I’ve been launching podcasts like it’s 2005 lately, and one of my biggest frustrations is not being able to launch on the net and in the iTunes store at the same time. Apple reviews each podcast feed submitted to the store and it takes a few days to be accepted into the cool kids club. There is a work around.
- Find the address of your RSS feed. For instance, the RSS feed for Create Consume Delete is http://createconsumedelete.com/feed.
- Create a link on your page and replace the “http” protocol with the “itpc” iTunes protocol.
- Profit!*
When your audience clicks the link, they will be automatically subscribed to your RSS feed in iTunes, if they have it installed. The users who don’t have iTunes installed will see a broken link. Go ahead, give the link a try, it’ll open your iTunes and subscribe you to Create Consume Delete. If you’re already subscribed, you’re my hero. If you click a link to a podcast that you’re already subscribed to, you won’t subscribe again. iTunes will recognize that you are already subscribed and do nothing. You can also use “pcast://” to accomplish the same thing, but I haven’t seen it used very often.
There is a downside to doing this. If you lust after the iTunes top podcast list, these clicks won’t register with iTunes. Because people are subscribing through their browsers and not the iTunes store, Apple doesn’t register it.
I’ll go into this a bit more on Create Consume Delete this week (episode 19). Our topic is “Start Your Podcast Today”.
*profit not guaranteed
