Do you know what I have that you might not have, but I have? I have an RSS feed. Now you're saying, what the hell are you talking about? Well, let's talk about it.
It is Thursday, and on the Daily Grateful on Thursdays, we talk about podcasting. When I first started podcasting, it wasn't called podcasting. It was called, I was doing a nationally syndicated radio show, and every so once in a while, I would produce when I was, you know, sit around the house with five kids and nothing else to do. I would go in my studio and record Michael Crow's talks, and I would just stick it on the internet in different places.
It was like a seven to 10 to 15 minute thing, depending on what I was talking about. See, I did a gardening show, but on Michael Crow's talks, I didn't talk about gardening. I talked about my kids, family, cooking, the front yard, a lot about the front yard, climbing up on my roof and looking at the backyard. Okay, that's kind of about gardening, because I had a backyard that had the biggest above ground pool you've ever seen in your life, was in my backyard, and I wanted to landscape around it, but I had all these kids that were jumping in the pool and the chlorine water was coming out.
Anyway, why am I getting ahead of myself? RSS feeds. That's what we're here to talk about. When I got serious in podcasting, which was about 10 years ago, I said, okay, one of the things I learned that I needed was an RSS feed.
But what is an RSS feed? It stands for, I had this written down and now I don't have it. Really simple syndication. That's what it stands for.
Really simple syndication. It's this file that contains details about a website's content, or it is a file that contains details about an audio file that you are putting on the internet on a hosting platform. Everybody that has a podcast has to have their very own RSS feed. It has nothing to do with who you're hosting your podcast with.
You have to have an RSS feed. When you get the RSS feed, you're going to get it from your hosting company. It's your RSS feed forever. Even if you dump that hosting company and go to another one, you keep that.
It's sort of like a fingerprint. It's sort of like one of those tattoos that you put on your neck that's going to stay there forever. I've never done that. But anyway, that's what an RSS feed is.
And if you don't have one, nobody's going to hear your podcast because Apple podcast and all these other syndicators that are out there, they look for RSS feeds and they scour the internet looking for these RSS feeds. So if you have that, if you have your website hosted and you want to be on where all of the people listen to podcasts, you need to give these people your RSS feed. Like Apple podcast has my RSS feed. I'm on about seven different things right now, but some of them are gone.
Now, Apple started this whole thing because years ago, there was something called an iPod. It was this nice little box that you could put 5,000 songs in. I thought it was wonderful. I could put everything on there and stick these little earbuds in my ear and listen to it.
And then I bought a Bose sound wall is what it was called. It was made for iPods and it had little things for every type of iPod fit into it. And you could just blast that music all over your house. It just everywhere.
And then that's when Apple, you know, Apple came up with the concept of why don't we take these podcasts, you know, or let people create these audio things and we'll call them podcasts. And I don't know who came up with the idea. I have no idea. But originally, if you want to listen to a podcast, you had to listen to it.
You had to have an iPhone because in those days you had to listen to it on iTunes because Apple had iTunes. Now you listen to it on Apple podcast. And now people who have Android phones have all kinds of things that they can listen to. But they used to only have like two or three.
They had Stitcher, which is now gone. That was a big one. You know, if you wanted your podcast heard on somebody who had an Android phone, you had to make sure that Stitcher had your RSS feed. I made sure.
And my business cards in those days said, you know, my show. And then it said iTunes. And then it said Stitcher. So I was covering both the Apple people and the Android people.
Well, now, you know, that business card is totally wasted because iTunes is no longer, you know, now it's Apple podcast and Stitcher doesn't exist. But then, oh, Google came out with their own podcast platform where you could, and I was on there. But now that Google podcast, you can listen to podcasts on Google podcast with your Android phone. Wasn't that what it was named for?
You know, wow. And then Google podcast, for whatever reason, they decided to shut it down. But there are other things out there that you can use to listen to podcasts with. You just look for it.
If you look for the Daily Grateful, let's try that. Let's go to the internet. The Daily, I can't type. You're so patient.
And I have to keep talking because dead air is terrible. The Daily Grateful with Michael Kroos is on Apple. It's on Spotify. Let's see, where else is it?
Tune in. I'm on Podchaser. I'm on Listen Notes. I don't know what that even is.
And just a bunch of them. I didn't know I was on IHeart. I'm on IHeart and just a bunch of cool things. So when you start a podcast and you get your RSS feed, you've got to go to every one of these things.
You've got to go to Spotify. You've got to go to Apple Podcasts. You've got to go to Podchaser. You've got to go to all the IHeart.
You really want to be on IHeart. And you want them to carry it. So you apply. They'll tell you how to apply.
And they're going to want your RSS feed. And whoever's hosting your podcast will have your RSS feed. You can cut and paste it and slap it on there. And everything works.
So that's how all these little podcasts that we all make in our little houses, in our little rooms in our little houses. Some people have a studio like me. Some people do it in their closets. Some people do it in their living rooms.
Oh, I'm talking about podcasting here. But anyway, that's a little bit of totally useless information for you. But not really useless. You know, gives you an idea how all this gets out into the world and, you know, makes it possible for people to hear you.
Okay? Your RSS feed is like your little radio station that you're going to uplink to the satellite in the sky. And it's going to come down to all of these little places like Apple Music, like iHeart, like, you know, all these things. Listen to all of these things.
You can do that. So, and by the way, when you get a host, don't think they're going to do all this for you. They want, your hosting company wants everybody to come to them to listen to you. Nope, you've got to spread the word.
You've got to take this and put it out there. All right. It's Friday tomorrow. We'll see you then.