I saw the power of Stitcher when it first came out. The ability to listen to podcasts without downloading them is definitely a great answer for those who wanted to cut the cord iTunes. When I heard they were being added to cars in the future, I was even more impressed. Anything that makes consuming podcasts easier I'm all about. Yes they change the format of your show so its mono and easier to stream and for some that's a deal breaker, but for those of us doing talk its not (at least not for me).
Podcatching in the Cloud
I was on my wife's iPad and I saw where stitcher had released an html5 version of their app for your desktop. While I was on the iPad, I added some more shows to my favorites. This morning I powered up the stitcher app on my android and there were my new stations. I started listening to the Rock and Roll Geek show. This show holds up (even though its now a music show in mono), and I made it through about half of the show. I unfortunately had to get out in the middle of a great song called Sarah by a band called USA!USA!USA!. I get into work, got to my desk, and fired up the Stitcher web app. I signed in, and click on the Rock and Roll Geek show in Stitcher picked up right where I left off after a lovely women stated, “Resuming episode.” – That was cool.
My Stitcher Wish List
First, make the web app be able to do everything the phone app can do. I like the ability to make stations. What I do with this feature is make categories such as “Podcasting” (where all the podcasts about podcasting can be listed), and “Marketing” etc. While I can make the stations on my phone, I'd love to be able to do it on the web.
I accidentally hit the “next” icon when listening to one podcast. Stitcher apparently had the “Jeopardy” rule where they will only take your first answer. There was no way for me to get that episode back to listen. Can we have an “undo” of some sorts?
I'm use to listening to some of my favorite podcasts on 2X speed. This allows me to be subscribed to 62 podcasts and consume their content before their next episode comes out. This is becoming more difficult as my commute went from 50 minutes to 30 recently so my “in the car” time is down. I'm not sure this is an option as these are streaming files and not downloads.
The web app doesn't have any skip buttons. By this I mean a “skip backwards 30 seconds” or “skip forward a minute (great for skipping commercials). There is a progress bar that you can use to accomplish this, but one click buttons that could be programmed (to set how far to skip) would be great.
As Stitcher is always innovating and adding new features I'm sure its only a matter of time until their web app is as smart as their phone app.
Stitcher is Doing a Good Job of Being Everywhere
When I logged into my Stitcher partner portal I see where you can now put a player on your site. There is no download option (again Stitcher is more about streaming) but its an easy way to put a player on your website. Their player comes in the following sizes:
- Large (400×180)
- Normal (300×180)
- Small (220×154)
- Mini (140×84)
You can see the player at the bottom of this post
Grow Your Audience by 15%
Here are some stats from my “School of Podcasting” podcast the first number is the number of listens on Stitcher, the second is my number from my Libsyn.com stats.
Statistics for Podcast Promotion and Marketing Ideas – Podcast Goddess (95/685) 14%
Statistics for Podcast Promotion in Bulk and Dustin Hartzler of YourWebsiteEngineer.com (151/954) 15%
Cutting Your Editing Time by 70% (117/981) 12%
Stitcher Activation Code
If you want to check out Stitcher on your phone, ipad, etc use the code “davej” to activate the free software.
