Today we talk about your favorite podcast, what does it take to feel comfortable talking to yourself, and   Last 5 in 5 With David Hooper David Hooper hosts the RED Podcast (Real Entrepreneur Development) and he phoned in the last five podcasts he listened to: Funding the Dream on Kickstarter Serial The Dr. Drew Podcast Building A Better Dave School Of Laughs Additional Mentions Dr. Drew on Marc Maron show  Kate's Take: The EntrepreneurOnFire Audio Blog The Bitterest Pill(this inspired me to do Building a Better Dave) Win the Diet War  Podcast Rewind: Podcaster's Roundtable Episode 38 on the LAW [18:00] Check out episode 38 where we had two different lawyers on and we talked to them about using music in podcasting as well as the patent lawsuits, etc. It's a great show. Check it out at http://podcastersroundtable.com/pr038-podcasting-and-the-law/ Check out Ya's other show Podcasters Studio and Daniel J. Lewis on the Audacity to podcast Simplecast.fm  Podcast Media Host Review [21:00] I have seven piece of criteria when I look at media hosts. These include: 1. Don't change my file (period). 2. Don't limit my storage 3. Don't limit the bandwidth 4. Give me Stats 5. Give me support 6. Don't control my feed. 7. Charge me for it. Simplecast.fm stats $12 a month for unlimited storage and bandwidth. The weird thing is they don't state ANY limits (that's a business plan that opens themselves up for lots of abuse). Their player is interesting as it allows you to speed things up and rewind. They have an interesting "Managers" feature where you can allow multiple people to manage your hosting. They make it easy to add advertising banners on your website. However, they changed my file name, they changed format (they changed it to mono), they also didn't copy over all my ID3 tags. When I sent them an email, 7 days later I still didn't have an answer. This leads me to saying I can't recommend them as a solution. I recommend Libsyn.com and Blubrry.com (you can get a free month using the coupon sopfree at either service). http://youtu.be/blunoEc_Oag Is Your Podcast Useful and Interesting? [31:30] I was reading an article from the Consent Marketing Institute and it said “Great content meets two criteria: It’s useful and it’s interesting.” This got me to thinking and I believe this to be true. I will listen to things that aren't useful (Like the Serial podcast) because it's really interesting. I will listen to boring stuff (like webinars) because they provide useful information. When you are trying to come up with ideas from your show ask yourself is what I'm about to share useful or interesting (preferably both). When its not interesting or useful, I call is "kah-kah, poo-poo." This is why I don't recommend an "episode 0" which is what people would put into their feed to test their iTunes feed. While this was seful in testing your feed, it was not very useful as a first impression. Now I recommend people come out with their best content in episode 1 (and don't be in such a hurry. Congrats to the Forever Fan Podcast [37:13] Troy contact me about doing a quick start, and in a few days he had his podcast launched. (see foreverfanpodcast.com ) If you don't have a website, send me an email with the phrase (quick start) in the title (if you have a podcast just join the School of Podcasting) I send you a link to order your hosting (I earn a commission), and it runs you around $8 a month. You send me the welcome email, and I install Wordpress for you (and some plugins to get you going - you need the graphics and the content) I also give you a free month at the School of Podcasting Ready To Start Podcasting? I would love to help you launch you podcast.