Month: May 2014

The Shortest Podcast

~ admin ~ 2 Comments
Podcasts are such a varied medium. There’s very few rules or conventions defining what a podcast should be. There’s plenty of trends, so many podcasts are improvised group discussion, many have a specific niche to focus on, but the trends in terms of podcast length are all over the place.

Some podcasts are 20 minutes, some 45, some aim for an hour an episode, many go for 90 minutes and there’s even a healthy number that push three, four and five hours per episode. As someone who often finds themselves giving advice to aspiring podcasters, I usually tell new podcasters that they should aim to make their episodes no longer than it takes their listeners to listen to between episodes. This assumes that they’ve got other stuff going on in their day and other podcasts to listen to also. The bigger podcasters like Adam Carolla can afford to put out 90+ minutes five times a week because he has a dedicated fan base, but for your average podcaster, that kind of quantity is going to see their listeners miss episodes because other attentions take priority.

So that’s my rule for the maximum length of a podcast, but lately I’ve been struggling with finding a similar formula for the minimum length of a podcast. In theory it shouldn’t matter, in fact brevity could help you by making your podcast the go-to filler podcast for short listens. This has the flip side risk that your content lacks depth and therefore interest. It’s a tough line to walk, but recently I took the plunge when I fell in love with an incredible app that is driven by short form content.

For most non-Australian readers, if I mention the Omny personal radio app, you might not be familiar with it, they’re still growing and are slowly launching in new international markets. It comes from Melbourne-based 121cast, the makers of SoundGecko. Omny is a player that scrolls between short podcasts (under 10 minutes) music from your own library, music streaming services and also reads out events from your calendar, weather reports and more. All of this combines to make a highly personal radio experience.

When I discovered this app, I was preparing to launch my short-form podcast The Forgetting Curve. I later made an edited version of another of my podcasts to fit it in with the Omny format. I was nervous at the time about stepping outside of my 30-45 minutes an episode comfort zone, but with a tool such as Omny there, basically providing a shuffle button for podcast content, we have found the way to make short podcasts competitive with longer content.

If Omny is not yet available in your local App Store, then get in touch with them and tell them you’re keen to try it. I’d also highly recommend experimenting with the length of your podcasts. Edit a highlights episode regularly, or just segment your content to allow your listeners to fit you in here and there. Give your audience options and see what kind of length they prefer.

by Jackson Rogers

The Holy Grail of Podcast Statistics Listener Listen Percentages

~ admin

As promised, let’s talk about a topic I brushed on last month while I dug into the nitty-gritty of podcast statistics data: Listener-listen percentages, the holy grail of podcast statistics data.

By looking at the raw data of the media server logs, we can now calculate exactly how much of an individual media file was delivered to a listener. With a great number of podcast listeners simply clicking “play now,” versus downloading the file first, oftentimes the entire media file is not delivered.

When you click “play now” on most devices, the media is delivered to you in chunks, aka the infamous Byte Serving. Byte Serving is essentially — without getting too deep — how Apple and other mobile providers send you the media in pieces instead of downloading the entire file at once. Depending on your Internet connection and a lot of other variables, a 100 mb file could be broken up into 100 chunks on one request and 500 the next.

So if you listen to 15 minutes of a 30 minute podcast before clicking “stop,” there are many chunks / minutes of the podcast media file that have not yet been served to you. With this data we are now able to get an exact percentage of a file downloaded.

We can stitch those chunks back together and tell exactly how much, how little, or whether the file was served in it’s entirety. We have detailed data on each and every media file request.  It is pretty neat when we can see that a listener scrubs forward to, let’s say, the 10 minute mark and starts listening there instead of the beginning.

By now you can see where I am headed. The media delivery percentages really tell an incredible listener engagement story. To do this it takes a huge amount of processing to stitch, calculate and build sensible reports for our corporate clients. This data then allows them to do a lot of cool things. Here are a few:

*Make programming changes based on trends showing when an audience bounced out.
*Determine peak listening for ad placement before drop off.
*Provide accurate billing to advertisers.

One of our vendors had a show that lost about 80 percent of its audience each episode around the 23 minute mark. The producers knew that at that point in their program was a segment change. Upon removal of that segment, nearly their entire audience kept listening through to the 45 minute mark.

In another show, the audience scrubbed up — or jumped ahead — to about the 5 minute mark before they started listening. The show hosts revamped the beginning of their show and advertised the new change at the 7 minute mark, and regained the audience at the intro.

I want to be very clear here: This gives our clients inferred data on what is happening with each and every episode, no one to date is providing a signal that an app has been closed or the listener hit stop.  An assumption that they hit stop can be made, but may not always be the case.

The bottom line is that the listening session ended. If they come back later and pick up where they left off, we have other techniques that allow us to account for that action as well.

Simply watching the trending lines of the show’s audience over time has allowed our clients to tweak their shows, gain advertising revenue by better placement, and use a high level of sophistication to understand exactly what is happening with their listening audience.

For podcasters that host their podcast media with Blubrry, we will have an option to opt-in for similar data in their stats later this year, along with some yet-to-be announced data sets that will enable us to “close the loop.”

My goal in these first three articles has been to educate you that measuring media accurately truly is rocket science and we are pretty pleased to be the scientist behind that rocket. My team lives and breathes this everyday, and we hope that all networks and podcasters alike will trust us as tens of thousands of podcasters, networks and radio stations already do in their podcast media measurement.

Next month I want to switch gears and talk about mobile and the trends we are seeing in the utilization of mobile devices and even apps that are trending in the space. I will also cover some of the frustrations we have in tracking some of the mobile apps being used by podcasters today.

At Blubrry, we want to work together as a community to make sure that there are solid, reliable statistics and no misleading numbers in the podcasting space. If all podcasters utilized trusted solutions the space would be much better off in the long run.

Send your comments and questions to ceo@rawvoice.com

Catch my personal podcast @ GeekNewsCentral.com and tune in to our weekly New Media Show co-hosted with Rob Greenlee at NewMediaShow.com.

Stitcher Brings Listen Later Buttons To (Some) Podcast Websites

~ shawn

Listen Later ButtonStreaming audio/podcast aggregation app Stitcher is expanding the reach of its Listen Later service. Stitcher originally launched Listen Later as an in-app feature in 2003. The idea was simple but effective: When users find something in Stitcher they’d like to listen to at a later time, they can tap a button next to the item of interest, and that item is then added to a queue for later playback. This new addition to the feature takes Listen Later outside of the confines of the app, and allows for Listen Later buttons to appear on the web. Now, users can find things to listen to while web browsing and instantly “save” these audio portions by sending them to that same Listen Later queue inside of Stitcher.

And while Stitcher aggregates over 20,000 different audio feeds, this new Listen Later service is being rolled out slowly. It’s currently only available to a handful of partners. But Stitcher is planning on expanding the scope of Listen Later over time, eventually allowing all of its “partner” shows (a term Stitcher uses for any podcast that’s distributed thru the platform) to take advantage of this service.

Continue reading →

Media Hosting Getting More Competitive – Podbean Unlmited at $8/month

~ dave ~ 1 Comment

Podbean.com has rolled out an unlimited plan for podcasters. They offer unlimited band width and storage for $8 a month for audio and $18 a month for video.

PodbeanThis may be in response to Soundcloud ($15 a month for unlimited audio).  Companies like Libsyn.com and Blubrry.com have had unlimited storage and bandwidth from day one.

This does not mean all media hosting is created equal. There are things to consider like support, stats (accurate stats I might add) and up time. I’ve invited Podbean to come on my show (about podcasting) and I couldn’t get a response. After hounding them, I finally got them to fill me in that they are in Canada. Other than that, the podcast space has very little on this company. If you go to their about us page there is no phone, address, etc. The only way to contact them is through email.

You can read about my attempts here. 

The one thing I like about Libsyn.com and Blubrry.com is they have a very strong presence in the podcasting community.

This post by David Jackson

SoundCloud For Podcasting: A Skeptic’s Point Of View

~ shawn

SoundCloud LogoIf you want to publish a podcast, media hosting is a big deal. You need a reliable place to store your audio/video files. And preferably, that storage system won’t cause you go to go broke due to high bandwidth costs. Over the years, a number of companies have moved into this field but most of them haven’t stuck around. Spend any amount of time in a public forum devoted to podcasting, and the question of, “Which media host should I use?” will come up. And a flurry of responses will follow. Perennial favorites in the media hosting game like LibSyn and Blubrry come up often during these discussions. But another company seems to be entering the conversation more and more as of late: SoundCloud.

SoundCloud was first conceived by its founders as an online collaboration tool for musicians. It eventually morphed into an upload-and-share service for audio. Thanks to its ease of use and social sharing features, the service took off with musicians. Its growing popularity caused some to dub it “the YouTube of audio.” Soon, podcasters began asking SoundCloud how they too could take advantage of the service. SoundCloud’s base offerings aren’t really good for podcasters, as they’re really designed for musicians. In response, SoundCloud created a program for podcasters which has never officially left the beta phase of development.

Continue reading →

Which Podcasts Have The Most Ads?

~ shawn

Your Ad HereSince the early days of podcasting, advertising has been a bit of a touchy subject. Some claimed that having ads in podcasts would be the ultimate sellout. An end to the medium’s purity as a by-the-people-for-the-people creation. Others waited with marked anticipation for the arrival of parties who were interested in providing money in exchange for sponsored messages. Whatever side of the fence you’re on, advertising in podcasting is definitely here to stay. With that in mind, I decided to do a fairly unscientific poll of which podcasts actually have the most ads. Using an Evernote document, I made a simple tally of the number of times I heard an ad during podcasts I’m subscribed to or podcasts I work on for clients. This includes preroll, post-roll, and mid-roll ads, whether they were live reads or prerecorded. If a show had a simple, “This podcast is sponsored by…” tagline, I didn’t include it unless the message was longer than five seconds. Here’s the results: Continue reading →

Sticher Rolls Out Revenue Sharing Progam

~ dave

Stitcher RadioAs of today (5/19/2014) you’ll be eligible to qualify for revenue share if your show or network has a minimum of 5,000 active listeners on Stitcher in a calendar month

To qualify, a partner must have 5,000 or more active listeners a month on Stitcher.

Active listeners are defined as listener who play more than 30 seconds of a piece of audio and have listened in the current calendar month. You can find your current active listeners number in the Stitcher Partner Portal.

So this is not active listeners per show (unless you only have one show). It is 5000 active listeners per partner.

Listens reset to zero on the first day of each calendar month.

Checks will not be sent until they are greater than $100. All accounts will be credited forward until a check can be paid greater than $100. Checks will be sent quarterly.

To opt in you have to agree to the updated agreement in the partner portal. To opt out you send an email.

The amount paid is dependent on Stitcher’s total revenues less operating expenses, then divided amongst qualifying partners.

Dave Jackson runs the School of Podcasting where he helps people achieve pain free podasting

Google Kills Another RSS Channel – YouTube User Feeds

~ shawn

YouTube LogoDid you know that YouTube provided RSS feeds for all of the site’s users? It wasn’t a highly promoted feature but it was there. In fact, I used it and found it to be a handy way to follow my channel subscriptions without having to log in to the YouTube dashboard for updates. But YouTube users’ RSS feeds are no more. The Google-owned video giant has shut them down in the latest version of its API.

Of course, YouTube RSS feeds never worked like podcast RSS feeds. You couldn’t actually download media thru them. And while many podcasters use YouTube to supplement their main shows, this RSS issue isn’t likely to affect them directly. If anything, it’ll have the most impact on creators who are only distributing their shows via YouTube. Regardless, I can’t help but wonder, given Google’s unpredictable history when it comes to RSS support, is this another nail in the coffin for FeedBurner?

Like YouTube, FeedBurner is also owned by Google. But unlike YouTube, Google has pretty much abandoned FeedBurner. Yet, many podcasters still rely on FeedBurner to handle the RSS feeds for their shows. And anytime I see that, I worry a little bit for those shows.

On one hand, I understand why podcasters still flock to FeedBurner. At its core, it’s a handy service with some decent features. I even used it myself for some of my early podcasts, back when there weren’t many dedicated podcasting tools to speak of. On the other hand,  it’s not 2005 anymore. I wouldn’t use FeedBurner now and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s starting a new podcast. It’s risky enough using a third-party service to handle your RSS feed. It seems even riskier to use a service that’s been severely neglected by its owner, especially when that owner hasn’t had a good track record of supporting RSS.

For everyone out there still using the service, I hope it’s meeting your needs and that it continues to do so for a long time to come. But as more time passes, it seems like Google is separating itself from RSS entirely. And that can’t be good for FeedBurner’s future.

Posted by Shawn Thorpe

Having a Podtrac Player on Your Website May Cost You Visitors to Your Website

~ dave ~ 2 Comments

I love two players for podcasts. My first is the blubrry player (you can have a blubrry account for free), and for those who don’t want to sign up for blubrry there is the podtrac player. You just put in your RSS feed and you can have a player that is launched in a pop up (or not), plays a single episode (or multiple), and you can customize the colors and size of the player (it’s pretty cool).

When I went to login to the Podcast Review Show (a show I do where we help you get the best out of your podcast), I was surprised to be told my site may have malware (it doesn’t) because I had a podtrac player on my website (see graphic).

Podtrac Malware

When I went to the advanced tab it gave me the following information:

What is the current listing status for podtrac.com?

Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 1 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 57 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2014-05-12, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days.This site was hosted on 2 network(s) including AS14618 (AMAZON-AES), AS32244 (LIQUID-WEB-INC).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, podtrac.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

So I’m not sure what happened (one time) over ninety days, but it sure gives off a giant red flag. I went to my website and did a scan using Sucuri.net (affiliate link) which states my site is clean. To the average website visitor, they may not know any better and just run from your site. With this in mind I would consider using the players from Blubrry.com, Libsyn.com

 

Dave Jackson has been teaching people how to podcast since 2005 at the School of Podcasting and can be follwed on twitter @learntopodcast

 

UPDATE:

The day after this article appeared we got the following response from Podtrac.

The Chrome browser blocked the podtrac.com domain, reporting it as malware, followed later by Firefox and Safari as they use the same malware list as Google. At the same time, Chrome’s diagnostic page said there were no reports of malware for this domain in the last 90 days. And for more more than eight years, we have not seen a browser return the domain as malware. We scanned our servers for malware and found none. We checked with our hosting companies, and similarly they did not have any reports of malware on their servers.  We requested a review from Google.  

 

Sometime between 1am and 7am Eastern today, Chrome and the other browsers corrected their listing of the podtrac.comdomain, so the podtrac.com services are working again in all browsers.  We regret the inconvenience.

MLB Case Proves Cautionary Tale For Fan ‘Casts

~ shawn ~ 1 Comment

MLB LogoLast week, many fan-created podcasts that focus on Major League Baseball teams disappeared from the iTunes Store. It was assumed by many that the removal of these fan ‘casts was prompted by takedown requests from Major League Baseball. Outrage ensued in the podcasting and journalism communities. Most (if not all) of the shows that were removed from iTunes have since been reinstated. And while there haven’t been any official explanations on behalf of Apple or Major League Baseball, the reason the initial takedowns occurred has proven to be a cautionary tale for anyone producing an “unofficial fan podcast.”

While it’s hard to say exactly what happened during last week’s takedowns, it looks like they happened thru a combination of miscommunications and standard operating procedures; MLB sent a bunch of requests to Apple because MLB felt those ‘casts were infringing on its intellectual property. Apple responded in standard fashion by hiding those shows from search results within the iTunes Store. MLB wasn’t necessarily asking Apple to remove the offending shows, just to alert those shows that they need to change their names or artwork to conform with MLB’s rules. The Internet got mad, causing a wave of negative criticism to land on MLB. MLB attempted to clarify its position with Apple, causing Apple to return the previously hidden shows to the iTunes Store.

Continue reading →