July 05, 2005

Comments

yes! you guys rock!

One question though... Is there a way to make certain audio files to have the Explicit badge on them?

Or do I just have to click thats its only for adults even though thats only some episodes?

Great!! This looks good!

Two questions:

1)will you add something for us to add the

2)same question for at the Channel level - I notice that this one comes up only after you have subscribed to a podcast on iTunes. Still it's useful.

Thanks,

Jeff

Funny - that last post wiped out the tags I was trying to explain.....

1) was referring to the itunes - keywords tag

2) was referring to the itunes - subtitle tag at the Channel level

Thanks.
Jeff

Wonderful. Congratulations again on a wonderful service.

In general, if you want control over Item level tagging you would have to add it manually since that would be difficult for us to infer or manipulate on an Item by Item basis.

That said, some Item tags are currently created based on Channel level selections and the existence of standard RSS 2.0 tags.

itunes:explicit=If "Adult content" is selected this will create the tag at both the Channel and Item level (with every Item being labeled).

itunes:subtitle=This will be created at the Item level using a 255 character excerpt (as specified by the Apple iTunes Podcast specification) of the contents of the Item's description tag.

Hope that helps

This is probably a silly question, but once I've gone through the Feedburner iTunes specific steps, is the feed automatically submitted to the iTunes directory?

I've been waiting for the Feedburner service (because it is awesome!) and haven't messed with my feed manually. I also did not submit my feed to iTunes, I waited until your new service was available.

Once I went through the steps this morning, I went to the iTunes directory and submitted my feed. The form then informed me that my feed had already been submitted, but I can't find my show on their site.

This may be an Apple issue, and I apologize if I overlooked obvious information, but this threw me for a bit of a loop this morning.

Most importantly: THANKS FEEDBURNER YOU ROCK!

Hey, Blue. I have the same problem. I got that very same message one week ago. And I'm still not in the directory. Apple says we should expect one to two weeks, but I know other podcasters who submitted for the first time last Tue. and got listed by Sat. I'm afraid there's something wrong. :( but I'm happy I can add itunes tags to my feedburner feed. I'm sure my podcast will look all spiffy when Apple gets around to listing me. ThnQ, Feedburner!

~Brin

--
http://bitzofbrin.blogspot.com - Listen to my podcast!
feed://feeds.feedburner.com/BitzOfBrin - Or subscribe to it!

Blue and Brin, great question. We do not currently auto-submit the feed to Apple's directory, HOWEVER, we anticipated this request and we're talking to the appropriate parties and hope to make this automatic in the very near future.

OK,

So just to be clear - what is NOT supported will be:

1) multiple categories
2) itunes-keywords
3) itunes-subtitle at the Channel Level

Is that correct?

My two cents - these would be pretty easy to implement and are pretty useful. Keywords will become REALLY important as just being listed in their directory doesn't give you much visibility. You need to have search terms.

Thanks!
Jeff

"We do not currently auto-submit the feed to Apple's directory, HOWEVER, we anticipated this request and we're talking to the appropriate parties and hope to make this automatic in the very near future."

I have heard from some podcasters not in the US (or other countries that have ITMS) that they can't add their show since they don't have iTune Music store in their country. Would be nice if you could offer some level of service for them.

For those looking for chapter / picture / links support, Apple has a command line (yeah, command line - from Apple, go figure) tool that's pretty obscure and *only works with MPEG4 files.* You can get it here:
http://homepage.mac.com/applepodcast/podcasts/Resources/static/podcast_chapter_tool_beta.dmg

My question for the Feedburner guys is: can Feedburner be so smart as to figure out a way to deliver the AAC file to iTunes requests and an equitable MP3 files for all others (provided of course, that the author provides both)?

Our podcast is already listed in iTunes, and just this morning I used the new Feedburner features (thanks!) to supply all the relevant info - picture and all.

However, I still don't see the new information reflected in the iTunes directory or the "Get Info" window related to our podcast.

I read that Feedburner doesn't automatically submit to iTunes, but I don't think that applies because we're already listed. This is more of an issue of updating.

Does anyone know something about the iTunes/feed information updating process?

Thanks,
Mike

I second what Tollie was saying above. Having the ability to deliver MP3s and AACs depending on user agent would be killer.

Thank you so much for the iTunes service. I listed my cast at iTunes more than a week ago and do not yet show up on the directory.

I have the same question as Mike. I just updated my feed, which has been listed with iTunes since they rolled out podcasts, a few minutes ago. I'm curious as to how long it's going to take for the updates to show up.

If anyone sees the updated info for their feed show up in iTunes, let us know how long it took.

And big, big THANKS to the gang at Feedburner...you guys rock.

Great job! :) But your missing the Family category in your list of categories for iTunes smartfeeds.

Collectively addressing some of the recent posted comments:

* As we work to make the "Publish to iTunes" feature an automatic option we will hopefully become more familiar with how Apple is updating and maintaining its directory of podcasters. That isn't an area we know as much about as we would like to at this stage of the game.

* Clarifications on the way some of the tags are handled. itunes:keyword will be constructed by concatenating a list of any available standard item-level category tags.

* The channel level subtitle is a quick hit and, as it has been repeatedly requested here and elsewhere, look for it to make its way into a enhancement build in short order.

* Multiple categories may be one of the more widely asked for requests. This one is actually a bit more involved and there is a ton of other stuff (Automatic submission being high on the list) that we are looking into so I can't make any immediate predictions.

* Great idea with the AAC/MP3 switching based on user-agent detection. Again, can't make any hard and fast promises about that one but its going on the list.

Please feel free to post questions or observations about your own podcast/iTunes/FeedBurner experiences to our forum http://forums.feedburner.com. We are constantly monitoring this and other avenues of inquiry to best know how to enhance and improve this service for our FeedBurner podcasters.

Re: The family category. That was not included in the Apple iTunes specification although I do see it showing up as a podcast category within iTunes. I'll take a look at adding that.

My Podcast feed was listed last week. Then it disappeared from the Music Store. I have emailed Apple and I was told that the iTunes people are inondated with requests and new Podcast feeds. It seems that they will get to all of us sooner or later.

Thanks for the new iTunes feature in Feedburner.

I have had a Podcast up since last Friday, and between my tweaking descriptions and adding and item... it seems they do updates every two days or so as far as their listings and published information goes.

However, for those subscribed to my feed already, they got the newest podcast served almost immediately, even though it took two days for the newest one to be listed on the site.

I've had all the iTunes: tags in my cast for a while, and I still can't seem to get a picture, or length timing or anything... so I hope this does something.

Michael Gilboe
Next Big Hit

Just as an update--as I posted earlier, I submitted my info at approximately 2:45 pm. It was updated on iTunes by 10 pm, with the exception of the image that I submitted as a logo.

Does anyone know if there are any restrictions with regard to image size for the logos?

Hey Rob V.,

Not sure about the maximum, but the preferred logo size is 300x300 pixels at 72 dpi. Hope this helps.

Thank you Feedburner for incorporating the iTunes tags into our feeds. My podcast was up and running on July 2 (my first ever) and after updating my settings in SMARTCAST to include the iTunes tags I can no longer find my podcast. I understand a number of people are experiencing the same event. I am almost certain that it is just an update issue on the end of iTunes. I can imagine the number of NEW podcasts being published as well as updated. All our missing podcasts with missing logos and such should be up and running very soon.
Again, thank for you such amazing service.

Thanks Travis.

I am working my way through this one puzzle at a time, and I got all the way to feed validation, and I got a message back that I have an error in line 17, which currently says I have no clue what this mean or what to do about it. Everything else looks to be OK, though. I put my test audio on libsyn.com, set up a blog in blogspot, got blogspot to pick up the audio smoothly from libsyn, and worked through feedburner until thre is just this one error. So near and yet so far! (Any other suggestions are welcome. I'm totally clueless.)

A few patches/enhancements are now available to address some immediate concerns.

* Patch for the itunes:owner FeedValidator issue
* Based on feedback and findings from Apple and elsewhere we will, for the time being, generate a single itunes:link tag containing image information. FeedValidator.org may still be complaining about this but it appears to have Apple's blessing for now.
* itunes:subtitle is now provided at both the Channel and Item levels.

I'm kind of annoyed with Itunes. I know everyone else has complained already. But according to Adam Curry if you where registered on PodcastAlley.com, that was the first database Itunes is using. Well whenever I look up my podcast on Itunes it isn't there. I thought well hmmm, maybe I didn't register with podcastally. I searched podcastalley and there's my podcast right there as plain as day. I've been registered since the beginning of July. Is Adam wrong? I don't blame him, I think this is Apples fault. I'm finding this kind of frustrating right now.

Well there is something wrong somewhere. I have been with podcastalley for about two months and rated very high in both, overall 125 out of 4000 and 26 out of 800 in the genral catagory. Plus I submitted to iTunes on June 30th and I am still not listed. I know of a lady who just submitted at iTunes just a few days ago and is already listed. I am starting to smell a rat.

Best regards
Toby Mack

Hi all -

We're working closely with Apple on ensuring the simplest (and most reliable) method of getting feeds listed and maintained in the iTunes directory. We expect to have some news on this front soon, please stay tuned. In the meantime, keep your suggestions coming about how we can improve FeedBurner!

--Rick

----
Rick Klau
VP, Business Development
FeedBurner - http://www.feedburner.com
rickk@feedburner.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: RickKlau
office: 312.756.0022
cell: 630.362.8911

I started using the iTunes tags and now my information shows up in itunes, but 36 hours later my image still does not. Comparing the feed to others using feedburner/blogger I see there is an image tag that appears on the feeds that have their images show up in iTunes, but that tag doesn't show up in my feed. That may or may not be the cause. In any case, help!

Mike M.

Image Issues: Acknowledging that this is quite frustrating to scores of iTunes podcasters I can say that we are currently generating a tag that seems to have been given the most acceptance as the proper way to get specify an image in iTunes. We are working with Apple to gain some clarity on this topic (and others). We'll pass along any news or enhancments we find the moment we have them.

Correction, My podcast has been listed on PodcastAlley.com since the beginning of June.

www.theyadcproject.com

This is day 10 and still no listing. What I want to know is who is actually reviewing our podcasts people who are paid from Apple or Volunteers? And what is their criteria for acceptance to the iTunes list. If we are being rejected how do we find out why? How do you contact someone at iTunes for answers? All I know at this time is I am not listed after all this time and feel past over. I also know they sure did charge my credit card in a hurry to make sure I had a valid CC.

Needless to say I am not happy for the reason above and also my MP3 file transfers are down because everyone is using the iTunes directory now.

Toby Mack

Thanks Feed burner,

I checked again today for the 200th time (slight exaggeration). There it was my feed was finally listed.

If everyone could please try to subscribe to your favorite indie podcasts through Itunes. I know Itunes sucks as a podcatcher, I like RSSRadio myself. But I find it really annoying that all these Johnny come latelys are getting all the exposure on the homepage of Itunes. Like ABC News, Al Franken, ESPN Radio, CNN,Disney, Etc. These faceless corporations didn�t have the faintest interest in podcasting a few months ago. Now because Apple supports it there all doing it.

So weather you listen to Adam Curry, Dawn and Drew, LugRadio, The Linux Link tech show, Slasdot Review, Chub Creek, Coverville, Etc. Please subscribe to them through Itunes. Then continue to use your favorite podcatcher.

The YADC Project
http://feeds.feedburner.com/theyadcproject

It's 5 days now since my podcast on iTunes went missing. I know I said I'd be patient but just yesterday the total amount of podcasts listed under the "talk radio" category numbered 171. Today it is 217 and my podcast is STILL nowhere to be found. I am worried that something went wrong when I updated my Smartcast feature to include iTunes' metatags.The podcast was listed in iTunes prior to my doing this ... :o(
I am tempted to create/generate a new RSSFeed. I'll give it a few more days. My name is digital femme not Patient Femme.
Congrats to those whose podcasts finally got listed. I'm sure you guys are able to sleep better :o)
I agree with Fohizol, these big corps thought that podcasting was a bunch of hooha and now that Apple gives it the A.O.K. every one and their mother is jumping on the band wagon.

What has happened to FeedBurner? Has it lost it's brains? ( Big Smile ) I have over 300 log entries from you guy trying to read my atom.xml file. First you were getting a 304 code then after a few of those you started getting 403 codes for the remainder of the 300 entries. Nothing hs changed from Blogger.com as far as their generating the Atom.xml file.

So what's up?

Is this a bug in FeedBurner?

Best regards
Toby Mack

We do lose a lot of things over here from time to time so it wouldn't be suprising if a few brains were misplaced. However, looking at your account it looks as if your source feed was password protected for a period of a few hours. During this time FeedBurner went into "aggressive" mode in an effort to retrieve it. All is good right now and you should be seeing only the normal log activity.

What may be of interest to you is the fact that all FeedBurner accounts are given a Personal Feed which is our communication channel to provide publishers with updates and alerts concerning their feed.

If you login to FeedBurner and go to the My Account section you'll see a link to your Personal Feed (which has recently been beefed up with the FeedMedic service for detecting Feeds that have gone sour).

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Thanks, that helped a lot.

Now if I could figure out why iTunes is ignoring my submission So I could fix the problem if there is one I would would be completely happy.

Toby

Hi all - regarding feeds that have "gone missing": Apple's aware of the issue and is working hard to address it. I spoke with their podcasting team on Friday, and they are going through all feed submissions (as well as any feeds that may have disappeared) to get them into the iTunes directory asap.

On a related note, one of the areas we're working with Apple is on streamlining the feed submission process, as well as easily identifying when a feed is (or is not) listed in the iTunes directory. That'll save you having to manually check in iTunes, and it'll make it easier to re-list any feeds that might inadvertently disappear (which is less likely to happen now anyway).

Keep the ideas coming, and if you have specific problems with your feed, make sure to post them over in the forums (http://forums.feedburner.com) for the fastest response.

--Rick

----
Rick Klau
VP, Business Development
FeedBurner - http://www.feedburner.com
rickk@feedburner.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: RickKlau
office: 312.756.0022
cell: 630.362.8911

Re: "Based on feedback and findings from Apple and elsewhere we will, for the time being, generate a single itunes:link tag containing image information. FeedValidator.org may still be complaining about this but it appears to have Apple's blessing for now."

The latest word I've heard from Apple is that the code was updated on the 8th of July to match the specifications:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@292.Wzm3aC0URGH.5@.68b39004/18

"I am happy to report that as of this evening the iTMS is looking for <itunes:image> like the docs say."

I hate to mention my problems here, as they aren't really FeedBurner related. Feedburner is probably one of the finest services I use in, well any part of my life.

But as the Feedburner team is dealing with Apple and I don't have any communications with Apple regarding my podcast I thought I'd give it a shot and ask this here. Perhaps someone here will know the answer to my question.

I didn't originally submit my feed to iTunes. I waited until Feedburner had their service ready. Once it went live and I made the effort to submit to Apple, I received a notification that my feed had already been submitted. I'm guessing that an overzealous supporter of our show attempted to submit it. But it still hasn't shown up in iTunes.

I've been listed with PodcastAlley.com since March 2005.

I feel like I'm dead in the water there. I have no information. In my iTunes software there is a a link that reads "Report a Concern" but it is inaccessible (Greyed out).

Again, I understand this isn't a Feedburner problem, but if anyone has any insight into this particular error, I'd appreciate it. I usually get more info here than anywhere else.

Thanks!

Blue,

We posted on the "missing from the directory" problem today in our Support Forums and posted one possible workaround: http://forums.feedburner.com/viewtopic.php?p=4154. However, some people report that this workaround does not change anything. I added an updated technique to the end of this thread today that might get you relisted (it's worked for at least one of our publishers, apparently).

We really hope to have this nailed down as definitively as possible from the FeedBurner end of things soon. Thanks for your considerable patience as we tweak things on our end based on new info from Apple (and others).

I've been on Podcast Alley since May - still no sign of me on iTunes.

When iTunes people subscribe to my feed, they do not receive our m4a and m4b 'enhanced' podcasts. They do receive our mp3 podcasts. It is strange that Mac would create a way for us to add photos and links to our audio podcasts, and yet not recognize the format. Could it be our feedburner RSS does not recognize AAC files, I don't know much about the behind the scenes magic feedburner does. It's amazing I could even figure out the XML required to make enhanced podcasts LOL! Anyway, I've searched to see if I could check file extensions in my SmartCast area, and I've looked all through iTunes Preferences, and no way to get those m4a files through subscription. Sure if I visit the site and click the link, iTunes opens it up, but that's not the idea of RSS... someone slap me beside the head and tell me what I'm doing wrong this time- thanks one and all - Hoagie.

Hey it's Hoagie again, I figured out the problem with my Enhanced Podcast m4a/m4b files. I had to have my host update their mime so AAC files were seen as AUDIO files, not TEXT. That's all it took, and now my RSS burns right. Yay team. Plus iTunes finally listed our show under COMEDY. Double yay. Everyone frustrated with the wait to be listed on iTunes, just be patient, the entire podcast universe is trying to get listed as well. It took our site a little less than 3 weeks to get listed. I submitted via iTunes > Music Store > Podcasts > Submit A Podcast. Anyway, have fun, and anyone posting Image Enhanced Podcasts, if you have the same problem (subscribers not receiving AAC podcasts) just be sure your server's mime records are updated to see all m4a and m4b files as audio. And now... on with the show!

How do I change the MIME stuff? I have had success getting everything ready for the podcast, but when I click on the link I get jarbled text. I am using Transmit on Mac OS X, but I am not sure of what else to do.

Also, I noticed noemail@noemail.com for the author and other contact stuff for iTunes... is this a soon-to-come feature?

Hey Hoagie here, now my RSS is once again not enclosing my audio files, and my host says all is well with the mime files on their end. It worked for two days, and now is not working again. I never had problems with mp3 files, but now they are not enclosed either when I look at my RSS code. Any way feedburner could tell me what could have happened over night, when I have not made any changes to my feedburner account? I got my host to update their mime, and my site suddenly worked, now it's back to not enclosing audio files. It seems that when my RSS updated, it no longer recognizes my podcast files in mp3, m4a, or m4b format. My RSS URL is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/superfantasticultra

Thank you one and all.

I've noticed the same issue with noemail@noemail.com. Is there any way to edit the Feedburner template to manually add iTunes attribute tags?

Also, iTunes is rejecting my logo which is a 300x300, 72dpi PNG image. The link shows up as broken in iTunes, although I've checked and rechecked the link in Feedburner and it works fine. Maybe the 72dpi is wrong?

Great service anyway, Feedburner rocks!

Any news on the image issues with iTunes?
I got mine into the top 100 and have a broken image. Kind of embarassing for me here at work. Even CNN has a broken image... Wow..

Jim, we are using the exact spec that Apple has issued as part of their updated spec for image support (and we don't manage the CNN podcast...YET!), so there doesn't seem to be an issue on our end. We'll double check your feed and make sure everything's in there correctly and that the link refers to a correct image, but i'm sure you've already done that.

And with that, this comment thread has gotten long enough and is closed....please proceed to the support forums for further inquiries... http://forums.feedburner.com