Is Feedburner A Problem for Business Podcasts?

[Cliff Ravenscraft]

In episode 025 of the Podcast Answer Man,  I posed the question of whether or not feedburner should be used when creating a podcast for a business.  I'm posting this topic here for a discussion about the use of feedburner and about the various other options for proper podcast formatting of rss feeds.

What do you folks think?

[Chris Thomson]

I think Feedburner is fine. But I think that business podcasts should use the MyBrand feature which is now free. For example, my "mirror" is podcasts.chris24.tv, which means podcasts.chris24.tv/FEEDNAME is the same as feeds.feedburner.com/FEEDNAME. It's quite easy to setup. I think that would be good for businesses, or have little redirection feed addresses, which redirect to feedburner (so its still YOUR brand).

[David Jacobs]

I think feedburner is a fine solution for businesses, but you definitely need to use the mybrand feature, so it looks like you are doing your own feed. The feedburner stats are good and I can't wait to see what Google will do with it, especially if they integrate it into Google analytics. 

[the Ramen Noodle]

I just listened to PAM 25 and I was surprised that Cliff didn't mention the stats. That's the primary reason I use Feedburner.

[Chris Thomson]

Feedburner now has control of your podcast.

Just another way they are taking over the world.

[Cliff Ravenscraft]

I just listened to PAM 25 and I was surprised that Cliff didn't mention the stats. That's the primary reason I use Feedburner.

I'm not to excited about their stat reporting.  Libsyn is lightyears ahead of them in this area.

[Cliff Ravenscraft]

I think Feedburner is fine. But I think that business podcasts should use the MyBrand feature which is now free. For example, my "mirror" is podcasts.chris24.tv, which means podcasts.chris24.tv/FEEDNAME is the same as feeds.feedburner.com/FEEDNAME. It's quite easy to setup. I think that would be good for businesses, or have little redirection feed addresses, which redirect to feedburner (so its still YOUR brand).


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Okay  So explain a little more about this MyBrand Feature.. Is it a feature of Feedburner?  How does it work? Is there a direct link?  This is good info... Thanks!

Cliff

[Chris Thomson]

Yeah, Feedburner MyBrand has a link, you can check it out here ( http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/mybrand )

And as that page says:

MyBrand is now free.

- It used to be a Feedburner PRO (Paid) service...

Basically you point a subdomain like podcasts.gspn.tv or feeds.gspn.tv to Feedburner's servers, and it mirrors your feeds (and ONLY your feeds, for example, podcasts.chris24.tv/pam WON'T work, because it's my redirect...) from Feedburner. It just looks more Branded than feeds.feedburner.com/whatever..

[TVSeriesFinale.com]

I just listened to the podcast and the timing is very serendipitous (now there's a word that just doesn't get used enough  ).

I'm working on a redesign of my site and, as part of that, will add new feed addresses that contain my site's URL. I currently use Feedburner feeds (for the stats) and like the service. However, from the beginning, I've been uncomfortable knowing that my subscribers are using an address that I don't control 100% (for the same reason that most of us like to use an email address from our own domain). I don't think that Feedburner (Google) would use the feed address for their own purposes or start to charge for the service but they certainly could.

My plan is to post new TVSeriesFinale.com feed addresses that will forward to the current corresponding Feedburner feed addresses via .htaccess. The Feedburner feeds will continue to be populated by the RSS feeds I've used right along.

I won't tell my current subscribers about the switch and they'll receive the regular updates without interruption. I'll also change the podcast feed address in iTunes where most of my podcast traffic is coming from.

If I decide to leave Feedburner at some point in the future, I'll make an announcement and suggest that anyone using the Feedburner address should make the change. By the time that happens, if ever, I suspect few people will still be subscribed with the Feedburner addresses anyway.

I wish that I'd thought of all this long ago but hindsight is 20-20.

Now, if TalkShoe would only allow you to use your own feed...

Cliff, are you using Libsyn for your podcast hosting? It seemed like you were using TalkShoe. Is it possible to use Libsyn for simply stats in some way?

Leo seems to be redirecting via Podtrac which tracks stats. Anyone have any experience using them?

[Cliff Ravenscraft]

I'm currently still hosting my files at talkshoe.  However, once I start lining up my sponsors, I'll be moving all my content back to libsyn.com.  Libsyn has AWESOME STATS!  I've not used podtrack, but I'll likely look into what they have to offer!

Cliff

[the Ramen Noodle]

How would you create that .htaccess file for forwarding the RSS to Feedburner? Feedburner's MyBrand feature seems nice, but it would only work if all of my podcasts originate from the same domain (like GSPN.tv could do). But now, I'm using Feedburner for subscriptions from multiple sites, which would not work with the MyBrand because it would appear that all of those sites would have to have the same MyBrand domain.

[TVSeriesFinale.com]

How would you create that .htaccess file for forwarding the RSS to Feedburner? Feedburner's MyBrand feature seems nice, but it would only work if all of my podcasts originate from the same domain (like GSPN.tv could do). But now, I'm using Feedburner for subscriptions from multiple sites, which would not work with the MyBrand because it would appear that all of those sites would have to have the same MyBrand domain.

I haven't done it yet but I plan to use one like this (all on one line, separated by one space):
Redirect http://tvseriesfinale.com/news  http://feeds.feedburner.com/TVSeriesFinale-complete