Introducing YCAST Version 4, the newest and latest version of YCAST.
We’ve got some exciting news for you. Starting from today, the newest version of YCAST is rolling out across the globe. In each update we try our best to improve the user experience and to implement the requests from our customer base. Let’s talk about some of the new features coming in this release:
1. Web-player analytics
One of the most requested features was the ability to report on the performance of YCAST web-players. We are delighted to introduce Web-player Analytics and a brand new analytics section within YCAST.
Web-player analytics allows you to see the following information about your web-player:
- Number of times your web-player has been viewed
- Number of times an episode of your podcast has been played
- The number of web-player listens that your podcast web-player has received.
We have also decided to give you complete control over what constitutes as a listen within your portal. You can choose the amount of time you would like to count a listen from. So if it’s 30 seconds or 10 minutes, you can collect the meterics that are important to your business.
Also within the new analytics section is a better explanation around how to get your podcast stats from each podcast app. We’ve also included the dedicated links for you to login and get the data with ease.
We are also happy to share that we are now working on advanced analytics for YCAST, to build on this data even further. Stay tuned for version 5, coming soon.
2. Episode images and scheduling
We understand that a lot of our users would like to upload a custom image for each episode. Now you can! With a new upload page, you can now add in a bespoke image for each episode. This image will appear in the web-player and on the various different podcasting platforms.
We’ve also refined scheduling. Now with YCAST V4 there is no delay when scheduling an episode. If you schedule it to be released tomorrow at 9am, it will appear within the podcasting apps within 70 seconds! We are proud to be one of the fastest podcasting publishers out there, with some other apps taking up to 15 mins to post a scheduled episode!
For those eagle eyed users, you will also notice some user interface improvements within the upload page, this is to make it even easier for you to upload shows.
3. New distribution centre
YCAST v4 also contains a brand new distribution centre to enable you to quickly create new connections to podcasting apps. We’ve also added native support for Amazon podcasts, allowing you to get your podcast submitted to Amazon with ease.
On the back-end, we have made some changes to our open RSS technology (the technology used to distribute podcasts), to continue our commitment to having an open RSS feed that can be shared with any podcast app with no restrictions.
4. Enhanced web-player customisation
Customising the YCAST web-player is one of the best features within YCAST. Now with V4, we’ve taken that customisation even further. With new options and a refined user experience, re-branding your web-player has never ever been easier.
Something small to note is that we have now added HEX colour code support, meaning that you can really easily match your brand guidelines!
5. YCAST Go!
Version 4 is also the first version of YCAST with support for YCAST Go! Now every brand, business, product or service can get into podcasting for free.
YCAST Go has all of our basic features to enable you to get into podcasting today! Find out more about what YCAST Go includes here.
