The ideal podcast publisher: Webjay vs Blogger-Smartcast

I’ve already created some podcasts with Webjay and some with Blogger + Feedburner’s SmartCast. Neither of both was originally made for podcast feeds.
Webjay (put back online by Lucas after a hacker break-in) is actually a great playlist creator tool, whose ‘RSS’ converter happens to be podcast compatible.
Blogger is the most used general-purpose blogging tool, and needs to be combined with Feedburner’s inventive Atom-to-RSS feed converter to allow audio enclosures.

If you compare creating a podcast with both:

Webjay (e.g. Smoothouse October List)

PRO: zero startup time / also provides M3U, SMIL, ASX playlist support (for playing in WinAmp, RealPlayer, WMP, …) / has a playlist importer (get all the MP3 links from a page and put them into a playlist

CON: no way to add meta-data / no way to modify look-and-feel

Blogger + SmartCast (e.g. Smoothpod Mashups / Backroomsounds podcast)

PRO: meta-data (playlist/transcription/related links) can be put in the blog post body / optimal results in Google/Technorati/Feedster / maximum flexibility for adapting look ‘n feel

CON: no that trivial to set up / no ‘play-it-all-now’ functionality except when added manually

This is what an ideal Podcast publishing tool would look like for me:

• minimal set-up: no technical knowledge required – comparable with the setting up of a new Blogger blog
• adding a new post should be easy – a wizard like ‘add-the-audio-file’ – ‘write-the-text’ – ‘publish!’.
• use standard templates like

  one-person talk show (e.g. Daily Sourcecode)

  name of the host, list of topics, list of music (if any), some related links

  multi-person conversation (e.g. Gillmor Gang)

  name of participants, list of topics, related links

  music show (e.g. Coverville)

  host, playlist, guest DJ

  …

• provide download statistics for the feed and the individual files
• also provide a ‘play-now’ button for each audio file, and maybe a ‘play-complete-playlist-now’ functionality
• be conscious about audio file types (like Webjay): .MP3 can be played by anything, .AAC is for iTunes/iPod, WMA for WMP, … so you could have a ’subscribe to this podcast with iTunes/RealPlayer/Windows Media Player/…’ choice
• automatic ping of audio.weglogs.com (and Ping-o-Matic)
• take care of directory inclusion (ipodder OPML, …)
• include tools like BlogTorrent or a point-and-click preconfigured FTP uploader for easy audio file upload
• easy access to directories of RIAA-free music
• easy access to feed validator
• easy access to podcast delivery networks (with cheap bandwidth)

Anything I forgot?

Related posts:

1. How to Podcast with Blogger and SmartCast This is a step-by-step manual on how to create your...
2. Webjay playlist generator I have been messing around with scripts to enable grabbing...
3. Podcasting with Blogger I’m thinking about installing an iPod (or Zen) in...
4. Podcasten met Blogger en SmartCast (NL vertaling van How to podcast with Blogger and SmartCast)...
5. Christmas present: podcast feed validator! I get a lot of “what is wrong with my...