iTunes podcast submissions back up?

I got a comment on the blog this morning saying that the iTunes submissions are still down... Apple seems to say that they're back up according to their high tech system of "if this post is down, then submissions are back up," because the post has been taken down. Looks like the link to submit within the iTunes Music Store is working... If that's still a no go, the best advice I can give is make sure your RSS feed is properly validated and keep trying! I've got a semi-contact with Cupertino, so I'll check in and see what he's got.

Podcasts on the iPhone

Welllll, sorta. It turns out that the iPhone can stream mp3s through its Safari browser just like any other desktop computer. Not really a podcast per se, but it' a step closer to that dream of wireless podcast access (still hoping that either Apple adds a podcatching to iTunes on the phone).

Rob at Podcast411 has gone a step further by promoting the handy little graphic above that one can use to directly link to an mp3 file. It looks sort of awkward, but it shows up great on the iPhone screen. That makes it easier for your iPhone-enabled listeners to tap and listen with less effort. Now... is it worth it? Maybe... there's about 1 million iPhones "in the wild" right now, and I suspect there are a disproportionate number of podcast listeners in that early adopting crowd. They need content... and your podcast can provide it.

Feel free to copy the graphic above if you're interested in using it for your show. The sample mp3 linked above is the most recent edition of the Nonprofit Law Podcast.

WiFi is now everywhere

A perfect story for a Friday...

Researchers in Massachusetts are now studying endangered snapping turtles by hooking them up with wifi... on their backs. Apparently, they collect data while they swim about and interract with each other. Once a turtle with the wifi backpack gets close enough to a data center (presumably on a beach), the whole set is amassed by tech savvy researchers who are probably sitting in a Hyanisport bar tossing back some coldies all in the name of science. Genius.

Off to NYC this afternoon... west coast people, check out the new contact info for Nineball Media Portland!

Feedburner makes pro services free

This was a bit of welcome news for any podcaster using Feedburner for their RSS feeds... Total Stats Pro and MyBrand are now free. Here's how Feedburner describes these two services:

FeedBurner Stats PRO
PRO is feed analytics taken to the next level. You will now have access to the number of people who have viewed or clicked individual content items in your feed and “Reach,” which estimates the daily number of subscribers who interacted with your feed content. You can turn this on by signing in to your account, navigating to the Analyze tab and heading to the FeedBurner Stats PRO section. Click the "Item Views" checkbox to activate these PRO features.

MyBrand
The MyBrand service (also PRO-level) is located under the "My Account" tab after you've signed in. MyBrand lets you maintain consistency between your feed address and your hosted website's domain, if matchy-matchy is your thing. For example, rather than using feeds.feedburner.com/MyFeedName, your MyBrand-ed feed address can be feeds.myexcellentdomain.net/MyFeedName. To get started with MyBrand, sign into FeedBurner, click the "My Account" link in the upper left-hand corner, and then click "MyBrand". Nota Bene: You must be comfortable playing around with DNS entries and own the rights to the domain whose DNS entries you'll be playing around with in order to successfully activate MyBrand.

I use Feedburner for the Nonprofit Law Podcast and suggest it for other clients if they have hosting covered. Total Stats Pro is a nice add-on... The MyBrand option is very cool... it keeps your RSS feed "in house" (under your own domain name instead of feedburner.com), which is a really nice feature. Try it out!

iTunes podcast submissions are down

Apple's not able to process new podcast requests for iTunes for the time-being. Check out the message here. Once it goes away, apparently, that will mean the problem's fixed.

UPDATE - Thursday July 5th - iTunes is still down for new submissions. This is rather surprising... I expected this to get fixed sooner rather than later. I suspect some people in Cupertino got their Independence Day holiday after all... or this problem is bigger than one would think.

UPDATE - Monday July 9th, 7 PM EDT - it looks like submissions are back up, but given the comment from this morning, it might be spotty.

Alright... ONE more iPhone post

Fake Steve Jobs brings you this... the Amish are buying the iPhone. I recently watched an interesting documentary called The Devil's Playground, so I know the Amish use cell phones now (but not cars... as much as I learned about the Amish, I'm confused on that point). In any event... the iPhone is definitely a crossover product, if it wasn't before.

Of course this begs the question... is this guy a Mac or PC user? Hmmm.

UPDATE: It occurs to me, based on my lessons from The Devil's Playground, that this is not an Amish couple. Once a man gets married in Amish culture, he grows a beard. I suppose this guy's potentially not married, but I'm thinking they may be rockin' Amish-like attire, but they, in fact, may not be Amish. That's the LAST time I rely on Fake Steve Jobs on Amish culture...

iPhatigue

The iPhone's awesome... only real complaints are (a) the camera's a bit lame, and (b) the calendar doesn't have multiple calendar support (everything gets merged together from iCal) and no tasks. Methinks Apple will solve the latter. As far as the former... well, my Treo camera wasn't exactly killer, so it's no loss. Everything else pretty much blows me away... the screen is ridiculously bright and sharp... the wifi hookups are seamless... it's pretty amazing.

Podcast listening is awesome... I was listening to Meet The Press while watering the garden and took a phone call from my girlfriend. The audio ducked out for the ring... I took the call, and as soon as I was done, the audio ducked back in right where I left off. I may never take these earbuds off again...

There's been a lot online about troubles activating the iPhone. Frankly, I suspect that was more because we all rushed home about the same time and flooded AT&T's activation system. Sounds like new numbers registered and activated pretty quickly... number transfers like mine went a bit slower... and you whacky types that shifted from business plans to person and family plans were fools to begin with to think it would be a pain-free transition. (With all due respect... this is AT&T we're talking about.)

That all being said... I think we're tiring of the hype. None of us had to stand in line, it turned out, and iPhatigue has set in. Maybe enough is enough. I'm gonna go watch Season 3 of Arrested Development now... I won't tell you how.