For the 4th year in a row I get a chance to look at the state of podcasting and in particular the state of podcasters websites. The usual results don’t surprise me anymore and I guess I am a little cynical at what I find.
Tonight I decided to pull a 10% sampling of the 1874 shows that have been nominated so far. What I found continues to make me want to take a shot of Tequila as it is quite sobering in what I am seeing once again.
My first reaction is do some of the podcasters even care about there audiences?
1st How many Podcaster know what the correct iTunes Image Size is? Well if you don’t you may want to find out.
2nd How many Podcasters know what www.feedvalidator.org is? If you don’t you better find out
3rd You would not believe how many podcasters do not have a link or graphic on their website to their RSS feed.
4th I am simply amazed at the number of sites that have no way to contact the show host.
5th I really do not understand why people use Blog Talk Radio the Audio is beyond terrible and getting to the rss feed is a maze of menus that would confuse any newbie.
6th Do you think using a 20 different proxy services is going to get you 20 extra nominations. Sorry but you wasted your time.
7th Having a Audio program on a website with only a Hyperlink does not constitute a podcast.
8th Of the 10% sampling only 51% actually had a download link on their podcast show notes entries and a large number required me to guess where the podcast could be found on their website!! (Wish I could take screen shots and share) Hey lets not even talk about the 1 sentence show notes. Google can really index a show well with that.
9th Of the 10% sampling only 31% of podcasters had some sort of media player on their site. Do they not realize that at least 50% of the audiences today want a player to listen to the show directly on their site. Preferably one that pops up and allows them to continue to surf the net.
10th I don’t know why I punish myself looking at some of these elements on the podcasters page.
Oh an finally we will be looking at 100% of the sites before this is all over, if you think your show has a shot at being nominated their may be a few nuggets up there in that list for you.
Ohh here is the 2007 Report
Todd…