Welcome To iTunes

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Vanseo Design podcast. My name is Steven Bradley and I’ll be your host for the next few minutes. Huh? I can already here some of you thinking, “Umm, yeah Steve, we know who you are and we know what site we’re on. How about just getting on with it.” Well it’s possible that not everyone listening does know these things.

Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen. You can also subscribe in iTunes

A few days ago as I’m recording, which means a few weeks ago as you’re listening (or reading) I submitted my podcast feed to the iTunes store. I guess I didn’t do anything wrong or break any rules and a few hours later they accepted the feed into the store.

While I don’t expect there will be many people who only know the show through iTunes, I figured there could be some and an intro to start things was probably in order. Maybe in the coming weeks, I’ll look for some music to open and close the recording and make what’s here a little more professional.

I assume most of you find your way here through my general rss feed whether in a feed reader or through email. Maybe you periodically visit the site or were directed here via a link. I’m guessing the majority of you who listen do so in an rss reader or in a browser.

If you prefer you can now subscribe through iTunes and listen however you listen to iTunes podcasts. Just visit the iTunes store and search for Vanseo Design and you should find the show. You can also click the link below the audio player above or the one a couple of sentences back. If you do subscribe through iTunes I certainly won’t object to a 5 star review.

Why and How I Submitted to iTunes

I had planned to submit to iTunes when I first started recording, but I was somewhat self conscious with the first few. I wasn’t sure whether or not the audio quality would be ok and I wasn’t sure how coherent I’d be in speaking and recording myself. My coherency of lack there of is likely still in debate.

Given my apprehension, I didn’t submit right away and then I kind of forgot about it. Expanding the reach of this site feeds into a few of the goals I set for 2014 and in the last month I started thinking about it again. I forget what it was now, but something reminded me last week that I wanted to submit to iTunes and I thought I should go ahead and figure out what I needed to do to make it happen.

I researched what I needed to do technically and discovered it wasn’t much. I use the Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin for WordPress to display the audio here. PowerPress really did all the work. It created the feed I would need to submit to iTunes and submitting was filling out a simple form. The previous link will open the form in iTunes.

There was one thing I did need to do. Every post that should be in the feed requires me to add a link to a custom field PowerPress creates. I had done that for the first recording, but none after. A couple hours of copying and pasting and I was all set. It was a pain, but hardly anything difficult.

Then I submitted and waited till the next morning when I received an email welcoming me to iTunes.

I don’t expect to find myself at the top of any iTunes charts in the near or distant future, but it is another avenue for people to find their way here and it does offer another way to listen for anyone who has a dedicated podcasting app or prefers to listen some way other than listening in a browser.

Future Change and Feedback

While it’s not a huge change, being included with all the other podcasts in iTunes, is a change and one change seems like a good time to think about others. I’m now considering where I should take this podcast. Until submitting, I wasn’t really thinking of changing anything. Now I am wondering if I should make some changes and thought I’d ask for some feedback.

What do you think about what I’ve been doing the last year or so with these recordings? What would you like to hear over the next year or so? Are there specific topics you’d like to hear me cover?

If you haven’t been listening long or just found the show through iTunes, these recordings are usually ordinary blog posts that include audio. This particular one is a bit different, but they usually share some thoughts about design, development, running a freelance business, or something related to those topics.

You can find all the recordings including their written versions at vanseodesign.com/tag/podcast/ if you’d like to listen to older podcasts or read the associated post.

Initially I was writing the post first and after it was done I’d record it. I didn’t record word for word. I used the post more as a guide. I changed that over the last couple of months and now record the podcast first. While editing the audio file I’ll take notes on what I said and then turn those notes into what you’re reading now. I think it helps make the recording more spontaneous and natural.

For those of you who have been listening awhile how has the above process been working for you? Do you like having both an audio and a written version? Do you prefer one over the other? If so which one?

How about the recordings?

How is the audio quality?
Am I expressing myself clearly enough?
Would you prefer longer shows? Shorter ones?

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Any and all feedback is welcome. Again if you do like the show head on over to iTunes, subscribe to the iTunes feed, and leave me a wonderful 5 start review. If you don’t like the show…well …you can skip the review part and just leave a comment below or even email me if you prefer. Feedback of any kind really is welcome.

Looking Ahead

Part of why I started these podcasts was to get comfortable recording my voice as a precursor for creating screencasts. It’s another of my goals for the year and I have been slowly practicing.

I’m finding I can record my voice pretty well in a screencast, but I still have trouble talking and typing code at the same time. Trying to focus on both at the same time is so much more difficult than some make it appear. When I focus on one I lose my focus on the other and I’m working out when that happens so I can stumble less. I think within a couple of months I’ll be ok and doing well enough and you’ll start to see screencasts here.

Other than the push toward screencasts and adding an intro to the start of these recordings, I don’t have anything planned at the moment. It just feels like I should and I’ll be happy to listen to any suggestions you have.

Sorry today’s recording was more about me than design or freelancing or one of the usual topics. I’ll get back to something more design related next week.

Once again if you’d like to listen to the show via iTunes you can search the store for Vanseo Design or you can click this link. If you do I’d appreciate a review to help others find the podcast and hopefully find the site as well.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

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