small podcast outfits miss often.1. Provide an RSS feed of your podcast
Many podcasters tend to provide an iTunes feed only. This used not be
a problem the major problem it now is to the experts as there was a
way to to make iTunes tell you what the RSS feed address behind an
iTunes feed was by pinging the iTunes feed. Apple blocked this method
in Feb 2011.
Podcasters of the world, an RSS/XML feed is required by non iTunes
readers. A real feed is required by iTunes in the firsts place so make
it available to everyone please. Often I have to resort to major
detective work just to find your real feeds.
2. Provide valid and well formed RSS
Too often I find feeds that are not valid and not well formed. This is
such a basic. Hand crafted or machine rolled, your RSS must be valid
and well formed against the namespace. If not valid or well formed
less forgiving readers will just not read you and more forgiving
readers will misread you.
Validate your own feed regularly http://feedvalidator.org/ fix errors.
3. M4A only feeds.
While it is a podcasters right to choose the media codec for the
podcast, M4A will not play with a lot of web based players, consider
alternate MP3 feeds if you are so fixed on having an M4A audio
podcast.
4. Are we there yet?
Podcasters, consider making your feed PUSH enabled. It take minutes to
burn a feed and make it PubSubHubbub aware. This speeds up the
delivery of your media and reduces wasteful checking on your server
for updates.
We haven’t come a long way since the hay day of podcasting in 2004.
The basics then are still the basics now. I am seeing slippage from
provision of the basics by many a broadcaster & podcaster. Please
strive to be the best, and remember the RSS. Really Saying Something!
As I finish writing this piece, twitter alerts me that 2 more podcasts
I track are out or in studio. Whatever your schedule, whatever the
frequency of your episodes keep up the good work, you may not often
get praise from the audience but praise is had won, I will praise the
available RSS valid & well formed feeds you provide.
Thanks for hearing me.