Various Newby Questions on Getting Podcasts on iTunes

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Level 1

8 points

Various Newby Questions on Getting Podcasts on iTunes

I want to upload podcasts (.mp3 files) to iTunes from 2 websites that I administer – one is a WordPress site ( http://www.hopeandpassion.org/?page_id=232 ) and one is a non-WordPress site ( http://www.norwinalliance.org/audio-links.php ). There are about 50 podcasts on the WordPress site and about 600 podcasts on the non-WordPress site. The 50 podcasts on the WordPress site are all provided as links on a static page.

I am new to RSS feeds and iTunes.

For the WordPress site I figured out what to do for one of the 50 podcasts: I took the link to the podcast and published it in a new blog post, then I used Power Press to set up my RSS feed ( http://www.cobwebinc.com/wordpress/feed/podcast/ ), I created a graphic for the feed and gave the link for it to Power Press, I went to iTunes and uploaded the RSS feed link for evaluation, iTunes approved the upload and this single podcast is now on iTunes. I have a few questions:

Do I need to publish 49 new blog posts to get the other 49 podcasts uploaded to iTunes?

Do I need to go to iTunes 49 times and give it the RSS feed link every time I publish another blog post? If so, the RSS feed link is always the same. How does iTunes know that this is a new podcast?

As I understand it, the RSS feed file is an .xml file. It was created by Power Press. Where is that file located? I would like to look at it. I searched all over my server space and could not find any .xml files.

The posting on iTunes is not quite right. How do I tweak it? I would like to change the graphic and some of the other entries on the iTunes posting.

Now for the non-Wordpress site how do I produce the RSS feed file? I won't be able to use PowerPress.

Thanks for your help. I'm a newby to this as you can tell.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 8:11 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Roger Wilmut1

Level 10

131,146 points

Feb 12, 2016 10:26 AM in response to roy from PSU

OK: it's important to get the terminology right, or we shall be going round in circles. Your feed links to a Podcast called 'Cobweb Computer Services Inc'. The podcast is the overall 'wrapper' for the episodes; you have so far just the one episode. Shortly you will add more (as you say there are a large number on the site) and these should be referred to as episodes, not podcasts. In order to add more episodes, all you have to do is add them to the feed. No further action is necessary. Subscribers will see the new episodes quite quickly; it usually takes 1-2 days for new episodes to appear in the Store. The Store will recognize that there are new episodes without your having to tell it.

I would assume that you don't actually want your podcast to be called 'Cobweb Computer Services Inc' since the website is called 'Hope and Passion' so you may want to change the title in the 'title' tag in the feed.

Your feed is in your server, cobwebinc.com, in a folder (directory) called 'podcast' in a folder called 'feed' in a folder at root level called 'wordpress'. To make changes in the feed you just need to change the details wherever you originally entered them and re-post the feed. I can't advise on the specifics of using Wordpress or PowerPress. Blubrry have a help forum at http://forum.blubrry.com

The other site seems to be just that, a site with no RSS facility. You will probably have to use Wordpress or one of the other podcast creation programs or services and enter the details manually.

You may find my 'get you started' page on podcasting helpful: http://wilmut.uk/pc

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Answer 2

roy from PSU Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 12, 2016 9:30 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

First off, thank you very much, Roger, for taking the time to share your expertise with newbies like me. I see that you do this frequently on this message board. You are doing a real service that helps many people. I hope you feel good about this. You should!

So I gather from your response that once iTunes approves my podcast I am free to add as many episodes as I want to my RSS feed file and iTunes will automatically accept them and show them. I suppose I can add them by publishing a new post or by editing the .xml file by hand. This must mean that the iTunes advertisement for my first episode really just links to my RSS feed file and pulls episodes from it. Thus, it seems to me that I don't really have to add more posts to my WordPress site. I just have to edit the .xml file so that more episodes are there. If this is true it seems a bit odd to me. This would mean that iTunes doesn't review every episode. Just the initial one. A malicious person could submit a tame initial podcast episode for approval, get it approved, and then start posting episode that contain ***********, hateful political statements, slanderous statements about others, etc. Is that true? Just seems like iTunes wouldn't be in control of the content in their store.

My client would like to have a different graphic for each episode. It doesn't look like this is possible. I will have to tell her that we need to have one generic graphic that covers all 50 episodes.

As far as my non-WordPress site with 600 podcasts goes, why can't I make an .xml file with links to these podcasts and a graphic and a title and all else that is needed and then store that .xml file in a directory nowinalliance/feed/podcast? I would then submit the RSS feed file http://www.norwinalliance.org/feed/podcast/ to iTunes for approval. Wouldn't this work? I really like to work in coding rather than let some black box (like Power Press) generate the code.

Thanks again for your input.

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Answer 3

Feb 12, 2016 3:12 PM in response to roy from PSU

When a podcast is submitted the Store staff review the top episode. After that you can add episodes as you wish simply by adding them to the feed. They probably keep an eye out for infractions, and of course visitors can report a problem; podcast do get removed (most often for containing 'mixes' of commercial recordings).

There's no reason why you shouldn't hand-wrote your feed if you feel up to it; my page which I linked to above contains a basic sample feed you can use as a template. Doing this is quite unforgiving, like any programming - a simple mistacke (like an ampersand on its own) can wreck the entire feed. And you will find hand-coding 600 episodes rather a challenge. Note that though the iTunes application can handle any number of episodes for subscribers, the iTunes Store limits you to 301.

It's possible to have graphics for individual episodes, but only for subscribers, not in the iTunes Store (though images in the 'itunes:image' tag for individual episodes will show - very small - in the Search results). Images for subscribers have to be actually embedded in the media file: please see http://wilmut.uk/coverart

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Answer 4

Feb 16, 2016 3:46 AM in response to roy from PSU

WordPress generates everything dynamically. It doesn't publish static files that'd end in extensions like .xml. I work with the Blubrry support team. If you have any questions about PowerPress, you can e-mail me: shawn.thorpe@rawvoice.com

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