SONR: New Updates

I've added a few new updates to SONR, which can be viewed here. Most notably, the skip in the player once a track loads is fixed and the beta version of statistic graphs are now working. Enjoy!

SONR: New blog location

I’ve decided to integrate the SONR blog directly into the site, so please make sure you visit sonr.net/blog for further updates that directly relate to SONR. Thanks!

SONR: Host transfer complete and service live

SONR has successfully been transferred to its new host and should slowly begin to propagate across the DNS world. The domain sonr.net is working for me, and www.sonr.net shouldn’t be far behind. If you are still not seeing it, you can use the IP address (72.22.76.181) to get to it in the meantime. Thank you for all your patience!!

Now, for what’s new!

NEW Pricing: SONR is now a completely free tool for podcasters to track their content with. Previously, the cost of tracking each podcast was between $2.00 to $3.00 USD, but after long thought and debate, we’ve decided to make the service absolutely free. In the future, we will think about charging a subscription fee for premium features, but that’s way down the road, so in the mean time, enjoy the service!

NEW Jumps: Jumps are a new feature that allows you to take your listener on a tour while they listen to your podcast. This feature is only available in the pop up player, not the embedded player (more on that later), so the web page behind the player now becomes a stage for your podcast! Imagine if you are talking to an artist and during the interview you display a slideshow of their paintings in the browser for the listener to watch! This is a fun and exciting way to add so much more depth to your content! Also, this could be a great way to get the listener to your sponsor’s website!

NEW Embedded Player: Now you can embed the SONR player right in your web page and get the same information about a listener’s actions as you would with the pop-up player. Some features, such as jumps are removed, but you still get all the great tracking you need to analyze your podcast.

NEW Code: Behind the scenes we’ve modified the tracking code a bit that is going to give you great ways to visualize what the user is doing. Soon, we will be taking this data and giving you some great new graphs that will help you see your podcast in a whole new way!

NEW Host: I’ve moved SONR to a new host for dependability and have removed the service from BETA.

Additionally, we’ve fixed a few bugs that have popped up and tried to streamline the code to make everything faster. It’s been a great couple of weeks; I hope you enjoy what’s come from it!

SONR: Switching hosts…

SONR is currently in the process of moving to a new host. Any accounts or podcasts added after 10:00 AM EST on 2/27/06 are not guaranteed to be available after the switch. I will update this blog once the switch is completed.

SONR: advertising, portable devices, and the web based player

First, I wanted to give everyone a quick update on what’s going on with SONR.

Right now, I’m in the middle of setting up a hosting account that I will be more dependable for the site and I’ll be moving the service over (so expect some down time in the next week or so). Once that is done, we’ll go live with the service. Oh, and the live version will have a bunch of updates. I’ve added some very cool things based on how people have been talking about SONR. I’ll post here when the switch begins, so that those of you will be aware of any outages.

Speaking of how people have been talking about SONR, I want to give some feedback on some of the things I’ve been hearing lately. Almost every time I hear the mention of SONR, advertising is in the same sentence. Now, maybe a bad move on my part, but I never intended SONR to be a tool that allows podcasters to get advertisers to sponsor their podcasts. That could be a side effect, but I always intended this to be a tool that helps you, the podcaster, better understand how people are using your podcasts. What segments of your podcast are most listened to, which episodes have the highest rate of full listens, which of your other podcasts did my IP address listen to, things that help you to understand what you can do to create a better, more appealing, podcast.

The reason why is that we can’t track stats when played through anything but the SONR player. Yes, that would be a very nice problem to solve, but that is kind of out of my hands so I’d rather focus on ways to make the web listening experience (An experience that is in our hands, you and I, and we can control) something incredible. The web right now is so alive with great people creating great, organic, social tools that I simply am overwhelmed with ideas on how their services could fit into, or inspire other ideas, on social listening of your podcast.

Simply put, we are going to be doing some really cool things that allow you to interact with your listener, and listeners to interact with other listeners, around your podcast, and that’s not something you can do on a portable device. The portable device has its advantages, but there is no reason we can’t create advantages away from it, while we figure out how to talk to it.