iTunes Podcasting Subscription

One key area where I see iTunes making a big difference in the podcasting space is improving the subscription process. Currently, most of the subscribe options require podcasters to explain to users how to right-click and copy the URL before pasting it into a specific podcast receiving application or news aggregator. At the moment, most of us are stuck with scaring listeners away when they click on a link that reveals raw RSS code. A few javascript hacks have attempted to make this better, but the real solution is to have something imbedded in the URL that directs listeners to a subscription location. iTunes does this better than any other option (assuming your podcast is already listed in iTunes) Clicking on a link to the iTunes page for your podcast launches iTunes and displays the page with the option to preview specific "episodes" or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

There are two ways to accomplish the iTunes launch. You can reference a standard http://link, which looks like this:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330048

Or you can use the iTunes Music Store Specific reference prefaced with itms:// which looks like this:

itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330048

Both options direct subscribers to your page in iTunes with a simply one-click subscribe process directly in iTunes.

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