Today I continue my experiment with Podbean. Over the weekend I had 28 downloads of my More Podcast Money podcast (so their stats seem to work) I sent an email about their “no third party advertisements” policy. Here is the conversation:

I'm doing a blog series on Podbean. I see where if I want to run my own advertising using the Podcast (for example) podcaster pro account. I can't create my own advertising in my podcast and talk about it. Let's say I wanted to talk about stuffback.com because I'm an affiliate. I can't talk about it, or is this more about putting affiliate banners on my page at podbean.com?

I would love to interview someone from Podbean for my podcast about podcasting.
—
Dave Jackson
www.schoolofpodcasting.com
Personal Podcast Coaching

Their response:

You may check Affiliate program at
http://www.podbean.com/affiliate/affiliate/

You may email us any issue and we will get back to you shortly.

Should there be any further question, please feel free to contact us.

Regards

Daphne
Podbean Team

To this is replied:

Daphne,
I don't think you understand. If I want to promote the affiliate program of someone who is not podbean (say for example stuffback.com)
am I allowed to promote those products on my show?

Your website says this
http://faq.podbean.com/2011/04/21/can-i-monetize-my-site/

So I'm contacting you asking if I can talk about other products on my podcast. I'm asking for permission to promote third party items.

Also, can you tell me where I can learn about your company? (Where are you located, the staff, etc). There is only a contact button on the website, but no information about the people behind the company.

Dave Jackson
www.schoolofpodcasting.com

to this they replied:

David,

You may use one of our Business Level plans which allows you to run your own advertisement.

Regards

David
Podbean Team
www.podbean.com

Is anyone else noticing something strange? I've asked for an interview. I – a person with 700 – 1500 podcasters a week listening to me – and I can't get a reply to an interview request? I can't get a hint about where they are located. I did a WHOIS search and their domain name is registered through domainsbyproxy.com which keeps their information secret. There is no law against having a private domain. Oddly enough when I do the same for Blubrry.com I get the CEO's name and email. If I do the same search on Libyn, I get complete information. Hosting companies need to realize that they are the blood of a podcast. Podcasters put a ton of trust into who they choose as a podcast host.

Libsyn and Blubrry are podcast hosting companies started by podcasters. Podbean is….

I was hoping to find out. At this point I'm left asking, “Who Are You?“