Their embeddable players are some of the nicest (and smoothest) I've seen and used. You also get detailed stat analysis for anyone who uses it. I also use their Recast app that helps you to create short video clips to promote your podcast on social media. Recast is a public social sharing feature that you or anyone else create short clips of your episodes to share. It’s intuitive and easy to use and I love that this is built-in – no need for third-party apps to create video soundbites. When you’re just getting started, it’s a big plus to have a nicely designed website that doesn’t require a lot of tweaking. They have light and dark themes, or you can customize the color to match your branding, as well as choose different layout options.
To get advanced stats you have to upgrade your plan. Some aspects of the dashboard can be confusing at first, A built-in transcription service would be welcomed. Other hosting services let you host as many different podcasts as you want for one price, while you’ll have to pay for each show on Simplecast.
I host my design podcast on SimpleCast because I like the look & feel of their embedded player. The interface is well designed and I find the Audience Overview offers at-a-glance analytics I need to understand my show’s performance.
SimpleCast which is now SAM Cast supports streaming in MP3, mp3PRO, Ogg and WM9 (Windows Media 9), which is very positive for me. I can encode audio in multiple bitrates and multiple formats for multiple types of servers simultaneously. It also supports SHOUTcast server.
One of the disavantages is that there is a delay while streaming. I've observed the delay reached around 95 seconds, which is really an abnormal value when we are talking about live broadcasting.
I am able to broadcast live audio from events and live poadcasts, like a real radio broadcaster. Furthermore, it is possible to know in real time how many people are listening to your stream. And I use these to interact with people.