Need helping tracking downloads

Question

Hi everyone!
First off I'm a complete noobie when it comes to podcasting... I've had a podcast for over a year, however, I do not know anything about coding. I use a 3rd party app called Feeder to help me with my feeds.
I have a podcast in iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/aural-pleasures/id398501156) but originally started off with people subscribing via my website (http://www.auralpleasuresmusic.com). The website was linked to FeedBurner (took me a long time to get that to work, but I somehow did over a year ago... March 2009 to be exact). The FeedBurner link is itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/auralpleasurespodcast. The actual feeds to the podcast are http://idisk.me.com/keith_bowden/Public/AuralPleasures.xml (main feed) and http://idisk.me.com/keith_bowden/Public/KeithsPodcast.xml (which re-directs to the AuralPleasures.xml).
FeedBurner has allowed me to track downloads via people that clicked on the link on my website, but now I have no idea how to track download statistics from people that are subscribing via iTunes Music Store. Can someone please help me with that part?
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! I hope I'm explaining myself properly and sharing the correct info you need to help... if I'm not, please tell me what other information you need and I'll post ASAP.
Cheers,
Keith

Answer 1

iTunes is using your feed at
http://idisk.me.com/keith_bowden/Public/AuralPleasures.xml
The other feed contains the redirect tag and if it's more than about two weeks since you placed it there you can remove this feed as no longer necessary (the extra delay is for the benefit of subscribers, to redirect their own iTunes applications).
iTunes does not provide any sort of statistics. Whether it's possible to get the statistics from your server depends on whether it can offer the required facilities. This Apple Tech note briefly explains a method of doing this, and I'm afraid that as it's outside my experience I can't comment further on it.
Feedburner may be able to provide statistics, though you would need to confirm this with them before proceeding. You would need to submit your feed to them; they would then make their own version of it (adding quite a lot of muck in the process, most of which shouldn't be a problem as iTunes will ignore it). You would then need to go through the redirect process again to redirect iTunes to the Feedburner feed.
You should be aware that in doing this you lose control of your feed, and it's entirely possibly that should you ever want to redirect iTunes away from the Feedburner version you won't be able to.