Cautions

Typically, you do not want your audio file to be more than seven to ten minutes long. If you have something longer, consider breaking it into several sections that can be played separately. There are three reasons for this. First, most people’s attention span is only about that long. Second, a file longer than 10 minutes will take along time to down load. Three, if a person wants to listen again to part of the audio presentation, it will be easy to find where they want to restart. Our audio course on "Designing Dynamic Web sites" works this way.

You need to be careful of the copyrights. Music on CD’s is copyrighted and should not be used without permission. Just because it is easy to extract audio files from CD’s and from web sites, does not mean that it is legal to do so. Even if you conscience does not prevent you from copying a CD for your personal use, it is not a wise decision to announce to the world via your web site, that you have done so.

Make sure that your audio file enhances your web site. I find some audio files on web sites annoying. For example, an audio file that starts automatically on the home page, will start playing every time I come back to the home page, which might be several time during a session. Consider giving the person the option of hearing the presentation.

Conclusion

With just a little bit of effort you can add some sizzle to your web site by using audio files to enhance your message. Audio files are just one more media channel to get your message across.

Final note: For years EZ-NetTools has provide EZ-Audio as an add-on, fee based service. While we will likely continue to offer this fee based service, we encourage our customers to consider switching to this form of providing audio to your web site.