I don’t know about you, but I’m a social media junkie! Of course, twitter is a major tool for me to communicate and connect with so many in the gpsn.tv community.

There are only three flash flavors to choose from which each come in three sizes. However, I must say that anything is an improvement over the old twitter badge as shown here.

You can get your badge at http://Twitter.com/widgets

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A Talk Amongst Those Who Plan To Podcast For Years To Come

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In this episode, I share a talk with some folks who are pretty well known in the podcasting community. If there was any doubt as to whether podcasting is working for folks, I hope this conversation will put your mind to ease.

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! At least two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man will be available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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Being the early adopter that I am, I thought it sounded great. I miss the “tracking” feature where I used to get sms updates when someone sent me an @reply on Twitter. So what did I do? I went to the site and checked it out. When I got there, I saw an extremely vague website.

In fact, there’s no links at all on the site to explain how the service works at all. There’s not even a privacy statement! Instead, at the top of the page, it simply asks you to give them your Twitter Username and Password with the phrase “Your password is safe with us. No worries!”

I THINK NOT!

Don’t do it people! There are ways that this type of service can be done without needing your password!. Just below the username and password fields, there’s a question that says “Support Twply on your first login?” There are two radio buttons where you can choose to answer “Yep, go ahead!” or “No thanks!”

That’s all it says. When I read it, I’m thinking they are asking for donations! Right?

NOPE!

Basically, what happens is that if you click “Yep, go ahead!,” without notifying you, the service LOGS INTO YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT and makes a post ON YOUR ACCOUNT saying “Just started using http://twply.com/ to get my @replies via email. Neat stuff!”

As it turns out, this is what they author of the site considers supporting Twply on your first login. Two things have obviously happened. The site is gaining a massive number of new users every minute. Why? Well, I have about 1,600 people who follow me on Twitter. Over time, I’ve developed a relationship of trust with most of them. If they were to see a message from me giving such a glowing endorsement of a site that says I just started using this service, please come check it out, people would respond.

But what about the password? One might hesitate, but through this “social engineering” marketing plot, people are giving away their passwords by the droves! Why? Well, go back to the hypothetical scenario I gave before. People might say, “Well Cliff obviously trusted them enough with his password” and knowing that someone they “TRUST” sent a message saying the service is good, and then you see that it says.. “Don’t worry, your password is safe with us!” Well, people just type it in and move forward through the process.

So what’s the big deal? 1) They have your password and shouldn’t need it to do the service they are doing! 2) They don’t explain what “supporting them” means. (There is a difference between supporting a service and endorsing a service! 3) There’s no privacy policy 4) They send out a tweet in the “first person” as if YOU were the one endorsing the site! 5) Read on, because it gets worse!

YOUR INFORMATION HAS BEEN SOLD!
I’m not kidding. You can see this “FOR SALE PAGE. In the information about the site, they write “All advertising is running through word of mouth on twitter, we used a very different method. The method is not loved by everyone but we clearly ask on the homepage weather to use it or not. If they choose to “support us” then a message with the link of twply will be sent out to the users.”

The worst part is that the site actually sold! That’s right, access to literally thousands of Twitter accounts just sold for a measly $1,200.00.

I could go on and on about this one. However, I don’t think I need to say any more to convince you that this is one site that you don’t want to be an early adopter on! Have you already given them your Twitter ID and password? CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD IMMEDIATELY!

As for your email address. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a bit of increased spam traffic coming in as result of the sale of this site!

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Podcast Answer Man Episode 090
Podcasting Is Dead? I Disagree! A Talk With Michael W Geoghegan

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In this episode, I talk with Michael W Geoghegan regarding his recent comments about the statement of podcasting made in his blog regarding the demise of Podango.

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! At least two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man will be available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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Podcast Answer Man Episode 089
Sad News Regarding Podango

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This weekend, I learned of some very shocking and extremely sad news regarding Podango. On Friday, December 26th, the president of Podango, Douglas G. Smith, published an entry on the Podango company blog. In the post, Doug writes, “Our ability to continue operations past the end of this year (2008) is in question. We do not want any of you, or any of your shows to be negatively affected by this uncertainty and so we are encouraging you to begin taking all necessary steps to secure your data or begin moving to another hosting provider.” … “As of today, the last day to move or secure your data is December 31st.”

In case you don’t have a calendar in front of you, that’s less than five full days from the date of the notice till the time that it is “possible” that Podango content producers will no longer have access to any of the content they’ve uploaded to the Podango servers and any and all rss feeds hosted by Podango cease to exist.

You may remember that I was considering a two year contract with Podango for the entire gspn.tv network. In this audio episode of the Podcast Answer Man, I share the story of why I chose not to sign with Podango at the very last minute.

Also in the episode, I talk with Todd Cochrane from GeekNewsCentral.com and Rawvoice.com. I brought Todd online because he has a hosting company that is a one of a few hosting options for these Podango content producers who are looking for a new home.

I know that many of you in the gspn.tv and PodastAnswerMan.com are personally affected by this news. My heart goes out to you! I can’t imagine that you saw yourself spending your holiday break working on a podcast show transition such as this.

One last thing mentioned in this episode was Michael W. Geoghegan’s blog entry asserting that this is further proof that “podcasting is dead.” Michael, I love and respect you man… I certainly agree that podcasting didn’t turn out to be what so many folks in the old days thought it would become. However, it’s far from dead. In a way.. Actually, in a BIG WAY, I’m glad it didn’t turn out the way everyone had thought it would. I’m totally digging the path that podcasting has taken me down!

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! At least two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man will be available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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So I opened my email this morning (Sunday, December 28th, 2008) and noticed that many people had written to tell me that they were getting error messages when trying to download episodes of our podcasts.

I’ve been with Libsyn.com for three years now. And before I go any further, let me tell you that overall, I’ve been an EXTREMELY SATISFIED customer for the most part. When they first started out, things were a bit rocky. However, at the time, they were about the only independent folks out there who had a simple level cost, unlimited bandwidth media delivery plan available. Couple that with the fact that the cost was better than awesome, they had a hard time keeping up with the demand at first.

As for the past two years, my service with Libsyn has been pretty smooth sailing with only the occasional bump in the road. Okay, I know, mixed metaphors, but hey, it’s just a blog post right?

I’m writing this blog entry for a few reasons. First off, I wanted to be able to simply point listeners to this post when answering all the emails asking if there is something wrong with their subscriptions to our premium content at gspn.tv.

So for those of you who were wondering, you likely received one of two errors over the weekend. Either iTunes showed you something like “(err=500)” when trying to download the files from our rss feeds, or you got an “Internal Server Error” if you tried to either access the file via the web or using our gspn.tv iPhone Application.

I want to assure you that there is nothing wrong with your subscription and this was simply a random outage that Libsyn.com, the company that we pay to host and deliver our media content, had experienced over the weekend. Everything is back up and running now.

Another reason I wanted to make this post was to make public a suggestion that I recently made to Libsyn’s support staff. Actually, I’ve made this suggestion about three or four times in the past as well, but it’s never been followed through on. I’m wondering if I were to propose this suggestion here in my blog, if enough people were to comment on this post that they think it’s a great idea, and perhaps implement it.

It’s a real simple idea….

As soon as anyone on the libsyn support staff is aware of an issue that affects “multiple user accounts,” simply open up a blog entry on the Support Blog at http://support.libsyn.com.

Again, I want to interject that I’m a HUGE FAN of the Libsyn Support Team. I’ve never had an issue with Libsyn that was not resolved within a matter of minute or at most a few short hours of my notifying them of my issues. However, let me share with you my recent email support ticket to explain what I’m talking about here.

At 2:01pm, I finally found enough time to actually send a support ticket regarding the issue with Libsyn.com. I had already confirmed that it was not just an issue with my account by doing a search on Twitter. Here is the contents of that initial email:

I have three accounts with libsyn and I’m getting (err=500) errors in iTunes as are most of my listeners.

Can you investigate?

My three user ids are in the subject line of this email

At 4:22pm (Mind you that it is the weekend) I got the following response

Hello Cliff,


We checked your three accounts, and your files appear to be active and available for download. If you still experience difficulty, please send us the link to any affected file, and we’ll look further into the issue.


Please contact us if you have any other questions.


Thank you,

*******(I’m removing name)

Of course this prompted me to write back by saying….

******,

I appreciate you looking into my account. It does appear to be working now.

Could you do me a favor? Is it possible that when Libsyn has these sort of issues, that you guys ACKNOWLEGE that there WAS an issue? (I’m not yelling with my words… I’m not upset or irrate.. Just making a point..)

You see, your message simply makes it sound as if there was never an issue at all with my account, or that you can’t confirm that there was an issue on my account.

It’s clear, by looking at the attached image, or LINKED HERE: http://easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/363/1755611919.png that you guys were clearly having issues with people getting Internal Server Errors…

My only concern is that this email response simply does not confirm that there was ever an issue and the http://support.libsyn.com support blog would make it appear as though you have not had any system wide issues since Monday, November 24th…

Is it too much to ask to post to the blog when you guys realize that there is a support issue that is clearly affecting several users?

I don’t mind my media not being served 100% of the time. For what I pay for my media hosting with you, I’m okay with 96% to 98% uptime with an occasional 12 hour issue once a year…. Just communicate with us so we know that you are aware of this stuff and that you’re working on it…

Is this doable?

Cliff

Next, I got the following response….

Hello

Sorry for the frustration. It was not our intention to avoid acknowledging an issue with the service this weekend.

To be honest, we noticed a couple of these reports yesterday early but really receive the bulk of complaints by this afternoon, which is when we (support staff) took action and contacted the tech team to alert them to the issue. Being the weekend following a holiday, the tech and support teams are actually spread around the country in various places, so we had to work quickly to communicate the problem to the team that could fix it and work on fixing the problem that caused the errors as well as fixing the erroneous files and alerting users. That is where our efforts were concentrated as opposed to posting to the support blog.

Again I apologize for the frustration. Please let us know if you have any other questions or problems.

Thanks
********

And then I responded again wit this….

*******,

I can appreciate that. Perhaps for those who come back to check their email on Monday morning, only to find emails piled up from their listeners alerting them to the issue, do you see how maybe posting just a quick note that there was an issue over the weekend that had been resolved might help keep someone from searching for an issue more than they need to?

I appreciate that it’s the weekend and that you guys did resolve the issue. Maybe I’m just being picky and I simply need more sleep.


It’s just that when I get a report of an issue from my listeners, the first place I go to is to the Support Blog. I know there have been other documented outages since the November blog date.. Even if you were to wait till you get back in the office on the next normal business day… It would be just so awesome to know that a quick look at the support blog tells me that you are aware of an issue and that you are either working to fix it or have already fixed it. This keeps me from filling out support tickets and really puts my mind at ease.

I appreciate all you guys do!

Cliff

Okay, so am I out of mind to suggest that they consider making it a policy that if any support issue arises that affects multiple customer accounts that the first person who realizes the issue meets this criteria should take two minutes, log into the support blog and simply say “Hey, we are aware of an issue and we’re on it!”

What are your thoughts?

Until then, simply remember that you can search twitter for the phrase “Is Libsyn Down” and you will likely find out very quickly if it’s just your account or a system wide issue.

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I wanted to share this announcement with you in a video episode of Podcast Answer Man so that I could play around with different methods of posting video content that I’ll be getting while I’m in at the conference. To bring this episode to you, I held a simple point and shoot camera in my right hand as I walked down the street filming myself. I loaded the video into a program called ScreenFlow. I exported the video as a .m4v for use in my rss feed for download. I then exported the video into a Quicktime .mov file which I then uploaded to Facebook, YouTube, and Blip.tv.

I actually need your help. Can you tell me which embedded player do you think looks better? Is there a difference in your opinion?

This version is from Blip.tv

This version is from FaceBook! (I didn’t know they allowed you to embed video. Till Now!)

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Equipment Sales & Podcast Consulting:
Need audio equipment to improve the sound of your podcast? Need someone to help you understand how you can get your podcast started? Contact me today to discuss your equipment sales and/or podcast consulting needs.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! A minimum of two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
CES 2009 Coverage Coming Soon!

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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.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! Two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus. New to the podcast? No worries, subscribe to the free feed and you’ll see a ton of back episodes to help you get a feel for the content of the show.

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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.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! Two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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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!

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I explain what each of the plugins (listed below) are used for and why I use them. I also share a word of caution before using one of the listed plugins and what you should do before running it.

This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

Items mentioned in this episode:
WordPress Database Backup
ShareThis
KG-EnclosureFlex
Audio player
Akismet
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

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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.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! Two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

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This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
Interview with Tim Bourquin of New Media Expo

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In This Episode, I share an interview I did with Tim Bourquin after he had finished interviewing me for his New Media Expo Podcast.

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.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! Two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are so many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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I know what you are thinking. There are a ton of voice recorders in the App Store! This is not just another cheap voice recording application. This application allows you to create high-quality recordings. With my iPhone 3G’s on board microphone, I’ve been able to get some amazing sound recorded with it.

I’m going to do a full review of the software on an upcoming episode of the Podcast Answer Man podcast. I simply had to get this post out there as quickly as possible as Griffin’s iTalk is free for a limited time from the App Store.

PLEASE NOTE: I have done a full review of this application in Episode 83 of Podcast Answer Man.

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Never heard of Google Analytics before? No worries, I also show just how much useful information you can learn about how people find your site and what they do once they get there. Best of all, Google Analytics is absolutely free.

However, this episode of the Podcast Answer Man is not. This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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Here’s a diagram of the setup…

Today, I just got a question from a customer who wanted to know if he could use the Broadcast Host to hook up to his ISDN line. The answer is “no” because it is not an analog phone system. I called JK Audio and asked them what they have for this and they told me about the JK Audio InKeeper PBX.

It turns out that the InKeeper PBX is “exactly the same” as the Broadcast Host except that the connection to the phone line happens at the point of the “handset connection” of a standard telephone. This means that the phone is doing the translation from digital to analog signal and the InKeeper PBX plugs in where you would normally plug in the handset and the handset plugs into the InKeeper PBX. (See Diagram) (Note: this does not work with phones where the “dial pad” is in the handset).

Now, what is awesome about this is that with the handset being the point of connection, this means you could have a “multi-line” phone system, hence the name PBX, where you can switch back and forth between multiple phone lines, just like you were do if you were simply using the phone’s handset switching to another line. This is going to fill the need of many of my clients who want to be able to use multiple phone lines to allow for a queue of callers waiting. This also allows for someone on another extension to “pre-screen” those calls as well.

Here’s the diagram of the setup:

Please note, I do sell both of the above pieces of equipment. If you would like know pricing details, please contact me at Cliff@Ravensraft.org.

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While I am able to take an existing Wordpress Theme and modify it to meet my client’s needs, I must tell you that I can not take credit for the original designs that I’ve used. I’ve been an affiliate with Revolution Themes for quite some time. And as such, I’ve recommended several clients to use these great themes as the foundation for their online presence.

Effective this morning, my favorite themes are going Open Source with a brand new site named RevolutionTwo.com. What this means is that these themes are now going to be made available for free to the public.

My first thought was how in the world was the team behind these awesome designs ever going to make a living and to continue to be able to provide support for those who use the themes? I learned that they are now offering either a one year or lifetime membership to full support on all their themes.

As a long time customer of theirs, I can tell you that their support for these forums are second to none! Personally, I know the cost of getting a decent web site designed. It would cost no less than $1,000 and likely much more to have a site that looks as good as these themes. For only $99 you get unlimited access to all the Revolution Two Themes and you get full support for 1 year. For only $149 you get a lifetime membership allowing you unlimited support and access to all themes.

I would like to point out that I’m available to help on a one on one basis in learning how to customize these themes to meet your needs. I charge $95 per hour for my services. So you can see how much of a good deal the theme support membership can be!

If you choose to use the Revolution Two themes and/or membership, I’d love it if you would be willing to come to PodcastAnswerMan.com and click on the banner that links to them in the sidebar so that I can get the affiliate commission on the referral.

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True be told, there is no shortage of bloggers that are suggesting that “podcasting is dead“. I’m here to shout from the mountain top that this simply is not true! Podcasting is not only alive, it is thriving!

When I started podcasting in 2005, I didn’t know anyone locally who had ever heard of a podcast. Today, almost everyone I know is aware that their local church “podcasts” their weekend sermons, that their local news station makes the evening news available via podcast, or that their favorite tv show is likely to have an “official podcast” put out by either the creator, wriiters, or producers of their favorite tv show.

For those of you who do not know this about me, I left a very successful career in insurance after 11 years to pursue a career in podcasting full time. I’m now entering my eleventh month and I’ve not experienced a single dime of debt from day one. I’m consistently contacted by people who hear about me via word of mouth and who want to be consulted about how to start their own podcast.

I’ve fallen in love the the medium of delivering content via rss technology that I’m working on a business model that will allow me to earn a majority of my income from producing my own content alone. Just a few short months ago, I decided to take my podcasts to a partial premium content model, charging $10 per month. In just a few short months, I’ve already have already had one 163 people join up as gspn.tv Plus Members, with new members added daily.

I introduce the fact that I was an insurance agent for eleven years to explain to you that that the insurance industry as a whole is an industry that is always the last to embrace the latest technology. Many insurance companies still do not accept credit card payments on their websites. Most of those that do, still charge you up to five dollars for the convenience.

A majority of insurance agency offices today are still filled with up to 10’s or 100’s of four drawer letter file cabinets full of manila folders with years worth of paper copies of client policies. You’d laugh if I told you the number of agents I know that have an email address, but have no idea how to check or send an email. This is an extreme example, as most agents do use email on a daily basis. However I bet that less than 10% would know how to scan a document into pdf format and email it as an attachment. Being as technology driven as I am, the fact that the insurance industry simply could not keep up with my taste of early adoption was one of many factors that led me to make the switch to my new career.

I share all this background to share the following email I got from an insurance industry continuing education company. A quick look at their website will prove that they haven’t done a refresh of their web design in the past five years. However, this insurance related company has adopted the technology of podcasting.

With the trend that I’ve seen in the adoption of new technology, the following email is an early indication that your grandmother may be asking for an iPod for Christmas so she can subscribe to the podcast for AARP radio.

CEUNEWS

CEU.com Adds Downloadable Course Audio
Continuing education podcasts allow students to take material on the road

You’ve come to expect the best in convenient, high quality continuing education courses from CEU.com. After all, you just need a computer and an internet connection, and you can get the courses you need any time, day or night. What could be easier?

Well – what if you could study the course material when you are away from the computer? When you are driving, riding the train, or even working out at the gym? Now that’s convenient!

CEU.com is happy to announce that we now offer downloadable podcasts of our course audio. This means that when a student signs up for a course, he or she can save the audio to an iPod or other MP3 player. Then the course can go with the student on the road, to the gym, while doing housework – wherever an audio player can go. He or she can review the material as many times as necessary without having to sit at a computer the entire time.

Audio learning is a great way to conveniently incorporate brief study sessions into your daily routine, and this can actually improve your ability to learn. In his book 400 Ways to Stop Stress Now and Forever, G. Gaynor McTigue emphasizes that frequent, short study sessions are the best way to keep information fresh in your mind. Using this method of learning allows you to better understand and retain the material on a deeper level, and it is far superior to trying to “cram” all the material at once. You are also less likely to procrastinate, since these short sessions fit so painlessly into your schedule.

“At CEU.com, we pride ourselves in using technology to its greatest advantage,” said Bruce MacMillian, CEU’s president and CEO. “Making the audio from our courses downloadable makes perfect sense, and it’s a great use of the technology. Freeing our students to take the audio with them to review at their convenience will help them to retain and utilize the information to enhance their careers, and that’s what continuing education is all about.”

Downloadable course audio is now available at www.ceu.com.

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Many of you are aware that I do podcast consulting and sell podcast equipment. However, not everyone is aware that I personally produce, with my wife and a few friends, twenty of my own podcasts which I have formed into the Generally Speaking Production Network (gspn.tv).

This year, we received one of the greatest honors a podcast could hope to receive as it relates to the fourth annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards. This year, 81,000 individuals came together and nominated a total of 1,874 podcasts for 22 categories for the 2008 People’s Choice Podcast Awards!

Out of those nominated, only 10 podcasts for each category make it to the actual voting round. With 22 categories, this means that of the 1,874 podcasts nominated, only 220 are eligible for this year’s 15 day voting period.

I’m very honored to announce to that SIX of the 220 podcasts nominated were gspn.tv podcasts!

Below are the podcasts that were nominated and for which category:

About The Church - Education
Weekly Lost Podcast - Entertainment
Full Time Mom - General
Musically Challenged - Podsafe Music
Almost Daily Devotional - Religion & Inspiration
Podcast Answer Man - Technology & Science

I’m not practicing false humility when I authentically tell you that I believe this has a lot more to do with the power of an engaged community than our ability to produce content.

I want to thank everyone who nominated the gspn.tv podcast lineup above!

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In This Episode, I answer questions about noise reduction, mic choices, and so much more. I talk about Isolation, Absorbtion, Podcast Stats, and Condenser Vs Dynamic Microphones.

Plus Members get EVERY EPISODE of the Podcast Answer Man! To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv.

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.

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Since I’ve been selling audio equipment to podcasters from all over the United States, I’ve only had two items that ever needed to be replaced. Today was the second incident. The following comes from the Blog of one of my customers, Crystal Elerson from elerson.net. I really feel bad that she is experiencing any pain and inconvenience at all. However, at the same time, I’m so thankful for her kind words in the midst of it all.

Last Tuesday, I had a problem with my digital recorder right before my interview with Bernard Cooper. By Thursday, everything was working fine, and I had no problems interviewing Rick Moody. Today, I was set to interview Bernard Cooper again.

The mixer has this obnoxiously bright blue light on it that indicates it is receiving power. When the unit is plugged in, the light is always on providing a constant visual distraction. The unit, stupidly, has no On/Off switch. Today, as I was doing my prep work for the interview, I noticed that the obnoxiously bright light irritated me even more by not shining at all.

One loud female roar later…

I did what any former technical support person would do. I checked the surge protector. I switched power outlets. I unplugged and replugged in everything. I tried plugging the unit directly into the wall sans surge protector - two different wall sockets that both give power to other things. The only thing I didn’t do was try a new power cable because, of course, the thing doesn’t use a standard cable so I didn’t have a spare. I then dragged Dear Husband into the room to see if I was missing some obvious piece of information that Males always seem to think everyone should know but Females don’t have access to that Universal Guy Knowledge. Nope. He did everything I did and came to the same conclusion.

I then made the Call of Shame to Cooper to explain what happened. He laughed and generously told me he thought electronic equipment conspired against him anyway. Next time, I’m not telling my audio equipment who I’m calling… I’ll file that away with such wisdom as Never Mention Surplus Money Near a Working Vehicle (fastest way to car problems I have ever seen) and Do Not Announce Intent to Mow Grass (instant rain if we’re serious). Anyway, Bernard was lovely again, and I feel completely unprofessional for having to reschedule twice. I joked with him that I was enjoying our weekly chats. And I am - he has a voice I’d call to listen to at any time. Read me the phone book, and I’d just smile. I want my voice to sound that good but in a feminine way.

Next, I called the Behringer Technical Support Line to confirm my diagnosis: bad power supply or cable. They had me call the retailer I bought it from, who promptly called the company back to talk to his liaison there, and we’re working this out through a 3-way email because this is the first time a power supply/cable has gone out and needed replacing for this retailer (a lovely man named Cliff Ravenscraft who runs several podcasts - www.gspn.tv). I realized his webcam was on while I was talking to him, so I watched him immediately drop what he was doing to handle my issue - very cool.

I’m frustrated with the technical problems. However, I’m extremely satisfied with the support and service from both Behringer and Cliff Ravenscraft. If I’m going to have these issues, I’m glad to work with these people.

I’m so thankful for the understanding and patience of this client. It’s client’s like this that make me thankful every day that I’m doing what I love for a living!

Note: The blue light on the Behringer Xenyx 1002 mixer is very bright. I know at least one client that painted the little light with black fingernail polish.

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Out of those nominated, only 10 podcasts for each category make it to the actual voting round. With 22 categories, this means that of the 1,874 podcasts nominated, only 220 are eligible for this year’s 15 day voting period.

I’m very honored to announce to you that SIX of the 220 podcasts nominated were gspn.tv podcasts!

Below are the podcasts that were nominated and for which category:

About The Church - Education
Weekly Lost Podcast - Entertainment
Full Time Mom - General
Musically Challenged - Podsafe Music
Almost Daily Devotional - Religion & Inspiration
Podcast Answer Man - Technology & Science

The voting will open up at http://PodcastAwards.com on October 23rd and will run for 15 days. In the nomination phase, each person was limited to one vote per category, period.

However, when official voting opens, each person is allowed to vote for their favorite podcast in each category EACH DAY for FIFTEEN DAYS.

It is vitally important that if you wish for gspn.tv podcasts to have a chance of winning an award, that you vote each and every day once the voting opens. If you are willing to make this commitment to proving that the gspn.tv Community is one of the most engaged audiences out there, please let me us know that we can count on your daily vote by TELLING US HERE!

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In This Episode, I answer a question about how to make a portable studio setup. I also share how the TWIT.tv podcasts have been really burning me out with all their advertisements. Of course I share a major change as to the revenue approach for this podcast, announcing that starting immediately, we are switching the Podcast Answer Man to where only ever other episode will be released in the free feed. Plus Members will continue to get every episode. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv.

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

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Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

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In This Episode, I share an update on the gspn.tv iPhone Application that I mentioned in episode 074 of The Podcast Answer Man Podcast.

I share my excitement over a real time website analytics program called Woopra.

I mention my blog post that describes How To Embed MP3 Flash Players On Regular HTML Sites.

I talk about SurveyMonkey.com and how conducting a survey of your listeners can help you learn things that could be useful in growing your audience.

Finally, I share with you one of my favorite new podcasts put together by a fifth grader and her father titled “With Liberty And Justice For All.” Check out the show, leave her some feedback, and tell her the Podcast Answer Man told you about her.

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

Right Click Here To Download

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

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I wanted to take a minute to say thank you to Wayne L Henderson for the kind words that he shared about me and the services I provide on one of his recent podcasts. Wayne has been a long time listener of my gspn.tv podcasts and he and is one our gspn.tv Plus Members.

If you happen to need voice over work for your podcast, Wayne does a great job.

MP3 Version

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Of course, if they have WordPress, I immediately tell them to install the Audio Player Plugin for WordPress. However, for those who use another method of creating a website for your podcast, there is still hope. I’d like to share three options for posting a flash player for your podcast episodes on your standard html site.

Update: Someone left a comment on this post that makes a valid point. If you should choose to use this method for your site on individual posts, please understand that you are relying on the fact that these companies will still exist moving forward. If for example ODEO were to go out of business, it is unlikely that their flash player will continue to be available. Please just keep this in mind.

The benefit of the Odeo player is that it is somewhat attractive when compared against other options. However the drawbacks that I see are that you can’t change the color of the pink play button and there ODEO is branded on your site. If someone clicks on the “ODEO” logo on the player, they are taken OFF YOUR SITE! I could not find an option to change it to open a new window or anything. Also, this player lacks an adjustment option for volume.

CODE FOR ODEO FLASH PLAYER:
<embed src= "http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_gray.swf" quality="high" width="300" height="52" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars= "valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=LINK-TO-YOUR-MP3" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed>

The Google Flash Player:
Next we have the Google Flash Player. The benefit of the google player is that there is no branding whatsoever. Also, the code allows for you to change the color of the background on your player to match your site. It seems odd to have the “<<" and ">>” when posting a single mp3 file. However, these buttons offer the ability to jump forward and backward in the file you are listening to. The only drawback I can see with this player is that, like many other google products, is pretty “simple looking” and just on the edge of being ugly. It’s quite functional and it does what it’s supposed to do.

CODE FOR THE GOOGLE FLASH PLAYER
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=LINK-TO-YOUR-MP3" width="400" height="27" allowscriptaccess="never" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="window" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" /></embed>

The Yahoo Flash Player
The Yahoo Flash Player is another option. Like the ODEO Player, there is Yahoo branding on the player with a small Yahoo logo. However, the nice thing is that it is an image only, it does not have a hyperlink that takes your listeners off your site. This is good. Like the Google player, you can see that are “<<" and ">>” buttons. However, on the Yahoo player, these buttons are specifically designed for next track and previous track. Truth is that this player can be used to play a single mp3 file or can be set to read data from any podcast rss feed. While I’ve not tried it, there seems to be an option to change the skin color which may be useful in helping to make the player fit within your color scheme.

CODE FOR THE