Podcasting

StreamAudio’s web-based Podcast Publisher provides radio stations with a complete suite of tools to publish their programs as podcast contents. Our user-friendly environment enables you to generate RSS feeds without having to know about RSS 2.0 specification or XML syntax. We have also provided the ability to easily add gateway advertisements to the beginning of the podcasts.

Podcast Publisher integrates tightly with existing StreamAudio archiving services. As a result, stations can easily convert their archived contents into Podcast episodes. The generated feeds and episodes are hosted on our server farm, saving stations the trouble to get their own storage and bandwidth. Due to the popularity of listing on Apple iTunes Podcast Directory, Podcast Publisher can also generate iTunes’s proprietary tags.

What is Podcasting?Podcasting is a means of distributing multimedia contents via the Internet that lets users subscribe to a show of their interest and consume the material at a time they choose. A Podcast is generally analogous to a recorded radio series. Each show or channel consists of a series of individual episodes that you can listen to (also known as items). Content providers, such as radio stations, begin by recording an audio episode in a digital format, usually in MP3.

The content is stored on a publicly-accessible web server and referenced to it in another file known as the RSS feed. The feed, an XML file based on RSS 2.0 standard, consists of a list of URIs to the episodes plus other useful information such as publish dates, titles and descriptions. The content provider posts the feed to a permanent location on a web server and advertises the new channel on its own website.

With the feed URI, an interested listener can easily subscribe to the channel using an RSS aggregator/reader software. Once subscribed, the aggregator routinely checks the availability of new episodes for the channel, downloads the new files when available so that they can be consume on the PC or a mobile device. The following summarizes a typical interaction between a content publisher and a content subscriber:

Station creates a new podcast channel (i.e. generate a new feed / RSS File)
Station publish feed URI and advertise on its own web site to attract listeners subscription
Listeners subscribe to the new channel using an RSS Reader such as iTunes
Station prepares audio episode in MP3 format
Station adds episode into podcast channel (RSS File is updated to reference the new episode)
Listener's RSS Reader detects changes in RSS File, downloads latest episode into PC
Listener enjoys latest episode on PC

How our solution worksThis is the first page when you access Podcast Publisher. It lists all the channels that have been created for the station. For each channel, its title, image and description are presented.

New channel creation

Channel details are organized into 3 categories: Required, Optional and iTunes. Most of the fields correspond to RSS 2.0 and iTunes elements but there are several proprietary fields used by StreamAudio.

Required Fields

Optional Fields

iTunes Fields

FILE REPOSITORY

StreamAudio Podcast Repository stores a station's podcast media files (MP3) and channel RSS files. The default view shows 20 most recent files in the repository. The text box allows you to specify a different search criteria. You would key in "*" to list all files or a prefix string to list files beginning with the prefix.

Audio files from your PC and StreamAudio Archived Server can be added to the Podcast Repository. In addition, an advertisement can be appended to the beginning of the audio content.

ARCHIVE REPOSITORY

You are able to browse files that have been created using the StreamAudio Broadcaster and uploaded to the StreamAudio Archive Server. The default view shows the 20 most recent archived files in Microsoft ASF or WMA format. The text box allows you to specify a different search criteria. Key in "*" to list all files or a prefix string to list files beginning with the prefix.

Once the selection of content and advertisement is made, the files are transferred to our repository servers. During the upload process, our system will perform media format conversion and volume normalization.

The Podcast Repository contains all the station's media content (MP3 files) usable in channel episodes and downloadable by listeners. The default view list the 20 most recent files in the repository. The text box allows you to specify a different search criteria. Key in "*" to list all files or a prefix string to list files beginning with the prefix.

The result table shows details including filename, last update timestamp and file size. You can change the table sorting order by clicking on the column header. The “Headphone” icon allows you to listen to the content while the delete icon lets you remove content from the repository.

DOWNLOAD STATISTICS

The download report shows you the number of downloads and total bytes transferred for each episode of a channel.

GATEWAY STATISTICS

The Gateway Statistics report will display the number of impressions for PodCasts that have scheduled gateways attached.