Author Topic: Confusion re: podcast feed and iTunes New Feed URL for PowerPress  (Read 3050 times)

paulandstorm

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Another question, I'm kinda confused, but that's because I'm slow...

Once again, am using WP 2.7.1 and PowerPress 0.7.2.

Prior to my most recent Powerpress upgrade, our podcast feed had been the following:
http://www.paulandstorm.com/archives/category/podcast/feed/ (herinafter referred to as the "old" feed)

After the upgrade to PowerPress 0.7.2, the new default podcast feed is set to:
http://www.paulandstorm.com/feed/podcast/ (herinafter referred to as the "new" feed)


Now, I have several questions:

- there does not seem to be anyplace in the PowerPress settings pages to edit our default podcast feed to put back the "old" feed as the default. We can enter new feed names and slugs, but they all are based on the "http://www.paulandstorm.com/feed/podcast/" directory. Is there no way to change this? Am I missing something here?

- We have no problem using the "new" feed, and have had it replaced as the feed iTunes is using. However, we of course need to notify current subscribers of the new feed, via the "new feed URL" tag. However, the PowerPress documentation is unclear: in the "Custom Feeds" option, if I go to the "iTunes New Feed URL" field, am I supposed to enter the "old" feed there? That is, do I fill that field with the URL that people are to be redirected *from* so that they can get to our "new" feed?

Thanks, sorry about my cluelessness here.

Paul Sabourin.

angelo

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Re: Confusion re: podcast feed and iTunes New Feed URL for PowerPress
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2009, 06:31:20 pm »
There is plenty of room for confusion.

Your "old" feed is actually a category feed. Podcast episodes/posts will only appear in that feed so long as you include that post/episode in that category. Some podcasters call this "category casting" and allows you to separate 1 or more podcasts on one site to separate feeds at the post level. (e.g post 1 in your podcast category feed, post 2 in your blog category feed, post 3 in your video category, etc...)

The custom podcast feeds provided by PowerPress have a different use. For example, if you're producing both an audio mp3 and a video m4v version of your podcast but the blog post/episode show notes are identical, then you would want to create a second custom podcast feed to separate your audio from your video. Not the same as category casting but still very useful to some.

If all you are doing is marking every podcast you do in the category called "podcast" and you are not creating any other copies in audio/video, then essentially your podcast category feed will be identical to your PowerPress podcast feed.

Since you already have your category feed established as your podcast feed, you can leave it that way and always make a conscious note that all podcast episodes you make must be included in the "podcast" category. This way your current subscribers will not be lost in the switch.

paulandstorm

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Re: Confusion re: podcast feed and iTunes New Feed URL for PowerPress
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2009, 11:28:09 pm »
Fair enough, and I have a better understanding of how this all works now; however, this doesn't answer my second question, at least for our future reference: regarding the "iTunes New Feed URL" field...is that where we would put our "old" URL to tell those subscribers where the "new" feed is (that is, doing so would put in a 301 redirect from the old to the new one)?

Thanks,

Paul.

angelo

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Re: Confusion re: podcast feed and iTunes New Feed URL for PowerPress
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2009, 09:08:33 am »
The New Feed URL setting is for folks who have been using Blubrry PowerPress's feed and have decided to switch to something else (e.g. FeedBurner) If you're switching from some other feed to the PowerPress feed, you will need to add the iTunes New Feed URL to the previous feed.

I would presume you're switching to PowerPress so you do not want to use this setting.