I look at it like moving into a house. You can move into a starter house with one bedroom, etc. Then later if your family grows you can move into a bigger house. If you had the chance, and could afford it, wouldn’t rather skip step one? After all moving all your stuff is no fun.

Likewise when you set up a podcast on a free account, in some cases they set up an RSS feed for you (bad) and set up your iTunes listing for you (very bad), and then you are set with limitations (storage, etc). In other words, you get what you pay for.

If you can afford $10 a month for hosting your website (I use Hostgator - affiliate link), and $12 a month at Libsyn.com then that would be the route I would go. In some cases I’ve seen people host both their website and their media on Host Gator. This works, but you will have to struggle to get some stats, and if you get really popular you will be asked to move your media.

The other thing to consider is many free sites go out of business (forcing you to move again). If you can avoid it, I would. People go in with a negative attitude. They say, “What if nobody listens?” To this I ask, “But what if they do?! – you will want a more powerful site with more features.”

Plan to be successful. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can grow an audience with a little promotion.

You can get a remote control that turns the power on/off at the outlet. Then you can plug a lamp into that outlet. Place this outside the room you record in, and when the family sees the light they know not to come inside. If the light is off, then they are free to come on in. The classic “ON AIR” lights are a bit expensive.  I’ve found some on ebay.com for about 30 bucks

Troubleshooting Wordpdress

When I troubleshoot my Podcast Fast Pass client’s websites a majority of the time it is a conflict with one of the plugins. You can go in and turn off all the plugins, and then see if the problem goes away. If it does, then go in and turn on ONE plugin and test the site. Keep repeating until you find the plugin that is causing the issue.

If you can’t even login, then go into your website via FTP and delete the plugins in the plugins folder. You can install them later.

Save 20% off Your Registration

You can save 20% off your registration now through June 20th (my wedding day) using the coupon code wedding.

Internet Video. As you probably expected, Internet video consumption exploded last year, with approximately 69 million, or 27% of people, watching online video sometime in the past week. That figure is up from 18% in 2008.
Portable Media Players. More than four in ten people (42%) own an iPod, iPhone, or other kind of portable media/mp3 player, and among the 12 – 44 year-old crowd, that percentage jumps to above 50 percent. The “key radio demographic” of 35-to 54-year-olds are becoming more frequent online radio listeners.
Podcast Audience. Forty-three percent of Americans are aware of podcasts, up from 37% last year. Twenty-two percent of Americans have ever listened to a podcast (up from 18% in 2008), and approximately 27 million (or 11%) have listened to one in the past month (up from 9% last year)

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Linking to Other Websites with Media

In working on the Sessions with Slau podcast we linked to some additional audio directly, and it turns out that the first item you link to (assuming its some sort of media) will GO DOWN THE RSS FEED. So, to make a long story short, you should always link to a post (and not the media) if its a podcast.

Today I thought I would look into the Podsafe Music Network. I’ve always known that you could find great music there, however in looking over the paperwork I was surprised that its not required to mention the musician (only the podsafe music network). As a musician I urge everyone using the resource to mentioned the musician.

We also get a report from Fred Castenda of www.strugglingentrepreneur.com and www.gaincontrolofyourday.com who interviews Dave from Wizzard media about the new wizard media. It’s very simple. Enter in your RSS feed, answer a confirmation email (stating that you are the owner of the feed). Wizzard will populate your player, and you are off to go.

The player is completely customizable via skins. It also checks to see if you have a high speed connection, and then either feeds you the mv4 file or the flash file. They also have a partnership with tubmogul where your video will get blasted into all sorts of different video portals. Check it out at http://www.wizzard.tv/blog/producers/producers_wizzard_player/ or to sign up go to tools.wizzard.tv

We also talk about getting feedback from friends on your podcast.

Last 5 in 5

We also have a “Last 5 in 5″ from Paul at the Technobabel Podcast
http://www.technobabelshow.com/  his last 5 in are:

School of Podcasting (this site – thank you…)
Cranky Geeks ( www.crankygeeks.com )
DLTV with Patrick Norton ( www.dl.tv )
Geeks on God (www.geeksongod.com )
Media Moment (Salvation Army at www.mediamoment.blogspot.com )

Dave explains how to call a regular phone with Skype.

Other sites Dave is involved with
www.todayinpodcast.com (With Gary and Rob)
www.musicnewspodcast.net (Real People, Real News, Real Sarcasm)
www.podcastclicks.com (banner exhcange program – free promotion)
www.musicianscooler.com (Music Marketing For Bands)
www.podcastingshirts.com