How to get podcasts into iTunes and how to get more than just the most recent show to download are questions I get frequently.

In the past, I have used the descriptions in the Digital Podcast Forums, but I thought I would create a short video tutorial that explains how to get podcasts into your iTunes player, download multiple episodes and delete podcasts from iTunes.

If you just got your new iPod and want to get some podcasts into iTunes so you can listen to them on your computer or iPod this video is for you.

Technorati Tags: how to get podcasts into itunes, how to get podcasts on iPod

In what must have been some marvelous licensing legal wizardry, The Financial Times is reporting that Apple has signed a deal with News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to provide an online video-on-demand service. The service will allow consumers to rent the latest Fox DVD releases by downloading a digital copy from Apple’s iTunes platform for a limited time.

Both Apple and Fox are officially quiet about the deal and the Financial Times says that it is likely the deal will be announced at Macworld on January 14th.

The deal goes beyond movie rentals in that Apple will also for the first time extend its FairPlay digital rights management system beyond its own products.

A digital file protected by FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to be transferred or “ripped” from the disc to a computer and video iPod. DVD content can already be moved to an iPod but this requires special software and is considered piracy by some studios.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Fox, video, iTunes, Fairplay, DRM, online video rental

I just checked Google analytics for the daily stats at Digital Podcast and I saw the biggest one time increase in daily visitors and page views. Digital Podcast’s traffic jumped up by 80% on Christmas day. I looked at the distribution of search terms for some anomaly, but it wasn’t there. Search terms remained consistent in their distribution.

I think that people got lots of iPods, Zunes and the like for Christmas and went looking for content.

I also think that Christmas day has probably become the biggest day ever for the music industry thanks to iTunes cards. I know for sure that’s the case in my home as my daughter spent her $30 iTunes gift cards before noon and my son spent his by 4pm. That’s the first time either of them has bought music online and it didn’t take long.

No wonder Apple’s stock almost hit $200 per share.

Technorati Tags: ipod, Apple, iTunes, Zune, Microsoft

Business Week is reporting that Universal chief Doug Morris is enlisting other big music players for a service to challenge iTunes and the iPod.

The world’s most powerful music executive aims to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service. BusinessWeek has learned that Morris has already enlisted Sony BMG Music Entertainment as a potential partner and is talking to Warner Music Group. Together the three would control about 75% of the music sold in the U.S. Besides competing head-on with Apple Inc.’s (AAPL ) music store, Morris and his allies hope to move digital music beyond the iPod-iTunes universe by nurturing the likes of Microsoft’s Zune media player and Sony’s PlayStation and by working with the wireless carriers. The service, which is one of several initiatives the music majors are considering to help reverse sliding sales, will be called Total Music.

While I like the idea of a service that could compete effectively with iTunes and create a more compelling solution for the other device makers, it’s hard for me to see how they will get past the DOJ antitrust issues relating to companies who control 75% of the market joining together to offer a bundled product.

Even more problematic are the issues relating to the economics of the deal.

The big question is whether the makers of music players and phones can charge enough to cover the cost of baking in the subscription. Under one scenario industry insiders figure the cost per player would amount to about $90. They arrived at that number by assuming people hang on to a music player or phone for 18 months before upgrading. Eighteen times a $5 subscription fee equals $90.

Even if they can get past the DOJ anti-trust issues relating to Total Music, it does not seem to me that the economics of a bundled $90 subscription per player would work for either the device or recording industry. Adding $90 to the price of a player would surely depress player sales and probably still not be enough to cover the royalties required for a service that will let you play anything any time.

Is this idea destined for a pileup somewhere along the digital media highway?

Via Techmeme

Technorati Tags: Universal, UMG, TotalMusic, Total Music, iPod, iTunes

eMusic, the music service that has given Apple’s iTunes the most competition in the song-download arena will now offer audiobooks in mp3 format, too.

The biggest selling point for eMusic is also its biggest point of controversy: the site uses the MP3 format, which works on any digital player but lacks digital rights management technology, that protects copyrighted material from unlimited duplication.

This should provide some really interesting competition between iTunes, eMusic and Audible.

NOTE: Digital Podcast is an affiliate of eMusic and if you use the link above to purchase eMusic we will get some money sent our way.

Apple had it’s big announcement event today and had a lot to share, but the big news that has caught the attention of the media is the price cut on the iPhone. The 8GB iPhone will now be $200 less costly coming in at $399.

As expected, Apple also announced a video Nano, a touch screen iPod similar to the iPhone without the phone, and build your own custom ringtones for the iPhone. Apple even inked a partnership with Starbucks that sounds like fun.

Jobs also announced that Apple’s iTunes podcast directory had hit a milestone of 125,000 podcasts. Jobs made the announcement as part of his introduction of the fall iPod line.
“This is amazing material,” said Jobs. “It’s free, and over 25k are video podcasts.” Go podcasting!

Having reviewed all that, forgive me if I don’t gush all over the place. I love my iPod and I like what Apple’s doing, but the news today just didn’t seem to have the impact that I have come to expect from Apple’s big announcements. The lead story picked up by big media is the price cut, and while that’s nice for consumers, it’s just a bit depressing if you ask me.

Apple will not add new NBC shows in iTunes due to a contracting disagreement between Apple and iTunes. NBC tried to force Apple to raise prices on its shows to $4.99 from the current $1.99.

This means that popular shows like The Office, Heros, Saturday Night Live and other NBC shows will no longer be available via iTunes. Apple is likely to pull all the NBC shows off iTunes.

NBC, which plans it’s own online video site with News Corp, said that the dispute was caused by Apple’s unwillingness to let NBC package together shows with variable pricing.

It seems to me that Apple should be able to control it’s retail prices, not NBC. If NBC wants to raise it’s prices to iTunes that’s NBC’s business. The desire for NBC to control a stand alone retailers pricing is just wrong, and maybe illegal as well.

In a 1911,the Supreme Court concluded that under the Sherman Antitrust Act, it was illegal for a manufacturer and distributor to set a minimum retail price for its products. However in June, 2007, the Supreme Court made a new decision that price maintenance plans will be decided on an individual basis, and courts will consider whether a particular plan is likely to increase or decrease consumer welfare. So it’s not clear what NBC might be able to get away with regarding setting retail prices.

In any case, NBC should be building a strong distribution channel and without iTunes they have cut themselves out of a lot of the market. We will have to wait and see how it plays out.

iTunes blew by Amazon to become the third largest music retailer in the US. Amazon was growing, but not as fast as iTunes apparently.

iTunes still lags behind Best Buy and Walmart, but I bet that it’s only a matter of time before iTunes digital downloading blows by those two as well.

Apple has followed through with an earlier announcment about launching DRM free MP3s from EMI.

Apple announced the launch of iTunes Plus—DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums available on iTunes for the first time.

iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.

Apple has set up a web page called the iTunes Podcast Spotlight. Much of the page is dedicated to promoting public radio, BBC and other big media podcasts, but a few independents seem to be included.

I think it’s great that Apple is continuing to support podcasting, although I am disappointed in the design quality of the spotlight page - Apple can do better.