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It’s rare, but today is at least a two post day. I am at the Podcast Expo and one of the best things about the show is getting the chance to meet some of the folks who are podcasting or blogging about podcasting.

Leesa over at Podonomics is one of the people I met here. She’s notable for several reasons.

1) She’s Canadian - (I love Canadians)

2) She’s female - (We need more women involved in podcasting - the ladies here were commenting that this was one of the few conventions where they didn’t have to wait in line to use the rest room - that means not enough women attended.)

3) She’s smart as a whip.

While we come at podcasting from different perspectives, I value Leesa’s point of view. She has a running blog of events here. I admire her for finding the time to keep that up. I have so many meetings and podcasts and events to attend so I’ll be posting a wrap-up on Sunday. Until then, run over to her blog for more blow-by-blow coverage.

http://podonomics.com/

Popularity: 13% [?]

It’s time to announce the winner of the Ultimate Podcasting FAQ contest. We received many quality submissions, but decided that Sharon Housley from FeedForAll should win. The FeedForAll folks have done a great job of explaining podcasting and RSS on their site. We’re going to take that information, mix it with our own special sauce and release the actual finished document within the next week or so.

Thanks to Sharon and FeedForAll. Sharon wins a free one-year subscription to lynda.com.

Popularity: 20% [?]

NOTE: Cross posted at O’Reilly Digital Media.
It had to happen. The podcasting train has left the station and is picking up momentum. And the companies that support this new distribution medium are growing up to meet the demand. While podcasting was originally the domain of individuals, businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, are diving in.

Software and service providers are rising to meet the challenge. One such provider is Libsyn. Libsyn is a pioneer in the low-cost podcast hosting space. For as little as $5 per month, podcasters can use Libsyn as their host and not worry about bandwidth charges, since Libsyn only charges for podcast storage, not the number of downloads each podcaster receives.

But businesses want scalable, global, robust service, guaranteed up time and an enhanced level of security. So this month, the company rolled out Libsyn Pro, aimed at businesses and podcasting networks.

PROFESSIONAL FEATURES

Libsyn Pro allows podcasters to administer multiple RSS channels. The company says it’s a perfect launch pad for professional podcasters who produce podcasts for more than one client, since the RSS channels can be delegated. Stats can be rolled into channel groupings, making it easy to generate monthly reports for multiple podcasts. This is something that advertising agencies and commercial sponsors appreciate.

Libsyn Pro doesn’t care whether or not your podcast contains audio, video or both. Files as large as two gigabytes (and possibly more) are no problem for Libsyn Pro. The Pro service also offers more robust metrics and measurement. Pro users can ask for statistics management by the month (not available on standard accounts).

Libsyn Pro has demonstrated download speeds as high as one megabyte per second. That’s fast enough to support progressive downloads and the company says it can support thousands of simultaneous downloads per account, with a 99.99% up time guarantee.

When I interviewed Chris MacDonald, Libsyn’s executive vice president for business development and operations about the new Pro service, I expected a few gotchas, especially in the area of price. There were none.

“Every other professional podcasting hosting solution requires long-term monthly contracts and/or minimum data commitments,” said MacDonald. “You can sign up for Libsyn Pro for as little as one month, with introductory costs of a few hundred dollars.”

While it doesn’t want to quote specific numbers for this article, Libsyn says costs will be discounted compared to similar services.

FUTURE PLANS

MacDonald also says that Libsyn plans to offer a service in a future version of Libsyn Pro called “Libsyn Premium,” which adds RSS control plus merchant accounts. Also planned is a feature called “RSS Plus” which is an authentication platform that requires a password before a download.

Other upcoming modules will include the ability to manage your own ad delivery system (with automated message integration) without relying on existing marketplaces, tie-ins to customer data collection, and online marketing programs.

ENHANCED SERVICES

Libsyn has made a name for itself by providing an easy-to-use and manage platform for podcasters. The new Pro version allows marketing and business types the chance to drive an enterprise-wide podcasting solution without in-house IT staff or resources.

Libsyn has already proven the model with companies such as National Geographic and National Public Radio. Whether or not they will be able to match the same high-level of service on their Pro product that they have on their standard service will depend on how well they scale their model once podcasting goes mainstream.

Popularity: 14% [?]

It’s finally here. The biggest podcasting expo and conference on the planet kicks off in Ontario, CA on Friday.

I’ll be speaking at 10:30 am in Ballroom “A”. If you want to learn how to sell podcast sponsorships and then keep those sponsors once you’ve landed them, stop by.

I’ll also be live on stage Saturday afternoon to record an episode of This Week In Media with Alex Lindsay, John Foster and Kenji Kato.

The conference sessions require a paid ticket, but the exhibit floor as well as the keynotes and the main stage are free.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Übercaster Beta 4 (Build 275) is now available for download at http://www.ubercaster.com (and automatic update in Übercaster).
Übercaster - 274/275
====================

- Fixed a bug prevented ÜC to open documents containing large recordings.
- Fixed a bug causing “delete slot” wasn’t enabled on Release layer.
- Fixed a bug where cached mp3/aac audio was released too early. This caused Panels not playing back (until restart of ÜC).
- Fixed a possible stall.
- Changed the default volume of new panels from 80% to 100%.
- Cueing clip panels during recording is now fuctional. i.e. you can opt-click the progress bar of a clip panel during recording to jump to a specific point in the audio file, even if the clip is currently playing. The jump will be recorded correctly. It is not possible to “scrub” during recording (as it is possible in the Prepare layer).
- Again: Fixed a bug preventing ÜC to start on Macs without any (internal or external) input device.
- Auto ducking: Extended options for senstitivity (now from -25dB [lowest] to -9dB[highest]) and gap tolerance (now from 200ms [lowest] to 2000ms [highest]). See tooltips in the pop up menus for absolute values.
- Fixed a bug which caused problems during playback: Sometimes the inital volume of events wasn’t adjusted. Especially when fading in.
- Optimized the recording/playback engine. No more dropouts (device overload) during recording and realtime playback (wasn’t an issue when releasing).
- Effects are now reset when starting playback/recording (no more “garbage noise” when (re-)playing a show).
- Improved editing of volume in Cut layer:
– Double click on the volume line to create a new node.– It’s now possible to drag the line between two volume nodes.
– Hold the option key to override the “drag vertical-/horizontal only” lock.
– Hold the command key down to move all volume nodes of an event at once.
– When dragging a volume node vertically it will automatically snap to the volume of its neighbor (can be turned off by holding the option key)
– When clicking onto a volume node a info window appears, showing the actual volume.
– When changing the volume of one or more volume nodes, the info window shows the volume of the first (left) moved volume node.
- Improved volume change in Prepare&Record layer: When changing the volume a info window shows the actual volume value in %.
- Fixed some bugs with drag&drop in Cut layer (mispositioning, double event when accidently initiating external drag, scrolling issues in Edit view and Record overview, etc.)
- Added automatic guides in prepare layer for more easy positioning of panels (switch guides on/off with “View”>”Snap”).
- Improved zooming: Playhead stays now in center of window during zoom.
- Added menu commands for cut/copy/paste/select all/duplicate in Prepare layer.
- Fixed/Improved autosave: Übercaster now autosaves the current document automatically when stopping after recording and before releasing (autosave must be turned on in preferences). The autosave is done regardless of the time since last autosave.
- Fixed/Improved autosave: When recovering recorded audio (during opening a saved or autosaved document) Übercaster checks now recovered recordings (CAF audio files) for consistency and tries to fix errors in inconsistent files. Thus, recorded material should now show up in the “Media” subview of the Cut layer as “Recovered audio” even if Übercaster crashed during recording (not having a chance to close the recorded files properly).
- The last playhead position is now saved with the document.
- Fixed some issues with “Save as Archive” (Images are now handled correctly, overall better reliability).
- Correct handling of looping audio in Cut layer: Looped audio events can now have infinite length when dragging the right event edge. Dragging the left event edge of looped events is not possible.

- 0000124: [1. Prepare Layer] Shortcuts are not reassigned on non-PCM files when opening a file (zaggo)
- 0000033: [4. Release Layer] No FTP uploads (no FTP uploads in free beta!)(zaggo)
- 0000005: [3. Cut Layer] Oscillographs don’t reflect looped events (zaggo)
- 0000126: [3. Cut Layer] Creating a volume node changes volume (zaggo)
- 0000016: [2. Record Layer] Undo of recordings in insert mode not complete (zaggo)
- 0000128: [4. Release Layer] Umlauts are not supported in chapters (zaggo)
- 0000119: [1. Prepare Layer] Panel allignment (zaggo)
- 0000116: [2. Record Layer] ÜC stalls when switching from Prepare to Record mode (zaggo)
- 0000104: [1. Prepare Layer] Deleting a panel should be included in the menu (zaggo)
- 0000107: [1. Prepare Layer] Won’t play Clip Panel (zaggo)
- 0000117: [1. Prepare Layer] Redraw panel after drop into prepare layer (zaggo)

—–

Please remember:

This is a beta preview of an unfinished product. Übercaster Beta might crash, hang or otherwise
not function as expected (which also means, that recorded material might be lost). Be aware of this
before you‘ll test beta release software! This is why it’s called “beta”.

Popularity: 11% [?]