Wednesday
Sep212011
CSS Resources for Squarespace: Episode 106
It's time for Episode 106 of the unofficial Squarespace podcast, Content, Structure & Style: Squarespace CSS Resources.
In this episode we dive into the best way to podcast with Squarespace, uncover some of the best CSS resources available to the Squarespace community, and speculate on some of the upcoming goodness of Squarespace V6.
Do you have questions about Squarespace? Ask us your question and we'll cover it on the air in a future show. You may even win Squarespace gear.
Update on Thursday, September 22, 2011 by
Alan
Alan
Alan recorded a screencast [see comments section] to show you the behind-the-scenes podcast settings on our site.
Reader Comments (9)
Re: using another hosting solution for your audio (MP3):
If using archive.org, or other hosting— I would still keep your "post" on Squarespace, where you manage your podcast's content. Simply upload the MP3 elsewhere, and add the link to the MP3 within your Squarespace post.
I recorded a Screencast to explain how this works...
BEHIND THE CURTAIN ON OUR SITE [a screencast]
RE: Upload limits...
Another thing to keep in-mind with your audio, is the fact that generally— if a show is only spoken-word, you could export the audio at a lower quality. We export our audio at "CD-Quality, 128kbps", which in my early days of podcasting, would be unheard-of. :)
Here's an example of our show (originally 22MB), converted at a MONO setting— reducing the size to 5.8MB. The quality sounds poor, sort-of like AM radio, but since this is the lowest setting, it's not horrible. (and there's a step-better than this one) | LINK: http://cl.ly/AN96
RE: Upload limits...
After posting the above audio (using CloudApp), I happened to wonder if you can use CloudApp for hosting the audio for a podcast, and I say— YES YOU CAN. The free account gives you 10 uploads per day & up-to 25MB upload limit. Here's their support post on the subject:
http://support.getcloudapp.com/discussions/help/1928-can-i-host-a-podcast-using-the-paid-cloudapp-service
And DropBox apparently works the same way:
http://jackspirko.com/forum/index.php?topic=102.0
But certainly research this yourself. I've found that with podcasting, you need to continually play until you get it right.
In response to the issue of moving itunes feeds from SquareSpace to Feed Burner etc, I had the same problem, and dealt with Square Space.
It took a while, but in the end they changed their system to allow their shortened URL system so that I could set up a 301 redirect from the feed I gave to iTunes and forward that to the Feedburner feed. It is not the prettiest way around, but it works. All I had to do was change the name of what used to be the feed to something new It used to be Full/rss.xml and I changed it to Total/rss.xml Then I set the Feedburner feed to take from Total/rss.xml and anyone who subscribed via full/rss.xml was forwarded directly to the Feedburner feed that worked.
I had to work with the folks as SquareSpace for a week to get them to OK this, but in the end they did, and I am now a VERY happy camper.
I just happened onto this concern too.
After a couple emails from insider-friends saying that my SS-hosted audio was cutting out partway through the playback in the BROWSER (Chrome in each case, and I found that true too), I set about starting a service ticket. Found that SS doesn't have the setup for playback at a podcast level. They don't do byte-range requests. Okay. I was a bit let down considering that since no one had reported snags to me before, and since SS was found to be a great solution in part because of the things I read during my research last year that said podcasting was doable. I guess it still is as long as any end users are working from the RSS and downloading accordingly, or if (now I went to all my 18 episodes and edited them to instruct this) they are instructed to at least right-click and download that way. But for the people who either don't know or don't care about that and find our stuff in the browser, enclosed in a blog post, I could see more snags.
It looks like this podcast here is done within SS. No problems? My show is running close to 30 minutes (and I don't know if sheer time/file size is the matter), which I guess is a bit shorter than yours. Did SS not tell you about this byte-range stuff? They never mentioned it to me, even after giving me a space upgrade based on a request to accommodate my podcasting needs. I'd hope that they would have a flag go up when a customer talks about deepening his commitment to something they can't handle.
I do look forward to one of the suggested hosting solutions, but not to paying more when I was under the impression that SS could handle the load, and that our mid-level plan was able to deal with our foreseeable needs.
I did get to Ourmedia.org/Archive.org and think I set up a channel or whatever I need to do. Uploaded something too but it can't be found. I am perfectly confused. Certainly want to try the free stuff before moving on to LibSyn or Hipcast. Bah.
Hey guys.
You talked a lot about Squarespace, feeds, and the issues of how to direct users to the material, but my experience is that Squarespace isn't cut out for efficiently handling the "weight" of audio podcasts in the first place. Okay, so you talked about free hosting, but I think it would be far more responsible to tell people up front that Squarespace, by not having byte-request ability (I don't know all the jargon), isn't able to serve the file as well as something like Libsyn, Hipcast. In SS help they do sort of offer those names but I think it a bit disingenuous to not say that openly (like they do with video talk, outright suggesting YouTube or Vimeo) that your podcast can choke while played in a browser, which, due to some complaints, is how I found out about all this.
So after nearly 20 episodes and thinking my SS feed (blog and 'cast) was all I needed, I am off at Libsyn getting re-established there. And because SS can't handle just adding a simple iTunes new file URL tag in the XML, it looks like any subscribers will have to be told to resubscribe. Okay, I'm not a big fish yet, and this doesn't topple any grand house of cards, but really... during the various support tickets regarding podcasting, SS help did not give me a clue about this? I even fretted and asked for more server space earlier in the year when they said they were gonna slam the door on files larger than 20mb. They offered me 150mb. Apparently though, that is a secret deal since others still are under the impression that 20 is all there is. But at that time, it would be responsible to say they're not really set up for podcasting/serving large files.
And, I know...podcasting is for download. But not everyone works that way. You have to allow that people will happen into a site, play the episode from the browser, perhaps in total ignorance of feeds, iTunes, or whatever. So that browser playback has to work. And that's what SS even told me they can't do properly. So it sort of spoils the fun, and makes the "unlimited bandwidth" pitch a relatively useless thing for podcasters. Sure, they won't charge extra, but their machines can't do the job either.
Now I have to get Libsyn set up, have to make a decision whether the current combined feed will do the trick, have to decide on if Feedburner has a place in the scheme, or what... It's kind of maddening.
Can someone put Ed's comments above into plain English for me?
What are we really saying the podcast limitations are in S. S?
Thanks for providing practical insights about using podcasts on S.S.
I noticed, while listening to your podcasts in iTunes, that your podcasts have the same 'issue' as ours - there is no way to pause & resume them. Once they are paused, they resume from to the beginning. Very inconvenient & no-standard to iTunes behavior.
There is also no track length information - the information that goes on the right side of the podcast stream.
1. Are these S.S. issues?
2. Is there any way around these issues using solutions native to S.S without going to an outside resource?
Thanks
Thanks again Ed. I saw your post on the Squarespace forum.
You shouldn't have to "double-up" your feed. Just add the MP3 URL to the Squarespace post where you link your audio. I've done this on many past shows, on several platforms. Honestly, I think LibSyn is grossly over-priced. Outside of Squarespace hosted shows, I always have used my Dreamhost (shared hosting) account for hosting audio-only -or- WordPress + audio, at a rate of only $7.95/month.