I was interviewed for the Mr. Media show, and he was singing the praises of using the app from stitcher.com on his show. I decided to look into it (and the company) and I found it interesting. I'm interviewing a representative for my podcast tonight.
As of now, it is official. You can find the School of Podcasting on stitcher.com As someone who runs the School of Podcasting, I often jump into a pool so I can turn to all and explain how the water is. I recently did an episode where I tried out the new Electro Voice RE320.
Now I'm dipping my toes in the Stitcher water. Stitcher is an app for your phone (iphone, android, blackberry, palm) where you can listen to the School of Podcasting (and many other great podcasts) without having to synchronize your device. Without having to download the files. It remembers where you are in the episode. It's cool.
I've always been a person who said, “Give your content to people in the format they want it.” If you're a stitcher person, you can now find me.
If you're new to it, you can find out more at www.stitcher.com/davej They are even running a fun monthly contest where when you sign up (it's free) you get a chance to win $100. To get it on your phone, go to www.stitcher.com/davejand enter your email address and they will email you the link to your phone (it's easy). When you register, hit the promo code box and enter davej to get automatically entered to win $100 (yes kids thats an affiliate link, but I would be trying this even without an affiliate program).
Stitcher seems to be a company that is looking to make it easy to consume your content. They now have a deal with Sonos (the wireless system) to make it easy to pipe podcasts throughout your home. Stitcher will be offered in 2012 in all Buick Sedans (which I find ironic as I think of “older people” when I hear the word Buick). They will also be offered in Chevy cars. Their app ahs won awards as “Best App Ever” in the news section of the iPhone. Speaking of iPhones, you can also get Stitcher on your iPad.
Who is using stitcher? Adam Corolla, Kevin Smith to name jsut a few. I know Greg Fitzsimmons is NOT. He was asked to be taken OFF. Which leads me to my interview tonight.
I am interviewing a stitcher representative tonight. I see the ease of the platform. I see the cutting of the apple synchronization cord. I understand there are some monetization tools available. There are some very interesting stats (like how many listeners listened to the entire podcast) that you can get any place else.
What have you heard about stitcher? Have you used it? Did you like it? Hate it? Would you use it?
Leave your comments below. My interview is at 7 PM EST tonight.
I use Stitcher, but you can only stream podcasts that have been submitted/accepted first. Isn´t there other directories like that, and how is that different from iTunes on iPhone – and iTunes has all podcasts (that have been submitted by the podcasters, and not only “featured” podcasts.
The big difference is you don’t have to download. It also (on the Android and soon on the iPhone) has kind of a Pandora effect, where it loosk at what you listen to, and suggests other podcasts.
Good stuff Dave,
Stitcher is on its way I suppose. While iTunes is still the staple for podcasters, it should be a good alternative for the newer smartphone users that find our shows. Android folks are growing and the Blackberry folks have been looking for easier ways to get our content. For podcasters, having a “other than I” option is smart.
Rev. Kenn Blanchard
The Urban Shooter Podcast.
Nice idea what is the target market is it people that don’t use itunes or are new to podcasts? its like a app to stream any podcast could be more usefull for non iphone phones. I don’t like it though because it wants my facebook login and for me to setup a user account – I just deleted it.
Questions
Does it brand itself to your podcasts ie can you change the logo?
What stats can you get on your podcasts downloads via stitcher?
The only way they make money is the ads on the bottom of the app. The stats are cool. You can see how long a person listened.
I’ve used it. I haven’t dived into it completely though. I’m used to the normal iTunes sync to the audio section and I play shows from iTunes directly at work, so kind of wedded to that system right now.
From what I played with, Stitcher is good. You don’t have to log in with Facebook or anything – you can sign up directly. I started messing with the Favorites which, from what I could tell is essentially the equivalent of iTunes Podcast subscriptions. It does have live shows and various on demand so you can really have a “radio” experience if you don’t have 100+ podcast you’re subscribed to (like me). It shows the icon for the show and the show notes right on the screen. Because it is streaming, you can flip from the smartphone app to the web app and pick up your show immediately without syncing.
My problem with it is that it is “just” another icon in the sea of apps I already have on my iPhone. Since my phone doubles as a older kid pacifier with the games and some of their music, plus audiobooks etc. that I’m always in, I would have a hard time making Stitcher one of my home row icons as I do use all of them now. Which means if I’m in Twitter or a game or something while listening to a show and I need to quickly mute the speaker, I have to go hunt down the icon for Stitcher. If there was any way they could add themselves directly into the iPod or Audio piece on the iPhone, like Audible does with audiobooks, it would be ideal. ‘Course I think that would kill their ad revenue.
It’s not a big deal, but I also am not a big fan of ad based apps – the service they offer is great and more power to them, but if I get fat-fingered and am trying to pause a show and hit the ad by mistake, it gets annoying.
My last negative on it is, for me, I’m not always in an area with a signal. For whatever reason, the laundry folding area of my house blocks both the cell and the wireless signals – I wouldn’t be able to listen to shows, if I understand the tech behind stitcher.
Thats me. My signal on verizon (can you hear me now? Um. No I can’t. Not in the basement of my brother’s house at least) Is not always on. this is what shot the foot of the Amazon Cloud for me. I’m trying to listen to a song and it rebuffers.
I love Stitcher. I listen to podcasts everyday, many of them daily and I don’t want to take 5 minutes syncing every morning, especially when new podcasts come out throughout the day.
A couple of improvement I would suggest would be to support podcasts that post several ‘chapters’ at the same time where they break a program into multiple segments. Stitcher only plays the top one on the list naturally; it’s a pain to catch it before that chapter ends and manually select each subsequent part.
Also, I’d like to be able to toggle on and off the ‘new’ flag. Sometimes I want to re-listen to a podcast where I might have missed something, or ignore one of the daily news casts that I subscribe.
Otherwise, Stitcher’s been a godsend!
I’ve had Stitcher on my device since April 2009. But I only use it once a week if even that often. I have a few “like to hear when convenient” shows in my favorites list. These are shows that don’t really matter if I miss an episode or two. I have it set to only play the latest episode.
I tried to get to of my shows in their system a year or so ago — and they said they would add them — but I’ve never seen them offered. Search doesn’t return the shows. Guess I should revisit the idea.
I agree with Scott on many of the features. I don’t like the fact that it turns off when I visit another app, nor do I like the fact that I can only get shows that are in their system. I have tried Beyond Pod on my Windoze phone. It is good, but the Windows OS on the phone is simply so klunky that it doesn’t do a good job serving up media content for me. I’ve used the Blackberry Podcast app. It works very well. On my iPod/iPhone I find that I simply stick to iTunes synch, BUT I use the Podcast and Audiobook Player app to deliver my content. It’s much more robust and lets me scan ahead or rewind in 1 minute, 10 minute, or 10 second increments. It also lets me use a sleep feature and has a feature called “Time Travel.” If I’m listening and get distracted or called away during listening, I can revisit what my player was playing at any given time today, yesterday, etc.