Etiquette: new feed, should I create items for old posts?!

[aaron_ximm]

Howdy,

I've been doing a project for several years that SHOULD have been a podcast before, but I've only today gotten around to setting it up as one.

Basically, I've been posting an MP3 (of a field recording) every Monday :

http://www.quietamerican.org/vacation.html

Today, I created a podcast for it:

http://www.quietamerican.org/vacation.xml

My question is: should I go back and create RSS <item> entries for all my old posts, or just start adding to them from today?

Ie I could add items retroactively for the current year's worth of posting, but my limited experience is that this would automatically start twenty item downloads -- that doesn't seem very cool to me.

Any opintions or precedents MUCH appreciated!

Thanks,
Aaron Ximm

www.quietamerican.org

[jeffoest]

Cool! Welcome to podcasting!

In the 'if it were me' vain.... I would probably put the last 3 or 4 casts in your XML so they are easily available for people's downloads.... Since you have all the MP3's of your archived shows, I would simply post them on your site (however many you care to offer) in an 'archived' area... just my 2cents..

[JakeGrim]

A small sampler is not a bad idea, but the whole back catalogue would suck. Not only for the listener, but for you as well, since each person would download your entire every time they added your cast. It would most likely ravage your bandwidth.

I'm with jeffoest with this one. A small taste would be a good idea, and pimp the fact you have a large archive on your site.

[thefly]

You could also always drop a "best of" in there every once in a while.

Maybe include it in the feed but not on the site. That would encourage "lurkers" to subscribe and not just listen to it off the RSS feed.

[aaron_ximm]

Thanks!

I really appreciate the advice, I'm glad my instinct to *not* add dozens of old posts was a good one.

I might add a few just to give a taste though... :)

There are already archives linked off the living page; but last night I added some more obvious navigation at the top of the page -- each of the icons takes you to a year's worth of archived MP3s (fifty-two per year)... :)

best regards,
aaron

www.quietamerican.org