New site in the Works!

[theFerf]

Ladies and Gentleman....as you may or may not have noticed, the voting on the podcastalley.com website has been temporarily suspended to make way for new and impoved features.

Keep Your eyes open, new features comign soon!

I have said too much already, please excuse any errors you find. We will be unveiling the new site as quickly as possible...Watch Out!

[Funtime Ben]

Sounds like a butt load of new stuff. Can't wait to see how it all develops!

[FLEB]

Is it too late to lobby for features? I'd like an M3U option as well as all the OPML. OPML and RSS is great, but when you're stuck on an employer's computer, and... well...

Ahh, I just have to get off my *** and code it up myself :).

[bob]

Very cool ! Looking forward to it!

Sounds like a lot of work, is this a fulltime job yet?

[camilian]

Wow, can't wait for the OPML. What a killer feature.

[theFerf]

so many features, so little time. Im looking to provide as much information from my DB to the community as possible. Much more going on here than you can imagine.

but still, no money, no ads on the site. i may need to incorporate some podcasting advertisements into the new site to start covering some expenses.

and YES, i am accepting features still. if you have some, from them here now, and i will talk with you about adding them.

[obfuscated]

Great new features. I really like the idea of the online bio.

[notyourusualbollocks]

Let's give a big hurrah to TheFerf for all the work being put in. While we're at it, why don't we give him a bit of a help? I'm about to donate a bit of a cash to the site and I suggest you all do the same if you haven't already done sone.

MK

[drew]

we absolutely appreciate all the hard work that's been put into this site.
it's a great value. thanks!!

[Craig]

Sounds great Chris, and I wholeheartedly agree with Drew (on this, anyway :wink: ). One thing though...for those of us with direct links to the voting on our sites, is there any way to get advanced notice on the new voting scripts so we can update our sites to have the voting working when the new site goes live? Or are you planning on not allowing indirect voting?

Craig

[phylaxis]

Great job with the site. Looking forward to the new features. Keep up the great work.

Adam Christianson
The MacCast
http://www.maccast.com
RSS Feed: http://homepage.mac.com/phylaxis/maccast/rss.xml

[GunForHire]

I'm going to sound like an utter n00b for asking this but anyway... what's OPML?

[cc_chapman]

but still, no money, no ads on the site. i may need to incorporate some podcasting advertisements into the new site to start covering some expenses

Your doing an awesome job and I look forward to the new features.

If you do decide to sell ad space to podcasters I'd be more then willing to buy some space in order to help out the site.

[Craig]

Ditto.

Craig

[Funtime Ben]

preview podcasts before you listen


I have been wanting this feature forever, but I think it is time for the podcast community to agree on a preview track format. Instead of each one of us coming up with our own solutions, wouldn't it make sense for us all to come together and agree on a standard labeling and location for a preview audio file... like a podcast advert to give listeners a quick idea what our podcasts are about that we could control and iPodder clients would be able to play.

It could just be a special link at the bottom of our respective RSS feeds... or a file named preview.mp3 in the same directory as our RSS feeds.

I would really like to open the conversation up... what is going to be our standard for podcast previews?

(Where's Dave¬â€*Winer¬â€*when you need him?!)

[The Skinny]

Ben,

That's a great idea. Podcast Bunker at http://www.podcastbunker.com does a 30 second preview of each show - but it's simply the first 30 seconds of the show. I agree that it would be great to be able to do our own promo to use as a preview and have that included in the feed somehow.

[theFerf]

maybe i can find a way, if podcasters were willing to provide the preview, for podcasters to add a link to their site whre the preview would exits?

let me take a poll....howmany podcasters would be willing to create a 30 second preview of the show for me, and other podcast directories, to link to to give listeners a sample?

post here or send me an email with details.

[Craig]

I would. I think it's a great idea.

Craig

[phylaxis]

I would be willing to record a 30 sec promo for each show. Good idea. I could introduce a summary of what is covered in each podcast.

[Insomnia Radio]

I think this is a fantastic idea...
let's roll with it!

[cc_chapman]

Count me in. It's a great idea!

[Craig]

It would also be nice to have average show length and size (in MB)...or at least show length when listing available shows.

Craig

[The Skinny]

I'm up for that idea of a preview. However, it would be really nice like Ben said to be able to work this into the RSS feed somehow so that the format would be consistent and it would encourage everyone to do it the same way. That way, no matter how this site changes, the preview would always be available, and for other sites as well. Maybe even built into iPodder clients!

[theFerf]

maybe there is a standard we could set, at lest for the podcastalley.com website, that the server will just look for a file named preview.mp3 in a certain directory?

another idea.. maybe we talked about this already...
v2 of this site will include a way for podcasters to edit theire shows and all the details (title, url, feed url, description, avg show length, language, etc) maybe in this we could include a place that says "preview url" so you could go in at any time and update your own preview?

i do agree that in a perfect world it should be built into the RSS feed, but how do we go about that, and what is the timeline?

[cameronreilly]

great work dude, we really appreciate all of your efforts as well. Let us know is there is anything we can do to help!

cheers,
Cameron Reilly
www.gdayworld.com

The G'Day World podcast - bringing you the Australian perspective.

[Craig]

Given that some of us are having our RSS files generated automatically, I don't think having the preview location being a part of the RSS file is feasible in the short term. What might be feasible is having a file with a fixed name in the same directory as the RSS file. So, for example, if my RSS file is http://www.godcast.org/rss.xml a preview-savvy reader would look for a preview file at http://www.godcast.org/preview.mp3

The other alternative would be to put it in the directory your MP3 files are in but that would cause two potential problems:

1. If you have to split up the location of your MP3 files due to bandwidth issues.
2. If you have mutliple feeds drawing from the same MP3 directory.

Chances are you have multiple RSS files then they're in different directories.

Craig

[bob]

I think this preview thing is a great idea.. Since we have a longish show, I do a 10-20 second promo (preview) each week, and I maintain it as a separate RSS feed (You can see this on the top right of our page)..

I'm not sure who is actually using it, but the promo feed gets about half the hits the main feed does. So I keep doing it..

I also use a feed generator script, so I just have a second copy in a different directory...

[cc_chapman]

I think it's a must to allow people to update their profiles. It would be a huge help.

The idea of being able to put in a URL to a preview file right there makes the most sense. Just like you do for avatar's on people's sites.

[theFerf]

craig:
i was thinking all the same things you were too reguarding a stardard placement...but I also thought up these issues too: if you host your blog on blogger or use feedburner it would mess things up.

cc:
im glad you like the idea as well. the goal from day one for the site was to have a user login system, but till recently have not had the time, or need to do it. But now, there are so many features podcast makers and listeners could enjoy.

What other features do we need for users? Here is what i am thinking so far:
edit personal details (name, location, website, etc), podcast details (website, feed url, preview url, title, desc, genre 1, genre 2, primary language, average show size, average show length, would you like to be featured, additional photos), forum details (avatar, emails, etc)...what else? details!

[Craig]

i was thinking all the same things you were too reguarding a stardard placement...but I also thought up these issues too: if you host your blog on blogger or use feedburner it would mess things up.It wouldn't mess things up, you just wouldn't find a preview.

Maybe there could be a common podcast preview service that hosts previews for podcasters who can't host their preview with their RSS feed. If the preview-savvy client can't find the preview with the RSS feed it then queries this service. Podcasters pay a nominal fee to have their preview hosted at the service which in term pays for the service hosting and bandwidth fees.

Craig

[theFerf]

not a bad idea. i would be willing to do this i think. would not be too big of a deal to host these files...i have most of the framework in place already. i was just going to provide a place to link to the file, but if people would be willing to pay for a monthly/yearly subscription to this site, and get a premium account, maybe we can find a number of services to offer them including preview hosting.

[Funtime Ben]

You know after I started thinking further and further about this matter i came across three distinct problems

1. Some podcasters use external RSS generation (feedburner) which might not allow for the "preview.mp3" location being the same as the RSS feed.

2. Some people may opt for an "external service" to host their preview mp3 or podcast files if the y got popular.

3. for future scaleability it might make sense to allow for future "split" hosting locations such as iPodio, .Mac, etc.

In any case I think the need for the preview to be referenced from the Podcast RSS 2.0 feed itself to be the most convenient method of linking to a preview file.

I would assume, because RSS is built on XML, that we could add a new tag which we could then use to point to our preview file much like the <description> tag. Could we simply add a <preview> tag? Or would that be adding an unauthorized tag to the RSS schema? Dave? Are you there Dave? I think that by making the RSS have control of the preview file location we will further remove the problem of relying on external entities to update our sites... just a thought.

[theFerf]

that is what i am wondering also. i am not sure what it takes to modify a standad (such as the current RSS standard).

if we were to add preview, that would instantly convert RSS to podcast format and no longer text format.

[michaelkpate]

It used to relatively easy to be relative easy to make a change (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/02/04/incompatible-rss) in RSS, even after the spec was "frozen (http://essaysfromexodus.scripting.com/backissues/2002/09/06#When:7:56:56AM)." If you are truly serious in your effort, you might want to contact the RSS Advisory Board (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/advisoryBoard), most of whom I would think you would recognize.

[ccarella]

In any case I think the need for the preview to be referenced from the Podcast RSS 2.0 feed itself to be the most convenient method of linking to a preview file.


And then you download the whole Podcast just to get the preview? Or are podcasting clients to be smart enough to just grab the preview? Right now this all still works with RSS Aggregators that accept enclosures, maybe we shouldn't break that.


Could we simply add a <preview> tag? Or would that be adding an unauthorized tag to the RSS schema?

I'm not sure it's best to keep modifying RSS specifically for each new end user application that hits the net. A <preview> tag could only possibly be useful for podcasting and perhaps in the future Videocasting.

I think setting up a seperate RSS feed for previews is a clean, bandwidth friendly way to do it.

[Funtime Ben]

I sent over an e-mail to Dave Winer and I'm going to leave an audio comment as well to see if we can't get some advice from the man who started it all.

I really believe that by using RSS as the mechanism to point to our PodAdverts (would that be a PodVert?) it will allow for greater flexibility in the future. I just want to make sure we have dotted all our i's before we call it a day. By making the RSS flexible it could also allow for a number of previewing options such as a PodCast avitar image to be embedded into the RSS so you would get an image of the podcast logo in an iPodder client... which functionality already exists in RSS spec, but could be utilized more efficiently for us Podcasters!

With RSS the flexibility would be amazing!

Extending RSS¬â€*

RSS originated in 1999, and has strived to be a simple, easy to understand format, with relatively modest goals. After it became a popular format, developers wanted to extend it using modules defined in namespaces, as specified by the W3C.

RSS 2.0 adds that capability, following a simple rule. A RSS feed may contain elements not described on this page, only if those elements are defined in a namespace.

Am I reading this right? Could we simply add our <preview> tag to the <description> tag? Man technical stuff is hard to read! maybe someone else could shed a little light on the matter.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

[Funtime Ben]

I'm not sure it's best to keep modifying RSS specifically for each new end user application that hits the net. A <preview> tag could only possibly be useful for podcasting and perhaps in the future Videocasting.

I think setting up a separate RSS feed for previews is a clean, bandwidth friendly way to do it.

Sorry, we posted at the exact same time! Yes I too don't want to add on extra clutter to the RSS spec, however, the current <description> field in RSS 2.0 spec is really the tag we should be using. It's function is to describe the contents of the RSS file and the entries (items) contained therein.

To clarify the point, I am talking about a 15 second to 2 minute preview audio file. This could be an MP3, or any other audio format present or future. The file should be less than a set size (1 MB?) and would be it's own file separate from a PodCast file. It would be created by the podcaster to act as a introduction to their "full" podcasts.

having an external Preview RSS file, while clean, would mean that we would have to point to the external RSS somehow, further confusing the matter.

I would also argue that the concept of a media file preview (or description) wouldn't only benefit the PodCast community. How about people who set up RSS feeds for their family with pictures of their kids? It might be a really nice addition if a RSS client could play a welcome message when they subscribe.

Or how about in the future when some PodCasters may opt to warn listeners of Adult content in Podcasts? I for one would like to see an eventual rating system (determined by the podcaster) so that I can surf the iPodder.org listings with my son or daughter and determine if the content is suitable for their ears. These are all possibilities if we amend or revise the RSS 2.0 spec.

Long live RSS 2.1!

[radioclash]

Thanks Ferf for PodcastAlley - it's the main site I come back to because of the Forum...

Love the ideas of favourites and profiles, definitely

Preview it would need to be user definable as I don't have my shows on the same server as my feed for various reasons, most around reliability and bandwidth...

Dunno if I'd record one for each show; I try and make the first bit of the show different nowadays so you can skim (Brian at Coverville is ace at this with his intro which means you can quickly go 'heard that!' or 'not heard that' and skip through shows you have heard - although sometimes I do like to hear them again in the case of Coverville and other favourite shows, with more current news shows or when I'm coming back to finish listening to shows I haven't heard it makes life easier)...

I'd do an generic advert-style preview of what you'd likely hear tho, that'd be fun.

Tim

[theFerf]

I see a lot of benefit to a new tag, and thanks to funtimeben and everyone else for pointing these all out:

What Im Hearing
- for the Blog world, this <preview> tag, or whatever it ended up being could just be an image, logo, photo or some other visual cue as to what site it is from.
- for the Podcasting world, this spec could change a lot of things for the better.

The Reasons & Defs
- 15 seconds to 120 seconds in length if audio
- limit filesize to like 1MB as a standard
- could also be used as a place to rate the show for "adult content"
- could also be used for podcasters logo for branding in podcast software
- audio file could be like a trailer for the entire show that you update every so often
- audio file could also be a trailer for each separate show, if you had that much time on your hands
- would work with video too, offer a video trailer for the podclips since the files are going to be a lot larger than audio podcasts

Im extremely intrigued by this whole conversation and think we should definately make sure we explore this thoroughly. this could be very powerful for blogging, podcasting, etc.

[Ifthensoft]

Finding out the hard way, you cannot just add a tag to your RSS--the main reason being that when a software such as NetNewsWire goes to read your RSS file, it will come across your new tag and basically choke on it. What you have to do instead is to create a special "namespace" which will basically tell those softwares that your extra tags are OK, and treat them a little differently. If you remember, Adam Curry was talking about this to be able to add a tag for Bittorrent feeds to his RSS code. Namespaces and the creation of can be found here (about halfway down):

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-rss20/

[Craig]

The preview could be implemented within the current RSS format in two ways, either as a second enclosure in each item tag (which would allow a separate preview for each podcast) or as the last item in the RSS file.

BTW, I was also going to suggest having some sort of content rating flag for each podcast, even if only a work-friendly/kid-friendly flag. This doesn't necessarily have to be within the RSS...it could be within the Podcast Alley entry for the podcast.

Craig

[radioclash]

Finding out the hard way, you cannot just add a tag to your RSS--the main reason being that when a software such as NetNewsWire goes to read your RSS file, it will come across your new tag and basically choke on it.

hmm RSS is XML, and I can't say I'm experet in either, but having worked with XML with other technologies this statement seems weird (although I'm sure it's true) -

Surely the power of XML is that it IS user-extensible and shouldn't matter if people add all kinds of extra tags - as long as the ones that the parser or XSLT is looking for are there?

This sounds like an implementation problem with the parser/reader/aggregator whatever. Navigating XML by purely position in the tree is bound to cause unhappiness, lack of fortune and sleepness nights at some point; although I have done it in Flash it's not ideal, especially when you have different flavours/user-implemented RSS feeds....ouch.

So maybe don't blame the XML/RSS 'standards' (yes I know something of the irony of the last statement) for the implementation...? I dunno, maybe it's more complex than that, but a good system should ignore anything 'extra' - ie. not parse it, which I thought was why XML was parsed in the first place...maybe I've been living under a misconception of what XML does all these years... :?

But as I said IANAXIGE (I AM Not An XML Internet Geek Expert)....

[Illinoise]

Great ideas for the new site, admin! I would second and third this need for a preview ... whatever form that takes. Podcast alley has done well to help develop the community ... thanks also to all you podcasters: great content is what makes podcasting worthwhile!

[ccarella]

To clarify the point, I am talking about a 15 second to 2 minute preview audio file. This could be an MP3, or any other audio format present or future. The file should be less than a set size (1 MB?) and would be it's own file separate from a PodCast file. It would be created by the podcaster to act as a introduction to their "full" podcasts.


Ok I'm gonna ask you to clarify a little more. Right now I'm subscribed to your show. Do you want me to pull down the preview first then instruct my podcast software to download the rest if I like it? Or do you want me to download your preview and your latest podcast, and listen to the preview to decide if I should ignore your podcast (unlikely)?

I think preivew is more useful to websites catalouging podcasts, than to people who are already subscribed to your broadcast. That's why I suggest a second RSS feed that websites can subscribe to, and play your preview in an in-line audio player. Then when I browse through the directory I can listen to previews before I subscribe. I don't want to listen to previews after I subscribe. Nor do I want to subscribe to previews (although a podcast that was dedicated to previews would be a nice way to find new podcasts)


Or how about in the future when some PodCasters may opt to warn listeners of Adult content in Podcasts? I for one would like to see an eventual rating system (determined by the podcaster) so that I can surf the iPodder.org listings with my son or daughter and determine if the content is suitable for their ears. These are all possibilities if we amend or revise the RSS 2.0 spec.


This is already in the RSS 2.0 Spec. Check <rating>.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss#optionalChannelElements

I'm not trying to be a pain, I just want to help find the best solution.

[ccarella]

- for the Blog world, this <preview> tag, or whatever it ended up being could just be an image, logo, photo or some other visual cue as to what site it is from.

- could also be used for podcasters logo for branding in podcast software


RSS2.0 already has this one as well. See <image>
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss#ltimagegtSubelementOfLtchannelgt

ccarella

p.s. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, i don't do any RSS programming, I've just read the specs.

[libsyn]

I guess I just don't really understand the point of the having a whole seperate preview file for each podcast media file. Why not just start streaming the file through the web (like with a simple flash player), or look at a program like playpod to preview and then subscribe if it sounds like something you want more of.

If the idea is a podcaster makes a 'trailer' for each podcast, then I see that as a potential value-added feature to put into the spec. Don't know how many people will go through the trouble of having a trailer for every "show".. but if that's their thing, then they should allowed to do it.

As for the avatar idea, our rss generation engine will be supporting the <image> tag in the next release. Hopefully soon the _podder_ clients will begin supporting it as well.

If the overarching issue for the preview thing is bandwidth, then I suggest everyone come check out <plug> a podcast hosting company who has a modern approach to fulfilling the needs of podcasters at all levels of technical ability. Liberated Syndication is podcasting made easy. </plug>

[Illinoise]

Not to change the subject here, but is there a timetable in place for the new site changes? Specifically, are you going to be opening up voting again any time soon? I went back through the thread and didn't finy any specifics on when the magic would happen.

Just curious ... keep up the good work!

[Cat]

Good question Illinoise - I too want to know when the site will be updated - I am very "keen" on getting the voting set up again.

Any idea of a ETA??

Thanks

Cat

www.catfishshow.com

[theFerf]

the voting segment is being verified as we speak. i should have it up for testing in the next couple of hours and will continue to roll out new features as time passes...keep your eyese peeled! :P