Fantastic - thank you! And thanks for sharing that subscriber data. People are usually shy of that here, but it's really interesting.
I agree that it's frustrating about the iTunes feed formatting, especially as they provide so little of the available metadata within the Podcast Directory. Which makes it very hard to find stuff you might like, beyond the staff picks. At the very least they should provide a feed burner in-house, so that you can put your own feed in as normal, and then customise your profile on iTunes, with all the other general show info that they want. It's sad that social interaction and even commenting is still so hobbled. IMO, the first, simplest and most important change they could make would be to add a permalink to the original blog post for each podcast episode. It's shocking that this still isn't there. While iTunes has changed a lot to adapt to the iPhone and now iPad, the podcast directory is still behaving like each audio/video file will be consumed dumbly on a non-internet-connected iPod. Especially with new devices and TV set top boxes, people are going to want a way of consuming their entertainment that's more intelligent and less like a stripped-down version of the iTunes music library. There's a mountain of other social and UI stuff too for both consumers and producers - and I'm interested in why they don't allow us to charge, particularly in lieu of lost ad revenue. Too many sacrifices a producer has to make, for a free silent audience. Rupert http://twittervlog.tv On 21 Jun 2010, at 01:49, David Jones wrote: > On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 7:40 AM, Rupert Howe <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > I've been asked to give some feedback on iTunes podcasting from a > > producer/blogger perspective. > > > > What's your experience of it? What would you change, and what do you > > like about it? As consumers & producers? > > > > I have a lot of my own experiences & opinions, to do with things > like > > separation of content in the store from the web, discovery & > > organising. And watching, especially compared with Miro. > > > > I know I have a lot of subscribers who watch via iTunes, but I > suspect > > they hardly ever comment & rarely visit the site, which I find quite > > frustrating. They don't seem to take advantage of the huge amount of > > metadata in the feeds. > > > > I'm also interested in how it affects revenue - with decreased > > tracking of ads in videos and views of ads on your sites, for > instance. > > > > Opinions gratefully received. It might make a difference! > > > > Rupert > > http://twittervlog.tv > > I don't know all the technical details, as I don't use iTunes myself, > and my Podpress plugin "just works". > But over 1/3rd of my audience watch the podcast version of my show, > and here is the breakdown on who uses what within that: > http://www.eevblog.com/images/stats/Stats-Feedburner-June10.png > So only about 5% of my total audience watch via an iTunes podcast. > That's not very many, but they are quite vocal. > > And from a content producers perspective, I have to use the Podpress > plug-in in Wordpress just to cater to those 5%, to generate the iTunes > compatible feed file. > iTunes apparently requires it's own specific data format for the > information. Why it can't just use regular RSS/XML feed information > like everyone else I don't know. So for me that's the biggest gripe, > you have to generate "iTunes" specific information. But hey, that's > Apple for you. > > I get very little or no revenue from people who watch via the Podcast. > I have Adsense ads on the RSS feed, and I don't know exactly how or > where they show up, the clicks are a very small percentage of my total > ad revenue. So I just "write off" the Podcasters as lost ad revenue. > If anyone has any better ideas in that area then I'm all ears. I do > try to get them over to the forum and web site for comments, but like > yourself I suspect they are just part of the "silent" audience. > > Dave. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
