BizIII Progress

Now targeting a BizIII Revival after the first of the year.

There are a few things left to do.

• Set up an intro and outro.
  
• Set up a way to do interviews.
  
• Set up a comment system
  

Then I will be ready to go.

Podsafe Music for the Podcast

There are just five tasks left to prepare for the podcast resuming. 

One is to find some new music to use for beginning and end of the podcast. 

• Something that I can use without a fee, or a very minimum fee.
  
• I will give credit on the website.
• Something upbeat and catchy.  
• Something I can use everyday on the podcast.

 I do not know the technical difference between

• Copyright Free
• Creative Commons
• Podsafe
• Free

Or any of the other designations for music.  But I want something I can use without worry.

Podcast Duration

One of the descriptive items stored in the data base is podcast duration.

• It is used on the podcast play screen.
• It is used in the RSS Feed as one of the iTunes parameter.

I have entered the duration manually which means of course it is subject to error.

I am using a new routine called getid3 that gets information about an MP3 file including the duration.

• I changed the file / database comparison program to include duration
• About 10% of file duration did not match the database duration.  
• Most of them were off a second due to rounding.  I brought up several on audacity to see exactly how long they were.
• Several of them were apparently data entry issues - 3:12 instead of 3:21.
  
• But some were off by a minute or more.  Some of these the file was truncated.

So now I have a new task, to go through all the significant duration differences and see what the issues are.  There is at least one podcast that is truncated and might need to be re-edited.

Created a new process to update database

Created a process to automate the new podcast process.

Edit the podcast using Audacity

• Clean up the podcast
• Add music
• Add MP3 tags for name, date, and comments

Upload the MP3 file to the web server

Run a new program that finds all the new podcasts and adds them to the database as follows:

• URL
• Name and Date and Comments from MP3 tags
• File size and Duration derived

Then go to update program to add description and tags.

They will show up on podcast list when the date arrives automatically.

Completed the Converstion to the Database

The podcast meta-data is now all stored in the database.  All the programs are now changed to use the database. 

Next is the process to do new podcasts, upload them to the web server, and then update the database.

The Plan:

• Edit the MP3 file
• Add the MP3 tags
• Upload to the Webserver
• Generate the Database Update
• Run the verify programs.
  

Getting something done every day

Back to full implementation of the database.

For some of the processes, I read the database and created the podcast array and let the process read the array as it was doing.

But the major processes, I want to read the database directly.  Only one more set of processes to do to be completely on the database.

IP 72.30.142.226 is Killing My Database

My database kept disappearing.  All the data and table definitions were gone.  The actual database name remained.  It was as if someone had done a delete / define on the database.

As it turns out, that is exactly what was happening.  When I create a database, I create a series of PHP/MySQL files to do all the things required to build and maintain the database.

• Delete / define the database
• Delete / define the tables
• Load the tables
• List the tables
• Update the tables

It is a complete set of batch processes for maintaining the database.  It can all be done using online tools, but it is an easy way to have to recreate things when required.

I thought maybe someone was running some of the batch processes, so I added an email notification for each batch job.  It sends me an email whenever the job is executed.

Several mornings later I woke up to an email that told me IP 72.30.142.226 ran the database delete / define php program and zapped the database.  I had the processes to immediately rebuild the database, but that was not the issue.  Who was this killing my database?

72.30.142.226 is apparently part of the Yahoo search bot.  From now on it is all speculation.

• Can it be that to index the code it is being executed?  
• Is something more nefarious going on?  
• What could this be?
• And most importantly, how do I stop it from happening.

I made sure that website had a robots.txt file with a disallow for the directory.

Anyone have a clue what is going on?

Adding a Database to the site

All the information about the podcasts were kept in an online array. I am now moving them to a database. I have a couple of things in mind as I do this.

• I am trying to pay attention to the fact I could create a product for others to use - not so much for income as just to share.
• I am tempted to read the database, create the array, and call it done - but I want to have it data base driven, so I am going through and changing each of the programs.  
• Like most programmers, I cannot get into the programs without making changes and cleaning things up.

The more things change, the more things stay the same

The podcast has been dormant for almost a year. I went through each of the podcast directories where the podcast was once listed.

• Some of the directories are no longer there
• Some of the directories have morphed into something else
• But about 80% of the directories were still there with the BizIII entries.

 For some of the directories, it would stay out there for an indefinite period demonstrating that once it is on the Internet, it will stay for a long time.

Other directories, like the Yahoo Podcast Directory, are long gone.

BizIII Accounts

In producing a podcast like BizIII and registering the podcast on directories and other sites, there are dozens of accounts created.  Going back now to verify the accounts are still there is a long process of guessing user names and passwords, verifying the site is still active, and verifying it is a site I want to be using.

I am now using RoboForm so when I do capture user / password the information is captured in a  way that I can easily access it.

I guess over all I am surprised at how much is still there, how much the footprint remains even after many months of the podcast being dormant.

Social Systems - Bookmarking

I have been working on the BizIII website - a little bit every day.  Today I was verifying all the social bookmarking sites. 

It creates perspective to see what was important some months ago - del.icio.us and other social booking marking sites were important.  Today social systems are all about social networking sites.

I was interested to find out that both Google and Yahoo still have social bookmarking sites.

Tending a Web System is like tending a Garden

Yesterday I said I was reviving BizIII. I have started going through the website, blog, RSS feeds, and all the various pieces that comprise a Web Application.

Because it has been in disuse. It is like going back to a garden.

• There are weeds. (broken and obsolete links)
• There are bugs. (code that does no longer works because of environment changes)
• There are new crops (newer and better ways of doing things)
• There are dead crops (affiliate and ad accounts that are no longer active)
  

There is always the decision about whether to start over, or to start cleaning and improving.  I I am going to try cleaning and improving for now.

The plan is to do a little bit everyday.

BizIII Revival

I am going to revive the daily podcasts. I am going through the process of reviewing website, blogs, and all the links to get everything up to date.

Steady as she goes

I have not made any posts for a while. The Podcast has been "steady as she goes". The infrastructure has remained somewhat constant for a while. That is soon to change. The first change is to add Database support.

The site is data driven using tables and files, but I am going to switch to MySQL.

I read back over some posts from a while ago, and first mentioned moving to MySQL in May of 2006. How time flies. One of the things holding it up was that the current web hosting does not support MySQL.

BizIII becomes a Vlog

Starting next week, BizIII will add video. We are recording both audio and video, and will release as both a video and an audio. It will add a level of complication, but we are anxious to see where it leads.

BizIII Administration

Continue to enhance the BizIII Administration functionality. It is set of webpages that contains links to the sites that support BizIII.

Google Adsense

Enhanced the Google Adsense on the website.

We use the BizIII website as a lab for what we discuss on the Podcasts. We reviewed Google adsense and all the varieties, and then added some to the website.

Adsense has the following types

1) Content (Text ads and Links)
2) Search
3) Referrals

We added more referrals and both types of content adsense.

Podlinez - Podcasts on the Phone

"Podlinez is a free service that lets you listen to podcasts on your phone."

BizIII is now available through Podlinez and can be listed to on the phone.

Listen By Phone

podlinez.net

How to Construct Your Privacy Policy

"Constructing a privacy policy is a simple process. Simply fill out the questions below and submit it to us - we'll send you a Web page to post to your site."

Most every website needs a privacy policy. This website contains a fill in the blanks tool to generate a privacy policy.

SpringWidget

Get this widget!

snap.com

Added snap.com to the entire website.

snap.com adds a visual of the webpage when you mouse over the link.

• It is implemented for the website using javascript. I added it to the DWT once and it was there.
• It replaces other mouse overs.
• It does not work for relative links, only absolute links.
• The first time it is used for a linked to webpage, it creates the image.

It is certainly fun to see for a while. I will evaluate after a while and see if I still like it.

Internet Presence

Enhanced the BizIII Internet Presence Page

The idea is to loosely keep track of where BizIII exists on the Internet

Podcast Directories
RSS Directories
Website Directories
Social Network Sites
Social Bookmarking Sites
Video Sharing Sites

As with other things on the website, it serves as an example and an illustration for things we discuss on the podcast.

Evoca

Added functionality to allow visitors to leave a voice comment.

The functionality is provided by Evoca.

See the BizIII contact page.

Podtrac Survey

Set up the Podtrac Podcast Survey on each page.

Modified the menu entries to compress into less space to make room for the survey.

Google Site Map

Installed some PHP code in order to generate a Google Sitemap File.

Modified the PHP code to generate an entry for each Podcast.

Next Version Complete

We will continue to refine the Website and Blog, but we have reached a plateau that we will call another version. We are not releasing major versions, but just continuing to refine the Website and Blog.

The next effort will be to revisit the effort to work with the BizIII community.

• Provide more ways for listeners to provide feedback including leaving audio that can be included in the podcasts.
• Use a service to capture better statistics to determine how many downloads are taking place.
• Perhaps add a survey, perhaps use the one from Podtrac.
• Start watching the Google Analytics information.

Cleaned up the Code

Cleaned up the PHP code. Created includes, standard routines, and data driven processes to make the code easier to maintain.

Cleaned up the HTML code. Put web pages into the appropriate folders.

Add to Social Media Sites

For each podcast, added the capability to add the podcast to a number of Social Bookmarking and Social News sites.

Set up a table driven process to define different Social Media sites and the PHP code to generate the HTML to link to each of the sites.

The sites shows three dozen sites, which is excessive, but it also for instructional purposes.

Google Analytics

Added Google Analytics to the Website.

"Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You'll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors."

Administrative Enhancements

Added some programs to help administer the website.

To look at future podcasts and verify the Metadata and podcasts.

To create, validate, and propagate the RSS file.

To work with bookmarks on various levels.

1. To generate the code to add new bookmarks
2. To Generate a file to add a set of bookmarks when required

To Access the Control Panel and Statistics

Next up:

Improve the Google Sitemap process.

Podcast Play Enhancements

Added enhancements to the Podcast Play Webpage.

• Added "Send a Story Idea to BizIII", which gives a feedback mechanism for BizIII.
• Added "Shared this with a Friend", which sends a link to the podcast to a friend.
• Added Tag displays for each Podcast.

Next:

• Ability to add to show to the Social Media sites
  

BizIII Tag Cloud

Create a Tag Cloud for BizIII using del.icio.us

• Wrote a PHP program to create bookmarks for all the podcasts
• Loaded the bookmarks for each podcast into del.icio.us
• Created a Tag Cloud page using del.icio.us
• Put the Tag Cloud on the Website to provide another access into the BizIII podcasts
  

Tagging

Tagging / keywords were added for all podcasts.

• Added actual tags / keywords to the Podcast MetaData.
  
• Added tags / keyword displays to the Podcast list page and the Podcast Play page.
  
• Added tagging / keywords to the RSS file in the
  
  • iTunes keyword parameter
    
  • media keyword parameter
    
• Added this post to the BizIII Blog
• Load the tags into the del.icio.us bookmarks
• Created a del.icio.us tag cloud
  

BizIII Feedback

In one of our shows last week, we discussed user generated advertisments.

Any business can do this, even if it is small, by using testimonials and surveys. We try to follow our own advice, so I added testimonials to our website this week.

Archive List with Total of Podcasts

Added subtotals / totals of podcasts to the archive list.

This week we will hit a minor milestone of 150 podcasts.

Podcast List with Archives

The Podcast List Webpage was changed to show podcasts with more options.

An archive sidebar was added so that the podcast list can be selected by

• Month
  
• The Last Two Months
  
• All.
  

The default is the the last two months.

RSS Feed - That's all for now

The RSS Feed for the BizIII podcast is complete for now.  It is always tempting to continue to tweak a process or a system, and I have been doing that.  But I am declaring victory and saying that is all for version 2.0 of the RSS Feed.

At the end of each Podcast, we say "Share this with a friend".  I added a "Share this with a Friend" link to the RSS Feed.

I also added a link in order for people to submit story ideas to BizIII.

The RSS Feed entries might be too much now.  There are graphics, logo, and email links.  It is no longer a simple RSS Feed item.  I will let it go for a while.  If I get tired of looking at all of that, I will back it off a little.  It is always easier of course to take a few things out (Comment out the code).

But that is it for the BizIII RSS Feed for a while.  Let me know what you think.        

RSS Feed - Continuous Improvement

More improvements to the RSS Feed tonight - both the RSS Feed and the RSS Process.

Added the Media RSS Module - RSS 2.0 Module and the Author parameter. Continued to test and verify the feed.

The BizIII RSS Feed - Improved

The BizIII RSS Feed is now an improved process.

One PHP program invokes the following:

1) Create the RSS Feed.
2) Show the RSS Feed.
3) Validate the RSS Feed.
4) Ping Feedburner

The BizIII RSS Feed

For better or worse, I wrote a PHP program to generate the RSS Feed. It needed some work which I finally had a chance to do, it now creates the RSS Feed much more automatically. The RSS XML file is updated when the PHP program is run. Things to add:

• Run the program every night at midnight
• Run the Feed Validation program
• Ping the Feedburner system that the RSS File is ready

I will get to those changes over the next couple of weeks.

BizIII Date Processing

Sometimes we record a BizIII podcast ahead of time. We have decided to deliver the podcasts daily, even if they are recorded in advance. To do that, we control what podcasts are shown and what podcasts are added to the RSS Feed by date control.

The default date is GMT, and we are in Pacific time, so the new Podcasts were being released 7 hours before midnight. Changed the process so that the new podcasts were released at midnight.

iTunes RSS

Changed the RSS by adding all the information for iTunes. I was using Feedburner to add all the iTunes code, but I wanted the control over the RSS Feed.

• I did not want to be overly dependent upon Feedburner to create the code
• Feedburner was creating some code that I did not care for, so now it is completely under the control of the PHP program that is creating the RSS feed.

I included the link for the iTunes RSS specifications.

Virtual Trade Show

We created a new webpage called the Virtual Trade Show. We are doing to start recording links to various sites we think our listeners will be interested in.

It will be BizIII pointing to products and services.

We created our first long audio and put it on the Virtual Trade Show page.

Consolidate Podcasts

Servers can quickly run out of room when dealing with audio and media. We were using several servers because servers were running out of room.

This was creating a bit of a jumble, so I cleaned up the server / podcast situation.

• I acquired a new server for www.wizard-creek.com from IPowerWeb with more space.
• I moved all the podcasts to the new server.
• I created a .htacess file with a 301 redirect to maintain consistency.
  
• I deleted all the podcasts from the alternate servers.
  

We are only using 4% of the server space at this time, so we are ok for a while.

We will consider the Amazon s3 option in the future.

BizIII Google Page Rank

We are out of the Google Sandbox. I have been watching the site to see when Google would give the site a page rank and note the back links.

Today the site opened with a page rank of 5 which is respectable.

Google is showing 8 back links for the site.

I know all the controversy about these two numbers, but last week both numbers were zero, so it is an improvement.

Wimpy Wasp

Finally got around to getting the video loaded to the website.

We had two videos done in AVI format. AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is the video standard for Windows.

I converted the files to FLV in order to use Flash on the website. I converted the files using RIVA FLV Encoder..

I converted to FLV for two reasons.

• One because Flash is widely available on Internet Browsers.
• Two to reduce the file sizes.

Comparison of file sizes

• AVI
  
• File one = 1,095,988 KB
  
• File two = 2,794,903 KB
  

• FLV
  
• File one = 15,760 KB
• File two = 39,549 KB

I am using Wimpy Wasp to play the video on the website. Wimpy Wash is a standard Flash player with both HTML and JavaScript options.

Performancing for FireFox

A new product that allows posting to a blog from with in the FireFox browser. I am getting errors so I might wait for a bit, but this post finally made it.

It seems to bypass the security check.

Performancing, Helping Bloggers Succeed

Google Adsense

Added Google adsense to the website.

Added two of the Adsense types.

• Adsense for content - the standard adsense ads
• Referral - a referral ad for Google Adwords.

Just the basics for now, but I am curious about all the books about Adsense and what can be done to get more revenue from adsense.

FTP Commander

FTP Commander is our FTP product of choice. It is a free product with basic functionality.

We record the podcasts, then FTP them to a FTP Server for post production. After post production, we use FTP Commander to send the podcasts to the website server for including on the site.

We had one audio editor who had problems with FTP Commander and Firewalls, and FireFTP is being used by that person.

Behringer Eurorack UB1202

The mixer we are using is the Behringer Eurorack UB1202. It appears to be a fine mixer.

I have read the manual. I have sent questions to Behringer. There are still questions on how to set it up to do everything we are looking to do.

When I have it figured out, I will post the wiring diagram.

Phone Interviews

We want to do more phone interviews. We have a nice audio setup, but we do not know how best to use it for phone interviews.

Reading on the internet suggests a great number of different approaches from Skype to Hybrid products.

We want to use our microphones, mixer, and external sound card as well as add someone in from the phone. I will keep reading and figure something out.

It appears that the idea is just to remember that all input goes into the mixer and all output comes from the mixer, and just work within that framework.

Technorati

Signed BizIII up for Technorati so I could establish an Technorati watchlist for BizIII.

I did find a couple of blog references to BizIII.

I was also reminded that biziii is a word in another language. I will get alerts for that word also.

Biziii is apparently a Turkish word, but I am not sure what it means.

Amazon.com

We sometimes mention books in the BizIII podcasts. It might be a book that one of us is reading, or a book that illustrates a point for the podcast.

We signed up to be an Amazon affiliate and created a page called BizIII Books. Each book that we mention we add to the BizIII Books page with a link to the book on Amazon.

We do not want to give full scripts of our podcasts, they are only 3 minutes. We do want to help people find things that we mention. This will take care of books.

Use our RSS Feed on Your Website

On a suggestion, I added the HTML code that a webmaster could cut and paste to generate a webpage with the last 10 BizIII podcasts.

It would be a dynamic page that changes every day as new podcasts are added.

I had the page there, but added the HTML code to be copied and pasted.

BizIII Favicon

Added the favicon today.

The favicon is the icon that shows on the browser address bar before the URL. It is not required. Browsers use a default when it is not provided.

It is a file called favicon.ico that is loaded to the web server. If it is there, browsers will show it on the address bar and on the favorites or bookmarks.

For BizIII, I used the entire logo which makes it all too small.

Yahoo is a good example of a bright favicon. Blogger has a good one also.

I use the online service FavIcon from Pics - "the first web tool for creating still / animated favicons from regular images." I like it because it is web based, fast, and you can see the results on the page.

Website Hosting by Desktop Anywhere

Our website hosting is done by Desktop Anywhere.

Desktop Anywhere is not primarily a web hosting company. They provide a subscription SaaS (Software as a Service) solution for small businesses.

It is an interesting service. It is worth a look.

Website Visits

The website continues to show an upward curve for visitors.

As we continue to grow, I will publish the actual numbers.

BizIII in the News

I subscribe to Small Business Trends. They are doing podcast reviews so I submitted BizIII for review.

The review came out today, so I added a page to the BizIII website called BizIII Feedback to point to articles that mention BizIII. It is the first one.

The review starts out by saying. "This week’s Podcast Review is about another terrific small business podcast, BizIII by Mike Hughes and Les Bain."

Podcast Directories

Every day I register BizIII with at least one podcast directory.

The value of one directory is minimal, but then it does not take much time. It is my opinion that the cumulative weight of all the directories will help the BizIII podcast gain critical mass.

I am keeping track and one day will publish a list of directories. Better yet, I will add a page to the website with the list of directories.

Squeet Sponsor

Today we became a Squeet Sponsor. See the link above for details.

We will sponsor between 5000 and 10,000 emails with the message about BizIII. Squeet provides a summary of impressions and clicks.

It is always fascinating to try different marketing opportunities and see the results. If you are Squeet subscriber, watch for our ad over the next couple of days.

iTunes

Submitted the podcast to iTunes. I have been letting Feedburner generate the iTunes RSS statements, but they are not the way I want them.

I am generating all the RSS code using PHP, so I probably will just add the iTunes code to the PHP program. Right now the short and long description are the same.

I will find a way to update the picture also. I read that it is the picture that first draws listeners.

Squeet

Squeet is a service that provides email access to RSS Feeds.

Today I signed up with Squeet as a publisher of two feeds in order to track the feeds.

The combination of RSS feeds plus squeet gives a comprehensive distribution for the BizIII podcasts.

FeedBurner Email

We are big proponents of RSS, but we are also aware that there are still many who prefer email.

Today, we added Feedburner Email as a way to subscribe the the BizIII podcasts.

Feedburner Email is a publisher service. All subscribers can be viewed. Opt-in and Opt-out is controlled by the subscriber.

If you are already using FeedBurner as we are, it makes sense to also provide this service.

zixxo.com

Zixxo is an online coupon service.

• Zixxo offers advertisers a way to generate free coupons for specials and discounts.
  
• Zixxo offers users a way to get coupons to use either locally or nationally for a variety of services.

Today, the BizIII podcast features Zixxo, so we put out our own coupon for a discount on consulting services.

The coupon provides another reference to BizIII on the internet. The coupon mentions the daily podcast.

It is all part of the process of bringing attention to BizIII.

Addendum: Got a nice note from Mike Hogan, the CEO of zixxo.com. He liked the show and subscribed to BizIII.

Google Account

Google offers various services. Step one is to create a Google account.

I started with Google Sitemap.

The next service I selected was Google Alerts.

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

I created an alert for BizIII, so I can watch each time Google finds BizIII on the web or in the news. The first alert caught up with various references. Each day seems to bring another one.

Google Site Map

Everyone one wants their website to be found on Google, and the Google sitemap is one way Google helps webmasters.

Google Sitemaps helps Google find new content on your website, and gives you a way to tell Google which webpages are the most important.

I used Free Site Map Generator to create a sitemap to submit to Google. The sitemap for Google is not so important to the BizIII website now, because we have only a few pages, but it is another step that needs to be set up and done on a regular basis.

This Sitemap Generator service is free and has some nice features. I will make sure to invoke the more advanced features in the near future, but for today, the goal is to create a sitemap and submit it to Google.

Feedburner BuzzBoost

One of the pages in the website was created using the Feedburner feature call BuzzBoost. BuzzBoost converts the Feed to HTML so it can be displayed as part of a webpage.

We have a page featuring our Podcast RSS. We invite others to use the page to add dynamic content to their site.

The display of the Feed was not what we wanted, so new CSS was created to enhance the display. Feedburner does an adequate job of providing instructions to tailor the display.

Wizard Creek Consulting Links

Google indexed the BizIII website last month, but there were no links to the BizIII website and the Google PageRank for BizIII is zero. The Google PageRank is a number from zero to 10 that measures the importance of the website to Google. Ten is the most important. The Google website is a 10, the BizIII website is a zero.

To start the process of getting links for BizIII and creating a respectable PageRank, I created a link from the Wizard Creek Consulting website.

There are 14 Wizard Creek blogs. Most of them are link blogs on various topics. I added a link and a description to each of the Wizard Creek blogs. There now should be fifteen links to BizIII.

It is all part of the online marketing of BizIII.

Share Your OPML

BizIII generates two RSS feeds, one for the podcasts and one for this blog. We encourage you to subscribe to either one or both.

We are starting the process of marketing the Website, the Feeds, the Podcast, and the Blog.

We will use this blog to keep track of where we do the online marketing.

I subscribe to both RSS Feeds. RSS Feed readers store their list of RSS feeds in an OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) file. The Share Your OPML system lets individuals like me share their OPML file with others. I did that, so the BizIII RSS Feeds are now a part of that system.

The BizIII feeds are not in the top 100 yet, but give it time.

Blogger

This blog was created using Blogger, the blogging system now owned by Google.

There are many fine blogging systems available, and Google does not seem to be enriching their product as much as other vendors are enriching theirs, but it is easy to get started with Blogger. We started with Blogger, but if Google continues to ignore the product, we will move to another system in time.

For now, we were anxious to start keeping track of things that we are learning and the tools that we are using.

Some PHP code

We wanted some flexibility in presenting the podcasts online, so we did some PHP coding.

It is a rush job, but it does what we need it to for now. The podcast information is stored in an array, which of course will be converted to a database.

The array is read and listed by some PHP code in the Podcast list. When a podcast is selected, PHP code generates the streaming code.

We are also using PHP to generate the RSS Feed.

Publish Often

Number 4 of the tenets of Web 2.0 that Tim O'Reilly defined was the "End of the Software Release Cycle". We do not claim to be a Web 2.0 company, but we do hold to that strategy. We are publishing the website, the blog, the podcasts, and the RSS feed now.

We intend to revise often, to improve often, to publish often.

It is consistent with our overall philosophy of setting up a process quickly, starting to use the process, and continuing to improve the process.

Audio Streaming with Sonic Memo

We were looking for a good way to stream audio on the website. There are lots of products, but we selected Sonic Memo Lite. There tag line is "Streaming Web Audio for the Rest of Us".

After you download the product, it works like this.

• Enter the appropriate information into the product, including mp3 file name, type of buttons, and colors.
• The product creates the HTML code.
• Copy paste the HTML code into the website.

The product has some nice features like being able to encrypt the mp3 file name.

In all fairness, we did not do extensive research, we picked a product based on a promotion, but we got a nice product. We will consider moving up to the professional version.

Autodiscovery Links

Autodiscovery allows the browse that is reading a website to autodiscover any RSS Feeds that are available. In FireFox, an orange icon is shown to the right of the address line to indicate that FireFox found an RSS feed.

Autodiscovery works by reading HTML statements in the header.

The following statement was added to www.biziii.com to facilitate autodiscovery.

link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="BizIII"
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BizIII"

Website Template

The original design of the website template was done by Andreas Viklund. I used a template called andreas01 which has had over 200,000 downloads in 9 months.

FeedBurner

We are using Feedburner to manage our RSS Feed.

We use FeedBurner

• to provide statistics on the feed
  
• to provide the functionality of FeedFlare
• to add the iTunes parameters
• to dress up the browser view
• to add our logo and title
• to use the SmartCast functionality for Podcasts
• to use BuzzBoost to display the RSS Feed on the website

Feedburner continues to add services to enhance RSS Feeds. Out plan is to continue to use Feedburner and use the new services as they are introduced.

Audio Streaming

When I surf the Web, I see lots of Audio files and they all have pretty quick streaming. Many times it invokes QuickTime. Other times Windows Media Player, Real Player, or Flash.

I had done a little work with Audio on websites, and so I was not anticipating any serious problems, but Audio Streaming was not as easy as I anticipated.

Then I started to pay attention to all the ads I saw advertising Audio streaming products and began to realize why they were so popular. To do smooth audio streaming, it takes a bit of work. Many podcasts just put the mp3 file out there and let QuickTime play away, but we wanted the podcast to play while on the website.

I started to try different audio streaming products, and soon realized that most were based on flash, most generated HTML that required tailoring, and few provided any real control. And few if any products were able to provide instant streaming for dozens of audio files on one webpage.

Those that sell these products are probably all clamoring to say that their product will deliver all of that, and probably so, but I was having difficulty finding what I wanted.

The RSS Feed

We started with a website. The website has all the podcasts. I generate an RSS feed to distribute the podcasts.

I could have created a blog and let the blog generate the RSS Feed. I did not want to do that right away. I thought I would have more control. It was just more work.

But I do know something about RSS. I wrote an RSS Tutorial and knew how to generate an RSS Feed. I created an RSS feed using a product called RSS Builder.

It is nice product and it built the rss feed quickly, but it still meant keeping the website and the rss feed in sync. It was working but it needed some instant improvement.

But first I had to improve the Audio Streaming on the website.

Website or Blog

We have been doing the podcast for a while, and I am just starting the blog, so it will be a bit jumbled at first. I am blogging to capture what we learned, and to keep notes for others.

I had some experience building websites, so I was the one to create the website for the podcasts.

The first question I asked myself was whether to create a website or a blog, or both. We decided on both, starting with the website. The website was to create the web presence.

We created the website, but it was ragged and I kept waiting for some time to do it right. But that is not the way we wanted to work. Our philosophy was to start doing it, then call that a process, and then start to improve the process. But to keep moving forward.

So I found a free web template, created a presentable website, put in the standard pages, and started to work on capturing our podcasts on the website.

It was much more difficult to add the podcasts than I imagined it was going to be.

"It does not sound good."

We recorded some podcasts. We were happy with the format and what was said, but the sound was not very good.

We had an audio expert listen to what we recorded. His assessment was simple ... "It does not sound good." We asked him about the content. He shrugged. He was obviously not listening to the content.

We bought some professional equipment and the recordings started to sound much better. We bought three good microphones, a mixer, and some software. We are using Sony's Sound Forge.

We frankly did not do much research, we found someone that others respected and let him guide us. We used Mike Stewart, the Internet Audio Guy. That is pretty much our philosophy. Find an expert and ask them. We perhaps spent more than we had to, but we did not have the research time and we had a consultant as well as a salesman.

We were able then to record podcasts that sounded good, we had a format we liked, and we had good sound. We had several audio files with podcasts. Now what?