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Friday, July 28, 2006

2006 Podcast Awards Update

UPDATE: Voting is now open until August 11th. Getchervoteon.


From July 25:
Well, voting has ended for the 2006 podcast awards, and they have been sifting through the mess of feeds and dead sites... in order to find their official nominees.

I say sifting because it's quite a tedious process... and alot of you podcasters should be ashamed!
From Podcasting News:

Podcasting guru Todd Cochrane (Geek News Central, Blubrry.com) has announced the nominee slate for the 2006 People's Choice Podcast Awards. Voting for the nominees will be open July 28th to August 11th.

Cochrane notes that the overall quality of the RSS feeds for podcasts that were nominated was surprisingly poor. "I have never been so utterly blown away by the sad state of affairs when it comes to podcasters' RSS feeds, and some of the crap we have been sorting through," notes Cochrane.

Here are problems that shocked Cochrane:

  • 78% of the submissions had invalid feeds, according to FeedValidator.org.
  • Of the remaining feeds, 96% had glaring errors.
  • 42% did not have an RSS feed button on their home page.
  • 26% did not have a link to the file in their show notes.
  • 21% had less than 2 lines of show notes.
  • Some feeds were huge, as big as 500K and 367 entries.
  • Only 49% of the submissions provide a way to contact the podcaster.
  • 200 of the submissions that called themselves podcasts had no podcast feeds.

"The more people that are doing shows, the lower the bar becomes in taking the time to make sure the most basic functions of a site is maintained," laments Cochrane.

SO, what is up with that? Sober up, take a shower, and get those feeds cleaned up people! You want to be worthy of an award? Trying looking worthy!

*puts the whip away*

On a side note, a little birdy told me about an audio drama group that made the short list- yay!

This is another reason I'm sad to not be able to get to the podcasting expo in Cali this year... darn it! I would love to be at the awards ceremony!

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