GoDaddy Now Offering Podcast Hosting!
I was wondering when this would happen, a direct competitor with Liberated Syndication for an all in one solution for podcast hosting. Today I found it and it was by accident. I was logged onto GoDaddy, where I have my domain names and I looked north and saw “NEW! Quick Podcast, Create and share your own podcast!”. I looked into it further and I was pleasantly surprised.
I was expecting to find and expensive service that just gave you some space to host some files. Nope wrong. GoDaddy are offering a choice of three plans. Economy, Deluxe and Premium Plans and a domain name is only $1.99 U.S. with any plan (normally around $10-12 U.S. per year).
Economy - From $4.99/month
- 1GB Disk space
- 100 GB Bandwidth
- Up to 3,600 Downloads per month
Deluxe – From $14.99/month
- 5 GB Disk space
- 300 GB Bandwidth
- Up to 10,800 Downloads per month
Premium- From $24.99/month
- 10 GB Disk space
- 500 GB Bandwidth
- Up to 18,000 Downloads per month
Save 15% on that when you get 24 months 10% for 12 (not bad eh?)
Note: Estimated downloads per month are based on a very generous 1 hour talk show encoded at 64 bit which is an average of about 28 MB in size.
So based on those figures and using The Global Geek Podcast which averages under an hour (usually) and is once a week. We could have the Economy Plan which will allow for a maximum download per month of 3,600. Or 900 downloads per show, give or take. That is a very reasonable audience for a beginning podcast. If you get more listeners and can not afford to go up in plan then decrease the bit rate to 56 or even 44 this will give you bandwidth to burn. Although check out my article on bit rates and the dilemma that may face you if you need to do this. The other thing is that with an audience over 500 you are probably getting enough reach to make some money from advertising and might be able to cover the costs or part there of to enable you to go up in plans.
Also offered as part of any plan:
- Statistics
- RSS Feed Generation
- 24/7 Tech Support (at time of this blog the wait time for support was 3 minutes)
- Podcast Listing service and automatic “pinging” of directories
- Host Multiple podcast’s on the same service
- Wide choice of templates and themes
- Simple web page (that means easy management!)
- On site player
- Publish RSS Feeds on your Blog
- Link media with a published article
So that is it in a nut shell. Sure it is bandwidth limited, BUT don’t over estimate your audience! The other thing is that the Economy Plan is cheaper than LibSyn. I think that the Economy Plan is a great starter plan, you can make changes to the way you present your podcast should these needs change and then look to make some money and go up in plans. Just my opinion though.
With GoDaddy’s excellent service, market presence, size and the state of LibSyn at the moment I think they will give them a run for their money. I would definitely consider this as an option if I was starting out again or you are considering a new podcast.
GoDaddy is not a sponsor of either The Global Geek Podcast or The Podcast Network – although they are most welcome to contact Cam if they want to be.
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:14 am
Comparing their podcast hosting to their plain vanilla hosting, it looks like you’re paying a hefty premium for whatever podcast software they bundle with the plans:
Premium plan (podcasts): 10 GB space, 500 GB transfer, $24.99/mo
Premium plan (regular): 100 GB space, 1 TB transfer, 14.99/mo
And the regular premium plan is more expensive than the basic plan at Dreamhost, which is $9.95/mo for 20 GB storage and 1 TB transfer.
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:44 am
Hey G’day Brendan – glad to see you made the switch.
Looking at the bundle, it looked pretty impressive, there looked to be good stats and other extras. I agree the download limits are a little restrictive. But the big bonus in my book is definately the 24/7 tech support. And the fact that they do the RSS and the pinging of servers.
Cost wise; the service does get more expensive the higher the bandwidth and storage, but as I said in the post – I don’t think a new podcast needs anything more than the Basic package. Plus there are steps you can take to increase your listeners, without increasing your plan. I was just thinking now and if you liked the service, the interface and learned how it all worked, maybe you could purchase some basic storage on GoDaddy and just link to the content by adjusting the links and such. Don’t know if that would work or if it would be cheaper but it might be a good stop-gap. Just a thought.
I guess if you were a new podcaster this stuff that we think is basic knowledge now can take a lot to get your head around. My guess – but I think some people would never work it out.
The other thing is that GoDaddy would be garanteed to work, hands down. I know at LibSyn we were starting to see some cracks in the service and a lot of band-aids being applied. So I guess from my perspective having been there myself and as confused as a deaf bat, I appreciate the service.
I think it is also about accessability – if podcasting does not become more accessable then we are just going to have a steady diet of “tech” podcasts and it won’t open up for everyone. It will never be dead simple but I think this service goes a long way.
July 22nd, 2006 at 3:08 am
Yeah, I suppose it depends on the kind of software you get with GoDaddy. If it’s really great, to the extent that people who couldn’t podcast before can now do so, I guess it could justify some of that extra expense.
It would be interesting to see a comparison of the GoDaddy service vs Libsyn. And/or perhaps an exploration of the software options available if you decide to get regular web hosting and put a podcast on it. I know there’s a podcast plug-in of some kind for Wordpress, that sort of stuff.
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Go Daddy seems to ignore the fact that the fastest growing segment of podcasting is video podcasting. Bigger files, lots more bandwidth and space needed. It seems like they are deliberately not courting video podcasters with the statement, “1-Hour Talk-Show”. Big mistake there.
As far as the other services go, LibSyn does all of that already, including RSS feed generation, pinging and really good stats. And as an active, long term podcaster I don’t like bandwidth limits and storage ceilings.
So while it’s nice to see other hosts targeting podcasters I think that Go Daddy has fallen short in providing features that would entice experienced podcasters to use their service.