Sidepodcast

To follow up on yesterday’s post regarding an impending server relocation… if you’re reading this then all went well.

Born Again

Actually it was probably the easiest migration we’ve ever done (this being only the second), despite the fact that smack in the middle of the process WordPress decided to release a new version of their publishing platform. If you followed the comments and tweets yesterday, there seemed to be a 50 / 50 split whether or not we should upgrade at the same time as moving, but seeing as it basically meant less work for us, we opted to dive straight into version 2.5.

Ideally you shouldn’t notice any changes, everything should work as before, only a bit faster. We know that a couple of the audio podcasts from last year have broken links meaning you can’t listen to them right now, but that should be sorted within the next few hours.

The Other Bits

One thing that is worth mentioning (if not a little geeky) is the Sidepodcast TV Facebook application.

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This weekend we’re planning on moving sidepodcast.com to a new collection of web and database servers. It’s been on our to do list for a while, but the recent popularity of live commenting during race weekends has forced us to get on with it.

Falling Down

Following on from the Malaysian GP this site struggled to cope with the 400+ comments posted in the space of a few hours, and rather indignantly fell over. After much analysis it seems the weight of comments wasn’t so much of a problem, rather the large amount of spam that seems to arrive in waves, coupled with some search engine spiders doing their thing.

Given that the last two things are pretty much out of our control, we thought we ought to do something about it (although I suspect a total of 400 comments will take some beating), so we’re moving Sidepodcast onto the same Media Temple servers that currently host F1 Minute. MT have had a slightly ropey time of it lately, but their support and response times have been second to none throughout. Their databases are also scalable, so in theory as soon as the site gets busier we can add more and more, and we get guranteed uptime.

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Today, F1 Minute turns 100 shows old. What started out as a funny little play on words has become a podcast force all of its own, with a feed, a site, and a Twitter presence.

When I first started it, there were perhaps doubts that I could sustain a podcast five times a week, partly because it was assumed I would get bored, and partly because there couldn’t possibly be that much news to talk about – especially in the off-season. In the promo, I said I would be talking about driver’s birthdays. It turns out that was a joke, although I didn’t know it at the time.

I am here to tell you that I did not get bored, and there is enough, perhaps even too much to talk about.

I’ve been told that this year has been particularly newsworthy, what with the espionage scandals from both McLaren and Renault, and the continuing discussions of regulations, and Lewis Hamilton. I may not be so lucky in the future, but that is looking much too far ahead.

Celebrating 100 shows is an achievement of epic proportions, and deserves a mention. I was looking forward to relishing the 60 minute mark, because that would have been a whole hour of me talking, making quite an interesting viewpoint. Alas, I missed it, so 100 will have to do instead.

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Building upon the success of the F1 Minute Wordpress Widget and continuing our obsession with all things Facebook related, today we’re announcing the Facebook Player for F1 Minute.

In Profile

The application builds upon the idea that anyone can share F1 Minute and has been designed for Facebook users looking for free Formula 1 content to add to their pages.

We’ve already installed it onto our profile, so if you’re curious how it looks and works feel free to take a peek. At the moment it’s sitting on the widest part of the page, and looks a bit like this:

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Near the end of last year we mentioned that we were busy learning the finer details about WordPress installations. We were doing this mostly so that we could build the theme Christine could only find in her head, but also because we wanted to extend the platform a bit further.

Today, we can announce the first of those extensions, the F1 Minute Player.

Sharing

You may remember a while back that we made F1 Minute available to any website wishing to use it.

Embedding “bytesize Formula 1 news”, involved copying and pasting a small block of code, which wasn’t particularly onerous, but now we’ve made it even more straightforward.

If you have WordPress installed it’s just a case of copying some files, before dragging the player into position on your page.

Plugging In

More information can be found in the the plugin directory, including detailed installation instructions, various configuration options and a couple of screenshots. There’s also further information on the F1 Minute site too.

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As Formula 1 heads into it’s ‘winter break’ and the daily influx of gossip and rumour fades to a quiet whisper, we figured it would an ideal time to launch a news site!

They don’t pay us the big bucks for nothing, let me tell ya.

Actually, it’s not really a news site per se, we’re just giving F1 Minute a home of it’s own. The recent addition to our podcasting stable, has grown so rapidly and consistently that it’s ready to leave the tender bosom of Sidepodcast, and venture out into the big, bad world on it’s own.

You can view the new site at: http://www.f1minute.com/. It’s still a little wet behind the ears, but basically fit for purpose. Feel free to have a poke around and let us know what you think.

So What’s New?

From a listerner’s perspective, nothing changes. The feed is still in the same place as it always was, so if you’ve subscribed to the podcast, you’ll not miss a moment’s news. iTunes and various other podcast directories are already pointing to the new location and we’ve moved all posts and comments across to the new domain.

Additionally Christine has created a Twitter thingy, to keep you bang up-to-date with the latest in news and gossip. Just in case the idea of ‘F1 news every single weekday’, is simply not enough information for you.

So Why Change?

We’ve created a new home for F1 minute, because it was getting a little bit swamped by all the action on this site. Many search engines struggled to pick up the latest posts and because it didn’t get a look-in on the homepage, not everybody spotted it.

Additionally we’ve picked a pretty solid hosting company (that I believe is the same as Ollie’s), which should give us an extra layer of stability after some of the hosting problems we’ve had here. Ideally we’d like to move to Amazon’s EC2 cloud, but the technology is too immature to make the jump right now. Media Temple offer a good compromise, which is less flexible, but not so cutting-edge.

What About Embedded Content?

If you’ve jumped on board and added the embeddable F1 Minute player to your site / blog / forum, we’ve not forgotten you. The good news is you don’t have to change a single line of code. You’ve probably noticed that today’s episode is still happily running on your site and it will continue to do so.

However, if you’ve got five minutes to spare, we do recommend that you take a look at the new sharing page. The code listed there has been tweaked in order to point to the new domain. Upgrading code on your site will enable you to benefit from the increased reliability that the new host’s offer us, and we’ll also be adding new players and customised embed options to that page soon.

Just to re-iterate, you don’t have to change anything, we know you’re busy people and we don’t like to impose.

In Conclusion

So, there you have it. New domain, new host, better stability and a web site dedicated solely to the vocals of Ms. Blachford.

Oh, I almost forgot. The new site is entirely at the disposal of the gravelly-voiced damsel, there’ll not be an anti-McLaren post in sight (although I might stop by with some inflammatory comments). If you thought she had a lot on her plate before, you’ve not seen nothing yet!

Please stop by and say “howdy”, leave a comment or peruse at your leisure. As always, thoughts, ideas and criticism are readily welcomed.

Go there NOW!

Quick apology to everyone who’s struggled to access ye olde sidepodcast for the past 12 hours. During the night our hosting company appeared to be playing the twisted, but familiar game - “best of luck getting out of this one”.

Did you miss us?

Luckily it was just the blog affected, podcasts continued to download unabated, although yesterday’s F1 Minute was slightly delayed for anyone using the new shared site version - big apologies to anyone affected there.

As it happens, we’re already deep into the process of building a more reliable Sidepodcast for next season, one that should hopefully withstand irresponsible hosting companies messing with our minds.

Just for kicks, enjoy the following system status notifications, both raised late last night (within an hour of each other), and see if you can’t spot the deliberate lack of joined up thinking here:

21:46: Some customers may find they are experiencing ‘timeouts’ when downloading email.

22:46: Customers may find they are unable to access their databases. All customers affected will be emailed shortly with further information and instructions.

Real tears, let me tell you. Real tears.

This weekend we’re launching something a bit different. If you have a website, if you have a blog, if you have any kind of online presence at all, you might be interested to see what we’re up to.

Back in October we launched F1 Minute, a 60 second audio podcast covering the days Formula 1 headlines, released Monday through Friday. For a brand new podcast, it’s gone rather splendidly, partly thanks to being featured on both US and UK iTunes homepages. Today we’re taking it to the next level and opening up F1 Minute to any website that would like to feature it.

If you’d like to have regularly updated F1 content on your site and are interested in the details please, check out the page Free F1 News For Your Site, which has everything you need to get started.

Shaun and F1 Wolf have already jumped on board and if you’re after some free content for your site then it might be worth 10 mins of your time. Leave us a comment if you’re using F1 Minute or if there’s anything else we could enhance or improve.

Update: F1 Minute has now moved to it’s own domain. You can still get free news for your site by popping over there and following the instructions.