Podcast options - the choice is yours

Dear friends,

I wanted to give you a heads-up on my response to your numerous comments and give you a choice of where to go from here.

First, thanks a lot for all your comments.  And, no, no, no, no, no - I do not sound like Bibi Netanyahu!  Or do I?  :-)

Seriously, your comments were useful and I will follow your suggestions:

Technical:

1) I will increase the microphone gain
2) I will decrease the encoding bitrate
3) I will rework and improve the mp3's metadata

Hosting:

Here I need your feedback.  The options are:

1) Mediafire and/or 4Share: free and more or less okay, though far from good
2) YouTube: check out here and see for yourself.  I personally don't like this solution at all, but I can keep doing it just to reach more people
3) Soundcloud: that is the best option, by far.  See for yourself here.  Problem: for free, SC only gives me 3 hours max, 3 podcasts and, I think, 1000 downloads plus other restriction.  See the SC plans here.  Frankly, the only logical option with SC is to get a "Go Unlimited" plan, but that is $135 a year.  So, here is my appeal to donors and sponsors: if you send me that money, I will get that plan and we will get by far the best solution.  If you do donate, please indicate "for podcast" in the notes.  As soon as I get $135 I will let you know by a post here.

Structure:

1) I will keep the Q&A format just to make sure that there is interest for you - the listeners - and because that is very dynamic and informal.  If needed, I will use a full podcast to reply just to one question, but the normal format will be "as many questions as possible".
2) Show length: I will keep that flexible.  Why decide that in advance?  Let's see what comes in.  I think that somewhere in the range of 60 minutes is perfect, but that will be a target, not a rule.
3) Music.  If promise not to speak over any music, can I still play a little something before (very short) and after (a tad loner) the show?  I have to confess that I love music above any other form of art.  I have played acoustic jazz guitar for years and I want to share music with everybody, especially my friends.  I do believe that music is a universal language (yes, I am a romantic idealist) and it also is an expression of emotions, often emotions which cannot be put in words.  And Dostoevsky was right - beauty will save the world.  So unless you really hate it, I would like to keep a little music into and a musical show end (which you can ignore).  Deal?

Scheduling:

1) I my target would be to have a podcast every 2 weeks.  I cannot promise that this will happen, but I will try.
2) One week before the podcast I will post an announcement for the upcoming podcast and ask for questions.  You will have one week to ask anything you want on any topic you chose, and then I will collect these questions right before recording.

Posting:

1) Until the new blog is fixed (they are working on it) I will use the Google Sites page to post the links to the podcast along with the show notes.  As soon as the new blog is fixed, I will move the podcast posting page to the new blog.

Extra information:

1) I will write up some short show notes for each podcast with, for example, links to sources I mentioned, the spelling of names, or any other reference material.

So that's the plan.  Let me know if you approve or if you have other views or suggestions.  My goal is to give you a podcast you will really enjoy and find interesting.  Please let me know what you think.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker