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FeedBurner and me? Or Drew?
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-19, 21:36

So who out there has heard of FeedBurner and what's your experiance with it. Seems Mr. drewprops and myself (with a heard of others it seems) are having issues with podPress and getting RSS feeds for iTS and others to validate. My biggest issue is that my podPress feed isn't updating my podcast Art. FeedBurner has been offered up as an option but I'd like to get some other's take on it. How's the service and what listing services do you use it with?

I'm managing a podcast (well two really, one video and one audio) for an organization and we need to keep it professional for our users. I saw where they have the ability to match my domain name rather than having feedburner.com in the URL for the feed; how easy is it to set up? Since I'm using podpress to run my RSS feed, does FeedBurner just take the standard info and re-convert it to iTS format?

So how about some feedback on FeedBurner now that Google owns it. Is it worth my time to invest in setting up or will it just waste my time?

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-19, 22:57

Bully good post.
If nobody else responds perhaps we can sort it out here, in public to help any poor schmucks who find themselves in a similar situation! I'll take a look at Feedburner tomorrow and get back here to see what's going on here!

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 14:46

No new NEWS here?
Well I have some.... looks like Dan Kuykendall has found a sponsor for the messageboard over on www.mightyseek.com, so that temporary experiment of using the Yahoo Groups is most likely over.

I would warn you that his most active moderator, iscifi, is not "people friendly".... very much what you'd expect of a support person working for free, answering an endless stream of "my feed doesn't work" crybabies (like me).

He's terse, vaguely abusive, snarky and unpredictable.
The epitome of the guy who runs the comicbook store on The Simpsons.... for instance, in the midst of a thread that was unfolding rather smartly over Feedburner and Podpress our feckless moderator suddenly turns on his guest and opens a thread with the question "have you any clue?"...... the other guy let him have it too, called him on the carpet for being an ass.

So. Grain of salt.

In regard to Feedburner versus Podpress, I'm currently torn.
Podpress does a great job with putting the media inline into your posts. It's impressive how far Podpress has come in just over a year of its birth... I have to think that Dan has no other hobbies than refining this piece of software and (for the most part) it shows.... problem is, Google just bought Feedburner and that has to be a good thing for users of Feedburner.

I especially like the fact that Feedburner has instructions for users of various services and software setups.

I don't think that Dan and his allies can compete with the level of service that Feedburner is offering, especially if Dan's software continues to have the constant problem of broken feeds and such.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter

Last edited by drewprops : 2007-07-22 at 14:56.
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2007-07-22, 15:00

I've been using FeedBurner for years, FWIW.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-22, 15:53

So what's your feedback on it? You can't leave us hanging like that chucker.

Is it really all it's cracked up to be? My understanding of how it works is that it takes your existing feed (say like the one created by podPress) and then formats it for directory services. Is that about right?

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2007-07-22, 16:01

FeedBurner takes a feed and does stuff with it. This can be any combination of gathering statistics, optimizing the feed's format, making it compatible with more clients, adding more Metadata, adding ads, and so on.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 16:06

That's about as good an endorsement as you're going to get on these forums Turtle. If Chucker's doing it then it's almost certainly the route to follow... except for that whole kooky Twitter thing!

Some questions for you Turtle:

- what version of Podpress are you running?
- did your feed originally validate?
- did iTunes see it properly? (you know you have to get a user ID from Apple, right?)


I tried installing v.8.2 of Podpress and the site went all woozy so I yanked it and stuck the older version (v6.7) back out there since I knew that it at least made the videos work inline inside a post.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-22, 16:16

I'm running 8.2 and it works great. Maybe you've got an incompatibility issue with another plug-in. My iTS feed validated within 24 hours and is working great with the one problem of not showing my Album Art. This is actually a big deal for my organization since it isn't a personal thing, it's for a professional organization. I just used my personal Apple ID to register the podcasts. (Both of them have the art issue.)

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 16:22

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
FeedBurner takes a feed and does stuff with it. This can be any combination of gathering statistics, optimizing the feed's format, making it compatible with more clients, adding more Metadata, adding ads, and so on.
With Google connected to it this is certain to open into a big fat vein of connectivity... wouldn't you think?

I'm going to read the Feedburner Quick Start guide for WordPress and look into my Podpress settings to see if I can "switch off" the feed.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 16:24

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle2472 View Post
I'm running 8.2 and it works great. Maybe you've got an incompatibility issue with another plug-in. My iTS feed validated within 24 hours and is working great with the one problem of not showing my Album Art. This is actually a big deal for my organization since it isn't a personal thing, it's for a professional organization. I just used my personal Apple ID to register the podcasts. (Both of them have the art issue.)
What version of WordPress are you running? My problematic site is on 2.0.2 right now.
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
Send a message via ICQ to chucker Send a message via AIM to chucker Send a message via MSN to chucker Send a message via Yahoo to chucker Send a message via Skype™ to chucker 
2007-07-22, 16:26

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
That's about as good an endorsement as you're going to get on these forums Turtle.
I try to avoid endorsing products. I strongly believe that people should make their own informed choices, rather than going off by others' recommendations or live under the illusion that one product is inherently better than another.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-22, 16:42

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
What version of WordPress are you running? My problematic site is on 2.0.2 right now.
I'm on 2.2 now. It's many enhancements made the time invested to upgrade worth it to me. Plus, it was really a snap to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
With Google connected to it this is certain to open into a big fat vein of connectivity... wouldn't you think?

I'm going to read the Feedburner Quick Start guide for WordPress and look into my Podpress settings to see if I can "switch off" the feed.
I'm leaving the podpress going from the looks of it, I'll use podPress to put the media in the posts and then let FeedBurner run the feed. PodPress might have it's own feed, but it doesn't look like the two will conflict.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
I try to avoid endorsing products. I strongly believe that people should make their own informed choices, rather than going off by others' recommendations or live under the illusion that one product is inherently better than another.
Part of making an informed choice is by getting feedback from current or past users. It's not about being under an illusion, it's about getting non-advertised/paid for information. Don't be too scared to endorse or condemn a product, just be honest about your take on it.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 20:55

I just had a realization while ago and must wait a little while to see if it pays off.
In the meantime I'll share the notion here.

The feed URL that I've been pinging Apple with for the last year is specifically for the category 'itunes'.
The reason I'm serving iTunes a feed from one particular category is a strategy I conceived when I first started out doing video podcasts.

DO NO HARM, IGNORE NO PLATFORM
I knew that I wanted to serve up Flash-video from the main page of the website because Flash video is 'platform agnostic'... thus opening the vids to a wider audience.

SHARE, SHARE, SHARE
I also wanted to let people download the video to their iPods, which meant handing out a M4V file. Media feeds apparently don't like multiple enclosures, so I couldn't just jam the M4V file into the same post as the FLV files as the 2nd enclosure would get ignored by the news reader (and iTMS).

RECORD ONCE, POST TWICE
My solution was to create two totally different categories, one for Flash Video, the other for M4V iPod video. To prevent people from seeing double I customized my WordPress template to leave out posts from the redundant category on the front page of the website; they'd only see the post serving up Flash video on the front page.

For the past little while I had THREE fairly new posts that would show up in the feed for the 'itunes' category. Problem was, they all used Flash Video. Realizing that I haven't been following my own system I have just removed two of the posts with the Flash video and have repaired the third post to include an M4V file.

Then I pinged iTMS and will wait to see what happens.....

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 21:55

It worked.

I'm about to start uploading new files now to see if works with some more episodes.
I'm not using exclamation points out of superstition.
I am very excited.
Shhh.



.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-22, 23:06

Maybe that's it for you then. I'm not putting anything but MP3 up on the Audio and M4V on the Video. I'm still not getting my art yet though.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 23:44

Now you made me feel all sad and guilty

What exactly is this art you speak of... is it something that changes from 'cast to 'cast or is it the signature "album cover" image that shows up when somebody sees your podcast listing in iTunes?

If that was it then you'd be talking about the two graphic images on the Feed/iTunes Settings page are you? You know, the one called "iTunes:Image (300*300 pixels)" and the one called "Blog/RSS Image (144*144 pixels)".

WAIT!!!

::rewriting answer::

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-22, 23:47

Do you mean for your videos??
Like the preview artwork like I have on the PiratePalooza site?
Something that you click to begin playing?
For THAT I have an answer!

::writing::

Now I'm running an older version of Podpress, but take a look at this screenshot.



Are you physically creating a preview image that has the same physical dimensions as your video?
If not, you need to do that first.
THEN you have to upload it to a directory that fits your organizational scheme.
THEN you have to tell Podpress where to find that image... just use the full URL, it's easiest that way.
THEN tell Podpress the dimensions of your video.
At that point it should show you something similar to what you see in this screenshot.



.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter

Last edited by drewprops : 2007-07-22 at 23:59.
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-23, 17:55

No, my issue is with the art here in the podpress admin page:


As you can see I have changed the file and it even shows here in the RSS feed:
Code:
<itunes:image href="http://www.mydomain.com/podcast/audio/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/WaveLogo300.png" />
iTS has this though:

This is for both my audio and video feeds.

It looks good in the podpress admin page but doesn't make it to the iTS.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-23, 20:40

I think I found my issue:
Quote:
Announcement: Podcast Image Issues
Posted By: ssukotto
Created in: Forum: Producing Podcasts
Posted: Jul 19, 2007 9:52 AM

The iTunes Store is currently experiencing issues with adding cover art to newly approved podcasts, or making changes to existing cover art. The problem is being actively investigated, although there is no estimate for when the service will be fixed.

In the interim, make sure your feed is readable and valid (using http://www.feedvalidator.org), and that your podcast image is accessible via the URL listed in your feed.

More information on podcast images is available in the technical spec:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/po...techspecs.html

We apologize for the delay.
Seems there are a few people in the same position as me right now too. And to think I was ready to fire podPress and move on. What's worse is I've been pouring over my RSS feed and settings. Verifying and re-verifying that my feed was good, getting intimate with the podcast spec page on Apple's site.


At least I know the issue now though.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-23, 21:18

What a head-thumper!!!! Dang.
Doesn't that make you think that they have something happening with the basic structure of the iTMS database? New things coming down the pike?

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-23, 21:29

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
What a head-thumper!!!! Dang.
Doesn't that make you think that they have something happening with the basic structure of the iTMS database? New things coming down the pike?
Yeah, it does actually. I'm not sure what they are doing, but it'll be nice once it fixed.

I'm thinking I might still set up FeedBurner for my other directory services I'm looking to list with. I don't know though, I'll just see how they handle podPress directly. I'll post here if I do put them to use though.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2007-07-23, 23:19

I really get the feeling that having a Feedburner feed is going to 'blast' your site farther than the simple feed serving we're doing now via Podpress. It's just a matter of scale. I haven't given up on the idea of doing Feedburner.... (points toward Chucker's posts)

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-07-25, 20:56

Well I have finally updated my podcasts to use FeedBurner. There seemed to be little reason for me not to do so. I installed the scripts in my index and single PHP files to allow better tracking too. It seems like this is the best way for me to go about tracking my subscriptions and allow for larger indexing with the subscription services.

I don't like all the FeedBurner advertisements on their "browser optimized" page. I do like the layout and subscription buttons, but I don't want their name all over it. I guess it's the price I have to pay though. Unless someone else knows of some ways to make it more my organizations page?

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-08-08, 19:20

Drew, Feedburner has really gotten the word out for our podcast. I've put Google Analytics on my two podcasts and we are getting people from Switzerland and South Korea and other countries that otherwise wouldn't find the podcast!

There there is the data the Feedburner gives that's pretty nice too. I'd recommend it to you if you really want your podcast to be put out on all the major listings.

Oh, and the podcast images have been fixed now too. iTS finally figured it out.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
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