Podcast Claiming, Custom URLs, & Feed Refresh

Hi, guys — lots to announce this week, so we’ll go ahead and dig right in.

Buzz:

First of all, we’re delighted to share with you a really wonderful write-up we got from Insider Louisville, a magazine from our CEO Bradley’s hometown: “The ‘IMDb of podcasting’ finds global (and local) interest.” The whole piece features a great summary of what we’re about and the site’s history so far, and embedded in it is a delightful nugget of news…

We can officially announce that Podchaser has started to fill its investment round! We’re thrilled to utilize strategic investment to keep expanding the features that power Podchaser’s vision. As always, stay tuned for more updates, but we anticipate that we’ll have much more to share with you on this note in the coming months.

Announcements:

Podcast claiming is here! After a few weeks of lead-up, we’re finally rolling it out.

Claiming: This is accomplished, simply enough, by navigating to your show on Podchaser and selecting the “Claim Podcast” button. You’ll be prompted to verify via the email on the show’s RSS feed. You can claim multiple podcasts as long as you have access to the email addresses specified in the feed.

Once you’ve claimed a podcast, head on over to the podcast page on Podchaser and click the ‘Manage Podcast’ button to change any settings.

Categories: Once your podcast has been claimed, you’ll have complete control over your categories in Podchaser, and we’ll no longer use the categories you have listed on your RSS feed. You’ll also be able to create custom categories of your own in order to carve out your own topical niche, enabling listeners to more easily discover your show. Please make sure you sort your categories in order of highest relevance, as we take the order into account when displaying categories as well as in our ranking algorithms.

Custom URLs: Creating a custom URL for your podcast will make it easier to share your Podchaser link! You can only set it once, so choose the right URL, and it’ll go through an approval process to make sure it relates to your podcast. Share that URL with your fans to make it easier to rate and review your episodes.

Feed Refresh: To ensure Podchaser has your most recent episodes, you can now manually refresh your feed from the Manage Podcast page. This will make it even easier to share your new episodes right away.

And coming soon…

Social media and custom links: In the next couple of weeks we’ll be adding the ability to add your Facebook and Twitter links to your podcast page, as well a small number of custom links of your choosing.

Podchaser’s Top 5 Podcasts in Performing Arts

1. The Bright Sessions

KKronfli — ‘Brilliant premise, excellent writing, and top notch acting, combined with superb sound design and music make this show a must listen. How do you think people cope when they have ‘special’ powers. Dr Bright provides help. A simple structure in the beginning slowly transforms into a more complex story with plot layers being exposed episode after episode. Great Stuff’

2. We’re Alive — A “Zombie” Story of Survival

nthacks — ‘Great story, voice actors, character development, and immersive audio effects make this the best Audio Drama anthology you can find.’

3. Wolf 359

DarkCrystal — ‘One of the Top 5 best sci-fi audio dramas ever made, period. First 10 episodes are more episodic giving a lay of the land, and then boom…things take off into an incredibly story arc with fleshed out characters, great plot twists, genuinely tense riveting moments between characters, and introducing more people and broadening the scope as it continues. Truly brilliant writing and acting, well done!’

4. RISK!

KevinAllison — ‘Extremely uncensored storytelling. The most hilarious, horrifying and moving true stories you will hear anywhere. Raw honesty on a level they’re too nervous to play on family-friendly radio.’

5. Welcome to Night Vale

BluntFarce — ‘A ground-breaking podcast of unapologetic strangeness. Start at the beginning. Unfortunately, more recent episodes (say from about ep 85 on) seem to have lost some of the mojo, maybe due to the distractions of their increased (and well-deserved) popularity — WTN now has touring shows and print books etc etc… which, while exciting, might be taking their focus off the original thing: the podcast itself. …all that said, I still listen to every new ep. If you like meta twilight-zone-ish surreal/satire. This is your show.’

As we mentioned, lots to get through this week! As always, thanks for reading, and we’ll see you soon. 😎

Xoxo,

Podchaser (Bradley, Ben, Ryan, Cole, and James)