that? It's not like it's currently using a lot of storage space or getting much (if any) traffic that would likely be negatively impacted by the large bandwidth requirements of audio-visual content, anyway. Audio tends to be less demanding on resources (both bandwidth and storage), so I think I'll keep the video/vlog content on YouTube and/or Hideout TV (or an alternative, if/when I find one and determine that I like it) and host the audio/podcast version on my site, for those whom want a shorter and more lightweight version. I suppose I could learn how to leverage a CDN and find one that I like, but nah; I couldn't be bothered at this stage.

Having briefly perused the list on AlternativeTo, PeerTube, BitChute and DTube might be worth investigating at some point. AFAIK, LBRY/Odysee are now defunct, which is unfortunate. Otherwise, I would have jumped ship to Odysee. I think PeakD on the Hive network allows hosting video content, but I'm not a fan of Hive, particularly if I'm paying to host content that I can't enqueue on CVn without contributing a patch/fork that supports anything other than YouTube.  (If it takes off and becomes big enough to become an issue, I can always migrate to a paid service, but I'll cross that bridge if I ever come to it.) I've been thinking it over and it could be viable to start with, even if a fair amount of work initially. I've not exactly found any site or service that will host my content or, if it will, that I'm happy to use. (Perhaps ironically, in looking for "how to DIY" articles, instead of directly for hosts, I found a number of sites that look like they host podcasts, either for free or a small price. Blubrry and Lime Link look pretty fruity and snazzy, but I'll have to look at them further before I decide what's next if I ever reach the stage of being ready to migrate my content.)

I'm a big believer in "if you want something done, do it yourself, learn how to first if necessary or pay a professional to do it". Since I don't have the funds to pay someone else (and I can probably learn to do it myself, already having the means), that's the route I'm going. Besides, having a goal of doing something to aid my own business and creative efforts in one go might prove to be the motivation I need to finish learning PHP 8 and MVC therein. I've also had more luck with finding articles on how to self-host than I have on podcast hosting sites/services. (I don't know how to get onto Apple, never mind Fountain, and I don't want to use Spotify. Those seem to be my main options, as far as I've found.) As always, links are in the "Resources" section below. (I haven't read all of them yet, so don't know how suitable/useful any of them are, although the Host Gator one might be a good place to start, followed by the next two. They're there as much for my own reference/perusal as yours. That's my task for today, along with getting back to learning more PHP 8.)

Currently, my site doesn't have a "podcasts" section (and is still under construction, since I found out halfway through that I was doing it wrong and haven't brought myself to learn what I need to do in order fix it), but watch this space for updates, if you're interested. Progress is being made, albeit slowly.

Thumbnail image: Photo by Caleb Oquendo on Pexels