Erik Markus on “podjacking”.

If someone is stealing your enclosures and using them to promote their own site in an RSS-feed it’s called “podjacking”. Eric Markus has written an article on “podjacking” worth reading.

I have no problems with podcast directories linking and pointing directly to MP3 files; but if someone were to hijack my shows I would react. Note to hijackers — I mention the Acecast name a couple of times on my shows, so you would have a hard time pretending it’s your show. Another reason to speak on your podcasts, rather then just do a mix.

Here’s a snip from the beginning of Erik’s article,

My first shows got barely a hundred listeners. But by last month, my audience was approaching 1500 people. Those may not be huge numbers, but I was proud of the relatively rapid growth in my audience. It came from a lot of hard work.

Then, out of the blue a few weeks ago, my audience collapsed overnight - it dropped by some 75 percent. My podcast had been “podjacked”.

If you’re involved in podcasting, you need to know about podjacking. This article will tell you what podjacking is, how to avoid becoming a victim, and how to take action if it happens to you.

Erik later states that,

As a podcaster, the URL you create for your RSS feed becomes the doorway through which your entire listenership arrives. Every single one of your listeners will come in through this doorway.

This is not entirely true for Acecast. I get around 10-15% of my downloads through the latest full mp3 podcast (mp3) link on the sidemenu (that link is not in my RSS feed). Give your listeners a chance to download your latest show directly from a prominent place on your website if you are a podcaster.

Thu, 22 Dec 2005