Matt May is a Web accessibility specialist, and has written on the interaction of people and technology since 1995. He keeps his own weblog at bestkungfu.com, and produces a podcast called Staccato, which features Creative Commons-licensed music.
Alex Williamsblogs, consults and produces unconference style events, where people immerse in DIY media. These are fun occasions, designed for people who want to get together with authors, artists, technologists and leading thinkers to converse, eat, listen to music, write, shoot photos and post podcasts and videoblogs. Alex also works with companies to establish DIY approaches, where writing, photography, voice and video come together to create new conversations and communities. Alex is currently fascinated with digital photography. His girlfriend calls him a Flickrholic. Send Alex a nice message: alexhwilliams at gmail.com.
Nicole Simon loves blogging and podcasting, dashed with an European view. As consultant she helps to facilitate such tools for business purposes or personal publishing empires. She can be found at cruel to be kind and on her private blog Useful Sounds.
Roland Tanglao is a well known podcasting enthusiast and a passionate advocate of blogs, RSS, and social software as a means of online expression for people, organizations and businesses. He is a prominent participant in the blogosphere and online communities and one of the founders of Bryght and as Bryght's Chief Blogging Officer reads hundreds of blogs daily. He graduated from the University of Waterloo, worked at Nortel Networks where he ran its first internal corporate blog, has has been blogging since 1999, and was the first business blogging consultant in Canada.
Just Released the 2008 Tribalization of Business study - an in-depth look at how 140+ organizations are managing and measuring online communities
The Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference is starting to wind down, so I have a few moments to talk about my thoughts on the first 1000-plus-attendee conference built around podcasting.
When I walked into the exposition hall to collect my credentials on Thursday, I turned to the security guard, pointed up at the sign, and said, "See that word? Podcasting? That word didn't exist 16 months ago." Even he was impressed. The Expo was sold out, with an attendance of 2500. A number of podcast directories, iPod accessory makers, hosting services, software vendors and allied tradespeople are exhibiting (not to mention the pathologically gregarious Brother Love, who has been all smiles this weekend as he hangs out with the folks playing his podsafe music).
Some big names, like Yahoo, Audible, Intel, Adobe and MTV Networks, have appeared on the dais. Some others are notable for their absence (hint: two of them make operating systems).
On the expo floor, patterns emerge. Most exhibitors can be filed under:
Podcaster-oriented services and software (Liberated Syndication, FeedBurner, FeederReader, various audio tools)
Sound hardware (M-Audio, Sony Pro Audio, Marantz Professional)
Payment and ad platforms (PayPal, BitPass, Podvertiser, Click & Buy)
User groups (Association of Music Podcasting, LA and Orange County podcasting groups)
iPod and other player accessories (too many to count)
I'm still astounded by the scale of this event. It's clear that this is a going concern, and I would imagine that next year, the Expo will attract the attention of those who stayed away this time, along with a whole lot of high-end audio companies. I saw Michael Geoghegan's session in which he described the $25,000 studio he assembled for the Grape Radio podcast, and then could swear I saw thought bubbled pop up around the room: "I can buy that much gear? Really?" Overall, the conference is large, and I'm guessing it will only increase in size.
At the same time, there's been visible reason for reflection on just how big we really are. We've been sharing the Ontario Conference Center with the Portable Sanitation Association, which has an expo hall about the same size as ours. I can't help but guess that if we compared finances between the two rooms, we'd see that the federation of porta-potty purveyors generates maybe 1000 times more revenue than those showing off their wares in the Podcast Expo hall. Though admittedly, we don't traffic in human waste.
The pictures from Ontario look terrific, but your observation about revenues is interesting because you're not comparing like with like.
Podcasting right now is a hobby, and not an industry, so it would be more appropriate to compare it to other hobbies where the spend to support the hobby could be high. The fact that these hobbyists are producing media for the consumption of others instead of racing go-karts or building model railways doesn't put them in the 'media business' in any professional sense. In the 'sanitation hall' the exhibitors would not be selling to end users, in the way they would be in the podcasting hall. Given the amount of interest though it's surely only a matter of time before the industries supporting podcasters as hobbyists start making big money from them - but few podcasters will be making real money from their hobby anytime soon.
Adrian, I disagree and I find it to be assulting when you state that "doesn't put them in the 'media business' in any professional sense." Well, let me rephrase that: It feels as if someone from this old media business is trying very hard to keep his turf in saying that they are not professional in any sense.
If we can see something in the last years happening, it is to see the changing of the way 'media businesses' and alike work.
You might not want to see it as a industry, and in fact, we still have a longer way to go until we are like a big industry, from your description it would only be 'an industry' if it falls to the 'media business' to fulfill what they have done in the past.
Which would to be the middle man to the end consumer. That game is changing rapidly. Just take a look at the idea of producing tv shows directly to the consumer without television networks in between yet still selling it to them as an additional revenue stream.
You don't need a big so called industry anymore like labels to reach your customers anymore. Yes, you can use them and they still have advantages - but those days where the middleman was the only possibility to reach out is gone.
The future will increase those ways. Will all of them perfect media businesses? No, of course not. But while there will be still a 'media business' it will not play that role of the past any more and there will be (and already is) a new kind of people who are professional in this business and to be considered media business.
I had no intention of putting anybody down or denigrating what they do by my comment. In the audio world there will undoubtedly be some success stories - and by success here I am only talking about success in generating revenue. These will be the 'professional' ones in the proper sense of the word, because they will be paid for the work they are doing. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content, which in many cases exceeds that of the professionals.
But in terms of video you are completely wrong. You say:
... "take a look at the idea of producing tv shows directly to the consumer without television networks in between yet still selling it to them as an additional revenue stream."...
An additional revenue stream. That's the point isn't it. The reason these shows have been made is because they have been funded by channels and broadcasters in the first place. No reason at all then why they can't be exploited further as an additional revenue stream, but this doesn't support your argument that
..."You don't need a big so called industry anymore like labels to reach your customers anymore."...
because without the inital funding from the industry these shows would not be there at all.
It's all very well to have a distribution mechanism to get content to consumers without channels and broadcasters, but the creation of the sort of content that people have become accustomed to requires considerable expense. The videos sold by iTunes in its first week were those created for television with television budgets I think, and short form videos made on low budgets (however good they are) are never going to be of interest to the mass audience or replace television programmes in the marketplace.
Even a modest drama production costs £500k per hour to make, so channels and broadcasters MUST find a way to remain involved in this process - even if the delivery mechanism is completely replaced in the long term by on-demand and global availability, because without the channels raising the revenue through advertising the budgets will not be there to make the programmes, let alone market them to such a disparate audience.
And there is a further argument for the channel model to survive. A channel's existence and its attractiveness to advertisers is based on the nature of its programming - advertisers know what to expect when they buy into that channel because the audience is aggregated for them, and the audience knows what to expect when they consume that channel too.
A totally freeform video service will never work, because advertising will have to be sold against each individual programme - months or years in advance so that production can be funded - with no guarantee of audience size or reach. A tall order I'm sure you will agree.
As I recall, the computer industry really got going when the hobbyists got involved, quickly realized this was a business too and low and behold, a (very) large industry with associated innovation and creativity (not found in 'mainstay' businesses... like IBM at the time, but supplied by ‘the hobbyists’) was founded.
No I don't. Part of what makes this whole business so very expensive are expenses to play the channel 'game'. If such are gone, you are more able to produce cheaper productions.
By setting the premise "will never work because they will always need the channels" you are already limiting your imagination to what is possible or not.
What I don't disagree on is the fact that it will take not some years but more than that to deliver a more autonome model, but that will come.
As soon as producers get their head around what can be done through the internet today and delivery to the home of the customer.
Stop thinking just big expensive shows, but try to think about the smaller niche topics. A TV Show about all things chocolate? Ridicoulous to promote on any TV channel, expensive to market.
Distributed through the internet, with advertisement? No problem if done well.
I absolutely agree that for a niche market programmes about chocolate - or whatever you like - would be well suited for direct distribution. But then it is unlikely that programmes like these would be made at present because the distribution mechanism to target that audience doesn't exist. So by creating a new distribution mechanism the marketplace is certainly opened up - but that doesn't mean it replaces television, or replaces channels. If you like, the internet is one big channel for all the stuff that is too small to find an audience through a traditional channel. And that will apply whether the channel's output is distributed by broadcast or narrowcast, on-demand or streamed.
If you ran out of topics for clever conversation at the Portable Media Expo (aka Podcast Expo), you could always fall back on snarky comments about the expo next door that also dealt with portability. The Podcast Expo shared... [Read More]
Alex Williams
Matt May
Nicole Simon
Roland Tanglao
1. Adrian on November 13, 2005 4:23 AM writes...
The pictures from Ontario look terrific, but your observation about revenues is interesting because you're not comparing like with like.
Podcasting right now is a hobby, and not an industry, so it would be more appropriate to compare it to other hobbies where the spend to support the hobby could be high. The fact that these hobbyists are producing media for the consumption of others instead of racing go-karts or building model railways doesn't put them in the 'media business' in any professional sense. In the 'sanitation hall' the exhibitors would not be selling to end users, in the way they would be in the podcasting hall. Given the amount of interest though it's surely only a matter of time before the industries supporting podcasters as hobbyists start making big money from them - but few podcasters will be making real money from their hobby anytime soon.
Permalink to Comment2. Nicole Simon on November 13, 2005 11:13 AM writes...
Adrian, I disagree and I find it to be assulting when you state that "doesn't put them in the 'media business' in any professional sense." Well, let me rephrase that: It feels as if someone from this old media business is trying very hard to keep his turf in saying that they are not professional in any sense.
If we can see something in the last years happening, it is to see the changing of the way 'media businesses' and alike work.
You might not want to see it as a industry, and in fact, we still have a longer way to go until we are like a big industry, from your description it would only be 'an industry' if it falls to the 'media business' to fulfill what they have done in the past.
Which would to be the middle man to the end consumer. That game is changing rapidly. Just take a look at the idea of producing tv shows directly to the consumer without television networks in between yet still selling it to them as an additional revenue stream.
You don't need a big so called industry anymore like labels to reach your customers anymore. Yes, you can use them and they still have advantages - but those days where the middleman was the only possibility to reach out is gone.
The future will increase those ways. Will all of them perfect media businesses? No, of course not. But while there will be still a 'media business' it will not play that role of the past any more and there will be (and already is) a new kind of people who are professional in this business and to be considered media business.
Permalink to Comment3. Adrian on November 13, 2005 12:26 PM writes...
Nicole,
I had no intention of putting anybody down or denigrating what they do by my comment. In the audio world there will undoubtedly be some success stories - and by success here I am only talking about success in generating revenue. These will be the 'professional' ones in the proper sense of the word, because they will be paid for the work they are doing. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content, which in many cases exceeds that of the professionals.
But in terms of video you are completely wrong. You say:
... "take a look at the idea of producing tv shows directly to the consumer without television networks in between yet still selling it to them as an additional revenue stream."...
An additional revenue stream. That's the point isn't it. The reason these shows have been made is because they have been funded by channels and broadcasters in the first place. No reason at all then why they can't be exploited further as an additional revenue stream, but this doesn't support your argument that
..."You don't need a big so called industry anymore like labels to reach your customers anymore."...
because without the inital funding from the industry these shows would not be there at all.
It's all very well to have a distribution mechanism to get content to consumers without channels and broadcasters, but the creation of the sort of content that people have become accustomed to requires considerable expense. The videos sold by iTunes in its first week were those created for television with television budgets I think, and short form videos made on low budgets (however good they are) are never going to be of interest to the mass audience or replace television programmes in the marketplace.
Even a modest drama production costs £500k per hour to make, so channels and broadcasters MUST find a way to remain involved in this process - even if the delivery mechanism is completely replaced in the long term by on-demand and global availability, because without the channels raising the revenue through advertising the budgets will not be there to make the programmes, let alone market them to such a disparate audience.
And there is a further argument for the channel model to survive. A channel's existence and its attractiveness to advertisers is based on the nature of its programming - advertisers know what to expect when they buy into that channel because the audience is aggregated for them, and the audience knows what to expect when they consume that channel too.
A totally freeform video service will never work, because advertising will have to be sold against each individual programme - months or years in advance so that production can be funded - with no guarantee of audience size or reach. A tall order I'm sure you will agree.
Permalink to Comment4. Scott Converse on November 13, 2005 4:24 PM writes...
As I recall, the computer industry really got going when the hobbyists got involved, quickly realized this was a business too and low and behold, a (very) large industry with associated innovation and creativity (not found in 'mainstay' businesses... like IBM at the time, but supplied by ‘the hobbyists’) was founded.
You're witnessing just the beginning.
Permalink to Comment5. Nicole Simon on November 14, 2005 6:57 PM writes...
No I don't. Part of what makes this whole business so very expensive are expenses to play the channel 'game'. If such are gone, you are more able to produce cheaper productions.
By setting the premise "will never work because they will always need the channels" you are already limiting your imagination to what is possible or not.
What I don't disagree on is the fact that it will take not some years but more than that to deliver a more autonome model, but that will come.
As soon as producers get their head around what can be done through the internet today and delivery to the home of the customer.
Stop thinking just big expensive shows, but try to think about the smaller niche topics. A TV Show about all things chocolate? Ridicoulous to promote on any TV channel, expensive to market.
Distributed through the internet, with advertisement? No problem if done well.
Permalink to Comment6. Adrian on November 15, 2005 8:23 AM writes...
Nicole,
I think we have some agreement then.
I absolutely agree that for a niche market programmes about chocolate - or whatever you like - would be well suited for direct distribution. But then it is unlikely that programmes like these would be made at present because the distribution mechanism to target that audience doesn't exist. So by creating a new distribution mechanism the marketplace is certainly opened up - but that doesn't mean it replaces television, or replaces channels. If you like, the internet is one big channel for all the stuff that is too small to find an audience through a traditional channel. And that will apply whether the channel's output is distributed by broadcast or narrowcast, on-demand or streamed.
Permalink to Comment