Hi. I'm Steve Moore. I teach. I read. I learn. I live.

Ever considered podcasting, but thought it was too involved? Too technical? Too much work? I’m here to tell you that it’s a Cinch.

It was only in February that I learned of this service from Thomas Maerke, Casey Daugherty, and Keri Franklin of the Ozarks Writing Project.

I couldn’t find the original tweets, but I have the audio I first heard:

As it is with most good things in education, they were taught to us by someone else!

Using Cinch online is fairly simple if you’ve got a mic and an internet connection. Sign in using your Twitter or Facebook accounts per the directions on the site or create a cinch user name for free. I have been using the iPhone app as well (lower left).

Starting a Cinch podcast using the iPhone app is pretty darn easy. Here’s what you need to do after you download the free app and launch it:

The first thing you’ll see is a recording screen like this with a text box, picture square, publish button, and friendly recording controls at the bottom.

Once you click “record” you’ll see the audio levels in the mic picture.

You have the option to pause/resume while recording, which is nice. Below is an embedded version of my short test message (being recorded in the picture above)

After you hit the publish button you’ll see another screen with some choices to upload/share on Facebook/Twitter as well.

If you don’t have either Twitter or Facebook selected, then it will only publish to CinchCast.com, so you have it backed up there (in either a private or public album) in case you want to edit or re-record it before you do any sharing. While you’re uploading, the app goes to a pending screen where you can track the progress. The largest recording I’ve uploaded was 8 minutes long or so, I’m not certain if there is a limit.

When you’ve gotten the file uploaded then you can listen on your phone or go online and you’ll see this:

You can download, link to, or embed your audio from there! See, podcasting and audio sharing is a cinch!