7 June 2005 One Comment

Here’s a quick heads-up on a few site- and feed-related items.

First up are the good problems to have. The Roadhouse has put a sizeable strain on the co-oped hosting server. We’re sucking up everyone else’s bandwidth. If my projected bandwidth numbers for June are even close to accurate, we’re likely to top 1 TB of bandwidth usage for the month. Right now, we’re averaging 1100 downloads a day of files that are between 34 and 36 MB. Given that the show is only 16 editions old, I think it’s a good problem to have.

I’m looking at a couple of solutions. I think the most likely is that I’ll add a new bittorrent feed to the mix, with the goal of eventually merging the mp3 feed back down to one single bittorrent feed. Since 60% of the downloads are still direct from the site, I’ll also leave the direct links on the site. Of the remaining 40%, 70% of you are using bittorrent-enabled podcast clients. That means that roughly 12 in every hundred downloads would still need to be from an mp3-enabled feed. I’ll watch the numbers closely and try to parallel any migration of that 12% to bittorrent. In other words, until I see the podcast client numbers approach 90% bt-enabled, I’ll keep an mp3-enabled feed available.

And that all circles back around to the “good problem to have” philosophy. I can’t thank you enough for your support in this first few months. I’ve been overwhelmed by the great comments, the loyalty to the ‘cast and the simply astounding numbers of new subscribers and listeners I’ve seen each week. The bandwidth issues are, in truth, pretty easily solved. They’re more than a fair tradeoff for your support of The Roadhouse.