Podcast.com News

As you can see on any page on Podcast.com, we’ve changed our design a bit.  We have a new Podcast.com logo and header on every page, and at the top-right of that header you can log in to your Podcast.com account.  We also moved our FAQ (frequently asked questions) and Help to the same spot in the navigation bar on the left side of every page.  You may need to restart your Internet browser to see these design changes take effect.

Send us a message at info[at]podcast.com (replace the [at] with @)  if you have any questions about this or anything else.

A “widget” is like a mini-website that you can add within your own personal website or blog. You can make a widget using podcasts from Podcast.com and put that widget on your Blogger.com blog or your self-hosted Wordpress site.

You start by logging in to Podcast.com, then create a widget using your collection of podcasts OR any collection of podcasts you find on our site — just click on the small image below the collection to get started. Read our FAQ for more instructions about how to add a Podcast.com widget to your site, and see a widget in action below.

If you haven’t browsed them yet, a ‘channel‘ on Podcast.com is a collection of podcasts about a particular subject or from a particular producer.  We currently have three ways to browse our channels (shown, right):

1. On our Channels page, which you can get to from the main navigation bar on the Podcast.com home page
2. Under our Featured Channels section on the lower left of the Podcast.com home page
3. In our Popular Channels folder, which you’ll see at the top of our podcast collection on the Podcast.com home page

Incidentally, we are updating the collection of podcasts you see on the Podcast.com home page.  In each folder within our collection, such as Games and Hobbies and Kids and Family, you will find ten podcasts instead of the five you could find before, and you can still link to each corresponding channel page (Games.podcast.com for the Games and Hobbies folder, Kids.podcast.com for the Kids and Family folder, and so on).

So here’s what we need you to answer — you can send feedback to info at podcast.com — we’d really appreciate any comments you may have:

• What do you like about our channel pages? What do you not like about them?
• What do you think about the collection of podcasts on our home page?  Is it too big?  Too small?

It’s a brand new day, and we have some brand new changes to our home page, including to:

• the navigation bar on the left side of the page
• the welcome box, front and center
• the search box to search for podcasts, above the welcome, and
• the cleaner logo at the top of the page

Now, none of these elements of our home page are new, but they represent our work to make our site look cleaner and clearer to people who haven’t visited our site before. We will continue to make these changes for the better throughout our site.

One element that is new is in our ‘latest podcast episodes’ section in the middle of the page; you can now play those audio or video podcasts right on the home page by clicking the ‘Play’ buttons below each of the four latest podcast episodes.

We would appreciate your comments on these changes and are excited to continue to make our site easier for you to use. If you have comments on these changes or suggestions on how we could continue to improve our site, send an email to info [at] podcast.com.

Yeah, we did it — you can now log in to your Podcast.com account or sign up for a new account right from the front/center of our home page. In case you missed the big green and black signposts to do so, click all over the log in image and get ready for action!  We still have a lot of unfinished business on this site, so please excuse the mess — and email info [at] podcast.com if things don’t make sense to you.

We’re on a roll now — we’ve updated PSP.podcast.com for you to browse our site using your Sony PSP. Also, if you’ve registered for the Podcast.com beta, you can see your podcasts by navigating to my.podcast.com/[yourusername]/psp. Fantastic!

Microsoft has upgraded the Zune media player, both the new 80, 8, and 4GB Zunes as well as the first-generation 30 GB Zunes, with a new interface and features. In celebration of this, we’ve added a “Add to Zune” button (left) to every podcast page on our site (click the image on the right to see how it works) . So you now can put podcasts made available by Podcast.com on your Zune, if you installed Zune Marketplace 2.0. We shoot — we score! (And so do you.)

We have a lot of ways to receive comments from you guys about our site (what’s good, what’s bad, bugs, etc.):  the ‘Send Us Feedback’ link on the left of every page on Podcast.com; the comments on posts in this blog; and the comments under each FAQ.  You can also email us at beta [at] podcast.com to hit us directly.  Either way, we’re seeing everything you write and considering each comment, and everything is helpful to us — so keep your ideas flowing.  We have enough feedback right now to swamp us under; we’ve prioritized your comments and tried to deal with the biggest issues first.

Now back to squishing those bugs …

[Note: you can now register here.] In case you didn’t notice the blue “BETA!” icon in the middle of this page, and you’re not already registered with Podcast.com, give that icon a click and register for our site. There you can organize podcasts in your own directory, create your own playlist, and much more. We need your input to make this site and service useful for you, whether you’re a podcast listener or creator or anyone else in between.

Once you log in you’ll be able create your own directory of podcasts. The easiest way to start this is to search for a topic using the search box (try your favorite hobby or subject), then click on one of the search results. If you like that podcast, click the “+add feed!” button below the podcast’s image in the middle of that page. You’ll then see that podcast in your directory! If you don’t want to add that podcast to your directory, try your search again at the top of the page. After you’ve added a few feeds to your directory, you can click the little folder-with-gears icon below your directory to move feeds around and create folders to organize them in, and even add links to Web pages. See how I organized my folder here.

You can learn about more things you can do with our site by clicking the “getting started” link on the left part of each page. You can send any questions about what to info [at] podcast.com — also feel free to send us comments about how easy or hard the site is to use. Don’t be shy! We read/listen to every comment that comes in.

Thanks for using our site. It’s a work in progress, but we think there are a lot of fun and useful things here.

Speaking of subdomains on Podcast.com, as we just did, we’re now offering you more options for getting podcast feeds on your mobile phones, separated by subject matter. Your phone want video podcasts? There they are. News podcasts? NFL podcasts? It seems so easy. For any subdomain on our site, such as music.podcast.com, just stick the word ‘mobile’ before podcast.com (music.mobile.podcast.com) and you’re set.

We’re creating new subdomains every day (and making the content on our subdomains better) so you’re options will only increase. And we’re still sporting mobile.podcast.com if you want the whole ball of wax straight from our home page.

Will podcasts we’ve organized look great on your phone? We think so, but how about podcasts YOU’VE organized? That, my friends, is why we say “stay tuned” …