You can hear Allison give the tutorial on PoP Episode #9 (enhanced podcast) and read it on her site: Feeder Tutorial.

The Podcasting on Podcasting (PoP) series should prove very useful to budding podcasters as the entire process can be very daunting, as it covers everything from the technical side of recording equipment, software and web hosting on the one hand, and the creative aspect on the other, not to mention considerations such as time and family commitments.

Allison’s been podcasting for a long time now, and occasionally brings in other experienced contributors such as Don McAllister of the excellent ScreenCastsOnline.

The Podcasting on Podcasting series can be found as part of Allison’s main podcast, NosillaCast, at podfeet.com. Allison also contributes to the Mac Roundtable Podcast and the Mac ReviewCast.

Übercaster brings everything podcasters need into one application and does this very well, as it has been designed for podcasting from the beginning.

Its comprehensive feature set includes live audio recording, multi-track editing and integration with Skype, iChat or Gizmo for recording interviews – with the neat trick that all participants can hear the audio you play in addition to the regular conversation.

Übercaster can also add tags and artwork, create enhanced podcasts, encode and upload the finished recordings to FTP servers, weblogs, .Mac and specialized podcasting hosting services such as Podshow+.

So is there anything Übercaster doesn’t do? Believe it or not, yes! Übercaster doesn’t create RSS feeds. Enter Feeder!

As of today you can purchase Übercaster and Feeder together as part of a special bundle. Übercaster is normally $79.95 and Feeder $29.95, but these two great applications can be purchased together for only $95, saving around 15%.

The bundle is available from the Übercaster store and links are available on Feeder’s product pages too.

Even if you are a podcaster and don’t need the bundle, you really should check out Übercaster for yourself. It is a very impressive application and deserves every success.

Congratulations to Eberhard and Sebastian of Pleasant Software for the People on this much-anticipated 1.0 release.

Password protected podcasts with .Mac

Feeder will upgrade any existing categories using the same mappings as FeedBurner, so all you need to do is publish your feed again. You may want to review the new categories to see if any of those fit your podcast better – you can do this in the iTunes section of the Info drawer.

Apple says it could take up to two weeks for changes to your categories to take effect in the iTunes Music Store, so bear that in mind when checking your changes. It also appears to be taking some time for the new categories to be populated, but I understand Apple is working on that.

FeedValidator has also been updated to support the new categories, so if FeedValidator says your feed is valid and you are having problems with the iTunes Music Store, your best course of action is to check Apple’s Producing Podcasts discussion forum, otherwise please get in touch.

Expect a Feeder update soon to deal with these changes. Thanks.

Apple has a special page on iTunes to celebrate with a lot of the original podcasts on there. It’s great to see Feeder-using TWiT and the MacCast present and still going strong, along with a number of other really cool podcasts that show what the medium should be all about!

I write podcasting software, listen to podcasts, go to podcasting meetups and all that, but for a while it has seemed like something was missing. I didn’t have the t-shirt!

Well now my life is complete, because I’ve got a “Join the Podcast Revolution” t-shirt from podcastersunite.com. Podcasters Unite is run by John Ong from Ongline Podcast and its mission is to spread the podcasting word.

To help that along, when you check out you can choose to donate $1 to your favourite podcast. In the future John is also hoping to offer t-shirts customised for each podcast.

Check it all out at the Podcasters Unite website.

It was also great to meet Feeder user Don McAllister from ScreenCastsOnline and the EuroMac Podcast. You may recall a post on this blog about him quitting his day job to do podcasting full time by providing premium content to paying subscribers. That seems to be working out so far, which is excellent as he’s pioneering this model of earning a living for his work (as far as I know).

I had already met Adam Curry at the Podcast Expo in California last year, but it was good to be able to talk for longer this time about things that actually concern me. I also met PodShow boss Ron Bloom and we had a very long chat about all sorts of things, including Mac software for podcasters.

Oh, and if you’re ever looking for some independent British music, check out the BURBs site and podcast – Barry himself told me it was very much like John Peel‘s old show, which should be quite something.

I wasn’t sure whether to go to this event, but I’m glad I did. It’s always good to meet podcasters (whether or not they use my software!) and what a great bunch these were. Shame Roger Smalls wasn’t there… or was he?

Now, as it happened, Potion Factory‘s Andy Kim told me that this was on Allison’s show (even though I’m still subscribed to Allison’s podcast, I have a backlog, OK!). I often talk with Andy, we’re good friends. I met both Andy and Jin at the Podcast Expo. Coincidentally, Allison wrote to me the very same day with a support question, so I mentioned in my reply that I had heard the show and told her exactly what I thought of Podcast Maker.

I think it’s brilliant and well worth checking out.

Feeder and Podcast Maker are very different products that happen to do similar things. The clues are in the names: Podcast Maker is dedicated to (surprise!) making podcasts. Feeder does podcasting, but is also a generic RSS feed editor. Both applications have their unique features. Podcast Maker is probably easier to use thanks to its focus on doing one thing and doing it well. Feeder may be more flexible, because it’s designed for a variety of different uses.

Of the two applications’ overall capabilities I bet there isn’t much in it, but frankly I haven’t done a comprehensive feature comparison to find out. I give Feeder users what I think they need, whether that is something frequently requested or an idea of my own. I expect Andy and Jin work on the same basis. How you implement these things is what makes all the difference.

I believe there is more to Mac applications than ticking boxes. Of course, Mac users care that an application does what they need, but they also want something that appeals to them on an emotional level. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought an app because I like it more than its competitors, regardless of whether it has as many features.

Same with Macs. I’ve always liked iMacs and all-in-one Macs in general. Yes, a Power Mac would be faster, more upgradeable, I could get a bigger monitor and it could double as a cheese grater, but I don’t care. The iMac is cute, a brilliant design and does everything I need perfectly. Obviously not everyone thinks the same as me, or Apple wouldn’t need to make any other desktop Macs.

Anyway, I digress. A man of many tangents, me.

Allison wrote back and told me that, if it were her, she might worry that plugging another podcast could take listeners away. It’s a good point, I had never thought of it from a podcaster’s perspective. True, people don’t need to make a purchasing decision between one podcast and another, because they’re all freely available, but listeners only have a finite amount of listening time.

But think about it, many of the most successful podcasters promote other podcasts on a regular basis. You plug a podcast you enjoy and they can mention you in return. It’s not mandatory, but both of you can gain listeners as a result of that extra exposure. It’s social networking, like a trackback on a blog, but it’s also word of mouth – the greatest marketing tool in the world.

The real point is this: it’s not as if someone can’t search for tech podcasts just as easily as they can search for podcast-creation software. There are all sorts of things out there: costly all-in-one solutions, bundled iLife applications, freeware, shareware, online services, you name it. And there will be more. To pretend these things don’t exist is futile.

Competition is good because it raises standards (or should!) and increases overall exposure. By mentioning Podcast Maker on her show, Allison also mentioned Feeder. People will make up their own minds. As for developers, and this could apply to anyone, it’s often so much better to work together than apart – a personal favourite example being the work we did in trying to sort out the iTunes specification.

My inspiration in this regard is NetNewsWire‘s Brent Simmons. Never afraid to mention his competitors, put source code out there, discuss all sort of things and open up his applications’ functionality for others to use (see the NetNewsWire developers page), Brent sets an excellent example for all developers – and just look how popular NetNewsWire is!

Indie developers are not like supermarkets, selling the same stuff at different prices. Our products should set us apart in a number of ways or we’re not trying hard enough.

So, the moral of the story is to share the love! It will always be good for you.

There may come a time when you want to move your podcast feed to another server, another location on your server or start using a service such as FeedBurner.

In their technical specification, Apple suggests two ways to change your podcast feed’s URL. The preferred method is to set up a redirect to the new URL. This will cause both the iTunes Store and existing subscribers to use the new URL and will work for other applications too, including RSS readers.

Setting up a redirect is not always possible; Apple’s alternative suggestion is to use the <itunes:new-feed-url> tag to inform the iTunes Store that your feed has moved.

For this to work, you need two different versions of your feed. The old version should contain the New Feed URL and the new version must not. First duplicate the feed:

• Select your existing feed in Feeder and choose File > Duplicate from the menu.
• Choose File > Publish from the menu. Click the Settings button and change the settings as appropriate to publish the feed to the new location. If you are doing this because you wish to start using FeedBurner for an existing feed, you simply need to change the filename.
• Click Continue, then click Publish to upload the new feed.

Now test the new feed:

• Click the Share button in Feeder’s toolbar.
• Select iTunes Podcast and click Subscribe

If everything looks good in iTunes, you can now set the new Feed URL on the original feed:

• With the new feed still selected in Feeder, choose File > Copy Feed URL from the menu. You don’t need to do this if you’re moving to FeedBurner.
• In all cases, now select your original feed.
• Click the (i) button in the bottom left of the window to show the Info view.
• With the Feed tab selected, choose “iTunes Podcasting”.
• Scroll down to the New Feed URL field and paste the URL. If you are using FeedBurner, enter the FeedBurner URL instead.
• Publish the original feed.

Testing the New URL

You can test the New Feed URL by updating a subscription to your existing feed in iTunes and clicking the info button next to your podcast’s description. It should show the new feed’s URL.

The iTunes Store will switch to using the new feed URL the next time it checks your feed, and your iTunes-using subscribers will pick up the new URL the next time they update their podcast subscriptions. Apple suggests keeping the old feed around for at least two weeks to give everyone a chance to update.