Hey Diggers and Podcasters - I’m a programmer at Digg, and I want to give you an update on the new Podcasts section we launched Monday.
What a couple of days! We’re amazed and delighted by the amount of activity and the number of submissions. After just 72 hours, over 3,500 podcasts are live on Digg, and hundreds more have been submitted and are awaiting verification. Because of differences in the details of each podcast’s RSS, and because some podcasts have multiple feeds that must be consolidated, it takes a little time to verify submissions, but once they’re live, our automatic crawler handles the rest! We’ll try to verify new submissions within 48 hours. Thanks for your understanding as we get caught up.
Some of you podcasters have asked whether we can give better exposure to your own web sites on Digg’s pages. As you know, Digg lets you play audio and video podcasts right on the Digg web site. That’s a great way to give your site exposure, and we always play the program directly from your servers, so you can keep track of your stats.
But we know that some podcasters may not want Digg’s ads displayed next to their material as it plays. I understand, because I’m a podcaster myself. I produce the Creative Commons-licensed BayCHI Podcast, and I consider myself an advocate of free culture. So I’m sensitive to how CC-licensed material is displayed by sites like Digg.
Out of respect for the work of my fellow volunteers who organize the BayCHI programs, I’ve asked Digg to display a “Listen at Podcast Site” button that jumps to BayCHI’s completely non-commercial web site, where we provide our own “Play” button. Check it out!
If you’re the producer of a podcast and want Digg to direct Diggers to your site, instead of playing your podcast directly on Digg, simply email podcasters@digg.com and we’ll hook you up.
Thanks for your continued input and support for this new feature on Digg!