Podcast Insider Tech Podcast Network

Podcasting events are alive and well in 2020. The Podfest team is hosting a virtual event this week and Podcast Movement is looking for proposals for speakers for their virtual event come October.  There isn't much time left to submit, so act now.



Speaking of virtual events, Todd and Mike discussed some tips on how to stand out and the ability to create some authority in these virtual events as opposed to the in person networking we're used to.



Blubrry is way deep into a development process change and it involves the entire team. Meanwhile, later this month we'll be hosting a PowerPress webinar that new WordPress podcasters don't want to miss.



Facebook Live Recording.



Thanks for joining us this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know.



Recorded live from two well-separated and socially distant podcast studios in northern and southern Michigan; here’s Podcast Insider.

News:



Virtual Podfest Summit is ongoing this week. By the time you're reading this, they're reached their goal: Guinness World Record for the largest attendance of a 1-week virtual podcasting conference! Congrats :)



Is Amazon and Audible adding podcasts?



$61 million worth of podcast promos have been aired on radio stations in 2020 so far. But why?



Joe Rogan had top reach Q2 in 2020. 

Edison Research shows Joe Rogan had the top reach in Q2 and other interesting data.



Podcast Movement Virtual is looking for speakers - submit your proposal.





Best Practice:

Building authority during a virtual event: We live in a world in virtual events as opposed to in-person for the time being. One way you're able to stand out and garner some authority in your industry is by having a professional background. These are relatively easy and free or affordable to create.

Blubrry News:



PowerPress webinar, Aug 25 4-5 EDT. Sign up to attend here.



The entire Blubrry team is switching from waterfall development process to SCRUM (Agile). It's quite a process!





Interview:

Mike Ehmcke -  We Be Geeks Podcast Collective

Blubrry podcasters, let us interview you for the show! Tell your story of podcasting right here on Podcast Insider. Email Todd@blubrry.com, Mike@blubrry.com or MacKenzie@blubrry.com.



Support: 



Updated Blubrry Directory Listings





We’ve had several users submit tickets about their Blubrry Directory listings showing no episodes, even though they’ve published some. The reason for this is because the Hosting Settings area in the Podcaster Dashboard is not set. You have to specify if you’re using a PowerPress feed or Blubrry.com feed, then the directory will update. Be sure to add your PowerPress feed in the correct spot as well, otherwise, we don’t know what feed you’re using!







Where Can I See My Monthly Quota Balance?





It’s always good to know how much upload space you have. There are a couple of different places you can find it, depending on how you’re using Blubrry Hosting.





Publishing from Blubrry.com





If you go to Upload New Media Files or Manage Published Files in the Podcaster Dashboard, you’ll see your upload balance in bold under the list of files. It will show you how much space you have left and how much your quota is in total.







Publishing with PowerPress





This one is a little harder to find, but when you go to upload a new file within PowerPress, you’ll find your balance at the bottom of the window. Scroll down and you’ll see Publishing Space Available with what’s left for the month.

The time has finally come, Google Play Music Podcasts will be shut down in the upcoming weeks. We've heard news of this in the past, but it appears late summer, early fall will be it's last days. On this podcast, we say god riddance. Todd and Mike also chat about some upcoming virtual podcast events you don't want to miss such as Podfest and The Podcast Academy.



Blubrry is known for integrating with WordPress, and so we really went through some best hygiene practices with WordPress. Managing a website for years on end is no easy feat and we included some tips that people might miss over time.



And for our support chat this episode, we provide an update on a stats issue we had recently and more.



Facebook Live Recording.



Thanks for joining us this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know.



Recorded live from two well-separated and socially distant podcast studios in northern and southern Michigan; here’s Podcast Insider.

News:



Google Podcasts Manager is replacing Google Play Music Podcast Portal as the new home for your podcast listeners on Google. Starting in the next few weeks, you’ll no longer be able to add new podcast shows through Podcast Portal. Later this year, access to Google Play Music Podcast Portal will be removed permanently.



The Podcast Academy is having an August Social event.  August 13th at 5pm Eastern.



Podcast Awards slate coming out soon. Nominations are over.



Podfest Global Summit kicks off Monday, Aug. 10 and runs through the week, ending on Saturday the 15th. Todd joined the pre-event festivities yesterday.



Another way to play podcasts on Amazon Echo - via Pandora.



Zoom, the recording equipment company, has released a new recorder and microphone, the Pod Trak P4.



Kindergarteners listening to podcasts as part of their remote learning due to COVID.





Best Practice:

WordPress Hygiene 





Keep things updated (Plugins, WordPress and Themes)



Remove unused plugins or themes



Complicated passwords for logins



Do not use “admin” for a login



Limit logins plugin is a good idea



Set “new users” to Subscriber if you are going to allow people to create logins. (mostly no need for this “feature”)





Blubrry News:



Our Private Internal Podcasting service includes a free Android app to listen to secure episodes. Learn more about the Android app here.



Join Mike for a live webinar on Aug. 25th at 4pm. How to set up and use Blubrry PowerPress.





Bonus Best Practice:

Check your SD Cards for Cracks!

Interviews: Blubrry podcasters, let us interview you for the show! Tell your story of podcasting right here on Podcast Insider. Email Todd@blubrry.com, Mike@blubrry.com or MacKenzie@blubrry.com.



Support:



Stats reporting slow-down last weekend and early this week.   We had some maintenance on Friday that slowed down our stats reporting for a few days over the weekend.  Everything should be close to back to normal now.  No data was lost.



We still have not heard from Deezer about show submissions.



Be sure to set your email address in the Podcast Settings at Blubrry (feed Email) ONLY IF YOU ARE NOT USING POWERPRESS and host with Blubrry. Otherwise, we will get the emails to claim ownership of a show at Google and the notice when you are excepted into Apple Podcasts.



PowerPress *can* be used with any host.  But you have to still publish using PowerPress and not the embedded player from the host.  Otherwise, it makes it very hard to move to another host.

Google Podcasts Manager - https://podcastsmana...

Todd's back and discussing an array of new podcasts and events happening, with co-host Mike. Ford has a new podcast as a retired Chicago radio personality, and we can't forget Michelle Obama's new "podcast" is now out!



Big news from some industry events, including switching to virtual, 2021 updates and speaking opportunities.



Thanks to Scotty Iseri for joining Mike to discuss his children's podcast. And for those that missed our PowerPress webinar recently, we've got a treat for you.



Facebook Live Recording.



Thanks for joining us this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know.



Recorded live from two well-separated and socially distant podcast studios in northern and southern Michigan; here’s Podcast Insider.

News:



Ford has a podcast! Bring Back Bronco launches August 4th.



CES has made the switch to virtual for 2021. Still happening early January, they'll be moving everything to an online event, considering they're one of the largest events every year this is definitely the responsible course of action.



Retired Chicago radio personality, Steve Cochran goes to podcasting, Live From My Office.



Podcast Show will be hosted in-person in London May 2021. They’re expecting 6k attendees.



Deezer permanently features Black artists and podcasters on their Black Culture Channel



Michelle Obama’s Spotify exclusive podcast is now live!



Podcast Movement speakers: Anyone can submit to speak at their virtual event, submissions must be submitted by Aug. 19.



Best Practice:



What to do when you get no feedback and your audience is growing slowly.



Blubrry News:



Catch a replay of our latest PowerPress webinar.  Currently on YouTube. We are working on a video channel for Podcast Insider that will include these types of videos as podcasts.



RIAA takedown notices are way up lately.



Podcast App Recommendations, the latest from our blog.



Interview:

Blubrry podcasters, let us interview you for the show! Tell your story of podcasting right here on Podcast Insider. Email Todd@blubrry.com, Mike@blubrry.com or MacKenzie@blubrry.com.



Scotty Iseri - The Imagine Neighborhood



Support:



Upload quotas reset on the 1st of every month





How do you encode your mp3 files?



128kbps Stereo = 1mb per minute of audio



64kbps mono = ½ mb per minute



96kbps = .75 mb per minute











The WordPress Forum for PowerPress, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are great! ...And we love hearing from you, but any questions should be directed to our website where you can contact us directly. Such as blubrry.com/support or email support@blubrry.com.



Connect with Scotty here...



The Imagine Neighborhood - website

Contact them

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter



Promo code INSIDER for a free month at Blubrry.com



Coming at you this week from two very separate podcast studios in Michigan. Produced by the Blubrry Pro-Production team.



Schedule a one-on-one with Todd (hosting customers only) Email todd@blubrry.com

Schedule a tech checkup with Mike (hosting customers only) Email mike@blubrry.com

Send us your podcast sticker and a self-address stamped envelope (SASE) and we will send you a Blubrry care package.



Our mailing address is:

Blubrry – MacKenzie

150 E. Campus View Blvd. #180

Columbus, Ohio 43235

Show notes are an important part of publishing podcast episodes and creating an online presence for your content. This week two tech-minded team members - Mike and Shawn from the support team - discuss some show notes dos and don'ts when it comes to Blubrry services.



And we'll be seeing you online this year for Podcast Movement, instead of in person in Dallas. We've heard whispers of the New York Times partnering with Serial Productions, and now it's official. They chat about some other podcast news as well as what Blubrry has been up to - listen in and get more details in the latest newsletter.



Thanks for joining us this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know.



Recorded live from two well-separated and socially distant podcast studios in northern Michigan and central coast California; here’s Podcast Insider.

News:



Podcast Movement 2020 in Dallas no more. They made the official announcement this week that they're moving to virtual in October.



Podcast Movement 2021: Nashville! We'll be joining the event in person next year, more details coming soon.



Spotify is now providing video podcasts.



The New York Times bought Serial Productions. No changes coming to their association to public radio and affiliates.



Audio is listened to more on digital devices than traditional audio devices i.e radio. According to the most recent Edison Research Share of Ear survey.





Best Practice:

Show Notes - Part II





Recommended settings in WordPress using PowerPress for show notes



In the Reading menu of WordPress Settings, select “Full Text” for syndication feeds.

In the Post Editor (Classic) go to screen options and check the box for Summary.  In the Block Editor go to settings and check the box for Summary.







When you make your post include your fully formatted show notes (format IN WordPress, not cut and Paste from any word processor)  (content:encoded tag)



Put what you want as a short description of the episode in the Summary box that then shows (description tag).





Blubrry News:



The iOS app for Private Internal Podcasting is available, read about it here. 

Our monthly newsletter went out this week, check up on what we've been doing.

Podcasters of the Month - Mouse Chat – Steve Griswold and Lisa, Lauren, and Sharpie





Interview:

Blubrry podcasters, let us interview you for the show! Tell your story of podcasting right here on Podcast Insider. Email Todd@blubrry.com, Mike@blubrry.com or MacKenzie@blubrry.com.



Support:



Shawn’s strategies for launching a new show



If there’s a planned launch date in mind, give yourself plenty of lead time to get everything in place.

Launching a new podcast is rarely a “weekend project,” especially for brand new podcasters (though, it can get easier with subsequent launches); give yourself adequate time to avoid going into panic mode.







Levelator (for Mac and maybe others) issues: It's currently causing some trouble on Apple Products for playback.  Make sure you are encoding your files correctly.



Mp3 format, 44.1khz sample rate (Or 48khz works too), 128kbps CBR bitrate is best.







If you are using WordPress and PowerPress for your podcast feed currently,  DO NOT move your site to another platform (Squarespace, Wix, etc) without first making arrangements for your podcast RSS feed. Your show will be gone if you move before you think about your show. Contact us for options! (BEFORE you move).



Promo code INSIDER for a free month at Blubrry.com

Welcome to a special celebration episode of Podcast Insider, our 200th episode. Mike and MacKenzie hosted and shared some memories and past episode clips from over the years.

Before they begin the reminiscing, they discuss a variety of podcast news articles - spending quite a bit of time on Spotify and Apple. Apple has released a new daily show, and Spotify has a new exclusive show with Michelle Obama.



Thanks for joining us this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know.



Recorded live from two well-separated and socially distant podcast studios in northern Michigan and central Ohio; here’s a Podcast Insider show LIVE.

News:



Apple now has a new podcast,  Apple Daily News.



Spotify now has podcast charts! Available for about 25 markets and top 50 results. They also announced Spotify is now available in Russia, but only the music portion with podcasting to come later most likely.



SiriusXM update! The confirmed selling price for Stitcher’s sale to SiriusXM was $325 million. Congratulations to Scripps!



Rode announced the winners of their contest, “My Rodecast 2020”.



New podcast: There Are No Girls On The Internet



IAB Podcast Revenue study - Comedy is #1



The Michelle Obama Podcast, a Spotify exclusive, will debut on July 29. Nine episodes total released weekly.





Replacing Best Practices:

History of this podcast ... our this may be a bad practice





The podcast originally started  started as The PowerPress Podcast, with MacKenzie as host

Then on March 17, 2017 Todd and Mike decided to start Your Podcast. 

We combined them into this show, Podcast Insider, a year ago.

Episode 200 is the sum of all of the shows.





Blubrry News:



We have installed SpeakPipe on PodcastInsider.com so you can send in your questions, comments or other feedback to the show and we may use it in the show.  The button is under the subscribe links on the sidebar of Podcast Insider. Leave us messages!





Interview:



Nothing this week, we're looking for guests! Let us interview you for the show!  Tell your story of podcasting right here on Podcast Insider.  Email Todd@blubrry.com, Mike@blubrry.com or MacKenzie@blubrry.com.



Support:



Changing Artwork: When you want to change artwork, simply upload the new artwork to your settings.  In PowerPress you have to put the link to the artwork in two places in the Podcast Artwork menu. Upload it once and copy and paste the URL to the other box. Make sure your artwork file name is NOT the same as the last version of the artwork. This could delay it getting to all the apps and directories.  There is no set time for them to update but most will update within 72 hours.



Along the same lines, changing the TITLE of your show. You simply change the “feed title” and it will get PULLED into the directories and apps the same as any other change to your RSS feed.



Email addresses: Make sure you have an email address you check (not a spam catcher email) in the RSS feed settings.



Promo code INSIDER for a free month at Blubrry.com



Coming at you this week from two very separate podcast studios in Michigan. Produced by the Blubrry Pro-Production team.



Schedule a one-on-one with Todd (hosting customers only) Email todd@blubrry.com

Schedule a tech checkup with Mike (hosting customers only) Email mike@blubrry.com

Send us your podcast sticker and a self-address stamped envelope (SASE) and we will send you a Blubrry care package.



Our mailing address is:

Blubrry – MacKenzie

150 E. Campus View Blvd. #180

Columbus, Ohio 43235

Todd and Mike are Navy and Air Force veterans, respectfully, and recently spoke with a veteran podcast, be sure to stick around for this weeks interview portion.



Stitcher has recently been acquired by SiriusXM for a reported $300 million, only five years after it was bought by Scripps. Spotify and Omnicom are also working on a deal concerning advertising in podcasting, and Pandora is considering a paywall feature for podcasts. It's been a busy week for podcast purchasing.



But, if there was any doubt, we now know that podcasting is at an all-time high, with more podcasts created in the first half of 2020 than all of 2019, thanks COVID.



We've got some Blubrry updates and news, featuring an interview with Todd as CEO and the idea of podcasting with kids.



Facebook Live Recording.



Thanks for joining us this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know.



Recorded live from two well-separated and socially distant podcast studios in northern and southern Michigan, here’s a Podcast Insider show LIVE.

This week on Podcast Insider…

News:



SiriusXM Buying Stitcher from Scripps for $300 Million



More new podcasts in 2020 so far than ALL of 2019.  There are currently 1.3 million 'active' shows.



Spotify and Omnicom: Spotify got a 20 million payday from Omnicom for ad measurement.



Pandora experiments with a paywall for podcasts. How will listeners react?



Are ID3 tags needed any more? For SEO, or really anything. Thanks, Cridland.





Best Practices:

Should your show talk about current news and events that are unrelated to your podcast topic?





If the news effects the topic of your show, then yes, talk about it.



If your show is “evergreen”, you might not want to date the content by talking about current events.



If your audience is coming to your show for something OTHER than the news, it might not be a good idea to address current events.





Blubrry News:



Major overhaul of our checkout process. Upgrades and downgrades are a breeze and prorated now.



Recently on our blog: Podcasting with Kids.



In case you missed it recently: Todd was featured in Columbus CEO, and now it’s been run in the Columbus Dispatch.



PowerPress 8.4 will allow people to create an account at Blubrry, right from PowerPress  (For Free stats, Pro Stats or Hosting).





Interview:

Stigma Free Vet Zone - An Interview with Mike Orban and Bob Bach



Support: 



Advanced Menu in PowerPress: Unless you’re publishing more than one show/podcast, or utilizing the playlist player, you do not need to turn on the Advanced Menu. Those extras are unnecessary for most podcasters, so just keep it simple.



Spotify Stats: The Spotify statistics section is still visible in Blubrry stats, but has been discontinued since March 2020. Your Spotify stats (if you submitted via Blubrry) are now the main stats section, located under Clients.



Podcasting with a team?: If so, if possible please assign one person to work on the website and podcast settings. That way there is one person that knows what was changed, when and why.



Voicemails!: We’re adding Speakpipe for website voicemails to Podcast Insider.  We want to encourage you to ask questions about podcasting and comment on what we talk about here, and best of all we may use your comments on the show.



Connect with Mike and Bob here...



Website

Email

Facebook

LinkedIn



Promo code INSIDER for a free month at Blubrry.com



Coming at you this week from two very separate podcast studios in ...