Comments on: NY Times Podcasts without iTunes

By: Julien

Julien — Sun, 02 May 2010 15:11:45 +0000

Thanks a lot.
You made at least one happy french.

Merci

By: Illinoisjoe

Illinoisjoe — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:14:59 +0000

found the freakonomics podcast:
http://podcasts.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/freakonomicsradio.xml

By: kjchen

kjchen — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:54:38 +0000

beat down ipod！！！

By: Ilya

Ilya — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:35:26 +0000

Thanks for posting these links! I had almost given up on times podcasts.

By: TFB

TFB — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:54:48 +0000

Jeff – I agree. I speculated that NYT might be paid by Apple for only advertising iTunes links. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Even if it is, I don’t blame them for wanting to get paid. I’m actually helping them promote their podcasts to non-iTunes users. Their podcasts mention the paper a lot — “for more info on … read … column in New York Times.” The more people listen to the podcasts, the more people read their paper or visit their website, the better off NYT is. I think New York Times does a good job. I’d like to see them stay in business.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:29:57 +0000

You’re absolutely right – I did not understand that process, and what you describe certainly obviates the point I made. I’d still expect that there is a resource decision in there somewhere: is Apple paying for them to use iTunes as the delivery mechanism? Why would we not offer it through a different mechanism? etc.

Really, though, all of this is peripheral to the question I *should* have asked at the start: why pick on a business that’s providing something for free? Hey, I’m with you on the frustration part: I’ve used Macs for 20+ years (no affiliation w/ Apple, other than using the product), and can’t count how many times something wasn’t available to me because of that. But if someone were giving away a free couch but required that it be picked up, and I didn’t have a car, could I honestly be annoyed because they won’t deliver it to me? Makes me think of the old saying: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!

By: TFB

TFB — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:18:56 +0000

Jeff – I guess you don’t understand how these podcasts are done. NY Times decided to produce these audio content to promote their business. They put them on their servers at these “raw” addresses. iTunes provides a directory listing of these podcasts. When you download a podcast from iTunes, you are downloading from the NY Times servers at exactly these same addresses. iTunes simply masks these raw addresses. There’s no recreating anything or any additional resource allocation. It’s done once and only once.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:45:48 +0000

I enjoy your podcast but had to comment on this particular post. In particular, the comment that “free should be free for everyone, not just iTunes users” struck me. Let’s remember that this is a business that’s providing this content, not a non-profit, and they have resource allocation decisions to make. Should they really prioritize having someone spend time creating and re-creating the content in the infinite varieties of free delivery formats? Or should they create the content in a format that a good part of the interested audience can use, knowing others who are interesting in different formats can choose to allocate their resources (time) to convert it? It seems to be perfectly sensible business behavior.

By: TFB

TFB — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:19:29 +0000

Roberta - You must have come from the old post on Sun's Financial Diary where I made a comment in *2007*. Chase didn't get rid of the $50 bonus on $200 reward back then. Nearly two years later, they are getting rid of it now.

By: Roberta Petrocci

Roberta Petrocci — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:48:03 +0000

You are wrong about the Chase Freedom Ultimate Rewards (the $30 annual fee one) We will no longer get $250 when requesting our reward of $200. I know as I missed it by 9¢