How can I share 50+ podcasts?

June 12, 2007 7:56 AM

What is a good way to share the 50+ (phew) podcasts I listen to? A number of friends hear me talk about the greatness of podcasts and they want to know what I'm listening to. I'm stuck as to finding a good way to share my list, I can't copy my subscription list from iTunes. If I had just a few, or if I wasn't adding/subtracting podcasts regularly, it wouldn't be a big deal. Is there a way I can place my list of podcasts on the web that I can update regularly, with descriptions and links to the subscription feeds?
posted by scottso17 to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Places like Odeo and Yahoo! Podcasts (I think) allow you to manage your subscription online and aggregate all your podcast subscriptions into a single RSS, OPML, or whatever sort of feed.
posted by mkb at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2007

Just to be clear, you're asking about your subscriptions in the iTunes music store, right? If they don't have any kind of export mechanism you might just have to do it manually.
posted by rhizome at 8:51 AM on June 12, 2007

scottso17: When you come up with a solution, can you let us know what you went with and post a link to the list (both because I would like to see how this is implemented, and because I'm interested in listening to more podcasts). Thanks!
posted by andoatnp at 9:16 AM on June 12, 2007

Best answer: If you right-click on 'Podcasts' in your source list, choose 'Export Song List...', and then save it in 'OPML' format, you'll get an XML file that lists your podcasts, with their title and subscription URL.

This OPML file can be directly imported into iTunes on another person's computer, and they'll be subscribed to all the podcasts in it.

Or someone with some free time (possibly me, later this evening, when I'm drunk and bored) could write a script that massages this OPML file into a nice HTML page.
posted by chrismear at 9:16 AM on June 12, 2007

If I were you, I would manage my subscriptions using Odeo (i do). Then subscribe to your Odeo feed in iTunes (1 subscription in iTunes gets you all of your feeds). This will allow you to display your dynamic list on your own web space. The added benefits will include:

1. Not having to resubscribe to all of your feeds if you decide to leave iTunes.
2. Having a bigger selection of Podcasts.

Good luck.
posted by TheAnswer at 9:27 AM on June 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the great suggestions, everyone. I'm a bit opposed to switching my subscriptions to Odeo or Yahoo. I like being able to subscribe/unsubscribe via the iTunes Store, have no intention of dropping iTunes (I actually like it), and I use extensive Smart Playlists to manage my podcasts.

Like chrismear suggested -- I'm going to try exporting the OPML list later tonight when I'm home and see if I can upload that to a site somewhere.

Once I get the results onto a page somewhere, I'll definitely post a link on this thread.

Thanks for your suggestions and I'd love to hear any others out there.
posted by scottso17 at 10:40 AM on June 12, 2007

Another option is to use bloglines to subscribe to podcast rss feeds. You can make your feeds public to share them with the rest of the world. Here is an example (just now created) of how this can work.



Below the list of podcasts there is an "export subscriptions" link that lets you create an opml list which can be imported into other software.

You can download any of these podcasts by right clicking on the "enclosure" link in the individual feed entry and doing "save as".
posted by metadave at 11:02 AM on June 12, 2007

oops.... the link did not go through - trying again:

http://bloglines.com/public/podcast-sample

posted by metadave at 11:05 AM on June 12, 2007

it works!
posted by Wilder at 1:17 PM on June 12, 2007