S60 Open to new features

Just a reminder to check out the Nokia Music Podcast at our other blogspace: www.blogs.s60.com/nokiamusicpodcast

The shows are about 30-40 minutes long with full tracks, song commentaries and interviews with artists from many genres.

We started this show to try to practice what we preach... not only talk about podcasting, but also get hands on experience with all aspects of it. From the concepts, creation, distribution, etc.

It also helps to see different things which can be done in the RSS feeds to add value to the mobile podcast experience... and also the things which are a challenge. (Uh.. choosing "Go to Website" from the mobile takes me to the Music blog, but you have to scroll through a MESS of the side bars before finding the proper content. I think its a problem with the template of Movabletype, but something that still needs work to get a better experience.

But I've enjoyed finding podcasts which utilize the COMMENTS in the RSS feed so the mobile link can take you directly to browse or make comments on the device which is cool.

ANYWAY...

You can leave comments for the Nokia Music Podcast about the artists or recommend other "podsafe music" for consideration in upcoming shows as well. Let us know if there is a genre you are aching to hear that we arent hitting yet.

The RSS feed is one of the first defaults of in the FEATURED section of Nokia Podcasting DIRECTORIES.

Here is the RSS feed for the Nokia Music Podcast show to paste into your Nokia Podcasting application or your favourite PC/Mac Podcatcher:
http://blogs.s60.com/nokiamusicpodcast/posts.xml

Thanks for listening.

Media file meta-data entries (e.g ID3 tags) are becoming more important as podcasts are tranferred from PC to be played back on mobile devices.

To simplify episode management for users, populate the commonly used ID3 tags in your media files. These tags should be correct and valid and match the items of your RSS feed.

1. The “title” ID3 tag should match the item < title > in the RSS feed for the episode.

2. Set the “genre” ID3 tag to “Podcast”. This allows users to download MP3 files to their PC and synchronize them to their Nokia device using for example Windows Media Player (WMP) . If the Nokia device has a music player which allows you to search by Genre, it will then recognize the episode as a Podcast.

3. The “album” ID3 tag should match the < title > RSS tag of your Podcast feed.

4. The “artist” ID3 tag should match the item < author > RSS tag.

5. If you are using album art, use a small JPEG image (max. 30kB) and tag it as “Album Cover (front)” in WMP10 or WMP11. (Go to the Windows Media Player.
Find your podcast digital file (mp3).
Right click the file and use the ADVANCE TAG EDITOR.
Click the PICTURES tab and click ADD.
Browse for your artwork and click OPEN.
Change PICTURE TYPE to "Cover (Front)" and APPLY. Then Click "OK"

The graphic should now be embedded in your mp3 file and show up nicely when playing back on most Nokia NSeries devices (with the spiffy NSeries Music Player. For example, N95, N91, N76, N75, N73 Music Edition, N70 Music Edition)

If you dont do this, the artwork might not show up on the Nokia music player. (If adding artwork in other players, it might have the art listed as a separate file and not show up.)

Its important that your podcasts look as great as they sound... Do you really want your show showing up with "Artist: Unknown" "Genre Unknown" "Title: Unknown" with no artwork? Didnt think so.

More hints to help you get the most out of managing your Podcasts on the Nokia Podcasting app:

Subscribe to GOOGLE Calendar in Nokia Podcasting

You can now subscribe to your Google calendar (http://calendar.google.com) in the Nokia Podcasting application.

Log into Google Calendar. From the Google calendar, select:
Calendar Settings, Calendar Details.

Add the XML link under “Private Address” as a Podcast in the Nokia Podcasting application. (From the Nokia Podcasting app under PODCASTSS, click OPTIONS>NEW PODCAST and type in the RSS)

Simple, huh?

This is not only a nice feature for you, but its also a way for other family members, friends, or carpoolers keep track of who is where at what time. Thanks Google!