What's new in iTunes 4.9
With iTunes 4.9, you can now browse and subscribe to podcasts from within the iTunes Music Store. Podcasts are frequently updated radio-style shows downloadable over the Internet. You can also transfer podcasts to iPod, for listening on the go.
Getting Starting with iTunes Podcasts
One of the first things you will notice after you upgrade to iTunes 4.9 is that in the Sources list on the left side of the iTunes software (which manages and organizes your music) contains a new source for podcasts. These sources are like visual folders that identify where your audio files are, where they are sourced from and how you have them organized as playlists.
Very helpful for managing your must and very easy to use as well as being intuitive. For example, in the image to the right you will also see Radio and Music Store. This is and easy way that iTunes allows you to access thousands of audio files through the iTunes music store or access many Internet Radio stations for streaming radio broadcasts with iTunes.
How Podcasts with iTunes 4.9 Works
To access Podcasts through iTunes you select the podcasts Source and you will see an empty playlist. At the bottom of iTunes, you will see the option Podcast Directory. Simply press that option with your mouse pointer and you will be taken to the iTunes Podcast Directory.
Figure 2. iTunes Podcast Directory
From the iTunes Podcast Directory you have quick access to the most popular podcasts but you can drill down into categories for a wider selection as well. I like movies and movie reviews so I selected Movies & Television from the iTunes Podcast Directory and iTunes now presents the full list of available podcasts within that category as seen in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3. iTunes Movies & Television Category
I selected the Reel Reviews podcast (see Figure 4) and downloaded from iTunes this review Swimming With Sharks. Also, Micheal who publishes this blog and podcast has an excellent write up on setting up your own podcast. You should check that out.
Figure 4. Selecting and Confirming Podcast Subscription
Figure 5. Downloading Podcast into iTunes
Publishing Your Podcast to iTunes
Publishing your podcast to iTunes is as simple as submitting your podcast RSS feed link to the iTunes directory. You'll need to have a iTunes account (free) in order to do so as you will asked for your iTunes login credentials.
All you do is click the Publish A Podcast link from the main Podcast Directory page in iTunes located in the upper left of the page (see Figure 2 above) and you will be stepped through the process easily. See the following figures 6 and 7 below.
Figure 6. Submit Your Podcast Feed URL
Figure 7. Confirm Settings, then Publish
Once you confirm settings you then click the publish button and you get a confirmation page informing you that your podcast will be reviewed before being available in the iTunes podcast directory.
The podcast settings in iTunes are pretty straight forward. You can set iTunes to check for newly published podcasts that you are subscribed to at "every hour", "every day", "every week", or "manually". You can then tell itunes how to handle your downloads when new podcasts are detected. You can "download all" new episodes, "download the most recent one", or have iTunes "do nothing". Lastly, there is a retention setting where you can tell iTunes to keep episodes based on "all", "all unplayed", "most recent" or "last (from last 2 to 10 episodes)".
This is another great leverage opportunity for publishers. Just like Yahoo going to an RSS centric directory with My Yahoo, publishers benefit from the marketing and education that Yahoo is doing to increase exposure and usage of RSS for custom news. With hundreds of thousands of My Yahoo users, you only have to place your RSS feed in My Yahoo and you enjoy the benefit of Yahoo's promo efforts.
ITunes presents a similar opportunity. ITunes is one of the top digital downloads stops on the Internet today if not the top download site. With their 4.9 release they are promoting podcasts to their active user base. That could result in exponential exposure for you and exponential grown in subscribers to your podcast by submitting your podcast feed to the iTunes directory while letting iTunes take care of the promo efforts for generating interest in their podcast directory. Submitting your podcast is free by the way.
iTunes, I think, is especially powerful to podcasters because as a user of iTunes and an iPod, I think iTunes is very good at promoting new features and generating interest in browsing and in buying downloads. It isn't just the brand as much as I think that they provide a buying and user experience that is second to none. Once you start using iTunes for music downloads it really changes the way you purchase and consume music. Now that they have added podcasting and have a dedicated podcast directory, it will be interesting to see how podcast publishers benefit from being a part of the iTunes directory and how that exposure measures up against other podcast directories available in terms of increasing exposure and getting subscribers.
It is being projected that Apple will ship more than 35 million Apple iPods by the end of 2005. The iPod is driving significant business in other areas for Apple to include iTunes downloads and seamless integration between iTunes and iPods. The latest statisic I was able to find with a quick Google search was that iTunes had over 150 million downloads at some point in 2004. These numbers certainly present a compelling case for submitting your podcast feed to the iTunes directory.
