Not at all, you can choose to publish your podcast in a way that allows people to directly download your audio files when you publish via our easy to use control panel. There are also a number of good podcast compatible players for all operating systems. We recommend Juice which is a free podcast application compatible with Linux, Windows and OS X.

We provide you with a seperate FTP username and password when you subscribe to our service. Your software will need this username and password and may also ask for a default path or document root. This can usually be left blank. The feeds uploaded by podcast will appear in a subdirectory called /pod/ so can be referred to as http://yourcast.jellycast.com/pod/myfeed.xml for example.

No, our control panel provides a simple and easy way to quickly publish your podcast and to add all the necessary tags for iTunes. You can however use any podcast publishing software with our servers, some of which will give you added features such as chapter images.

Our control panel provides a simple and quick way of getting started, however podcasting software with FTP publishing capabilities can provide additional features and can make uploading progress clearer.

Unfortunately uploading data via web pages is currently not that pretty. The majority of popular web browsers do not give a clear indication of progress and uploading large files can seem slow when there is no progress bar or transfer rate indicated. In addition, many home or offices use ADSL broadband connections and upload speeds are often slower than download speeds. You may find it easier to use an FTP compatible podcast publishing application rather than our control panel once you are used to how the publishing process works. This should at least provide a clear indication of progress.

Yes, files can be uploaded via FTP and will be visible for inclusion within the control panel.

You simply need to link to your feed address. To determine this log into your control panel and on the first page select the link next to "Raw Feed" for the relevant podcast series. Usually the link will be something like http://mycast.jellycast.com/podcast/feed/

We have not currently set any hard limits for the amount of data that can be stored. This is something we intend to review after a while. Once we have been able to determine the popularity and average space usage we may consider putting in some disk space limitations, however these will be set very high and be unlikely to affect most if any users. Remember the bigger your podcast is the more bandwidth you are likely to use.

No. This is strictly not allowed, and is prevented by the server. Our server is purposefully secured and optimised for podcasting and audio casting transfer only. We do offer very competitive web hosting services which are fully CGI and PHP capable. Please contact us if you require more information on this.

This is really quite a simple process. Once you have used our simple podcast control panel to upload your podcast and you have entered your iTunes tag information your podcast is ready for submission to iTunes. The first step is to test that iTunes can read your feed and all is working by entering the "Advanced menu" within iTunes and choosing "Subscribe to podcast...". From there enter your full feed address and hit OK. If all is well your feed should appear.

Once you have confirmed that your feed appears as you want it to, it is time to submit your feed for iTunes approval. Access the "Podcast directory" from the link at the bottom of the iTunes window and click on the "Submit a podcast" link on the left hand menu. Enter your podcast feed URL and follow the onscreen instructions. iTunes will review your podcast (usually only takes a day or so) and your podcast should appear within the iTunes store once approved.

You should ensure that you have the copyright or permission from the copyright holders to use their content for any content that is contained within your podcast. Any complaint from copyright holders to us will be reviewed and taken extremely seriously. The offending content may be removed from our servers once validated as being in breach of any copyright.

This is entirely up to you, you can make a single episode podcast and never update it again or you can update it every day if you prefer. There is no limit to how many or how frequent your updates are.

Currently there is no fully secure or reliable method to charge people for podcasts via the iTunes system. If you are interested in a chargeable system that is not fully integrated with iTunes (although podcasts once downloaded would be playable within iTunes) we are happy to discuss the options with you. Please contact us for details. We believe iTunes will shortly be starting a chargeable podcast facility and we will be watching closely to see how we can integrate this with our service as and when it is launched. Other methods to make money from your podcast include selling advertising content within your show or on your associated web site.

Unsolicited email also known as spam is a huge problem on the Internet today. Adding to this problem will not make you any friends and in all likelihood will probably make your podcast less popular. The problem with this form of electronic mass mailing is that the sheer volume of this type of mail eats up resources on ISP's mail systems as well as the end users mail system. Spammers are, in effect, taking resources away from users and service suppliers without compensation and without authorisation. Sending spam violates the Positive Internet Company Ltd's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and can lead to the termination of the sender's account.