Hosting your audio files

WordPress is a system for creating websites and blogs. You can have your own installation of WordPress if you have some webspace, or you can use the free service at wordpress.com. It is easy to install WordPress and learn how to publish webpages, and it is a good vehicle for publishing and promoting your audio and video online. If you are using wordpress.com, you either have to pay an upgrade fee to host media files, or you can include them from SoundCloud, YouTube or other audio and video sharing sites. There are many reasons you may want to host your own audio and video files, however, rather than upload them to a service.

You might not want to agree to the many terms and conditions that are usually in place, allowing the service to use your content for commercial purposes; you might want to restrict access to the content; or you might not want your audience to be tracked, for privacy reasons. If you have your own installation of WordPress then there are options which allow you to upload audio files (like mp3 or ogg) or video files (mp4 or webm). You can install an audio and video player plugin to allow your visitors to click on a play button and review your audio or video immediately, without having to download it.

There has been a transition in recent years from delivering audio and video via 'Flash'-based players to delivering it via the more free and open HTML5 players. The following plugins are very useful when adding audio and video capability to a WordPress website: JW Player for WordPress (HTML5 & Flash), for audio and video VideoJS: HTML5 Video Player for WordPress, for video only MediaElement.js: HTML5 Video & Audio Player, for audio and video

Screenshots: 
What can I use it for: 

Creating a website for a specific issue in order to share audio reports, music or radio shows.

Restricting general access to audio and video files (but you should not rely on WordPress to host very sensitive material).

Choosing the license and terms under which you make your content available, to suit the needs of your organisation.

Pros: 

WordPress is easy to use and gives you a lot of flexibility in how you present your audio and other content.

Hosting your own audio files means you are not dependent on commercial services, which increases resilience to censorship.

Cons: 

You may have to pay for hosting or to use the audio uploading service of wordpress.com.

Platform (OS): 
Online
License: 
FOSS
Difficulty: 
Moderate
Alternatives: 

Soundcloud

Plumi (based on Plone)