Happy New Year

2006 was a banner year for Blubrry.

Blubrry was launched in July and since then has come a long way. We’ve done something remarkable in that we’ve built this community (not a network or a directory) to over 900 podcasts with 2000+ registered users. Those numbers might not sound so great until you consider the following.

  1. This is a self-funded venture. The members of the RawVoice team have put in their time, money, and effort into getting Blubrry off the ground.
  2. We’ve executed no major marketing campaigns. Our biggest marketing event to date has been the 2006 Podcast Expo. Aside from that, we’ve been kicking it guerrilla marketing style.
  3. We launched at a time when a major, venture capital-funded network was launching as well. Okay, that network is PodShow.
  4. Every podcast within the community is here because they want to be here. Blubrry is opt-in. So we don’t crawl the web snatching RSS feeds.
  5. To date over 100 podcasts within the community have made some hard-earned advertising dollars for their podcasts. The money is generally very modest but you’ve got to start somewhere.

We have an impressive set of features that will grow in 2007. You’ll see things like private messages, “juiced” podcasts, and featured profiles to name a few. Searching on the site will get better. We’re looking at adding an open community forum so the Blubrry family can mix it up. We’re working on the re-direct feature so you can use Blubrry to get more accurate stats from your podcasts. Oh, and more ad deals.

For those of you who want Blubrry to be your primary point of presence, we’ll have integrated hosting in 2007. What else do you want? Let us know.

And for those of you who are interested, our unique visitor stats were up 50% in December from November. We’ll be working to continue that trend so that podcasters, advertisers, and anyone who loves independently produced content can benefit from this community.

So Happy New Year :). Here’s to a great year for podcasting in 2007.