My recommendation, if you want to use FeedBurner, is to alias *their* version of your feed with something under *your* control - for example, create a DNS alias http://feed.yourblog.com/ that points to http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourblog - and have your subscribers subscribe to http://feed.yourblog.com/ - that way, if feedburner.com goes down for an extended period (or permanently) you can point the thing that they’re subscribing to to a different feed burning service, or back to your base feed, or to a static file that explains what’s happening, or… anything you like - because *you’re* in control.

Or, if you control your web server’s configuration, create a symbolic link, e.g. so that http://yourblog.com/burnedfeed points to http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourblog - then if feedburner.com goes offline, point http://yourblog.com/burnedfeed to something else.

Bottom line - *you* control yourblog.com - you *don’t* control feedburner.com - but you hand over availability of your content to them, if your subscribers subscribe to a feed with their domain name. If that’s not a concern for you, cool! I’m sure the customers of Purecast thought it was cool to have their subscribers point to a feed on purecastmedia.com - right up until the point when purecastmedia.com went off the air, permanently. And left those customers with no way to tell their subscribers where their new home would be.

Thanks!

- Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS

That’s a project of the Podshow Network, and I think they will probably be offering a storage service soon too. I imagine that will be more trustworthy than many other options. It’ll probably be more reliable than Libsyn, which in my limited experience seems to go down with greater frequency than I am comfortable.

Tom - excellent points - I wasn’t trying to write a comprehensive “how to produce a professional podcast” post, I was trying to write a “how not to get caught out by a service going belly up post”. You mention the Internet Archive - OurMedia uses the Internet Archive’s infrastructure, and as I mentioned in my post, in my experience, it can take weeks for files to appear on OurMedia, and some never do.

Using the above steps, you will always have your work residing in a reputable repository that will be available for the foreseeable generations to come.

Suggestions:
Use the license options available with the Creative Commons project, and your work will automatically be identified through “tagging” by search engines, e.g., Google’s Creative Commons search.

Use the Internet Archive at http://www.archive.org .

* Include setting up a free online store account with sites such as cafepress.com, or http://www.cafepress.com , and offer deluxe versions, compilations, and gear for your podcasts.

* music is freely available from independent artists who follow the above steps, and can be found at sites such as SONG STORM, http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/php/playlist.php and other sites. Might as well add a theme and make all your podcasts ready-to-go radio shows. For more free help with this aspect, just reach out to Open Studios, http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/

Disclaimer: I work with Open Studios and SONG STORM, both nonprofit projects where all services are free. Our mission is to replenish our public domain, but don’t let that stop you. We try not to interfere with copyright holders who want to make money.