For a long time I've been somewhat nervous about the hosting of the Signal Watch PodCast solely at SoundCloud. Look, SoundCloud is a good, easy-to-use service, but it's also a company, and those go under, get bought out, change strategies, etc...
I've used RSS to push the content to other podcasting platforms, and that's been nice - but I genuinely don't know what happens if the SoundCloud goes away. Will those go away? What if Stitcher dries up?
Right now those kids at "Google" seems like they know what they're doing. But, YouTube wants to be about video, and so moving the podcast there had challenges. When I looked a while back, all the recommendations were about manually transforming each episode into a video - which, individually, not a huge deal. But multiply that by 135 episodes and a handful of extras, and I'd be hand-converting episodes til next Christmas.
I changed how I phrased my search parameters for how to get the podcast to YouTube, and up came a service called "Repurpose.io". They seem legit. The service is super, super simple to use, and while it costs money, it also works really well. As of this posting I believe all episodes have made their way to the YouTubes.
Check out our YouTube here. It's also where we've posted some sketches, taste tests, etc... So, all your Signal Watch needs.
Look, I used to work in digital audio and video preservation, and it's a bear of a field. And I don't have any memory institutions like a museum, archive or library clamoring for episodes of The Signal Watch. But right now, I expect that YouTube, which lets me host there for free, will outlast either me or my ability to care about whether these episodes continue to exist. I mean, maybe when I'm 90 I'll be like "what DID I have to say about Streets of Fire?" But probably not. I'll be too busy seeking out water in the wasteland deserts of Trumpland Sector 35 (brought to you by: Confederate Burger).
It's the same reason I'm like, sure, Blogger. They're still here. And owned by spooky ol' Google that's using this blog to mine data and sell ads, but, look. You people didn't want to join my Patreon, so here we are.
Anyway - I need to do some curation inside of YouTube, so bear with me as I get all that straightened out. But I do plan to do some curation there and not just dump episodes.
Oh, and, hey, Repurpose.io lets me use the images I already had tagged to the episode, so it's surprisingly easy to navigate on the YouTube menu.
So - YouTube also does this amazing thing where - when you upload audio at least - it checks for copyright claims. About 85-90% of the videos have some copyright claim due to my use of the music involved. So, even if the videos went wildly viral, I won't make a red cent. And, hey, the song owners might! Good for them.
The only claim that totally blocked the video from release was "Hungry Like the Wolf" from Duran Duran, which is hilarious. Fortunately, YouTube just lets me cut out the song. So - easy, squeezy. No more Duran Duran. I can deal with that minor hiccup.
We'll see what other pitfalls await me, but so far, so good.
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