086 Podcast Answer Man – Press Release Strategy

November 26, 2008 by Cliff Ravenscraft 

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
Press Release Strategy

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EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me. My phone number is on the top of the the Equipment Page.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

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085 Podcast Answer Man – Jay Berkowitz – Search Engine Optimization

November 21, 2008 by Cliff Ravenscraft 

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
Jay Berkowitz – Search Engine Optimization

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In this episode, I talk with Jay Berkowitz of 10GoldenRules.com. Jay shares some insights on how we, as podcasters, can optimize our websites for best search engine results.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

You can also post questions in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me. My phone number is on the top of the the Equipment Page.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:
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iPhone 2.2 – Podcast Download Feature Seriously Flawed

November 21, 2008 by Cliff Ravenscraft 

The much anticipated 2.2 firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch was released today. With the update comes a few new features, one specifically that should interest podcasters. Take a look at this image and see if you can spot it in the list…

That’s right! Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application over Wi-Fi and cellular network. I must admit that I was surprised to see the ability to do this via the cellular network. It makes me wonder why I can download a fifty megabyte podcast episode over the cell notwork but not a three megabyte song from iTunes. Who cares, we got our podcast downloads right?

Don’t Break Out The Party Hats Just Yet!
I must say that as an end user and as a podcaster, I’m not happy with the implementation of downloading podcasts via the iPhone / iPod Touch. Let me share a few reasons why.

Fumbling Between Two Applications:
The first thing I don’t like is that it closes down the iPod Application to launch the iTunes wi-fi Application. Once we finish downloading our podcast episode(s), we have to close the iTunes app and then go back and re-open the iPod application to browse to the new podcast to play it. Seems a bit clunky to me. Not typical of Apple to have so many steps. More on this as you read on.

Taking RSS Out Of The Equation:
The second thing I don’t like is that it it get’s new podcast data from iTunes instead of the original rss feed. This means that if we used a “One Click Install” option to subscribe to a podcast, when we click “Get More Episodes…” we are taken to the “What’s Hot” list in the podcast section of the wi-fi iTunes podcast section.

Let me give you a better example. Let’s just say that we were to go to the iTunes Store on our computer, we do a search for Podcast Answer Man, and click on the “Subscribe” button from the Podcast Answer Man podcast page “in iTunes.” If we go through this process, then when we click on “Get More Episodes…” in the iPod application, it will take us directly to the Podcast Answer Man Page in the iTunes wi-fi store and give us options to download more episodes that Apple is currently aware of. More on the aware of part of this in just a moment.

However, let’s just say that that we wanted to skip the iTunes store and subscribe the podcast directly. If you have never done this before, you simply click on “Advanced” in the menu of iTunes and then click on “Subscribe To Podcast” and then enter in the url of the rss feed.

If we were to do this, when we click on “Get More Episodes…” in the iPod Application, it WILL NOT take us to the Podcast Answer Man page in iTunes. Instead, it will take us to the “What’s Hot” section in the iTunes wi-fi application for podcasts. This happens even if we use the same rss feed that is registered in the iTunes Store. NOT COOL APPLE!!!!

Another issue is that the iTunes store does not stay consistently synced with podcast rss feeds. I might release an episode of a podcast at 8am and it might not show up in the iTunes listing until it next syncs with the rss feed at 5pm later that day, or whenever they choose to resync.

Of course, there are a ton of podcasts that are not listed in iTunes. So for those podcasts that we are subscribed to, we are out of luck.

No Syncing Back To The Computer:
A third thing that I do not like is that you when you do a search in the iTunes wi-fi store for a podcast and you download an episode, it DOES NOT sync back to your computer! What’s up with that? Did they do any testing on this functionality at all?

What They Should Have Done!
What they should have done was to turn the iPod podcast functionality into an rss reader. When we click “Get More Episodes” it should read the RSS FEED, show us a list of episodes available in the feed and give us the option to download whatever episodes we want to download right there INSIDE the iPod application.

They should have given the ability to subscribe to a podcast right there from the iPod Application by entering an rss feed as well. Basically, the iPod functionality on the iPhone / iPod Touch should function much like the “podcast section” in iTunes, distinct and feature rich and completely usable, independent of the iTunes Store.

Oh, and of course, whatever we would subscribe to or download on the iPod App should sync back to the computer as well.

I like that they allow us to browse the Podcast directory in the iTunes Wi-Fi store. I really am. However, the fact that you can “subscribe” to a podcast and they don’t sync back to the computer. It makes me ask… “Why bother?”

I guess I’m just thankful that they finally approved the gspn.tv Application in the App Store. At least my listeners have some sort of access to the latest content that I produce on the go, including all my premium, password protected content.

What are your thoughts? Share a comment and Join The Conversation!

084 Podcast Answer Man – WordPress Plugins I Use And Why

November 13, 2008 by Cliff Ravenscraft 

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
WordPress Plugins I Use And Why

Right Click Here To Download

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me. My phone number is on the top of the the Equipment Page.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

I use the following Plug-Ins

WordPress Database Backup
On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup

ShareThis: Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.

KG-EnclosureFlex: Gives you the flexibility to choose which files you want to enclose in your RSS feed, and allows you to suppress all enclosures if you want.

Audio player: A highly configurable but simple mp3 player for all your audio needs. You can customise the player’s colour scheme to match your blog theme, have it automatically show track information from the encoded ID3 tags and more.

Akismet: Checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade: Allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions.

083 Podcast Answer Man – Griffin iTalk Application Review

November 8, 2008 by Cliff Ravenscraft 

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
Griffin iTalk iPhone Application Reveiw

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In this episode, I give my review of of iTalk. (iTunes link) iTalk is a new sound recording app for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 2nd generation iPod touch that turns the iPhone or iPod touch into a mobile audio recorder.

I’ve been using the the application to record several episodes of my daily audio journal podcast titled “My Crazy Life.” However, I’m becoming increasingly more frustrated with the audio glitches that I point out in this review. I’m at the point that I love this application to just let it go. I’m contacting Griffin Support on Monday to see if I can find out if they are aware of this issue.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

You can also post questions in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me. My phone number is on the top of the the Equipment Page.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:
Zune iTunes RSS Feed
Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

082 Podcast Answer Man – Hosting Files With Libsyn

November 6, 2008 by Cliff Ravenscraft 

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
How Libsyn works for hosting media files

Right Click Here To Download

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me. My phone number is on the top of the the Equipment Page.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

Leave A Comment!

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