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July 25, 2005

Replay Music Special

We're running a limited time special on Replay Music, as way of encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations. People who use Replay Music simply love it as a way of discovering new music by recording from online radio stations and Digital Music Services. What better way to get the word out than to make it easier for people to order and use the software!

Starting Monday July 25, you can save $20! Replay Music is normally $49.95, so this is a great deal.

Plus, enter the discount code "BLOG" when ordering, and save an additional $5.

That makes the total price just $24.95.

Sound interesting? Here's more info on Replay Music. You can try Replay Music free with up to 25 tracks and see how cool it is.

Be sure to order soon to get the discount!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

July 21, 2005

Replay Screencast Promo

I believe in rewarding those who read our blog, so here goes:

We're running a special on Replay Screencast for just $14.95 - it's normally $29.95, so if you want to get into making your own Screen Capture Videos (screencasts), now is a great time to start.

This promo will end in a couple days, so take advantage of it!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

New Product Finder Wizard

In case you haven't noticed, we're spending a lot of time making our Web site more fun and useful, especially for people who don't yet know about our products. The recent Screencasts and RSS product updates feeds are examples.

Today we've built the first iteration of our Product Finder Wizard. if you don't know which of our recording products is right for you, this simple questionnaire should help get you to the right place.

If you're new to the site, try it out and let us know what you think!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

New Applian Screencasts

As we've just released Replay Screencast, most of our product pages now have Screencast (Screen Capture Video) demos. This is a great way to get to see how a product works without actually having to install the product.

I welcome comments on these Screencasts -- do you like them, hate them, or somewhere in between?

You can find them on the Replay Radio, Replay Music, Freecorder and Replay Screencast product pages.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (2)

July 16, 2005

RSS Updates pages

I've been deeply moved by the awesome potential of RSS. I think about it a lot. There's a lot of cool applications for RSS we could do, and maybe will do, as long as it makes business sense. When thinking about cool technology like RSS, it can be hard to control the inner geek that just wants to build neat stuff with no market. Who knows what we'll do next????

Replay Radio's Podcasting client is really an RSS aggregator, and it was fun to build, and is fun to use.

(If you're not familiar with RSS, it's the means by which you can subscribe to a Blog to be notified when it's updated.)

On a practical level, we've made all of our product updates pages RSS. This means that you can use any Newsreader or RSS Aggregator (I use Bloglines) to be notified when a specific Applian product has been updated. Or, when ANY of our products are updated.

Our new master product updates page is here. From this link, you can view specific product updates pages, and subscribe to just those RSS feeds.Or subscribe to a single feed for all of our products.

Hats off to Debbie for making this all work beautifully.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 01:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Replay Screencast 1.0

Why have screen shots, when you can make Screen Capture Videos!

Check out our new Replay Screencast product. This was designed to make it easy for anyone to make a video from any window or screen region. Plus, you can add audio narration.

Replay Screencast is great for making software demos and tutorials, Powerpoint movies, capturing Webcasts, Neetmeeting, IM sessions, Webcams, and a whole lot more.

I love software that gives you that magical feelng when you first use it. Replay Screencast really is magical, as it makes old-fashioned screen shots come alive. In the next several days, we'll be making screencasts for our various recording products so everyone can really see how they work.

Check it out!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

Replay Radio 6.03 (and why it's 6.03)

We released Replay Radio 6.03 yesterday, a minor update which adds the following:

New Record-to format of MP3 FM Quality: (This used to be in Replay Radio 5.x, and a lot of existing customers asked for this back.) We wanted to keep the choices simple for new users, but having this extra flexibility seemed like a better strategy, so it's back.

Firewall checking: Those darned firewall programs always seem to mess up any application that needs to access the Web. And most people have no idea that it's the firewall blocking Replay Radio that disrupts the tuning and recording process. Now, Replay Radio will check to see if it can access the Web anytime you click Settings, as a way to check if your firewall is about to cause problems.

This gives me an opportunity to discuss how we release software and do updates. With any product cycle, there's usually a big change, which gets tested a lot in-house. Once we're happy with it, we have a limited number of beta testers bang on it for a while. From there, it gets released, although we don't really announce it, and if any issues come up, we fix them right away. From there, we start spreading the word, and continue to tweak the software. Finally, when there are no big issues that repeatedly come up in our support emails, we have a really stable build.

This is why you'll often see versions like 6.03 soon after an official release. The 6.0 version was really good, but with just a few tweaks, we can made the experience better for everyone.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 11, 2005

Another Podcaster dissatisfied with Apple/iTunes

Jake McKee's Blog articulates nicely the "screw you" approach Apple is taking towards amateur Podcasters. OK -- maybe that's to harsh, but it appears like they don't care, don't really understand Podcasting, or they are in it over their heads.

Snippet:

Since the launch 14 days ago (yes, two weeks!), there have been a number of significant issues come up that Apple has yet to address, or give any sort of feedback on whatsoever. None. Nada.

Since I first released Replay Radio in 2001, I've always thought that downloading radio shows was the way to go. And now that a community and a standard for delivering them has popped up, I'm really excited about Podcasting, and I believe it will really change the medium of Radio forever.

It appears Apple is excited about Podcasting, too, but only because it will help them sell even more iPods.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 10, 2005

How iTunes 4.9 got it wrong

Another interesting article from Corante.com on iTunes 4.9 and how they are (mis)managing Podcasting.

Like I said before -- Apple is the AOL of Podcasting.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Replay Radio update and Bookmarkable shows

We released Replay Radio 6.02 tonight, with a few updates to make it better than ever.

Besides some minor enhancements, the cool notable thing we've managed to do is to offer some of Apple's (previously) exclusive Podcasts from our Guide - iTunes new music Tuesday, and Podfinder.

Not only that, but when you download them using Replay Radio, they become "Bookmarkable". This means that if you stop listening on your iPod, switch to something else, and then go back to a Podcast, you can resume right where you left off. This is especially handy for long talk shows.

Replay Radio actually can make ANY Podcast bookmarkable. If you were looking for a one good reason to use Replay Radio instead of iTunes or other Podcatchers, this would be it.

As always, Replay Radio is free for use with Podcasts. Check it out!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 03:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 05, 2005

Skype call recording

We did an update to Freecorder, released yesterday, that lets you record Skype phone calls. It also works with any other PC based VOIP client.

In free mode, you can record up to 2 minutes. In paid mode, you have unlimited recording time.

Dave Winer suggested this to us, and it maks sense, especially for Podcasters wanting to do telephone interviews.

Check it out!

Posted by Bill Dettering at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 03, 2005

iTunes overwhelming Podcast servers?

Check out this post from Geek News Central.

Can anyone say "BitTorrent"? Can Apple?

Posted by Bill Dettering at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 02, 2005

Apple screws amateur Podcasters

First off, many amateur Podcasters were a little miffed that Apple did a lot of work to promote the "corporate" content, but gave very little attention to the grassroots Podcasters.

Now, DailySonic has proof the Apple is caching Podcasts. Why is this a big deal? DailySonic needs to accurately count downloads to support its advertisers. And they also do some dynamic ad insertion. If they don't have control over their feed, then their advertising model breaks.

I can see the Apple developers saying "what if the independent site is down", and doing the extra engineering to ensure reliable service. But for Podcasters who are trying to make a living doing this, it totally screws them over. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't validate their feeds, so the argument doesn't really hold water.

Supporting the grassroots is one of our basic philosophies. We're working on ways to support the "little guy" who promotes Replay Radio as the best way to subscribe and download Podcasts. We have an affiliate program already in place, and another awesome program is coming soon.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


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