i only brought this up cause one podcast we compete with is 36 and we're 35 in Comedy, so we all did a fruity High 5 with each other, anyone?

the question is what is your podcast pickle ranking?

http://www.podcastpickle.com/sections/new.php?id=34

Is Pickle ranking based entirely on current number of fans, or are there other factors that go into the calculation? Just curious. (This is something I've always wondered.)

As for Podcast Alley, I'm pretty skeptical of their rankings. The voting system isn't all that secure.

Podcast Pickle rankings are based on the number of people who added you as a favorite. It's a bit strange because people with 2 or more podcasts can have more fans than either of their shows, but essentially the more fans you have, the higher your show. But, someone with 50 fans can be behind someone with 40 fans, if those 50 fans are 25/25 split between two shows.

I don't know what my podcast alley ranking is and pay it no mind. I think I get some votes every month.

hm, it seems i made the wrong topic...i must look into this "Podcast Pickle Rankings"

ok, i added us!

Ah, thank you. That makes sense and also explains some minor discrepancies I noticed in the rankings a while back.

It is based off the total amount of fans a show has

It is based on the amount of fans a show has. Yes if you as a podcaster had 50 fans over 2 shows, or 25 per show . Your show would be behind a cast with 40 fans. I dont see what is odd about that.

That itself is not odd. What's odd is there's no way (that I know of) to know how many fans a *podcast* has. So, you check yourself, you have 50 fans, you check the guy ahead of you, he has 40 fans, and you could get confused because there's no way to check the shows.

If you go to your podcast page you will see a tab that says fans look there those are the fans for that podcast. It is really kind of easy

That must be new. That's cool.

Is there a total count somewhere?

There was a time when One Minute How-To was number 2 in the Education section. I stopped promoting it and I'm no longer in the top 50. Then again, I literally have more than 10 times as many listeners as I did then, so it's not really an issue for me one way of the other.

Cheers -

george

I think the total count is under the fans section in your profile

I was just noticing the same thing for my show. I say nothing about voting now and get 0 votes. Last month I had 1 vote. That was mine. This month I have 2, mine and a friend of mine who just started listening. He is so technically illiterate, he just does what I tell him to do. So when he heard an old episode that mentioned voting, he figured he had to do it or I would not allow him to download any more shows.

If you don't promote the voting, I think you basically get none. I am now just mentioning it once a month or so in listener feedback episodes.

I get more hits from random google searches for ladies underwear then I do from podcast alley. When I first started podcasting I bent over backwards and called everyone I knew to vote for me on the alley and I managed to make it on the top 10 of the home page for a few days and you know what I got? 4 hits from them for the whole month and that was when people still posted on the alley. Podcast Alley is a waste of time. I won't ask people to vote anymore because I think you stand to lose more listeners by asking them then you stand to gain by showing up on any list.

That's funny. <g>

I never promoted it on my show but did so on the forums there. I just don't have the time I used to have to be on the forums, so once I slowed down my activity, the voting for my show ended. Like I said, I rather have more listeners than votes.

Cheers -

george

I have to admit I have not pushed my podcastalley or podcast pickle rankings for some time (I did just buy and ad at the top of the page here to support Gary and to see if that works). I do try and make sure I get enough iTunes reviews to stay featured but most of the promotion I do after that aims at the travel community instead of the podcast community.

That is pretty smart & thanks for the support

Dude! Whats Podcast Alley? hehe
I'm downloading JerkOff Radio right now!

Our show would be nothing with JVon,

tune in sunday night at 8pm LIVE for "Schoolgirl Sunday", where Michael will be dressed as a Schoolgirl the ENTIRE broadcast, not to mention the start of the WeightLoss Competion...We cant stand it!

Check it OUT NOW.

This is the great place for the discussion about all the topics related to podcast.
Also ranking wise it is in top because podcast pickle has majority of fans.

==============================

Prince

worldinfo

Numerous crashes over the years have made the ratings pointless. A lot of older podcasts have lost fans due to the crashes and a lot of podcasts have fallen in ratings because of it. The Pickle ratings are only based upon those adding themselves as fans on Pickle so it's possible for a podcast with 10 subscribers to get ahead of one with 100. (I prefer to count downloads, which is the most reasonable measure.)

And more people are likely to find a podcast because it was mentioned on another podcast or through a webpage search than they are to find it through the Pickle ratings.

Here's what I want to know: who are the people out there that choose which podcasts to listen to based on their rank on a website? The design and functionality of Podcast Alley is not set up to facilitate someone finding new podcasts to listen to, and as such I postulate that the people who visit that site with any regularity do so solely to vote for whatever podcast they're ALREADY fans of. You know what it all reminds me of? Those clickthrough websites from back in the 1990s which were all about THE TOP WAREZ/XXX/MP3 SITES, with the rankings having no real bearing on the site's popularity. Other than maybe the iTunes Top Whatever listings (which is dominated almost entirely by professionally produced/radio show archive type podcasts), I don't think podcast rankings really reflect the popularity of a given podcast. Heck, I'm living proof! You didn't really think that more people listen to my show about obscure Japanese cartoons than they do Scott Sigler's audiobooks, TWiT, Grammar Girl, Firefly Talk, et al did you?

I speak only for myself here, but I think that podcast success shouldn't be measured in listenership anyway unless you're trying to use podcasting as a means to make money, be it directly through ads/merchandising or indirectly through book deals or otherwise getting hired to do something. That seems to be a prevailing attitude though among many who consider the chief appeal of podcasting to be that it's effectively like Tivo only for radio. And sure, it's awesome that you can listen to archives of past podcasts whenever you want, but what really makes podcasting great to me is the fact that it doesn't matter how many people listen. Anyone can make podcasts about any subject they feel like, and ratings be DAMNED. Hell, I just released a podcast where I did nothing but listen to middleaged/senior citizens talk about the cartoons they grew up watching. That's the freedom which podcasting grants us: any random guy can grab a mic and talk about a subject of EXTREMELY limited interest, and that's okay!

Podcasting isn't a great big popularity contest. If your goal of podcasting is to become popular on the Internet, just forget about [audio] podcasting becuase the total number of people listening to audio podcasts is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of people watching streaming videos. In fact, I'll bet that if you added up virtually everyone listening to audio podcasts currently it wouldn't exceed the amount of views received for even a single Youtube video that's rated as "Most Popular" for that day (ninja cat, certain SNL skits, dramatic gopher, "Unforgivable," Rick Astley, take your pick). So if the numbers are all you're in it for, grab a video camera and shoot some wacky videos instead of obsessing over rankings on a podcast directory.

Numbers aren't totally irrelevant. I can think of three good reasons for wanting decent numbers.

1. To make the effort worthwhile. If you're only getting 10 or 20 listeners each week you might wonder if it's worth the effort. This is probably the main reason why so many new podcasters give up.

2. Monitizing. If you're interested in making money off your podcast then the numbers can affect whether you can get any money for advertizing or sponsorship and how much you get depends upon how popular your podcast is.

3. Biz Cred. Mentioning on your resume that you have a podcast getting thousands of weekly listeners can be very attractive to employers. Business is about reaching people and getting them to part with their money. A successful podcast suggests you can sell. Similarly, if you're trying to sell a book and you're getting good numbers for your podiobook or podcast that can help sway publishers.

And I wouldn't be surprised if podcasting success helped some podcasters with the opportunity to write for a magazine (or get into cons for free as press). There are rewards for those on top.

So I would say numbers do matter, but to what degree depends upon what you want out of the podcast. For most, a few hundred a week is satisfactory but a couple thousand per show can be a great ego boost.

I never argued that numbers were "totally" irrelevant, but I do think they're a secondary or even tertiary concern. In fact, of the three reasons you cited, I specifically addressed all three in my previous post. I do however believe that podcast rankings are totally irrelevant. To briefly reiterate, I agree with your second and third reasons: if you're trying to make money off of your podcast directly or indirectly, then listenership matters. (For the record, my initial opportunity to write was given to me BEFORE I started podcasting, and the conventions I attend as press are ones I also attend as a panelist, which is the real way I get in for free.)

The only part I'm not with you 100% on is this:



On the contrary, I think the main reason so many new podcasters give up is not a matter of popularity so much as it's the realization of just how time-consuming podcasting really is.