What’s the difference between a private YackPack and a YackCast? How do I make my YackCast private and a private pack public?

Private Packs
A YackPack, which is the default when you set up a pack, is a private pack. You must be invited to participate in the group and outsiders cannot add themselves to a private YackPack. Only people who are invited to the group can send and listen to audio messages and talk in real time using Live Voice. The pack creator can always add and remove people to/from a private YackPack at any time.

YackCasting Packs
A YackCast is a public pack. When you set up a pack and make it a YackCasting pack, you will be sent an email with the public facing URL for your pack. A YackCast gives you the ability to allow anyone online to listen to what’s being publicly shared in your pack – and to join your pack. You can think of it kind of like a public discussion forum. There is no public directory of YackCasting packs, so you do have to do all the promoting yourself. If you set up a YackCast, you are given a connect link, which is a link you can send out or post which allows anyone to join your pack. There is also a “join” button on the public interface of your pack which allows people to join at will.

You can learn more about YackCasting by going to: http://www.yackcasting.com/.

We also have a short movie about YackCasting here: http://www.yackpack.com/videos/yackcastingintro/yackcastingintro.html.

Making a YackCast Private and a Private Pack a YackCast
There is currently no way to make a YackCasting pack a private pack. We’d like to have a toggle option. It's a little involved though because it has the potential to interfere with our COPPA policy (children's online privacy and protection act). Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to participate in YackCasts. In the future, it is likely that the option to change what kind of pack you have will be a premium service item that is available as part of a subscription.

If you’ve made a YackCast and want it to be private, here are two options you can consider.

1. You can recreate the pack, by starting a new pack and make it private. You can remove everyone from the old pack so that they don’t use it and then go ahead and remove yourself from the pack last – in essence deleting it for everyone.

2. You can leave the pack as is….there is practically no way for anyone to access your pack unless you yourself decide to send out the URL or publish the URL somewhere. There is no public directory of YackCasting packs.