May 6th, 2008 Angelo Mandato
If you’ve looked at your RawVoice Statistics (PodcasterNews, TechPodcasts and Blubrry Statistics) over the weekend you may have seen some changes and additions. We are in the process of adding additional functionality for paid users. Influenced by Google’s model of providing free and paid services, we will continue to provide free statistics for podcasters who are members of our communities (PodcasterNews, TechPodcasts and Blubrry) and will soon offer a Premium service for those who require advanced features and branding capabilities.
The update to the RawVoice Statistics over this weekend incorporates many improvements to the system. By popular request, the drop down to select from monthly or overall reports has been ordered with the latest date first. The pie charts are now displayed using flash which include roll over tips with percentages. We are now detecting AppleTV in the clients section of the reports.
As of March 1st, clients and platforms that are recognized as web crawlers or web bots are no longer included in the general reports. We are currently working on an audit screen to display these metrics separately.
The Premium service will be available soon. Please keep an eye on this blog for an official announcement.
Posted in Blubrry, PodcasterNews, RawVoice Statistics, Statistics, Tech Podcasts | No Comments »
March 22nd, 2008 Angelo Mandato
RawVoice is pleased to announce the Subscribe Sidebar Wordpress plugin.
The Subscribe Sidebar plugin creates a uniform list of the most common subscribe links with icons to display in a blog’s sidebar. The plugin may be added to the sidebar by either utilizing the dynamic widgets sidebar feature or adding a few lines of code to your theme’s sidebar template. Configurable options include links for RSS 2.0, Atom, Podpress podcast Feed, add to Google Reader/Homepage, add to My Yahoo, add to iTunes, add to Zune and follow on Twitter.
The plugin was inspired by our Subscribe & Share sidebar found in the RawVoice Generator’s program pages. RawVoice CEO Todd Cochrane wanted the same easy to find and recongize functionality of the subscribe links found on our Blubrry, TechPodcasts and PodcasterNews properties for our Wordpress blogs. My (Angelo’s) answer, the Subscribe Sidebar plugin.
Unlike our Subscribe & Share list found in the RawVoice Generator, the Subscribe Sidebar plugin does not contain any share links. If you are looking for a Wordpress plugin that includes this functionality, please check out Alex King’s Share This plugin.
Please let us know if you have any code improvements, suggestions, comments or thoughts.
Posted in Blubrry, Contact Us, Information, PodcasterNews, RawVoice Generator, Tech Podcasts | 5 Comments »
November 15th, 2007 Angelo Mandato
The RawVoice Statistics system that powers the Blubrry, TechPodcasts and PodcasterNews media download statistics has been updated to detect the Zune user agent. The Statistics system now detects over 70 different Podcatchers, web browsers, operating systems, phones and web bots.
Other clients that we are now indicated in our Statistics system include VadixBot, YodaoBot, PodPuppy podcatcher, RSS Radio podcatcher, and the uTorrent bit-torrent client
We’ve designed the system so it is easy for us to detect and add new user agents as they start to appear in the community. We add the user agent to our system once we observe over 1,000 requests from that user agent in a given month. We take detecting the clients and platforms seriously. 1,000 is very small compared to the millions of requests we handle every month.
We audit the user agents on a monthly basis in order to include the most comprehensive statistics system possible. The entire process allows us to better support our podcasters in our communities. During our last user agent audit, we indirectly discovered that the new Zune Marketplace uses the normal RSS image rather than the itunes:image. We will be sending out a reminder to our community members to make sure both of their RSS images are up to date.
Are you using the RawVoice Statistics system at one of our communities? If so, please leave comments to this post with your thoughts of the system along with any recommendations that you may have.
Posted in Blubrry, PodcasterNews, RawVoice Statistics, Statistics, Tech Podcasts | 1 Comment »
November 5th, 2007 Angelo Mandato
PodCamp AZ (Arizona) was a huge success. Michelle and Brent Spore planned, what I would call, the perfect un-conference. The venue was organized well, the sessions were ordered in a way that allowed podcasters at different experience levels to gain knowledge during every part of the day. I obtained a lot of knowledge from the event and I am grateful that I was able to attend.
I almost filled my notebook with ideas, suggestions and thoughts during the PodCamp. It is obvious to me that most of the focus of the sessions were geared to how to get started and how to monetize your podcast. RawVoice has been addressing these issues since the beginning and the entire PodCamp experience has reinforced my view that what we doing at RawVoice is what we should be doing.
The PodCamp provides a venue that is exclusively for podcasters. Even though RawVoice was a sponsor, we weren’t sitting there trying to spoon feed our message. Instead, knowledge was shared and friendships were made. The whole experience makes me think that Todd should move the Podcast Awards to one of the PodCamps scheduled for 2007. This type of atmosphere is definitely where the recognition of the great work everyone does should be recognized.
Below are some photos from PodCamp AZ.
Posted in Blubrry, Discussion, Information, Our Brands, PodcasterNews, Special Events, Statistics, Tech Podcasts | 1 Comment »
May 24th, 2007 Rob
Podshow recently announced that they are starting a Tech channel on their network. Their new PodShow TECH channel will be helmed by former PC Mag writer John C. Dvorak. Congrats John!
I think its a testament to the growth of new media when a former naysayer such as Dvorak embraces the industry. Back in 2003 John showed a remarkable disdain for blogs in general. John has also put forth the notion that tagging posts falls into the category of, “…one of these crackpot ideas.” (To Tag Or Not To Tag, That Is The Question)
When podcasting came along John was unimpressed to say the least. How could a medium that relies on as John stated, “…the trendy, overhyped iPod,” survive? The visionary statement from John that podcasting would eventually take its place beneath whittling and fingernail clipping as sources of entertainment is certainly a revealing one. Once again, we’d like to congratulate John on his new postion. We’re glad that he has come around to see the light.
We look forward to seeing what the PodShow TECH channel brings to the party. In the meantime, you can head over to a RawVoice community known as the Tech Podcast Network and find a multitude of great information, education and discussion on all things tech.
There are 63 shows and counting on the Tech Podcast Network. We could have a lot more there in terms of volume but we’ve got some basic listing requirements that insure that the shows that do appear on the network meet a certain level of quality. You can also check out one of our Tech Podcast Round Tables to learn about some hot tech topics and find out more about the Tech Podcast Network.
We’ll apologize in advance for including a crackpot idea like tags over on TechPodcasts.com to help you find the technology information you’re looking for. I guess you could say that we’re just silly like that 
Posted in Tech Podcasts | 3 Comments »
