PodcastAlley Revamps Voting

I get the feeling that PodcastAlley.com is becoming the 800-lb. gorilla of podcasting portals.

Sure, Adam Curry’s iPodder is largely where it all began, but it’s as much a site for the software as it is for information, and let’s face it, Manila is not the friendliest of interfaces. Podcast.net is also and oldie but goodie, but relatively plain. PodcastAlley.com looks good, makes it easy to find podcasts, and fosters a community with comments, forums, and voting… for better or worse.

Podcasters seem about as obsessed with their PodcastAlley.com rankings as SEO folks are about Google’s PageRank system.

Before, the PodcastAlley voting system let you rank a podcast as either good or bad, and it wasn’t long before fans of one show were “voting down” competing shows. It was also cumulative, so shows that’ve been around the longest had a built in advantage. For a relatively new medium, this could be pretty discouraging for folks just discovering it. It also was pretty easy to cheat.

Now they’ve linked votes to e-mail verified logins, which (although not cheat-proof) will probably cut ballot stuffing quite a bit. And, you can only vote for shows. No bringing shows you don’t like. Finally, the rankings get reset every week, meaning newcomers just might have a shot at appearing on the list alongside Dawn and Drew.

I’m about a dozen shows short of being a real podcaster, but if and when I get there, I figured I’d follow Todd’s lead and post a link to the HawaiiUP voting form.

“I’d like to thank the academy…” Hey, a guy can dream…

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