First of all, we'd like to thank you all for making Podomatic home to a record number of podcasts, publishers, and audience members. We've grown faster than we could have imagined, but we realized about six months ago that if we were going to take this community to the next level, we needed to get busy working on a new version of the site. As a result, we've reengineered our core technologies to provide a more robust and reliable site that will allow us to continue to grow while making life a lot easier for you all.
We hope you enjoy the improvements we've made and want to thank you for your suggestions regarding new features and for putting up with hiccups as we grow. We are already in the planning stages of our next version of Podomatic so please keep the feedback coming and keep those podcasts posting.
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A better way to post
- The interface for posting podcast episodes has been re-designed from the ground up with a step-by-step wizard that's easier to use.
- You can now decide how your media gets transcoded to shape playback quality, file size, and media type. PRO Level users have access to a wide variety of options, including transcoding for mobile devices.
- PRO users now have the ability to retain the original format of any media file for download.
- Enhanced podcasts will now be converted to video automatically for download. You may choose not to convert to video as a PRO user, however.
- Improved format checking. We verify media you upload to make sure it's publishable as a podcast episode. You'll never have an un-playable episode with your name attached.
A better way to edit
- The interface for editing your episodes -- changing the media, episode description, artwork, and more -- has been improved.
- You can reorder your episodes with a drag-and-drop interface.
A better way to play and manage media
- The Podomatic media player features pristine streaming video and audio playback. No more halting while your episode buffers, and now you can jump to any point in the timeline seamlessly.
- For audio episodes, the player displays episode artwork. Goodbye, blank black box.
- Every video is represented by a poster image -- a still from the video -- so you can see what's there before you play it.
- We can determine the duration of any playable media, improving the experience of browsing and managing.
Comment control
- You can now block comments on your podcast, or set a preference to review and approve comments before they become visible. Teachers, this one is for you!
- We've dramatically improved anti-spam measures in the comment posting process to keep the bad guys out.
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Accurate and accessible podcast statistics
- In order to improve the accuracy and fairness of our statistical reporting, we are no longer recording requests from Web crawlers. For those of you who watch your stats closely, you may notice your numbers shrink slightly as a result of this. Don't worry, your audience hasn't gotten smaller. We're simply excluding the robots -- and robots have poor taste anyway.
- Basic Level (non-PRO) users have access to statistics on their My Podcast in the Statistical Snapshot. Upon going PRO, Basic Level users will also gain access to the previous 30 days of historical data.
- Per-episode download data is accessible to PRO Level users.
Watch your ranking soar!
- We've introduced podcast rankings to our site in an effort to provide exposure to up-and-coming podcasters and make popular podcasts easier to find. Check out the Movers and Shakers list on our home page to see who's moving up the charts.
- Are you a data hound? We've got a new page just for you. Click the "More rankings..." link next to Movers and Shakers on the home page and visit our new Rankings page, including an extended Movers and Shakers list, Podcasts With Most Followers, Most Popular Episodes Today, and more!
New podcast controls and monitoring
- The My Podcast page has been completely redesigned and now includes a Statistical Snapshot of your podcast, Episode Management and status settings, Daily Podcast Rankings, and handy links to Promotional Tools.
- Design customization has been improved. More themes now work with the Kustomizer tool, so you can start with one of our design templates and add your personal touch.
Pagination
- We've replaced the archive system with a pagination system -- just click the link at the bottom of the page to see previous episodes.
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