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.
The Podcast Awards are coming up again. But apparently the entries are lacking a few basics, reflecting the poor understanding about RSS, show notes, and the various elements that go with a podcast.
Insomnia Radio recaps Todd Cochrane's lament in culling through the nominations for this year's Podcast Awards. What they found:
* 78% of the submissions had invalid feeds, according to FeedValidator.org.
* Of the remaining feeds, 96% had glaring errors.
* 42% did not have an RSS feed button on their home page. (gulp)
* 26% did not have a link to the file in their show notes.
* 21% had less than 2 lines of show notes.
* Some feeds were huge, as big as 500K and 367 entries.
* Only 49% of the submissions provide a way to contact the podcaster.
* 200 of the submissions that called themselves podcasts had no podcast feeds.
People understand the recording part. They get the idea behind making a show. They could be better web marketers.
More so, the findings reflect that RSS is still foreign to most people. It is still the magic part of the mix.
Odeo has lauched twttr, a texting service. Why? Leads to questions over at TechCrunch. How about the core product? Will it become something besides a simple recorder? They recently showed how they are making it easier to create personal lists, using OPML. They now have a video recorder, too. Seems like there is something in line between opening up an Odeo inbox for all to hear and a texting strategy where you are opeining up your text messages for all to read.
Wiith twttr, we have people leaving text messages for anyone to see at a public web site. Cool. People will love it. Show your photos, share your inner feelings in a podcast or blog and now open up your personal messaging from your phone. People like to see and be seen.
These dudes must have some pretty mellow investors. It's either that or they are seeing that podcast publishing and directory tools just don't get returns and it's better for investors to ok focus elsewhere, on the mobile specifically, where text messaging rules the day.
And there is a fiit between texting and podcasting, especially as the mobile becomes the dominant tool for publishing audio. How the two cross is the question. What's the fit between Odeo and twttr?
Sources close to Podshow say that the company will launch its new service next week that from all reports, looks like a media network for creatng and sharing shows. It's clear that they are looking for talent to fill the service they call Podshow+, according to the web site. The black and white video on the Podshow web site asks: "Are you popular?" That's a prett clear sign of their intentions. They want to attract popular shows, following the premise that if these shows can attract millions of people to their netwok then the laws of the long tail will attract Madison Avenue advertisers to their media properties. The news about Podshow is pretty well known to most folks in the business. But it's worth noting if not to underscore the talent search underway as demand for original work increases and networks race to sign new advertisers wanting to reach the communities who are downloading millions of shows.
Other talent searches are getting started. Todd Cochrane launched Blubrry here at Gnomedex yesterday. It's an open community service, too, a space for creating your own shows and connecting with listeners. Leveraging the pool of shows on the network, Cochrane says they will place advertising with the podcaster getting right of refusal, giving show producers some control about the advertising on their show. Podshow's service is looking to leverage this community, too.
Doug Kaye also launched a new media company yesterday but his service, Gigavox Media, is related more to the business approach from Podtech, which recently hired Robert Scoble. Podtech is building a network of produced shows that they receive from partners and the work they produce themselves.
I interviewed Doug last night for the Chris Pirillo show. Gigavox Media is directly associated with the Conversation Network, the non-profit he started. Gigavox will provide a technology license to the Conversaton Network, which will continue to develop material on topics related to matters such as government and the environment. Gigavox will iinclude Doug's IT Conversations, one of the original podcast networks. Gigavox principles will remain the same as those established by IT Conversations, with high attention being paid to the quality of the programming, both in terms of the topics it addresses and the excellence of the audio recordings. He is looking for talent. Doug, btw, helped me get my start in podcasting at Gnomedex 4.0, in South Lake Tahoe, when we teamed to record and podcast the keynotes and discussions from the event. It's good to see him here at Gnomedex.
These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how a major talent search is starting for people producing audio and video. The answers why are in the numbers. In two separate conversatons yesterday, i spoke with podcasting industry people who say they have each been on a tear in signing new advertisers. These are advertisers looking for shows that reach the increasing numbers of people who are looking for indie produced works. They're searching the social networks for news, entertainment and as a way to share their work and meet people who they connect with on a personal level. Those viewers are valuable for advertisers. And the money they are investing shows the considerable monetary value that these shows command.
The demand for shows will only increase over the next year as more advertisers seek to reach these larger audiences. And that's the race the new media companies are facing. It's a race to find the next star.
Time to get this blog back in gear. And what a better time to do it than with the landmark announcement over the weekend that
Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft to work for Podtech Update: Maryam is joining Podtech, too. She'll be announcing it soon. Congrats to the both of them.
Robert changed the blogosphere. His engaging style, insights and jovial personality combined as a potent force that he used artfully.. He's a master of the medium. He does great work.
Will Robert have the same effect on podcasting?
Podcasting is a world of its own. Personalities abound but no one, I think you could argue, has transcended the podcasting medium the way Robert has done in the blogosphere. Adam Curry, Chris Pirillo and folks like Eric Rice are immensely popular. Doug Kaye is a legend. Correct me please if you disagree but I do not know of any podcasters who has had as much of an influence as Robert has with his blog.
Will lightning strike twice?
Robert did have the good fortune of blogging from Redmond. He worked there at a time when the company needed to display itself in a way that would counter its image as an evil empire of sorts. He opened up the company in a way that will serve as a historical example of how blogging has affected corporate culture. Channel 9 did what it was supposed to do. With his rough cut video intervews, Robert and the team he worked with showed that people besides Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie actually work at the company.
The timing was just right for a personality like Robert to be a Microsoft blogger and engage with folks. He's a jolly guy, able to counter flames from angry commenters. He'd get fried sometimes. But he was always quick to get back in and engage. He did it in a way that wasn't over the top. And that counts for a lot. It's easier to be a lightning rod when people like you.
We know little about what Robert's role will be at Podtech. But his impact will be far different. My guess is he will continue to be an evangelist in some way, back on the conference circuit, interviewingh people and bringing the message to the corporate world about the offerings that grass roots media and Podtech provides.
Will he have the same effect on podcasting that he had on blogging? Is podcasting so different that the two are mutually exclusive in how they impact our lives? Will there ever be a Scoble like personality in the podcasting world? Podtech doesn't seem like the place where Robert will act as a lightning rod. But maybe he'll do a daily show? Rile it up? I'd love to see that.
I just expect that we will continue to see Robert do great work. And that in itself ill make an impact on podcasting that will change the medium for all of us.
Good luck, Robert and Maryam. We'll all be watching with interest.
A very controversy topic this week was the publication of a new Link TextForrester research study about the use (or not use) of Podcasting. But the comments left in the Net suggest that many have a different point of view.
Forrester projects that just 700,000 households in the US in 2006 will use podcasting, and that it will grow to 12.3 million households in the US by 2010. (See Forrester's "The Future Of Digital Audio" report). Just to give you some context, we expect MP3 adoption to be almost 11 million households in the US this year, and grow to 34.5 million households by 2010. So that means in four years, about a third of those MP3 owners will be listening to podcasts on those devices. Podcasting will get easier and the content will get better, but it will all take time.
The study (and the thereof following comments and trackbacks) is interesting in two points: It shows how suddenly a well know company can get visible flack about their study but also I was curious to see the limitation of the study to the US market.
Given, most of the interest for this study might come from North American companies, but it is one of the interesting and fascinating parts about podcasting that is is not just that one market but a world wide phenomena.
I also doubt the number of exposure to podcasting - every sold iPod out there is wired to iTunes and this does expose the content of podcasting to every iPod user.
As the study says:
One-quarter of online consumers express interest in podcasts, with most interested in time-shifting existing radio and Internet radio channels.
25% of (again I assume US market) users have expressed an interest in the time shifted aspect. And are getting used to XX on demand, without the boundaries of what today's media brings with them.
My caution is that companies shouldn’t be dashing out to create expensive original content for a small audience – unless they gain value from being seen as innovative.
Yesterday it was only Tivo, and that is mostly offline business. Today, 25% express interest, only 18 months after podcasting started and video casting has not really taken off.
If the whole way changes the way my customers deal with me at all, my advise would be to start *very* soon with going where there are going. Because all it takes for those 25% interested persons to go into regular listeners of podcasts is to find a topic of interest to them.
John Furrier has raised $5.5 million for his PodTech network. That's a cool load of cash for a company that produces shows. Wait, I thought the startups making media were not in favor? I guess that isn't true anymore. Podshow raised many millions and has all kinds of original programming.
John will be hring podcasters. That's amazing. Will there be a podcast newsroom? I never thought I'd see the day. I am just ecstatic about the prospects of smart, collective journalism that explores issues and is made available as podcasts.
This morning at 7:50a.m. Pacific, I was on CityTV Vancouver'Breakfast Television for about 5 minutes. I spoke with Simi Sara, the host, on how easy it is to podcast and I demoed Odeo (which works through a web browser like Internet Explorer). All you need is a computer with a microphone, an internet connection and Odeo (free, unlimited 3 minute podcasts!), a story, something to say or a cool sound. What I didn't get a chance to say was: play around with Odeo and then when you get serious, move up to a non free commercial provider like Audioblog (my friend Eric Rice's podcasting and videoblogging service) or libsyn (just to name two).
Adam Curry and folks are talking about the unlabel. How does the news from Tower Record fit into this concept? Tower is calling their effort, TowerPod. They'll have more news about it at SXSW, where I'm heading later this week. Hope to learn more about it there. In the meantime, here's what we do know so far. Podcasters will get access to 6,000 songs, with revenue coming from embedded ads that will be placed in their shows. Music will come from indie artists. Profits get split between Tower, the musicians, indie labels and the podcast creators.
At the Podcast Hotel, the event I produced recently, an artist round table discussion lead to an animated discussion about artist compensation. Samantha Murphy argued that podcasters should compensate the musician for playing their music. Tim Mitchell of IODA said it is all about conversion and if so, podcasters should do very well as podcasting becomes a new distribution medium for indie music. Listen to the discussion here.
Details are sketchy at this point about TowerPod. How much will the artists receive? What does Tower get out of this? And how are the podcasters compensated?
Plus, how does this work? How is the ad embedded?
Outhink, a P2P service, looks to be the engine behind TowerPod, which makes me think that the podcasters will load their shows to the Tower service, where the ads will be embedded and then categorized according to music genre. I've heard a little about TowerPod from folks who are contributing to it but nothing as of yet about how artists will make a decent buck.
Good to see another player in the space. I just wonder how this will all shake out for the artist.
If, like me, you can't get enough of the XX Olympic Winter Games. Podcasting News has gathered a list of Olympics-related podcasts, including feeds from the AP, New York Times, and the US Olympic Team itself.
The online video coverage from NBC isn't bad -- but it's not portable, either. All of the media available is streamed, and unavailable outside the United States. It may be 2012 or 2014 before we can subscribe to portable video of a given sport, given the licensing restrictions that are in place. There's no doubt that the video is there. After all, nearly every country has cameras in Torino right now. But the IOC bureaucracy isn't very likely to understand the potential of the Long Tail for niche events like curling, equestrian, and distance running. Or for the tournaments (baseball, softball, basketball, hockey, soccer) that are too much to cover well on one network. Which is too bad, really. Especially for people like me.
Coca Cola is sending bloggers and podcasters to the Olympics. I wonder if these blogs will be worth reading. Why make such a point that these people will only have positive things to say? Do they not trust hese college students to just post their own impressions of the Olympics? Won't this just make these posts a bit too fuzzy?
From Mediapost:
Adding to its usual marketing efforts during the games, Coke is paying to fly and accommodate young representatives from China, Germany, Italy, Canada, Austria, and the United States--each of whom has agreed to keep their posts positive, according to Coca-Cola spokesman Philipp Bodzenta.
"They understand they we're looking for the positive side of the Olympics," said Bodzenta, adding: "They are part of the PR team, but they are not Coke employees."
But now Ricky Gervais has a world record after his podcast became the most downloaded ever.
Gervais' weekly show on Guardian Unlimited, featuring writing partner Stephen Merchant and sidekick Karl Pilkington, averaged 261,670 downloads a week during its first month.
[...]
The podcast debuted on Guardian Unlimited in December 2005 and regularly tops the iTunes podcasting chart, beating the likes of Radio 1 breakfast host Chris Moyles.
While it is nice to see podcasting in the Guinness Book of World Records and Rick Gervais show surely being a success - how can something be the most downloaded one if there are no agreed upon statistics in this area?
Many people for example mistake hits for downloads on a podcast, an error many people make also with RSS Feeds. "My feed was accessed 24 times today!" can mean 24 actual subscribers or just a service checking every minute. With podcast, some software downloads chunks (generating several hits in the servers' log files) or access one and the same file over and over again.
The mentioning of iTunes in this article indicates to me that there is perhaps an interest of Apple to have their download numbers be the standard for such a world record - but they don't publish those and they are only per store basis, also not a reliable number. And, do we count numbers in average, numbers per episode?
But, if you are in doubt and you have a better download rate, you still have a chance to enter yourself in the Guinness Book:
The Ricky Gervais Show will be included in the 2007 edition of the Guinness World Records' book - as long as no other podcast tops it before it is published in the autumn.
I would assume Podshow and other high traffic podcasters will start making phone calls - both to the Guineas World Records' Book and to their webhosters.
When you hear the words "podcast charts" - would the second thought coming to your mind be "from the BBC"? No?
It should, because the BBC website published their numbers for on demand content for December and named the press release "Best of Moyles tops BBC podcast chart".
The experiment was started last year and the BBC plans to continue and study this new phenomena:
Simon Nelson, Controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive, said: "It's fantastic to see how the demand for radio downloads has grown since we first offered them in 2004. These figures underline the enduring relevance of radio in the digital world."
Twenty programmes were made available in BBC Radio's download and podcast trial last May.
At the end of the 2005 it was announced that the trial would be extended into this year and would include more programmes, in order to gain a better understanding of listeners' preferences.
While for the moment the BBC programs are "just" redistributed as podcast, I am sure we will see the day when Radio itself will serve as "just second" distribution channel!
Allow your users to keep the content at a place they want: One lesson of the last year has been that users want to have their content / their pictures / their podcast not locked in. Websites and applications who understand this have done better than other who tried to lock in the users.
Widgets for your blog is one favorite example - you can use a Frappr map on your page or as of now also a flash player from Odeo on your site. But they go a step further and allow me to use anything I find on Odeo:
If you find something on Odeo that you’d like to share with others on your web site or blog, you can include a Flash player. Just click the HTML link on any audio page and copy the code. Then paste the code in your site or blog editor and publish like normal. The player will show up on that page.
Sounds fantastic, right? Well, not so much.
The fact that I am publishing my podcast also on the Odeo page in my channel is something I am restrictively using for distributing. It would also be okay if I would be able to easily access my own channel with such a player - but not anything I find on Odeo.
Redistributing content I don't have the licensing to is will get me into problems - and it leaves the question whether for example Odeo can be held responsible for encouraging copyright infringements?
Th Unofficial Apple Weblog shows how to change your podcast feed in iTunes. The TUAW post also has a handy document you may want to peruse. It's the technical specification document for podcasting and iTunes. As they write at TUAW, the docment is a wealth of information.
Podcasting is on the radar for marketing execs but their sites are set more than a year out for investing more dollars into the medium.
That's the conclusion of a Marketing Sherpa, ad:tech study which polled 644 marketers who spend 44% of their total ad and marketing budgets on the Web. The study looked at the 2005 best and worst practices in internet marketing and a look at the year ahead.
Eighteen percent of respondents said they will definitely spend money on an in-house podcasts with 31 percent stating that doing an in-house podcast is more than a year out.
Fourteen percent said they will sponsor a podcast in 2006, while 32 percent said sponsorship is definitely more than a year out.
These numbers make you wonder about the success of podcasters trying to make commercial plays. How will the the market shake out in the year ahead for the podcasting pioneers if revenues from advertisers are limited? And, who will get the dollars available? I expect that the mainstream media players will continue to be the big winners. They are already attracting major advertisers for their podcasts and can offer packages that include podcasting sponsorships as an added value.
Here's what they say you can see with your video iPod:
In this week's 7 Days programme: see the man with bionic arms... an animal version of Big Brother... the stuntman who goes up, up, and away... an Elvis celebration and a soapbox spectacular.
Podcastsing is taking a next natural step in its development by tying into enterprise applications, hand-in-hand with blogging, its close relative and partner.
Blogs are the first to make this jump as ties to enterpirse and CRM applications are made by setting permissions to a corporate blog with access privileges to specific categories. Within these captegories, podcasts are uploaded, linked from the blog.
I have a few corporate clients who, like most anyone, just want to know the best way to use a blog or a podcast. One of these clients has a sales force that is on the road three to four days a week. One thing I recommend people in companies such as these are audits to define where may be the best fit for a blog or podcast strategy. For this holding company of heavy industrial equipment makers, their sales force needs better access to information related to new products that have higher margins. As the sales force is on the road most of the time, blogs may be less beneficial than a daily podcast that they can listen to as they are driving and trying to prepare for their next stop on their sales journey.
Podcasts can be tied in with blogs that deliver custom information from enterprise applications. And this is where a smart phome, integrated with a feed reader that can download mp3s seems like a natural evolution in how podcastng emerges as not only a wonderful consumer application but also one that provides real advantage for a mobile workforce.
Australia'a Greens leader Bob Brown is podcasting from his mobile phone. He finds it easy to go directly to people simply by pulling over in his car, getting out his mobile phone, recording a comment about an issue and then posting it directly to the web. He now has five shows since he started the effort in early December.
Seems like politcians could podcast pretty easily and a lot more frequently if they used their mobile devices just to let us know what they are thinking about. I'd like to know who is the most prolific political podcaster. Who is really making use of podcasting to be more authentic and real? Are politicians capable of creating podcasts that are real and authentic? My bet is that the list of podcasts from politicians that fit this mold is pretty short. But if you know of a podcast from a politician that really seems authentic, please let me know. I'd like to hear what they have to say.
Is podcasing for consumer electronics companies a way to get buzz or is it a feature set important to innovation? I just ran across a Sony announcement on TechSmec about the Vaio Home Entertainment PC, designed to use the TV as display.
They state:
The Sony VAIO VGN-XL100 is supplied with Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition for simplified access to media features as well as full PC functionality. In addition, it comes with VAIO Information Flow, a specially designed graphical interface for use at a distance from the screen. This makes interaction with the VGN-XL100 a very simple matter, and provides instant access to popular services including RSS feeds, a newsreader, podcasting, picture slideshows and the music player.
With video podcasting taking off, I'd expect we'll see similar announcements in the weeks ahead, especially with MacWorld on its way. What will be the impact on podcasting as more consumer electronics companies use podcasting to try and differentiate their products and services?
Darren Barefoot wrote a piece called "Why I’m Not Smoking the Podcasting Dope" back in March which attracted a lot of comments both agreeing and disagreeing.
"An Update on the Podcasting Dope" reflects those and changes in the last nine months in Podcasting / the common perception from his point of view.
Steve Jobs has a standing engagement with every diehard Mac geek in existence for the second week of January each year. It's one of a handful of dates in which he unveils Apple's new products and strategies. In the past few months, much of the attention has been focused on two areas: the gameplan for Intel-based Macs, and the iPod. The impact of the latter to readers of this blog is hardly worth explaining. But the new Macs may have a lot more to do with podcasting than you think.
The iTunes Music Store continues to tease us with a glimmer of what could be. To Apple's credit, iTunes has singlehandedly jawboned media companies into producing downloadable versions of their products. At the moment, iTMS boasts video content from Disney (ABC/ESPN) and Universal (NBC/USA/SciFi), including shows that are no longer on the air. What they haven't done is provide a subscription model for those shows. If Apple could promise me a season of, say, Arrested Development, delivered straight to my 5G iPod, I'd put my money down in advance. (Well, except for the part where my TiVo already fulfills that same promise.)
In fact, if iTunes had all of the shows I watch regularly, and offered a reasonable subscription price for them, I think the only thing that would hold me back from breaking it off with the cable company would be live news and events. I've already used my iPod with my home TV (not to mention the projector at work) to catch up on my shows -- as well as my vid/vod/videocasts -- whenever the mood strikes. It's a natural fit, when you really think about it:
iPods are cool.
TiVo is cool.
Therefore, an iPod that's as good as a TiVo is wicked cool.
I'll couch a 2006 prediction in here: Apple is going to try like hell to prove to the public that a video-capable iPod is not a gimmick. That means interface improvements, larger drives, higher-quality video, and my guess is a video-capable iPod nano this year. But above all else will be an emphasis on everything working with and/or through the iPod and iTunes.
Which brings us to the new Macs. The rumored Mac mini is a home theater PC: an arena Microsoft has tried in vain for years to conquer. The Front Row app that came with the last batch of iMacs was a warmup for an intuitive TV-based media interface, and the Intel chipset offers instant-on functionality, a must-have for home theater components. There's even the suggestion that the new Mac will have an iPod dock built-in.
All indications are that Apple wants to use the iPod as a Trojan horse with which to take over the home media market. (Hmm. Trojans. That reminds me: if you're in the US and didn't see that USC-Texas game, you can and must buy the highlights on iTunes.) While Bill Gates is crossing his fingers over Xbox 360 and Windows Vista, Jobs may already be moving into his endgame.
I had been figuring it would be somewhere into the next decade at the earliest before the broadcast date of a show became simply a transmission date -- the point at which the embargo on a given episode expires, and it is made available to the public. I think that if Apple keeps moving down this path, it might happen as early as next year.
The avenues that would open to the viewer are amazing to ponder, though I'm sure that network execs get white-knuckled at the very thought of that kind of change. For the first time perhaps since the advent of television, entrenched organizations at every step of the media production chain are at risk of being shaken to their core thanks to a wave of new technology.
It's no exaggeration to state that some corporations are entering 2006 wondering whether they'll still be around in 2010. And from where I sit, for the companies I'm thinking about, it's about goddamn time. Many media companies, particularly content owners, have played defense for far too long. If they didn't see the Internet and portable media coming, economic theory says they deserve what they're gonna get. To boil it down to a few words, Schumpeter's principle of creative destruction is going to make your TV kick ass.
Remember my predictions are worth what you pay for them :-)
Prediction number 2: Apple will not introduce an iPod with built in recording (and leave it to 3rd party manufacturers which is OK but it would great for podcasters if they had an iPod for podcasters) nor will they introduce anything to record video (on a phone or otherwise). This is one prediction I hope will not come true because I think there is a market for a iPod for podcasters and Apple has the ability to make it a truly easy to use, seamless experience from microphone back to the iPod.
Barney and Miss Beazley have their own video podcast. Who are these scottish terrriers? Apparently, they're the pet companions of President George Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. Check out the pictures. These dogs travel! I wonder what these dogs have witnessed in their years living inside the president's living quarters?
I've reviewed some weird podcasts since I launched this site, but this one has GOT to be the strangest. From what I can tell this is the official video podcast of President Bush's dogs. Is that right? Is this what George Bush has on his iPod? Have I gone crazy? Is this my tax dollars at work? WTF?
iPodTV is one of those sites to watch if you are into the video podcast space. You'll find multiple categories, including 13 posts on video iPod directories, 12 covering animation and 22 on software.
Here is some of the news I saw there today:
* More news about BlinxTV
* Commander in Chief to be available on the iPod.
* VideoiPodder.com, a site that "scours other bittorrent sites, and posts the iPod-format video torrents it finds there, along with a few of its own."
* And TheBodcast.com -- not to be confused with Playboy's vodcast program.
Now, here's why it is smart to hire, funny, witty authors, with distinctive voices. For they don't only sound good on radio and television, they can make great podcast personalites, too.
Motel 6 has launched a podcast featuring Tom Bodett, their longtime radio and tv spokesman, famous for his deadpan, dry narratives with the cheery hometown music in the background.
The first podcast features top six reasons to stay at Motel 6 during the holiday season, with one of the reasons being, "You, not grandma's poor circulation, control the temperature."
Now, here's why it is smart to hire, funny, witty authors, with distinctive voices. For they don't only sound good on radio and television, they can make great podcast personalites, too.
Motel 6 has launched a podcast featuring Tom Bodett, their longtime radio and tv spokesman, famous for his deadpan, dry narratives with the cheery hometown music in the background.
The first podcast features top six reasons to stay at Motel 6 during the holiday season, with one of the reasons being, "You, not grandma's poor circulation, control the temperature."
Slapcast is down and podcasters using the service have lost their shows. It's still unclear what happened but it appears the domain has not been renewed.
Podshow, through their site, Podcast Alley, is offering to help Slapcast podcasters get their shows up and running again.
f your podcast was hosted or controlled by SlapCast.com and you have lost your podcast… please contact me ASAP. It doesn’t make sense and we want to help you get your podcast up and running again.
Send an email to info@podcastalley.com with your show name and contact information and lets get this fixed. PodShow will be happy to help you get your podcast running again.
Google Music is getting a lot of mention today. It just seems the online music space just gets hotter with each passing day. While at the same time the traditional music industry seems to get hotter and hotter under the collar about protecting their turf. Most notably is the most recent salvo by the Music Publishers Assocation to try and stop unlicensed publishers from posting song lyrics on web sites. MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed. Wow.
Google Music sets the search giant's sites on the ever more lucrative music business, providing indexed searches for bands, lyrics to songs and music services including iTunes. Will Google be labeled a pirate for indexing sites that feature song lyrics? It doesn't seem likely but who knows when you have someone like Keiser making such inflammatory remarks.
Google Music will allow a person to type in the name of a band, artist, album or song in the main Google search bar special, and results will appear at the top, accompanied by icons of music notes, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google.
But what will Google do, now that it is setting its aim on the ever growing online music world? In particular, how will Google use this directory to form a podcast index that competes with Yahoo!, which has so far demonstrated the most cohesive search strategy for the podcast market? Yahoo! is on a roll with its acquisition of Del.icio.us and its embrace of RSS. They launched their podcasting directory earlier in the fall. Media RSS seems to be gaining attention. They are developing audio and video search. And they have their own music store. Plus, they are focused on being an entertainment brand.
Dave Winer has posted an item that he wrote originally in June (we linked to the post at the time) that he has heard Google is preparing for an iTunes clone with RSS 2.0 to make it a competing podcast service. It's hard to see that in light of Google's apparent close ties to iTunes in Google Music.
A more likely scenario is that Google will continue its indexing strategy and leverage its power to generate revenue from related advertising.
I don't see Google as an entertainment brand. But, perhaps, this is one way for them to pursue the show biz market? Hmm. Any thoughts on this one Mr. Keiser?
...And podcasting pioneer Adam Curry has been accused of editing the entry on podcasting to remove references to competitors' work. Curry says he merely thought he was making the entry more accurate.
However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.
The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.
So, isn't this saying that Wikipedia essentialy has its own peer review network that compares in quality to the systems and processes the encyclopedia folks follow? And so why are we flapping about Wikipedia? What about the millions of bloggers and podcasters who flout all kinds of questionably accurate statements?
The Dickens podcast will be in five instalments running on December 15-16 and December 19-21 and read by the actor Geoffrey Palmer, best known for his roles in 'Butterflies', 'As Time Goes by' and 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin'.
Like other publishers, the foray into podcasting is sparking ideas for how to use the new medium to promote authors, unpublished works and new authors.
A reference to podcasting in last night's episode of the Fox comedy "Arrested Development" may have been more than just a one-liner.
It happened as Oscar Bluth, the hapless twin brother of family patriarch and criminal mastermind George Sr., was about to be incarcerated once again due to mistaken identity.
Warden: What a treat: the man who cost me my promotion ends up back in my care. And I don't think there's going to be an I'm Oscar Web site this time.
Oscar: I think this time I'll do a podcast.
Think they may be dropping hints? AD is on the way out after two and a half seasons, with Fox planning to replace it early next year, presumably with some show featuring models singing on a desert island surrounded by product placements. But the show's DVD sales are strong, and the fan base is rabid, if a bit small. Steve Safran at Lost Remote has already recommended that AD continue on as a video podcast. If they can keep the troupe together (including Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, David Cross, and the uncredited voice of Ron Howard), they'd have a lot more fun -- and they may still make a lot of money. Could Arrested Development be the first TV show rescued by the Long Tail?
For months, Del.icio.us has been a chief discovery tool for me to find new video and audio. It's always refreshing to see what pops up.
Last night I saw a parody of Steve Jobs introduce the "invisible iPod," on SNL's Weekend Update. I saw Jelly D, the rapping pastry. He's a guy dressed up as a jelly donut who made it to the semi's of a freestyle rapping competition in Oakland. A woman sang and played the harp with an animated blackboard featurng sailing ships and flying doves. I saw a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in his younger days as Mr. Universe on a trip to Carnivale in Rio where he teaches a Brazilian woman some new words using a carrot stick as a prop. A quite insightful look at the California governor.
I've watched a Green Day music video "When September Comes," and "Some Postman," by Presidents of the United States of America.
I don't ever know what will appear. It all depends on what people post to Del.icio.us. The Del.icio.us hack works like this:
I go to Del.icio.us and look for tag words associated with the file format I am searching. For instance, I started watching music videos in June over my desktop. I first created an addres: http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mov
I then added a tag: "music video." The url looks like this. The tag is in bold: http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mov+musicvideo
The address takes you to the web page where you may subscribe to ther RSS feed: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:filetype:mov+musicvideo
Copy the RSS feed into iTunes (under avanced) and the videos start appearing as people post to Del.icio.us according to the tag "music video."
In podcasting, still one of the greatest challenges comes as more people start making shows. What is worth watching? Recommendations help. And recommendations through tags works beautifully.
Tags also help extend the meaning of a podcast. I can subscribe to shows I like through podcast directories or by visiting the individual's site. Chris Pirillo, Adam Curry, Rocketboom are all in my iTunes because I have subscribed to their feeds.
But with tags I can listen to podcasts that perhaps may not even have their own RSS feeds. They are collections of links that are either audio or video files that people have tagged. Del.icio.us does the job of providing the RSS feed. And through that process, I am opened up to a whole new universe of shows and programs that appear automatically in iTunes, the same way as a traditional podcast.
What does this mean for Yahoo!? It means that they have an advantage as far as I can tell in the podcasting space. I can use services like Del.icio.us to discover new shows. It also adds value to iTunes in it keeps me going there to see what funky new stuff is showing up. And it takes me out of the traditional podcast paradigm. I am now consuming shows that may not necessarily fit the standard podcast construct. They may not even have RSS feeds. And I am getting grass roots media that is recommended by people, not editors. It's not that I don't like editor recommendations. But I often find that everyone is an editor thes days. So, why should I limit myself to what the traditional mediia suggests?
What a strage world it must be for newspaper executives these days. They face an aging readership and a product that costs a relative fortune to produce.
Seems to make sense that video podcasts would be worth the investment for a newspaper, huh?
Ever watch Rocketboom? Now you can get it on Tivo. Now, who says that original material can't make it in the world of big media? Repurposed? Not Rocketboom. The Rocketboom folks are at the roots of the grass roots media juggernaut. And now, they're moving into a new universe. I wonder what they get out of this?
Good to see a grass roots players get a little love. All the big media seem to love this new medium. But they are the repurposing kings. They're not Rocketboom.
Playboy.com today announced launch of its own sexy spin on the popular podcasting craze. The new "Playboy Bodcast" will enable consumers on-the-go to download online video features from Playboy.com directly to portable players like Apple's new iPod Video.
The "Bodcasts" will be updated every weekday and will contain the following online video features:
* Joke of the Day -- joke delivered by a Playboy model.
* Ask Hef Anything -- offers wit and wisdom from Mr. Playboy, Hugh Hefner.
* From the Mouths of Babes -- provides advice from Playboy's sexy Cyber Girls.
Check out this eyetracking study of web video. The conclusion, talking heads are boring to watch online. People check out the controls, headlines and even a trash can. The answer may be that people want action and movement.
Interesting conclusion:
Since the Web's beginning, I've warned against repurposing. The initial problem was that companies simply put up advertising brochures as websites. Later, newspapers and other content sites failed to follow the guidelines for writing for the Web and used headlines that were optimized for print. Now, as technology evolves, we're seeing the same phenomenon for yet another media type: you can't recycle video and expect to create a good online user experience.
Saw over at MicroPersuasion that editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have named podcast as the word of the year. (Steve notes that Oxford American has a blog but not a podcast.)
My question: Now, how does Oxford American's choice of words affect the history of podcasting? Will this be a marked moment?
Check out podcasting and some of the other top words in their press release. I find the first three haunting:
bird flu (an often fatal flu virus of birds, esp. poultry, that is transmissible from them to humans, in whom it may also prove fatal)
ICE (an entry stored in one's cellular phone that provides emergency contact information)
IDP (internally displaced person; someone forced to relocate within a country because of a natural disaster or civil unrest)
And these uplifting:
lifehack (a more efficient or effective way of completing an everyday task: "I found a great lifehack for getting a cheap hotel room.")
reggaeton (a Latin American dance music which combines elements of reggae music with hip-hop and rap.)
The RSS Hijacking story is getting a bit more sunshine now that the folks at Podkeywords are giving their side of the story.
A lot of questions to answer. I'll have more later as I am traveling.
Here are a few posts to read:
Podkeyword's response, which includes, a post from Kevin Devin, who comes to Podkeyword's defense. David Lawrence is under the belief that George is getting a bad rap. He will have George as a guest tonight on his radio show to discuss what has happened. See the Podkeyword blog for info on time and how it can be heard.
In particular, look at the list of podkeyword users that has been posted. Are you on this list? Are you having the same problems or is this not an issue at all?
Also, see Collette Vogel's follow up. She is taking Erik as a client over this issue.
Two big consumer devices announced podcasting support this week. Sony's PSP firmware 2.60 supports RSS enclosures. The new feature is only able to stream content found in podcast feeds. With built-in wifi, though, that might not be so bad. It also adds a few million new potential listeners to the audience.
TiVo's announcements made a bigger splash: through its content partnership with Yahoo, TiVo Series 2 devices now offer a section for podcasts, with listings taken from the Yahoo Podcasts site. What's more, TiVo, whose talks with Apple broke off recently, announced it will support the iPod as a TiVo-To-Go device sometime in early 2006. It's sort of a funny juxtaposition, from the podcaster's perspective: first, we get into the set-top box, which was the domain of broadcast and cable; and next, broadcast and cable get onto the iPod. That's a fair trade, I'd say.
There's just one problem. The greatest potential for TiVo's podcast support is in downloading video in RSS enclosures. At the moment, I've been pulling down video feeds and running them through a transcoder so my TiVo's MPEG-2 decoder can handle them. (Sidebar: video transcoders are going to be the fastest-growing software segment in 2006. Write it down.) But the TiVo box itself doesn't have much processing power, and its hardware MPEG-2 decoder can only handle a narrow range of bitrates (2-8Mbit/sec), all of which are pretty big in size. Most video feeds are much smaller, but with MPEG-4 and especially the H.264 format used on the iPod, they take a lot more horsepower to render than the TiVo will be able to muster.
This, like most great opportunities, has a big barrier sitting in front of it. I don't think a lot of videobloggers will want to make their work available at a minimum of 10MB per minute of video. Something will have to be done to get video feeds to work well with the TiVo, even if it involves using the companion TiVo Desktop software to transcode for the time being. There is too much good stuff that would be well-received if only it could jump from the laptop screen to the living room TV.
And that's the big message of both the Sony and TiVo announcements: convergence. Sony's device is the second-hottest electronic device on the market today, and they have responded with an upgrade to support podcasts (and Windows Media) to showcase the PSP as a convergence device. TiVo's announcements have convergence practically written all over them. They and Yahoo are making a play for the coveted "digital hub": the device that brokers media and services to you from your home. Expect more of this kind of announcement over the next six to twelve months, from Microsoft for the Xbox 360, Sony for the PlayStation 3, and probably Apple for a new Mac-mini-based media center. They've all been looking at this space for years.
"We have six years of experience working with web publishers so it is a natural transition for us to work with podcasters who need business and advertising support," said Dave Hamilton, cofounder of BackBeat Media, iPO, and TMO, and cohost of The Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab, in a statement. "With the formation of the BackBeat Media Podcast Network, we can bring that experience to a new medium while offering advertisers an additional channel to connect with a smart and savvy consumer base."
John Furrier gets the podcast exclusive about the Yahoo! announcement for RSS in Yahoo! Mail and Alerts. John is convincing folks that it does make sense to launch a new product with a podcast. A few reasons why this makes sense:
* I can listen to the interview, which provides a bit more context to the news release
* I can use it as a comparison to the other blog postings about the announcement
* I can quickly go through the transcript, again to find insights into why the announcement makes sense
I want a box about the size of an iPod that has drag and drop of files via a USB Mass storage driver, 6 hour battery life, takes compact flash cards so there are no moving parts, has 2 XLR and 1/4" inputs and real phantom power (48 Volts) and a built in compressor (software compression is for the birds :-) !) so that people don't talk over each other. The M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 comes the closest (the Marantz PMD 660 is too big!) but it doesn't have real phantom power (only 30 volts) and there is no compressor.
I want the ability to easily create and manage my audio podcasts using simple software in the same way that iPhoto is easy and simple, entry level, software for photos. And when my needs increase, I want the "Aperture of podasting"; basically software that allows me to manage my workflow and has rudimentary sound editing tools with the ability to launch more powerful sound tools. Sorry, but Audacity, GarageBand et al don't cut it!
I see over at Red Herring that Walt Disney Disney and Clear Channel are getting intio the iPod advertising game. What's going to get onto these iPods? It looks like movie clips from Disney's Chronicles of Narnia and Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh.
But it is still such a tiny market out there. But the question is, how big will it get? And how fast will it happen? According to eMarketer, spending on online video advertising is expected to triple in the next two years, rising to about $640 million. By 2010, it could hit $1.5 billion.
But how does online video advertising fit as a segment of the total online advertising market? Here are some numbers from Jupiter Reseasrch I saw at ClickZ article from earlier this year:
Online video advertising is a tiny segment of the overall market, drawing a scant $121 million in spending last year compared with $9.5 billion for all online media, according to JupiterResearch. Other stats show Web video ad spending represents just under a tenth of a percent of the $250 billion total U.S. ad market.
But look at the market and you'll see Internet properties with audiences rivaling some cable networks. Sure, but I keep thinking how advertising will affect the original work that people are noe producing. What will advertising do to the fresh outlook of all these backyard producers?
I'll keep watching as long as folks keep mixing it up. So if anyone has a mashup with Rush Limbaugh appearing in the Chronicles of Narnia, please let me know. That's a backyard mix I'd love to see.
Via Scoble, I see that Amy Gahran has added 40 new shows to her women in podcasting list, bringing the total to 120. She posts the list as an OPML file.
Here's what she says about the list:
When I first converted this list from a maintenance nightmare (HTML page) to an OPML outline, I discovered that nearly half of the shows originally listed are now defunct. However, I still have a huge backlog of new suggestions to plow through. As a rough estimate, I think that when I’ve caught up with the by backlog of suggestions, about 100 or more shows will be on the current list.
What I like about this list? It's an updated source of shows edited by someone who cares about the topic. I trust it. Perhaps with OPML gaining more traction, more folks will keep podcast lists such as these as they appear to be easier to maintain than updating HTML files. I just started fiddling with the OPML editor, so perhaps I'm off, but for non-programmers like myself, creating an OPML list or outline looks far less ghastly then editing an HTML document. Now all I do is to learn how to make it look decent. :-).
Wangyou.com is the first among a dozen Chinese podcasting websites to pass its podcasts, or home-made or professional audio contents, over to 16 provincial or regional radio stations early this week.
The contents from the Internet are being broadcasted daily on the radio in the form of a 30-minute programme called Wangyou Happy Happy Hour (Kuai Le Le Fan Tian).
The idea behind the effort is to showcase people's lives, primarily from the interior parts of China, where apparently, podcasting and blogging are more popular activities.
More than 40 additional radio stations are expected to join the effort by May of next year
The contrast to the US is striking, where KYOURadio in San Francisco is one of the few radio stations to broadcast the podcasts that it receives from people wishing to get their shows on the air.
PR blogger Steve Rubel gives a round-up about the PR impact of Audible's Wordcast system, introduced at the Portable Media Expo (Audible's Black Friday: A Case Study in PR vs. BR), comparing the reaction of normal media against new media.
The blogosphere was not very pleased with Audible's announcement. Especially the proprietary file format and the fees have caused negative reactions. It will be interesting to see if Audible makes changes to adapt to this criticism, when they finally launch the service (The service is still in closed beta.) While it is doubtful that there will be any changes in the file format, Audible might change something in the cost model.
Audible is the first big player to take a step into helping podcasters to monetize their productions. It is different than their usual business, which deals with publishing houses etc, but the podcasting business is probably too good to miss out on. And many podcasters want to earn money.
Marketers on the other hand have a different interest and love what Audible promises to give: A complete control over how long and how often a "podcast" has been listened to. (Which leaves me with the question, if these numbers are also reported today on their usual products?) .
Forcing everyday podcasters into Audible's format might heavily damage the popularity of a podcast, and for most podcasters this service is very expensive just to get some numbers. It will be more intelligent to go for new ways of financing their costs.
But for podcasters with high valued (and payed for) content, this could be just another position in their calculation and may reduce at the same time the cost and complexity of collecting money from their customers..
One has to ask the question though, if this is still podcasting? Pay per delivery of content in proprietary file format is a business Audible has been following for years - but it is not what most people enjoy about podcasting.
So far, Audbile benefits in many different ways. They have some clever moves in connecting their brand with podcasters and get a big share of media attention on the way. If they get content producers into their system, they also expand their attractivness of the rest of their products. And not only will they earn money through pdocasters, they could try to use the podcasters as unpaid betatesters for their ad insertion service - one day this service might be offered to old media as well.
A lot of advantages for Audible, but we will have to see, if podcasters benefit too.
Last week, Nine Systems announced a podcasting service to compliment the streaming they do. They're the first streaming company as far as I know that is venturing into the podcast space.
Nine Systems streams sporting events such as The Open Championships golf tournament. These are streamed broadcasts, which in the future could be available as video podcasts.
My question: Do they get it? Here's what they say they can do:
The podcasting solution allows content producers to control the podcasts that are made available to their audiences. Other features of the podcasting solution include publish of podcasts for on-demand streaming and download content and live streaming content and guarantee compatibility with iTunes and other aggregators with support for RSS 2.0, iTunes elements and Yahoo! Media RSS 1.1.0. The Stream OS podcasting platform also tracks podcast circulation, syndication, aggregator type and click-through with extensive reporting.
I read through this and wonder why streaming is so critical? Live sporting events? Sure, streaming may make sense but I'm not convinced people want to sit in front of their computer to watch a game. Financial institutions that need to be extremely diligent about releasing information see value in streaming. I talked to a chief investment officer with a large financial services company earlier this year who said for their annual events they have to stream the whole thing so as to keep in line with SEC regulations. But even in that case, I'm not sure that streaming is any better than podcasting. In fact, podcasting may be even better as people can take the information with them, free from the PC. Publicly traded companies use streaming for quarterly announcements. Streaming allows for live Q&A, etc. Even there, podcasts of the announcements seems like it should be required as they would be so accessible to people.
Isn't it far less expensive to make shows available as downloads than to stream them? And isn't it far less costly to do a recording and then make it available, perhaps in smaller segments? And what is the value in the tracking they provide? Most of this tracking they offer can be done with a service like Feedburner.
Further, all this talk in the Nine Systems press release of content and control makes you wonder about companies getting on the podcast train. After reading the announcement I decided to dive into Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes , the long essay Doc Searls published last week. The essay covers a lot of ground. But it's insightful when you compare it to the language of the Nine Systems announcement.
A main theme of Doc's essay is about the power the big carriers want to wield by controlling access to their pipes. Doc plays out a scenario that asks: Who can afford to play in this web space if the carriers get their way and close down the pipes to all except those who can pay their tolls? The answer: Companies that subscribe to the language that the carriers have successfully spread into our vernacular. The carriers see the web as a system of pipes, not as a frontier or place where free culture is thriving. The carriers see the Internet in terms of packet transports. All those podcasts, blogs and other media are just cargo in containers. And if that's the case, then those containers are subject to inspection and can be stopped to be checked for offensive materials or whatever "illegal," possessions may be inside. The only ones who will be able to fill to these containers are the ones that the big carriers see fit to provide access. In that scenario, the "content industry," meaning big media companies, will be the natural partners for the carriers. And the consumers will only get what the content industry allows us to consume.
And in that case, it won't matter. We'll just have to take what we get. You may not agree with this line of thinking, but it does certainly raise questions how the language is being used to the favor of those with a big interest in making money off all those pipes and switches.
Doc explained this whole concept of "content," to me at the Syndicate conference last year. I had used the terms extensively in a panel presentation. After talking with Doc, I realized that content is a word that we have become used to using in our language and I should avoid it all costs. For me, part of it is just better word choice. Content is one of those words that is right up there with facility.
And this is why these monumental battles often come down to battles over linguistics. For it is those words that define our concepts and our culture.
As for me, I'm with Doc. I beleive the Internet is a place where the indiviidual has control, content is technical speak and people are never called users.
Yahoo! is working on a podcast development tool. The news came at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo. The show was also rife with talk of similar development efforts from Google and Microsoft.
In the background of all this is hosting, which is changing dramatically now that audio and video are taking a bigger slice of web traffic. Hosting companies are adjusting, upping the amount of bandwidth and storage space to accomodate podcasters and videobloggers.
Winer links to Netcraft, which sums up the situation, again looking at giants like Google, which looks to be making a big play, recently with the lease of 270,000 square feet of a telco hotel in New York City.
On another stage, a firestorm of posts blew over the blogosphere in reaction to Audible's announcement at the Podcast Expo for its news service, which it calls Wordcast. The service is all about the business of podcasting, claiming it allows podcasters to build multiple revenue streams "around capabilities such as advertising management, dynamic ad-insertion, underwriting and secured transactions.." As part of the service, Audilble's fees cover bandwidth, hosting and reporting costs.
Since the announcement, a firestorm has erupted with a hot point sparked with Mitch Ratcliffe's long post on the future of podcasting, in which he argues that Audible's effort is advancing podcasting and that they seek to engage in converastion with the community. Ratcliffe, a consultant to Audible, lites a match to the debate, with not always ingraciating references to Winer and Doc Searls, two firm opponents to DRM, which Audible does use to protect its revenue stream. Read reaction to Ratcliffe's post at Tech.Memeorandum.
We're in the next wave and it appears that podcasting is simply the catalyst, with the bigger story being the morphing amount of audio and video on the web.
Now, who wants to be a news leader in the podcasting space? Looks like NPR is going for the gold medal, with the introduction of 16 new podcasts, bringing its total to 33.
A few matters of interest:
* NPR is doing its own original podcast programming under its new, "alt.NPR," brand. This is a step up in the big media world as most have chosen to simply repurpose existing shows they have run on radio or TV.
* NPR is mining their vast archives. Expect to see more media networks find more ways to use podcasting as a means to surface and get some added value from their archives.
* NPR is combing its broad programming to create theme based podcasts. This is a repurposing strategy that leverages NPR's shows to create new programs that fit into categories. For instance, NPR will inroduce thematic podcasts focusing on environment, food, pop culture, religion, business story of the day and Sports with Frank Deford.
* Topical podcasts are also part of the mix, allowing NPR to provide timely shows such as those that will be featured during the holidays or an important event, such as the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito.
The orignal podcasts include:
Three original-to-podcasting titles, under a new alt.NPR brand name: "On Gambling with Mike Pesca," a weekly examination of gaming culture, trends and psychology from the NPR News reporter; Groove Salad’s "Taste of the Week," a selection of music from San Francisco’s eclectic online music service SomaFM, and "Youthcast," public radio productions from up-and-coming young producers from PRX/Public Radio Exchange.
Archived podcasts:
Also among the new offerings are three entries from NPR member stations and respected program producers WAMU and KCRW: the full download of the new NPR series "The Business" about the entertainment industry from KCRW Santa Monica, and WAMU Washington D.C.’s "Friday News Roundup" from "The Diane Rehm Show" and "Tech Tuesday" from "The Kojo Nnamdi Show."
Topical podcasts:
Finally, NPR will introduce topical podcasts. Its upcoming "Holiday Story of the Day" will be available starting November 21 and continue through January 6, 2006. Also, in January, NPR will offer nightly podcasts of its one-hour broadcast wrap-up program of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito. These will build on NPR’s commitment to public service and the success it experienced with similar nightly podcasts for the John Roberts confirmation hearings, which immediately broke into iTunes’ Top 100 and remained there through their run. The Alito podcasts will be available nightly at 11PM (ET).
Battle lines are being drawn between podcasters and music rights holders, from news we've received this week. The Register reports that Dutch record labels are rejecting a podcast license proposal, claiming that a flat rate for all podcasters is unreasonable. I think that objection belies a rift between the two camps that is more volatile, far-reaching and indicative of an international showdown than the article suggests. This could be the week that changed music podcasting forever.
In his November 7th Daily Source Code (#275), Adam Curry talks about his discussions with the Dutch record industry and performing rights organization. The message he got from them, he says, is: "They're going to come after podcasters. And they're going to shut them down." That alone caused a lot of music podcasters to sit up and pay attention. Any coordinated offensive by the recording industry to squelch unlicensed content would leave us with a huge fight on our hands, one that would touch Apple, Yahoo, and many of the companies in the nascent podcasting industry.
The outcome of that incident is a conversion for Curry and his show. "We do not want these guys descending on us and making trouble," he says. So from now on, Curry will only be playing music licensed through the Podsafe Music Network, run by his company, Podshow. No longer will the Hit Test, Backtracks, or other uses of non-podsafe music be found on the Daily Source Code. He has also removed old episodes that contained such content.
So the Podfather has been squeezed by the recording industry. Why now? Is it because he now has a wider distribution than many terrestrial DJs? Do they want leverage for future negotiations on a podcasting license? Or are they just a little late in trying to knife the baby? Who will be next to drop non-podsafe music from their show? Are any of the alternate licensing models floating around ready to challenge or supplant the existing industry titans?
The questions come in a steady stream from there: are they emboldened now that they have in Podshow a company worth suing? And what's the role of, say, the RIAA in all this? Are they merely watching with interest to see how this plays out, or will we see them stepping up the rhetoric as well?
On the podcasters Yahoo Group, Dave Jackson assesses the state of things succinctly: "You must be this tall to piss off the RIAA." Well said. Podcasting isn't quite grown up yet, but it's been standing in line at the amusement park, and it's soon to be in for the ride of its life.
There'll be lots more talk about this situation at the Portable Media Expo this Friday. I'll be on a panel along with CC Chapman, Gerd Leonhard, Derrick Oien, and Kelli Richards talking about the future of music licensing. See you there.
One reason I am looking forward to results and buzz from the Portable Media Expo? Because I think podcasting as a movement needs a refuel on the spirit which started podcasting because it did go mainstream too fast. In just a few months, big players (like Yahoo and iTunes) integrated podcasting into their standard tool set.
Not that mainstream is a bad thing in general: Podcasting has fetched bigger interest from everyday people than blogs have. People do say how much more they react to sound (and also photo and video) than just to text. The press has done big coverage and is already on their second (third?) round of interviewing podcasters. So this is a success, right?
Not quite. The huge demand on listener side for "not this radio stuff but much better delivered for free as often as I want it"-content as well as thousands of people willing to produce this kind of content - all of this could go together perfectly. At least if the people involved knew how to handle this rushed success both on production as on the content side.
If podcasting would be just a hype, nobody would feel sorry about it - because then it would just be a hype which is replaced by something new. But if you take a closer look at the amount of work, resources and passion people are investing into those wonderful podcasts, you know how much of an impact this has on peoples lives.
From a producing side, I see two main issues here: how to make better, more efficient produced podcasts (which includes every aspect of production from concept work till music choice and clearing of rights) and how to find your own voice.
Interestingly, the people who could help out, are 'old media' - trained in the content media business, with years of knowledge, contacts, and professional equipment. Because first of all it is a distributing technique, second a way of having content in a new format and three produce content very cost effective to a world-wide audience.
With their knowledge, it should be fairly easy to embrace a new technology like this and help it evolve. Instead we see (generally speaking) small baby steps and they seem satisfied to write podcasting somewhere on their website.
Podcasters on the other hand are facing huge demands from their listeners - about quality, frequency, and content. What may have started as a fun hobby can soon turn into "just another show on the market". At which point a podcaster just might stop doing it because it lost it's charm.
When I ask if podcasting has gone mainstream to fast, I am asking kind of if it has grown up too fast: from a newborn over some kindergarten time and pre-teen directly to being 21 with just some job - and no fun time being a teenager with ways to experiment and get confident about who you are and what you can do.
Perhaps it is time to scale back a bit for many podcasters and remember: Nobody is forcing you. This is supposed to be fun. Nobody has the right to demand perfect production in whatever frequency they think you 'have' to do it.
Does it still make you happy or would you like to experiment a bit because you feel trapped? This is podcasting. You make the rules. It may get a bit bumpy and you might loose some of your audience, but try to look at it this way: if you are not a happy podcaster, the listeners will notice - and leave anyway.
[And a suggestion for the listeners: Think about what you are expecting from the podcasters you are listening to. And try to come up with a reason for yourself why they should fulfill your expectation.]
Are you looking for what is the latest with Whirlpool dishwashers? Then Whirlpool's "The American Family" is is not your podcast.
The American Family podcast centers on issues that are affecting people in all walks of life. Whirlpool brand's director of consumer insight, Audrey Reed-Granger, moderates the podcast. She interviews people over the phone, talking with them about their experiences such as raising children of divorce; first-time moms and parents of children with special needs.
Glad they took the approach they did. It's a good example for corporations looking to get into podcasting. The podcast is simply sponored by Whirlpool Home Appliances. They have a short promo spot at the start and end of the show. They don't talk about dishwashers or home appliances in the interviews. The podcast centers on issues family's face. Better, these are interviews with parents, people with families. I have not heard any commentary from experts in the shows I've heard. Seems like a smart way to connect with people and get their minds on the Whirlpool brand when they are thinking about that new home appliance.
Just one thing, Whirlpool...Can you add a blog so we can comment about the podcasts? Even better, offer a way we can leave audio comments that you add into the show? Right now, it just seems a bit one way.
Fruitcast is a new service that lets advertisers automatically serve ads into podcasts submitted to the Fruitcast directory.
Advertisers are charged per download for the spots that are added either at the beginning or end of the podcast. Ads are 10 to 15 seconds in length. No music or sound effects permitted. Advertisers are encouraged to follow a set format such as..."This podcast is sponsored by Acme Widgets....."
The Fruitcast service is aiming to provide a Google AdSense type model. It's illustrative of the moving speed that different forms of feed media are gaining a place for how advertising is served.
Leaving aside the rights issues, which I know are large, if I were a television executive right now, I'd take my content, microchunk it, put a couple calls to a video ad server in the middle of it, and let it go whereever it wants to go, safe in the knowledge that whenever the show is viewed, I'll get to run a couple 15 second spots in the middle of it (which I could change whenever I wanted to and which I could measure).
This is where media is going and its not going to be stopped.
Liz -- Sigh. Still no RSS feed. I'm crushed. Perhaps if you ever see the beauty of that orange and white icon you'll write one of those edgy ballads like Polyester Bride. Maybe it'll be about how you met someone new. What you discovered. The other world that slips into your self as you become more and more immersed in the stories, the sadness and the absurdity of the bigger picture.
We need rockers. Dave is cool. He's definitely the original RSS rock star. But, let's just say... it's a bit different with you. Yes, Dave does sing. He goes on tour. He podcasts. He's a jolly geek.
But you, you're a rocker. And rockers know how events can change their lives and the people they love. And that orange and white icon iis full of events that lead to new places in your mind and your heart.
Who knows what song it will make you want to sing. Who knows what you will write. And how many will find a new connection after hearing your podcast for the first time.. I'll tell you this. This fan will love it.
Liz --I'm heart broken. Read the comments. No RSS to be found with your podcasts. I look and I look, but it's not there, a missing icon, a sign in orange and white. I subscribed to your podcast in iTunes. But that's not the same. That's a different world. Popular, yes, but so many other spaces to reach. I mean, in Yahoo!'s podcast directory you're there but I can't subscribe to your show. No one can. Yahoo! is even confused. Here's their message:
Hmmm. We didn't find any series like "liz phair", but we did find some episodes!
You're not even number one on the Yahoo! list. I can listen to you through their flash player or download your show. But subscribe I can not do. Add that RSS feed and a door will open to a place on the web where people can find you, susbcribe and follow your journey, meeting the people, hearing your laugh and the sounds of a band on the road. You could even try BitTorrent so handy for subsribing to all those music videos I watched tonight on your web site.
Liz, people are asking for the feed. I see you'll be in Portland at the Crystal Ballroom on Nov. 13. I'd be happy to bring all my geek buddies on by and show you and your band how easy RSS can be. We can do a podcast. We'll show you the power of that little orange and white icon. Subscribers are waiting. The nice thing is, they won't be disappointed. You have an entertaining show. It's fresh, from out on the road.
PaidContent has a post that NPR podcasts have reached 4 million downloads in nearly two months since their launch on August 31.
From PaidContent:
According to NPR tracking, its most-downloaded daily podcast is "Story of the Day," a news report or feature chosen by NPR staff, and its top weekly podcast is the "All Songs Considered" feature, an extension of the popular online-only program that highlights artists, reviews, interviews and other music content.
Acura is one of the main sponsors of the NPR podcasts. It is reported to be the biggest podcast advertising deal to date.
Back a few months ago, Matt wrote about how podcasting could help the National Hockey League restore its image after last season's cancellation due to a player strike.
The weekly show features both audio and video with interviews, game highlights and news such as scouting reports. According to the Chicago Sun-Times:
The results are encouraging. The first podcasts averaged about 1,000 downloads, and the most recent shows are downloaded twice as often. More importantly, 25 percent of the people who download the podcasts are subscribers. People sign up for the podcasts at the Blackhawks' Web site.
The planet of podcast paraphernalia is not apt to be particularly profitable. (No, I really didn't mean to be that alliterative, but thanks for thinking about me.) We're not apt to see big hardware companies pouring millions into R&D, for example, to get us that perfect portable rig, because the market doesn't exist, at least for the time being. But at the same time, I'm seeing signs that perhaps things are moving in our direction, and some people are marketing right at DIY podcast producers.
For one thing, the maker of the de-facto flagship products are showing that adding podcast functionality was not just a throwaway feature. Apple, who from what I see has made quite a few improvements to the iTunes podcasting interface, has also been tweaking the firmware now found in the newest iPod (known variously as "5G", "video iPod", and "white"). On the recording side, the iPod's artificial limitation of 8kHz, 8-bit audio has been raised to a healthy CD-quality stereo (though a microphone that actually enables such recording apparently has yet to exist). And Todd Ogasawara notes the addition of new-podcast indicators in the 5G iPod interface, as well as on the iPod nano. Sounds like they listened to the customer -- or perhaps became podcast listeners themselves, and experienced their own frustrations. Either way, good work.
More interestingly, one of my preferred pushers of electronic crack specifically targeting the casual podcaster. Musician's Friend, online partner to the dangerously-halfway-between-work-and-home Guitar Center, now has a podcasters section, featuring a range of p-popping, knob-twiddling goodness, repackaged just for you.
We're not quite to the point where Best Buy has a podcasting software section, of course, but I have to believe that at least a few marketing departments have the wheels turning, and we could be seeing a shift from podcasting-as-hack to podcasting-as-feature. Just imagine, not far from now, a selection of software for which something like valid RSS or MP3 compression isn't just a selling point, but so common that it's not worth mentioning.
Following on Matt's thread about rock star podcasters, here's another to add to the list: Poison drummer Rikki Rockett. Here's what he posted at MySpace about what he may possibly discuss:
"O.K., so what will I talk about? After all, I have to fill this Podcast thing with some kind of content, right. So, what do you expect? Some babbling rock-star jerk-off, obsessed with strip club boobs, and using a vocabulary chiefly made up of words like fuck and dude and expressions like, 'What the fuck-ever dude?' Or… I could be one of those pseudo-intellectual-wanna-be rocker types. You know, like how Gene Simmons is now, appearing on things like CNN to talk about… um, sorry, I don't remember. But, I'm sure it involved sex somewhere along the line.
:
Sounds like a rock star podcast. And more...
"I do have a few ideas, though. How about one Dr. Rockett question. Play a song or two from an unsigned band. Talk about one current issue and bring a guest on to help with it. And, ask some guy, in some bar a super serious question about something while he is drunk."
Channel 7 in New York, an ABC affiiliate, has started a video podcast.
New York and Chicago affiliates are the only ABC affilliates doing podcasts. ABC affiliates doing audio podcasts include Houston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Gothamist makes a good point about Disney, which owns ABC. It's no fun to be the last to the party:
... Disney, ABC's parent company, is the first out the gate with paid digital content through iTunes thanks to its deal with Apple. The Mouse House was, however, the last company to move over to the DVD format years back, and it looks as though they are trying not to be last to the party again.
I just saw this over at the Daily Wireless. Canon is coming out with a wifi camera for $500. See how easy video podcasting is going to be?
I started doing short video takes on my digital camera this past week: Kung Fu Judy and West Hills Cruise. It was so dang fun. These days, it's alll plug and play. What I did was pretty crude. With a good camera and some of the video blogging packages available, you can be shooting a lot of video and turning them into podcasts or videoblogs, whatever you wish to call it. And with the Canon, you can go online, which I think I still need some time to grok. Display a live webcast? Hmmm.. Hey, where's the phone?
Podcastercon gives a good vibe, doesn't it? The registration is up. I'd love to go to this one. Look, they'll even help you find a place to stay. That's my kind of conference.
The conference is at the University of North Carolina. Hmmm...I wonder what they'll discuss?
I like this part. You can listen to their planning sessions. Smart.
Here are the essentials:
What: PodcasterCon 2006
Where: 116 Murphey Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
When: Saturday, January 7, 2006 11am - 4pm
More: See www.podcastercon.org
Do you remember music appreciation class? I yawn just thinking about those days in high school sitting through those lectures. Man, I wish I had podcasting and teachers like Chris Paschen and Bruce Bodelson.
The Minneapolis high school teachers found the text book just didn't hold the student's interest. So they decided to start podcasting:
"Although we're following a brand-new music appreciation book that is meant for high school, it doesn't hold or captivate their interest all that much," Bodelson said. "And I'd been reading about podcasting in the newspapers and thinking, wow, that has to be the wave of the future, when a janitor from Glasgow, Scotland, can assemble a huge following just because he has an interest in local rock bands and puts them on his podcast -- and all of a sudden people from all over the world are dialing this guy up."
Students create two different kinds of podcasts. They podcast live recordings and do radio talk shows, featuring individual performances. The idea is for students to use the vocabulary they are learning in the music appreciation class in analyzing the music in the shows. They also get to say what they want in a show that is put up on the Internet for anyone to hear. How cool must that be for those students?
I like what this student said:
Back at the North High band's website, student Conner Vail is segueing out of a Modest Mouse song and into his spiel: "Is it just me," he asks, "or does anyone else feel that pop culture is completely shallow, vapid, materialistic and morally bankrupt?"
Podcasting is inspiring educators who continue to note it as one of the most innovative technologies they have seen in a long time.
Just take a look at what's happening at the University of Washington , where a pilot podcast program is getting off to a fast start. Three classes are being podcast. So far this quarter, there have been 719 downloads, enough interest for the university to consider expanding podcasting to more classes.
I found this statement noteworthy:
And the new recording and distribution method is a good thing for Classroom Support Services too, according to project director David Aldrich. "Videotaping a lecture uses a lot of resources," he said. "You have to have someone present to tape the lecture, then do post-production."
Video is still tricky. But why do you need to watch a professor talking? I could see screencasts as a far better tool for professors if they sought ways to illustrate their lectures.
How will universities use podcasting as it spreads in interest? Will students be allowed to attend class when and where they want?
At the University of Washington, podcasting lectures are meant as a supplement for students, not as a replacement. For now, to get the class room interaction, you still have to go to class.
It's evident that podcasting is changing how educators view how they teach. Language learning services are picking up on the trend and in the process, showing the first examples of podcasting as a premium service.
I ran across an article in Asia Times Online about ALC Press Inc., a company in Japan that is teaching conversational english to students by using podcatching services. The cost comes to about $86 per year.
In ALC's new service, the student will pay a monthly study fee. The student will also purchase a study book that includes the necessary software for "podcatching", the process used to download new podcast feed files.
Here's how it works.
The teacher poses questions to the student by talking on the phone to a server on the Internet. The spoken question is converted into an audio file and stored. When the student executes the podcatching software, the file is automatically downloaded. The student listens to the question and answers via phone to the same server. The teacher listens to the response in the same way by using the podcatching software.
Here are some more podcasting in education sources from gada.be.
Germany is not so much a land of the bloggers, but they sure like Wikipedia and eBay. It is said, that 50% of Germans going online use eBay for about 3 hours each month.
Those nearly 17 million visitors a month need help and support. While ebay does have a market place with help files, forums and more, eBay Germany started another service for their users: a weekly audio magazin which they also promote as a podcast. It is in German, but you get an idea of the way they do the show through listening a bit.
The first episode contains information like news, legal, tips, short interviews with management and a powerseller, as well as a competition to win a ebay package. A feedback mail address and online help on how to receive this magazin as a podcast will get a lot of people interested into "this podcast thing".
This clearly is a "customer relation ship" podcast with value for eBay's customers, but also for other business oriented podcasters as a showcase.
Xfm, a London alternative radio station, is teaming with a UK indie label to create a podcast of full length tracks.
Here's how they are working this out. The label, V2, provides Xfm with exclsuive tracks for podcasts from Elbow, a band under the V2 label. The podcast includes as excerpts from an interview with lead singer Guy Garvey.
KEXP out of Seattle has been doing podcasts for several months, featuring in studio recordings and a show with tracks from different bands.
Seems to make sense that labels would be all over getting their musicians into podcasts.
With the intro of the new video iPod, Apple now has a market reason to promote how to make video podcasts or as they have been called for months...video blogs. Here's a video podcast tutorial Apple recently posted. Read the comments over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog for perspective.
Here's another resource. It's called freevlog.org.Ryanne Hodson and Michael Verdi, two pioneering videobloggers, show what you need to know to make a videoblog at a minimum cost, minus of course, the expense of a camera. They show you how to make a videoblog on a Mac or PC. They go through screen captures, hosting, publishing, RSS feeds and how to get into the community.
Have you seen any videoblogs? I started watching the videobloggers a few months ago. Videoblogs are real entertainment. Many are quite artistic. They're wholly different than podcasts. Here are some places to find videoblogs as well as community sites available where vloggers congregate. Again, check out Freevlog. I found most of these resources at their site.
With the announcement of Apple's video iPod, are we entering the age of the video podcast? Perhaps in time but now the closest thing to it are videoblogs, which you can subsribe to already through readers like FireAnt.
Better yet, perhaps is the news that iTunes 6.0 is available. Apple will offer music videos, priced at $1.99. Will indies be able to offer music videos? With video, does iTunes 6.0 provide a new way to distribute music?
I am also interested to see that with iTunes you can now gift music, post reviews and make recommendations, which they call "Just For You." I wonder how open this will really be. Yahoo! Podcasts seems to have hit the right note with their new service. I guess we'll see how Apple compares.
Engadget sums up what iTunes 6.0 offer in video:
On the video side they’re launching with 2,000 QVGA formatted FairPlay DRMed music videos which you can pick up for $1.99 apiece, as well as episodes of five ABC series (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker, That’s So Raven, The Suite Life), also two bucks a go.
What role did podcasting play in Apple's best ever fourth quarter? What role did it play in helping Apple achieve its best financial results in company history?
I'm convinced that podcasting factored in Apple's record results. But only in that podcasting plays to our desire for individuality and the power we get from making our own media, on our own terms, free from the confines of control and authoritarianism. Free? What does free mean these days? Free podcasts? Is that it for Apple? Instead, it seems that Apple subtly encourages freedom from big media with the iPod as the tool for unshackling us from those bonds. Marketing campaigns celebrate creativity but also subconsciously amplify the whispers that we try to ignore, startling us as we feel society's invisible undertow, pulling at us as we see our own civil liberities and freedoms wash away into a soupy sea of conflicting emotions about war, terror and the monstrous challenges of our daily lives. Apple's success comes from its understanding of how to tap our society's collective need to break free as individuals and express ourselves. They do it with sleak design and music, encouraging us to feel the vibe you can only get with an iPod.
We all find ways to protect our sense of who we are. Apple caters to that desire in their corporate marketing and product strategy. And the results are record earnings. Apple treats the iPod as an aid, a tool, that helps awaken the soul so people may connect with themselves and their world. People may create their own shows. They may listen to whatever they wish, when and where we want.
The recipe seems to work. It appears to be a message that people are desperate to hear.
Let's say you are doing a podcast. You are trying to get people to comment about it, bloggers to tell the world about this cool show you are doing. Perhaps it's about your band, The Headless Chickens. You don't seek fame but a little attention would be great.
You know how to search across the web for references and links to your show.
If you have an aggregator, then you can create feeds for Technorati, Google News, etc. You are continually looking at these different feeds, looking for new comments, links, commentary.
Gada.be, the new service introduced today by Chris Pirillo, makes this process quite a bit easier, simplifying your seach across different services and getting the results all in one place. Better, you can search across different sub categories and get the resuts back across the different services.
Now, you can see the value of OPML in a service like Gada.be. Once you get your results, you can import the OPML file into your aggregator. Now, you can track the attention of your band's podcast in one place. Robert Scoble pus it well. What Chris has essentially done is create a mashup from ablout 140 sources.
Gada.be gives us results, lots of resutls with far less searching, And in that way it may emerge into a major reference site, where you can point people to multiple sources, instead of one static web page. I like what the folks at TechCrunch have to say:
It’s likely that Gada will become a much-linked to site for definitive results on a term, in a similar way as wikipedia is today. Gada incorporates all relevant information in a permanent URL, and so becomes a comprehensive result set for a tag link. Gada also outputs search results in RSS and OPML, allowing users to easily subscribe to and organize searches.
The service also makes it easier to search across a mobile device. As Chris states in his blog:
It was borne out of several frustrations. If you've ever tried to visit a Web site over a mobile device, you know it's a pain in the knuckle. The domain had to be simple to key-in from anywhere. gada.be is 4232.2233 on most cell phones and/or PSP. Normally, when you want to find something online, you have to choose a Web site (wait for the page to load) enter the query (wait for the second page to load) then see results from that provider. With "gada.be," you insert the query *AS* the subdomain!
* http://corpse-bride.gada.be/
* http://corpse.bride.gada.be/
Those are two different URLs, each with a different set of results. A dot between two keywords implies a quoted statement, whereas a dash implies the AND operator. Note, too, that you can easily change categories by adding the designated category slug to the end of the entire URL. Too geeky for you? Then you're thinking too hard about it.
The greater implications of Gada.be are to be discovered. I can't access the site right now. Chris is getting a bit of server overload, which I'd say is a good sign.
On a last note,I think that in many ways, bloggers, podcasters, all of us, want attention, a little bit of fame. It makes us feel good.
News of Verisign's other acquisition comes from PaidContent, where the concept of the rich ping is seen as the reason for the approximate $25 million purchase. What is a rich ping? From PaidContent:
And yes, the deal connects directly into VeriSign's Weblogs.com acquisition: VeriSign need parsing, datestamping and other such data collected from rich ping, that is, pings that contain more info than simply fact that a site was updated. And this is where Moreover comes in. Of course, Moreover comes with more than rich pinging ...
How does rich pinging fit with podcasting? That's my question of the day. Seems that Verisign is trying to be a key part of the open blog infrastructure. I expect they have their eyes on podcasting, too.
Looks like Yahoo! is listening. Nice features that make the community the agent for strength. Staff picks, recommendations and how to explore on your own. This is the kind of thing that I expect is the new standard for community sites. A striking trend is emerging with the search players that you see in Yahoo! Podcast.. It's not that people are being directed away from the search engine but keeping you in the Yahoo! garden to find and subscribe to RSS feeds..
Just look at what occurs when you susbcribe to a feed from the Yahoo! Podcast page. You are directed to subscribe to Yahoo! Music or Apple iTunes through a feed they call .pcast.
And when you listen directly to the podcast, you get a pop up window for their flash player.
Again, the effort is in keeping you at Yahoo!, not sending you to another place.
Any features you find striking in this first version of Yahoo! Podcast?
In the past few weeks, the news of Yahoo!'s entry into the podcasting world started to emerge. Podcasters recived e-mails from Yahoo! asking if they would submit their podcasts to the search engine giant. Over the summer, Yahoo! announced an audio search tool which includes the capability to search for podcasts.
Hoping to tune into the latest craze in digital media, Yahoo Inc. is introducing tools for finding, organizing and rating "podcasts" — the audio programs designed to be played on Apple Inc.'s iPod and many other portable music players.
John Furrier did an exclusive interivew with Geoff Ralston, Yahoo's chief product officer, who talks extensively about their plans.
I took a bit of time today to play today with Judy. We rode the bus, walked a lot and ate well. Came home to read the good news about Dave's big score with Verisign. But first, the food...
I don't want to go through the details of the sale in this post. That's been covered, though noteworthy is the deal includes audio.weblogs.com so Verisign is now a part of the podcasting community's infrastructure.
More so, I am just happy for Dave. I first met Dave when he opened a webcast I produced called RSS Winterfest. I was nervous about asking Dave to participate. But he accepted the invitation, promoted it graciously and assembled a whole bunch of interesting folks to join him in the webcast conference call from the Berkman Center.
Podcasting got off to a big start due to a lot of the work Dave did. He's a real reason why RSS is what it is today. He gets people to do sing alongs. He's a road tripper. He speaks his mind. He talks candidly about his health.
Apple Insider cites sources that say Steve Jobs will unveil a video iPod, possibly as early as next week, potentially coinciding with Apple's results from its fourth fiscal quarter of 2005.
Apple Insider reports:
* It's similar to the iPod photo player but thinner
* The video iPod has a smaller click wheel, allowing for a bigger screen size
* With the video iPod will come a major update to iTunes music store, with a number of music videos and short videos
* A major update seems more likely, considering the stop in updates over the past month to the the video section of the iTunes download service. The thought is that Apple was preparing for the upcoming release
A new breed of aggregators are emerging with the advent of podcasting and the audio/video experience we are witnessing on the web. Fluctu8 is one of the more recent new aggregators in the space that I've run across.
What will this do to aggregators like Bloglines, a solid aggregator, but seeming to be a bit less of interest among the A-list bloggers, who are playing therse days with the new generation of newsreaders such as Rojo, Fireant and attensa.
I wonder how this market will emerge now with the increasing use of audio and video by people who are both creating and consuming media on the web.
Will there be a few big players? Sure. But the world of remix is not just limited to the music world. We are already seeing constellations of different social applicaitons that will be hybrid aggregators, wiki's, photo sharing services, recommendation tools, etc. Providing the service to make these new apps seems to be the gist of what Ning is doing.
Ning, if you have not already heard, is offering a free online service for for building and using social applications. Ning is funded by Marc Andresson's venture group, 24 Hour Laundry.
Here are some of the ideas Ning has for what people can do. One suggestion is to build a podcast review app. Seems like they are doing what any good online service does and that's getting the community to create and build it themselves.
No doubt, constellations are forming. Now all you have to do is become a star.
What do you do to make money when you have millions of potential podcast listeners out there? Perhaps a better question: "How do you make 20 million listeners part of a conversation?"
The latter question is much more interesting, isn't it? I think of Loomia and what they are doing to make podcasts more relevant to their listeners. They're gettting the conversation going, showing people what podcasts are relevant to them.
Melodeo is bringing podcasts to mobile phones. Now, will people listen to podcasts on their mobile phones? Carriers are betting on music will be the hit in 2006.
I am betting on the conversation about the music. We're seeing conversation spread in remixes, mashes and all forms of DIY media. Mobile phones are natural conversation tools. Music is meant to be shared. Incremental developments in technology are creating a revolution in our views about music and its context with the individual and society.
Podcasts and music on the mobile phone all add up to technology innovation. That is sure. But these are only incremental changes. The real innovation is in the conversation and the sparks that ideas create, moving our views to a place that is far different than before, both for us as individuals and as a cutlure, experiencing music and sharing it over a mobile phone.
Give me the tools to converse about music and share it on the mobile phone. Show me how I can listen to a podcast recording on my mobile, take a picture of something and send it along to my friends with a note about this great new hip hop I heard. Show me how I can share my mobile phone podcast and music playlist across different groups. Direct me to recommendations. Show me something random. Help me broaden my music preferences.
Help me with those questions and I am sure the answers will come about those millions of listeners and the treasures they possess. Where will you find them? They'll be in groups of 12, across one very long tail, available on your mobile phone.
The always enlightening Doug Kaye talked about the "value of free" and how podcasting and blogs work together. Essentially, you can't have a conversation about the podcast if there are no links to it. The thread just stops.
Why should businesses help citizen journalist create media? To help people reach their passion points. A passion point according to Michael Geoghegan is the place where a person is super happy doing what they love. In his example getting free pre-release movies on DVD. My passion point is seeing people make their own media that creates a loud voice against injustice.
Of intereast is Duke's initiatives, according to the Herald-Sun. They're piloting a podcasting initiative on the campus after it distributed free iPods last year to all incoming freshmen and this year to students whose professors opt to use the digital device in their classes.
Professors are seeing the possibilities. From the Herads-Sun:
Duke professor Daniel Foster told about his theater studies students' MP3ater Project, a conflation of "theater" and the MP3 audio file format. They re-create classic radio dramas, which since July have had 1,500 listeners.
Lynne O'Brien, director of the Center for Instructional Technology at Duke that oversees the new-media campus initiatives, said one professor has students listen to podcast lectures as homework, freeing class time for discussion.
"What we should be doing is using the media they're using: Instant Messaging, cell phones and iPods," said Tim Lenoir, a Duke professor who has used iPods in a class on the influence of new medical technology on the popular imagination.
If there's anything on the Web that's hotter than podcasting, it's sex. In fact, it's pretty safe to assume that if it's a new technology, one of its first applications will be pornography. Since Gutenberg's press, that's become axiomatic.
We talk all the time about the Adam Currys of the podcasting world, but almost never do we hear about the Violet Blues. Violet has been making Open Source Sex, an erotica and sex-ed podcast, since the beginning of the year. And a funny thing happened when the iTunes Music Store launched: Open Source Sex debuted in the top 10 most-subscribed podcasts. Months later, it continues to make frequent appearances on the list.
More recently, with the launch of Loomia, yet another podcast directory service (from now on abbreviated as YAPDS), there was more anecdotal evidence of the underground demand for podcasting in the prurient interest. Each time I've browsed their most popular searches since their launch, "sex" and variants thereof have proudly, and in big type, proclaimed their primacy among searchers. The demand for erotica on the go is bigger than anyone's willing to admit, and that underscores one of our greatest social mores: we won't talk openly with even our closest friends about it, and yet, it's one of the biggest things going.
But just who is listening? I will openly admit to listening to one or two shows that may subject me to some people's scorn (for example, I am known to ride the Bluegrass Express with surprising regularity). Each time I find out about a sex-oriented podcast, though, I'm wondering more and more when I see those white headphones on the bus: just what are they listening to?
" I am hearing all about this podcast stuff. And so, I checked out a few. There are podcasts on trout fishing in Los Angelese. There are podcasts where you can hear obituaries read. Who is listening to this stuff?"
Loomia offers podcast and videoblog search. Scoble checks it out. Each time he comes across a video search engine, he does a look for Channel 9. He says this one failed, too. Since his first post, he blogged that Loomia indexed Channel 9. I'm not so sure it fails. It lacks in blanket searches for different terms. For instance, I searched for KEXP, one of my favorite sources fro new music. Here are the results. I know for a fact that KEXP has podcasts that are far more recent.
But the real strength seems in their efforts to lay a foundation for a tag rich, recommendation engine. It's a classic example of the new, Web 2.0 applications we are seeing.
Their basis for their approach is summed up here:
Searching for media is trickier than searching for web pages. It's a process of browsing and discovery as well as filtering and personalization.
Exactly. What I really like about Loomia? It's people driven. It searches by tags. You can search across different categories and see other recommendations. It lists the most popular shows of the day, which I don't care about too much, but it is a good barometer in some respects.
I signed up, loaded my picture and was presented with other people who are similar to me. I can see their own preferences and who is in their community.
For recommendations, I can see what people like across different categories, audio and video. The more I rate, the better personal recommendations I get.
This is a big step for podcast search. It's comnmunity driven, Web 2.0 style. Loomia is a service I'll really use.
You, too, can move beyond static recordings, the ummms and uhhhs that plague your show. It's time to enter the world of voice over talent, sound engineers and professional recordings.
Welcome to the world of vanity podcasting!
Actually, these are the kinds of services that may be ideal for a company with an international presence or those that wish to enter a foreign market. Hire voice talent, have the recording produced and launch it in the market you are trying to reach.
It could be part of a whole series of audio shows that cover marketing, sales, customer service, etc.
Steve Jobs, at the Apple Expo in Paris, continues to downplay a video iPod. He just doesn't see the right model for it right now. What do you think of this statement?
"Whether people want to buy a device just to watch video is not clear - so far the answer's been no. Devices that do video... have not been successful yet. No-one's figured out the right formula."
However, he didn't shut the door on a video playing device. "One never knows," he added.
Is Steve just loving the mind game? We know Apple will do video someday. I got hammered a bit by saying there may be an opening in the market if Apple doesn't get on it.
But what happens if Apple pauses a bit too long? Better yet, what do we see happening after Apple offers video?
Podcasters are already innovating with images and video. We're at the early point in the game.
But are we years away from any real competition to the Apple iPod? Where does video fit into this equation? And if we are years away, what does that mean for competitors in the podcast aggregator space? In the post-podcast era, are we years from seeing any meaningful competition to Apple?
Business Week does a good job explaining why video is likely to show up on the iPod.
Really, Apple has no choice. Either adopt it or give rivals a chance to at least ungrip a bit of Apple's mythic hold on the minds of our digital society.
Not to offer video would also seem unlikely, especially as the Hollywood set seeks some sort of DRM digital salvation.
For years, Steve Jobs answered questions about a video iPod with a simple line of reasoning.
Watching video is consuming. Out on the road, you can't very well watch a video. Talking on the cell phone while behind the wheel is dangerous enough. But listening to rocking tunes is another matter.
But the issue may not be about video and it inherent distractions. Most people would not watch a video while driving. But what if you could move videos around really easily on your iPod? Your iPod now becomes a video storage device that you hook into the TV.
Your iPod is now in the living room. And Apple continues its reign over digital media.
The inner guts of the iPod don't require too much to make this occur. Business Week notes that chips for displaying video on mobile devices are becoming readily available, making it far easier to manufacture different types of video products. If Apple doesn't adopt some sort of video strategy then its rivals, companies like Archos and Creative, most likely will be using Texas Instrument's Davinci technology or similar chip technology from other manufacturers.
Business Week also notes how advancements in storage technology will make it viable to store huge video files on mobile players.
Just look at the Nano, iPod's new player. It uses flash memory chips. Just after Apple's Nano annoucement, Business Week notes that Samsung unveiled a new generation of flash technology that can hold up to 16 GB of data with the ability to stretch to 32 GB.
And here is more from Business Week:
Hard drives are improving too. Japan's Toshiba has announced it's building small hard drives that use a new storage technique known as Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, which allows data to be packed more tightly and over a smaller area of the disk. Toshiba says it will use the technology on its 1.8-inch hard drives. This could make an 80-gigabyte iPod a reality fairly soon. At 80 GB, you're starting to reach the kind of capacity that can store a sizable music library and still have room left over for plenty of standard-definition video, and even a few hours worth of HDTV-quality video.
So, we're possibly talking about 80 GB hard drives on an iPod.
The technology is there. Now, it's time for Hollywood to come up with a digital distribution model. That may be what is keeping Steve Jobs from making any commitments to a video iPod.
But how long should Jobs wait? As competition creeps, Jobs also faces the challenge of keeping iPod's star power strong.
If he can't do that, then the iPod living room may not be so mobile after all.
The US higher education system is hot for podcasting. The latest news comes from Classcaster, a blogging platform with podcasting built in.
From Classcaster:
The Classcaster system is designed to be provide course-related blogs with integrated podcasting to law faculty at CALI member schools. Bloggers on the Classcaster system can create podcasts using any telephone.
More money talk about podcasting, this time with an article in Forbes that talks about different approaches, including commercials. Do you see commercials? I think an approach that may be better suited is one that drives other revenues from a long tail of products and services. Maybe even ask customers to create their own mash ups from a selection of different products that are featured in the podcast?
I think that's what's missing. I don't' see any remix in these money making ideas. None try to get the listeners or viewers involved. People love the mixes and mashes. It's DIY. And that's the new way. DIY advertising networks. The companies who prosper will be the ones who are smart, honest, humble and embrace the new world. What could be better for a company than be talked about in the extended world of a mix up, mash? Some might say this is dangerous. I'm not so sure. Anyone can make a blog, podcast or videoblog. Why not embrace the medium in the advertising effort? Let people do what they want, when they want and how they want. Isn't that what this new DIY world is all about?
Conference Call Unlimited is offering podcasting services. For an indie, the prices seem steep. But how do these prices seem for a corporate customer? Is this in line with what they would pay? This may be a better solution, too, if you want to keep it simple, no downloading required.
But there are other options. Audioblog lets you record conference callls. There are free services that all you to have up to 100 peole on a call. You can record and then post as a podcast.
But it looks like Conference Call Unlimited is banking on offering pakaged services. And for the corporate customer, that may be just the ticket.
Is this the way corporate customers will go? Is the price right? What do you think?
Conference Call Unlimited Pricing....
BRONZE
Tollfree:
30 minute call with up to 3 callers: $40.00
60 minute call with up to 3 callers: $60.00
Toll*:
30 minute call with up to 3 callers: $25.00
60 minute call with up to 3 callers: $35.00
SILVER
Same as above plus $10.00 per month, 10 podcasts hosted.
1-10 podcasts: $10.00
11-20 podcasts: $20.00
GOLD
All the above plus: $25.00 per podcast to syndicate for maximum publicity.
Wednesday, Alex and I are at the Podcast Hotel, where we're working out some of the big issues currently in the podcast world. Chief among those is music licensing, and I was on a panel with Rumblefish CEO Paul Anthony, talking about the current state of things, and how to move forward in a way that mutually benefits performers, rightsholders, and the people creating music podcasts.
Paul's approach, named "Podcuts", is a flat-fee licensing system for Rumblefish artists. The terms:
Rumblefish clears the track for podcasting for a $5 fee;
No digital rights management (DRM) is attached;
The licensed file is 75% of the length of the track, then fading out to silence.
Artist attribution is required.
This is a step forward in terms of licensing compared to the chaos we now have. Podcasters would know that they're covered, wouldn't have to worry about a label or a performing rights organization suing or claiming license fees after the fact.
The problem that I have with this is that it is still tied to an increasingly antiquated model, in which music is the payload radio stations use to attract listeners to the stations' ads. We can prove that we have a better way.
What I said in our session is that every new technology in music has caused a change in how music is licensed. The advent of piano scrolls forced the creation of what is still known as mechanical licensing. Radio and webcasting each spawned royalty schemes for the performances. Certain fair-use constructs, like the American Home Recording Act and the Sony Betamax decision, have also made their presence known.
Now, it's our turn, and we have to make it count. Personally, I think that requirements of DRM or fractional play is unacceptable for a podcast licensing scheme. I also believe that the system has fundamentally shifted, and the old model of pay-to-play is no longer relevant when, unlike the indirect marketing opportunity of radio, podcasters have the ability to directly drive sales through legal means. It's reasonable for podcasters who aren't using music to sell other advertising to ask for a cut of the music sales instead.
Then there's the Long Tail -- the domain of the podcaster. Music podcasts don't sound like hit radio. Most of them don't even sound like each other. To many, that's the entire point of doing a podcast.
Piracy is a subject that comes up frequently when licensing talk arises, and unfortunately, nobody has stepped up to say that fear is overblown. Compared to the KaZaA and Morpheus users out there, the number of people who are actively downloading podcasts and extracting songs from them is minuscule, if it exists at all. So let's not acquiesce to the Long John Silver treatment. It doesn't make sense here.
The Portland License is as follows.
Content owners:
Offer royalty-free access to music in their catalog that is not in the Top n sales list for the month. (This number could be 100, 200, 500, we don't know.)
Full tracks may be used.
No DRM is required.
Podcasters:
Report, in a lightweight document, what songs are in their show's playlists.
Agree not to play more than 2 tracks from a given album per show. This would prevent a full-album spin, which could be disassembled.
Agree not to play pre-release music without permission.
Will give full attribution (artist, song title, album title, and label) in the body of the show.
Will link in the show notes to purchase information. This can be a link to the iTunes Music Store, Rhapsody, Amazon or a new service which tracks podcast-driven sales.
Attest that they have a legal copy of the music they're playing.
Will not run third-party advertisement, in exchange for a commission on sales generated.
I believe this is the foundation of a truly reasonable arrangement for podcasters. We can play music we enjoy, would have access to thousands upon thousands of titles, and give an audience to music which is not commercially viable to market, but is still worth buying. This is good for listeners, good for podcasters, and good for artists and labels. I would like to get some feedback from label representatives on what they think about this approach.
Audioblog has received funding from Transcosmos Investments , the US arm of Transcosmos Japan. As part of the deal, Audioblog will be in partnership with Transcosmos Japan and J-Stream, a Japanese media infrastructure provider.
PR Newswire gets into podcasting. I talked with a client about podcasting some breaking news they have coming up. I think it's a good idea to have a conversation with your senior executives about some news about your company. But PR Newswire is doing something a bit different. They are podcasting press releases they distribute through their network. A podcast of a press release is really not conversational, is it? It's a form of repurposed news. It's a bit like someone reading the newspaper to you over the phone. I'd prefer to read the newspaper or scan a press release. Now, if the news had a radio edge, meaning it carried some context, then it would seem to have some value.
But who knows, the service seems designed for radio and broadcast, though I wonder how much this matters as the idea behind podcasts is to listen to it on your mp3 player or on your desktop at your own convenience.
Rumprs are hopping about what Steve Jobs will announce Sept. 7. Will it be a video iPod or an iPod phone? Industry watchers and Apple insiders say that each is a possibility.
`A big flash iPod? The Motorola iTunes phone? Let the rumor-mongering rule,'' wrote one bloger on TechRepublic.com.
Apple-watchers say the debut of the much-anticipated iTunes phone is just as likely as a video iPod. The iTunes phone would allow callers to buy songs using a mobile version of Apples's music software. Tracks would be stored on the phone's flash-memory chip.
rbitron has tested its "portable people meter," to measure podcast listenership. The test is part of an effort by Clear Channel to develop a new electronic measurement system.
From Billboard Radio Monitor:
In a test with Clear Channel during the week of July 18, Arbitron encoded several podcasts from WHTZ-FM (Z100) in New York that were uploaded to the podcast section of Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The podcasts were then downloaded to an MP3 player and played over headsets using the PPM headset adapter.
The PPM, which tracks media exposure by detecting inaudible codes embedded in programming can now add podcasting to its list of media platforms that the PPM has the ability to measure, including radio, TV, cable and the Internet.
It's looking like Canada is creating the perfect storm for podcasting: their public TV and radio network's own locked-out workers could create the biggest podcast network as leverage in their labor dispute.
Tod Maffin reports that the locked out CBC reporters will create their own network, at least while the strike is ongoing. They will produce a daily newscast to be made available for download and in podcast form, and are talking about going local, and even producing video for distribution online. The CBCunplugged site has already been created.
CBC has already been on the leading edge when it comes to podcasting (and in Quebec, baladodiffusion), so they're not exactly pushing the envelope, as I recommended of the NHL. What's happening in this case, however, is even more advanced: these reporters are circumventing their own medium. And what an opportunity to do so: 5,500 producers, technicians, writers, and on-air personalities are on the picket lines.
This could be the first instance we will see of a professional newsgathering network springing up from nothing, using the podcast distribution method. It may also be the biggest move ever in terms of socializing the podcast, as millions of Canadians who choose CBC for news coverage will be looking for something to match the quality to which they are accustomed.
I can't help but wonder what would happen if the lockout goes longer than a month or two. With the Canadian Media Guild counting their volunteer work on this project as part of the labor action, this new entity could be Canada's largest news-gathering operation overnight. In only a couple weeks' time, they could organize their own labor against their current employer (as newspaper workers have done when they are locked out), and produce their own programming as they see fit. They would only get a fraction of the CBC's audience to begin with, but over time, the listeners' loyalty to a given host or show would accrue to this new network, not the CBC. They have an opportunity not only to endure a protracted labor dispute, but to come out on the other side having reprogrammed their former network. CBC management may not notice this now, but once they do, they could realize what kind of trouble they're in.
Part of the daily task in the newsroom of most daily newspapers means writing a budget or your story ideas for the day. You write a one-sentence description, how many inches the story would fill in the paper and if it has art, such as graphics or photos.
The editors gather all the story ideas, look at the size of their news hole and then decide what goes in the paper. Editors debate, look for angles and then add or cut stories that they decide can wait another day or never see black ink on white paper.
I listened to an enhanced podcast last night from G4: Attack of the Show. To me, it showed what newspapers and other big media could do to show the people behind what stories run and the thinking that goes into the process. Big media seems so impersonal. These are the kinds of meetings where the personailties show.
An enhanced podcast, as demonstrated by Phil Torrone, essentially allows you to show images and create chapters in your podcast. The chapters are like a playlist. You can skip to the chapter you want or listen to it as it progresses. If you have an iPod, you would see the images for each chapter appear on the iPod screen.
By using an enhanced podcast, the guys at G4 turned a meeting about what to run on their site into an entertaining glimpse of what stories get presented, which ones the editors like and which ones they don't. (Word of Zoolander II with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson got groans from the group.)
I kept the chapters open the whole time. A little icon of a book appeared in iTunes, which allowed me to see the different images. I could listen and see what they referred to in their meeting. True, these guys are entertaining and their topics are eclectic but more so I received a new insight into how they make decisions about what to get on the site.
Could big media do this? Podcast their budget meetings? Make them enhanced? The mass media get a lot of grief these days for their ways of reporting the news .But if they did podcasts of those morning budget meetings, then we'd get an idea about what they were thinking about covering that day. Take it a step further and you could have the reporters podcasting as they research and interview. The community gets involved each part of the way up to the time the story actually goes to the press and gets delivered to your door.
Within a month or so, North America will regain its fourth major sport. Or will it?
After a year-long work stoppage, the National Hockey League is returning to the sports scene. The league will now be forced to deal with what Major League Baseball faced after its season-ending 1994 strike: an apathetic and in some cases angry fan base. Hockey fans are disgusted with both sides of this labor battle, as baseball fans were when the '94 World Series was canceled (robbing the then-Montreal Expos of their only real chance at a title).
It only gets worse for the NHL: even before the strike, popular interest in hockey within the United States was waning. Relocated teams like Carolina and Phoenix, and expansion clubs like Tampa Bay and Atlanta, were already finding it hard to attract warm-weather crowds to the game, even as many of them were advancing in the Stanley Cup playoffs. (Tampa Bay won the Cup in 2004.)
This week, the NHL suffered its latest indignity: ESPN, which had hosted its regular season along with ABC, refused to pick up NHL coverage for the next several seasons. The league signed with the Outdoor Life Network, which will use hockey to fill in the holes in a schedule which consists of the Tour de France in July and, I believe, every fishing show known to man. NBC had already scooped up broadcast rights for the next two seasons, paying no license fee and offering the NHL a profit-sharing deal similar to its deal with Arena Football. These are desperation deals. One step lower, and soccer will be the number four sport in the US.
That's all great, you say, what does this have to do with podcasting? If the NHL is smart, plenty.
The NHL is going to need a full-court press to get and keep the fans' attention and interest. OLN will also need to increase its exposure, as it treats its NHL content as a draw for its other programming. And Comcast, which owns OLN, is heavily invested in digital cable and broadband Internet. Comcast will be pushing NHL content on its on-demand cable services as well as online.
So, we're most of the way there: a sports league and a television network both with a vested interest in reaching people more people than they currently have access to. This is a great situation for podcasting, and even better for video in RSS enclosures. I don't think we're quite ready for full-game feeds, and we may never need them, given the real-time nature of sporting events. But OLN will be creating hockey-related content around their coverage, and that's no good to them if nobody is watching it at 11pm. They will already be offering it on demand. Why not serve an MPEG for download on their own broadband network?
Even more interesting are the place-shifting opportunities. A large number of fans in the southern and western US hail from colder climes. Many, surprisingly, are even Canadian. I, for one, grew up a Boston Bruins fan, but over the years, I couldn't find any Bruins coverage after I moved away, and so I'm limited to what ESPN gives me in the morning. But what if there were a daily podcast of, say, five to ten minutes, for each home team? Many of these shows could be hosted by Comcast's regional sports network personalities -- who, naturally, would have access to the players themselves via the OLN deal. And finding podcasters to cover each of the Canadian teams would be like trying to find a cat who likes to watch mice. These are low-cost activities that would bring real fans in, wherever they may live. Fans who buy tickets, gear, and Internet access.
While the other major sports in the US are all still swirling their toes in the online water with monthly subscription charges for streaming content, the NHL has a real chance to rebuild by letting more people in. There are millions of monthly impressions to be had. Even OLN and Comcast stand to benefit in this arrangement by increasing their own profile. It would be fascinating for everyone involved to see the league and the network take such a bold step.
But is this an old story? One that the blogosphere just got wind of? Could very well be the case.
Apparently, MacObserver started reporting the story in June.
This is the kind of stuff you see in the media biz all the time. A story breaks and it gets ignored. Then, a few weeks later, its recast by a competitor and treated as breaking news.
What also happens: The story doesn't get any play and when it does get attention, it is treated as breaking news because people think it is a hot, fresh story.
In the blogosphere, though, to me at least, there is no such thing as a breaking story as the link trail goes long and about. Who broke it first? Does that matter? It's such an old media game. I want the insights.
...The main problem will be what in sales they call call "channel conflicts", which are more political than technical. NPR essentially wholesales programming to local stations, which retail them to listeners. The new strategies will need to help, rather than hurt, local stations and networks, which are the final "sales channel" of programming to listeners (and sponsors)
...Here's my review / HOW TO of Audible with their podcasting features...and on that note, I've been using CD audio books for the last month, and so far, working out great.
Apple has lost an attempt to patent its menu-based software interface for the iPod. Apparently they lost out to a fellow named John Platt, a senior researcher in the Knowledge Tools Group at Microsoft.
According to AppleInsider, The Apple application lists lists Apple vice president Jeff Robbin and Apple chief executive Steve Jobs as two of its primary inventors. Robbin came to Apple from Casady & Greene, a small software company which developed applications for the Mac OS platform.
AppleInsider reports that Casady & Greene was widely known among Mac users for its SoundJam MP3 player software, which Apple eventually took control of and re-branded as iTunes after hiring Robbin. In his first role as an engineering manager at Apple, Robbin was credited with leading the iPod's software development in the early days of the project.
From AppleInsider:
Platt's application describes his invention as a system or method that "generates playlists for a library collection of media items via selecting a plurality of seed items, at least one which is an undesirable seed item." The process by which the iPod's software displays its own menu-based interface is very similar to the process Platt's filing goes on to describe.
In an attempt to trump Platt's application, Robbin through his patent lawyer petitioned the patent office to review an amended set of claims last November, shortly after his initial filing had been rejected in light of Platt's.
Upon review, the patent office in July issued a 6-page document pointing to prior claims made by Platt and offering its final rejection of Robbin's application. In forming a basis for the rejection, an examiner for the patent office began by citing Platt's preexisting claims:
"Platt discloses an apparatus and a method of assisting user interaction with a multimedia asset player by way of a hierarchically ordered user interface, comprising: displaying a first order user interface having a first list of user selectable items; receiving a user selection of one of the user selectable items; and automatically transitioning to and displaying a second order user interface having a second list of user selectable items based upon the user selection."
What leverage does this provide Microsoft? Anyone have any idea where this may lead?
Odeo announces an investment round of its own. It features Charles River Ventures and a number of individuals, notably Mitch Kapor and Tim O'Reilly.
Hmm. Does that mean Foo Camp is going to be podcast this year?
By the way, Odeo is hiring. If my memory of this time in a company's corporate finances holds, you should totally demand the maxed-out PowerBook when you get the job.
Keep pressing the subscribe button to get higher iTunes rankings. From PlasticTrees.net:
I had to click on the subscribe button of our podcast a number of times. I noticed that shortly after I had done so our rank on the iTunes Canada music store had gone up.
He tested it with a buddy and sure enough, higher iTunes rankings.
They're looking for a DJ, really. From the CBS web site:
The network is searching for an amateur DJ to interview CBS stars and create a podcast about the new fall season. The podcaster will join the nation’s top DJs at the CBS Radio Junket on September 10 in Hollywood to interview CBS talent for the podcast, which will be made available to millions via CBS.com and Infinity Broadcasting’s San Francisco-based KYOURADIO, the world’s first-ever podcasting radio station. For consideration, you'll need to upload a mock three-minute interview.
Here are two major media companies looking for amateur podcasters to interview CBS stars as a promotion for the Fall season.
The move follows Fox Broacdcasting's announcement to promote its upcoming shows with podcasts, featuring interviews with their stars.
For Fox, the effort is intended to promote its DVD sets. For CBS, the podcast contest comes in the first weeks following their announcement of a broadband network.
The CBS strategy seems far more compelling. With the Fox podcasts, you get stars talking about their shows with a professional actor. With CBS, who knows what will happen? Will the winner be the first podcaster to become a mass media star? Adam Curry is a celebrity. But if the winner of this contest is entertaining, then we may see someone who receives mass attention.
A strategy that reaches out to indie podcasters makes sense. Indie podcasters are at the heart of what has made podcasting so popular, so fast. The people who make podcasts are bright, orignal and talented people. Their "amateur," status is what makes them appealing. They are authentic.
In contrast, Fox is going the professional approach with actors interviewing actors. Does that seem interesting? Perhaps....If they let Bart Simpson do the interviews. Doh!
"Tell the FCC to stick it...The revolution is on."
Those are just some of the lyrics to: "On a Podcast," a podcast anthem written and performed by Cruisebox a quintet out of Oklahoma.
It's a catchy tune. One of those tunes that gets in your head...."I heard it on a podcast...rock and fuckin radio."
The song is striking for a few reasons. First off, it rails against the authoritarianism of the FCC and towards a government that people recognize as increasingly repressive. Second, the passion you hear in these folks comes from a growing indie movement, fueled by podcasting and a DIY ethos. Third, it's a rally against pinhole distribution systems that all indies face, be they artists, musicians or writers.
Further, these guys seems to be incredibly savvy and fully aware of the times in which we live. How?
They have a clean version of the song and an explicit version. Now, which one do you think is getting more downloads?
The mainstream media's approach to podcasting provides some clues for how independents can succeed. Many of the traditional media's shows are simply repurposed snippets from morning talk shows and elsewhere. Indie podcasters can distinguish themselves by creating something truly different, such as Skepticality's irreverent take on science and space or the infectious enthusiasm for offbeat cover songs found in a show called Coverville. "The way that indie podcasts are going to stand out is to keep providing content that people can't get on radio," says Brian Ibbott, the producer of Coverville. It may not be clear today which podcaster will end up on top. But there's no doubt that the technology is leading to an explosion in content. That should be music to all listeners' ears.
Podcasting is a technology for spreading political opposition. That theory will be tested in Singapore, where an opposition party has launched a podcast to denounce the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) ahead of independence day celebrations.
From the Singapore Democratic Party web site:
The podcast is a way for the Party to by-pass the state-controlled media in Singapore. Airwaves in the country are monopolised, cable television is owned by a government-linked company, satellite dishes are banned, and the press is controlled by the ruling party. The Internet remains a medium that the Government finds it hard to censor, although it has enacted many laws aimed at curtailing the use of the Internet for political purposes.
Fox Broadcasting is podcasting. But to set itself apart, the network is distancing itself from the "podcasting," term, instead using its own brand to start what it calls: "Foxcasts."
If Fox followed the practice of most media companies and simply re-distributed their shows as podcasts then there would be no reason to instill their brand into podcasting.
But it appears they plan to do more. Starting August 29, Fox will include exclusive material, similar to the premium they offer in their DVD box sets. Not surprisingly, the podcasts will be used to promote the DVD's. On September 19, Fox will offer a recap of the entire season for such shows as Arrested Development for listening before the new season's launch.
For now, the Foxcasts are pretty dull. The Lost Remote puts it well:
But don't get excited just yet. I listened to The Simpsons "Foxcast" and the announcer just rambled through what happened on the show in a little over a minute. Borrrring. But Fox promises exclusive cast interviews and other expanded audio content in the future.
If they do follow on the promise of exclusive interviews and offers such as pre-series recaps, then the Fox strategy seems to make more sense.
They'll be creating original work to supplement their shows. That's not exactly ground breaking but it is using this new distribution medium a bit more creatively than the other big media players.
The latest rumor on the Web is that podcasts could be a virus vector, installing Trojan horses and turning your computer into a zombie.
Now, this is hardly news. All transfers of binary data have the potential to be exploited in some fashion. It's a safe bet that someone will figure out how to exploit RSS attachments to their advantage in the future (and thankfully, most of what I've read so far about podcasting viruses is really just a gentle nudge to aggregator and media player developers to put this on the to-do list). But let's be clear about this before it gets blown out of proportion: at the moment, this is only a prediction. There are no known exploits along these lines. I'd hate to see listeners frightened away by the big bogeyman of computer viruses while today's podcasts are as safe or safer than a lot of the other activities they engage in online.
More media players provide their critiques on podcasting. Shel Holtz, who will speak at the Podcast Hotel on podcasting and public relations, gives his take on the big media and how the forces at play can be compared to the heyday of FM radio and his daughter's own quest for new music.
Eric Rice came to Portland earlier this month for his Podcast and Videoblog Road Show. Here is the show that he made in his own Eric Rice style.;-) Eric's road show, which moves on to San Francisco next month, is an exercise in DIY (do-it-yourself) media. You'll never see this kind of show on the local news.
Eric is our host for the videoblog festival at the Podcast Hotel. We'll run the festival over two nights of the event. We'll show videoblogs, discuss how they are made and what people are doing with them in this time of early adoption.
Check out Eric's video. This is a videoblog. But you know what? Eric showed how he put his videos on his phone. And there are rumors of a video iPod. So, what is a podcast? A question we all continue to ponder. And one we will discuss at the Podcast Hotel.
KEXP is a staple for music lovers in the Pacific Northwest. They are known for their commitment to the local music scene with their regular feature of local acts in their daily programming.
According to KEXP, they are now offering a podcast of full-length songs by fourteen Pacific Northwest artists, making it the first radio station to offer a music podcast of this scope. This effort compliments their excellent online radio offering.
On the podcast you can hear bands like the Blue Scholars, a hip-hop group that makes its Seattle roots known.
Fans of Seattle radio station KEXP 90.3/91.7 FM now can listen to local artists and live in-studio performances on their MP3 players.
KEXP, known for its unique mix of music ranging from rock to hip-hop to country, offers podcasts -- a convenient option for listeners on the go.
"We know that people can't necessarily tune in live all the time," said John Richards, host of the KEXP "Morning Show" and producer of "Audioasis," a weekly program featuring local musicians. "So we hope to create an environment where they listen to what they want, when they want it."
Trevor Cook points to an interview with the Podcast Network about the revenue question with podcasting. The bottom line: you don't need a car company or a condom manufacturer to make money from your podcasts.
From Trevor:
"The more we talked about the shows they're doing, and the shows I'm subscribed to, the clearer it became to me: podcasters don't need advertisers like car companies and condom makers. There's a whole community of financing in every town that's already supporting niche programming. It's made up of foundations and law firms and home builders who traditionally underwrite local public radio shows and stations.”
Audioblog is offering iTunes support. Eric Rice, one of Audioblog's founders, was in Portland over the weekend for his Podcast and Videoblog Road Show. He talked about iTunes. What I found interesting? Eric said that the volume of support queries about iTunes just skyrocketed since Apple announced its support for podcasting. It's not just the podcasters that are seeing jumps but the service providers are facing challenges, too, as people rush with questions about how their shows can appear in the iTunes directory.
MSNBC relays a Wall Street Journal report that Apple is in talks with the major entertainment companies to do video iTunes.
I hear a lot of debate about podcasting and what it really means. If you check out Phil Torrone's cool piece on "enhanced podcasts," you can see that podcasting is more about the full use of all DIY media, with audio playing a vital but not all encompassing role. (Torrone's piece for Make is a must read for anyone interested in what the iPod and iTunes means for podcasting and DIY media.)
The iPod is a little, white box. But it means a lot more as we change the way we try to make sense of this world. We're moving out of the mass media, industrial lifestyle. The video iPod tells us once again that we're not on a programmed entertainment schedule.
iPods and podcasts demonstrate that we get the media that we want on our own time. But Apple's efforts are different and some might say is representative of the contradictions that face us all when powerful forces collide. Apple execs are embracing the media giants, who have a mass distribution, which seems to counter the home grown aspects of podcasting and videoblogging.
So, the iPod symbol works different ways. It's a symbol for grass roots, DIY media and the changing view for our world. But it also serves as a symbol for the mass media and the power for controlling distribution. That little white box has power to do a lot for whoever controls it and how it is used.
How is it that a little white box coud be so powereful as a symbol in society? What is the symbolism of the iPod? What is the symbolism of podcasting? By understanding the symbolism can we get a better picture of what podcasting really means to us all?
Eric is the man to teach you about podcasting and videoblogging. Here's what he writes:
"Up the street from the Farmer's Market is a Seattle's Best at Portland (doh!) State University. It's at 1742 SW Sixth Ave., and we're meeting there at noon. We'll hang out for an hour or so and then start walking through downtown for the infamous blog/pod/vlog walks. This is Saturday, July 16th.
Bring a camera, bring a microphone, bring a newbie! There's no set schedule and who knows where we'll end up to eat or drink that oh-so loverly Oregon beer. Comfy shoes, cuz it's an outdoorsy-kind of day."
A story from USA Today speculates that this surge in popularity may make it tough for the indie podcaster.
Almost overnight, the mass media took up podcasting. You can now find podcasts from ABC, CBS, Disney, NPR, and shows like Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.
But most of the podcasts are repackaged from what these media players already produce. Since iTunes adoption, more than one million people have subsribed to podcasts.
Matt and I talked about this in this week's podcast. Apple iTunes may expose a wide larger audience but with it what are the costs for the indie? If a small, indie podcaster gets a surge in interest, then they may also go way over their alloted bandwidth from their host provider. That would cost them a bundle.
What does the surge in popularity mean for the indie? Is there a conflict between the big guys and the indies? Are the indies in danger with the mass media muscling in to the podosphere?
Robert Scoble is writing about podcasting with Windows Media Player. He refers to Chris Lanier's list of Windows Media Player plug ins.
Podcasting is a term Robert uses freely. Others at Microsoft are calling podcasting something else entirely. Some call it blogcasting. In his presentation about Microsoft's commitment to RSS at Gnomedex, Dean Hachamovitch, GM of Microsoft's Internet Explorer team , grouped podcasting as part of the term: "feeds of content." What Microsoft seems to say is that it's not just about audio, it's about all forms of feeds. They'll have to come up with a different term but I think I understand what they want to address.
It appears they want to move the conversation about podcasting to a different space that encompasses more than just audio. They want the conversation to be about the feed, through the built in aggregator that delivers it all.
And if they can accomplish such a feat, what does podcasting matter to them? What will podcasting matter to Microsoft if Windows applications and Internet Explorer act as feed machines? Podcasts just are another form of data that gets delivered to people when they want and how they want it.
Does Microsoft need to get all caught up in podcasting? It doesn't seem like they do. Why? Podcasting is only one part of the loosely coupled big aggregating machine that they are building as part of Longhorn and IE 7.0.
More so, it seems Microsoft is seeng a future where RSS is everywhere. Just look at MSN Spaces. When I inteviewed Mike Torres, he said that of the approximate seven million blogs, the far majority opting to have an RSS feed. Couple that with IE, which will server as a giant aggregator and you have a huge RSS ad network that can include blogs, podcasts, videoblogs and more. They don't want to talk about podcasting for obvious reasons. In the Microsoft world, nothing trumps the operating system. They want audio, video and all other data to be fed through this giant aggregator.
"...what Microsoft has done is essentially build an RSS aggregator into the OS and expose API's that any application can make use of to produce or consume RSS. That's a little more interesting (and perhaps would have made for a more interesting talk and discussion)."
What Eric is hinting at is a world far more universal than just syndicated audio shows. It's about feeds of all kinds that are published and consumed.
But do me a favor. Please, call it anything but "feeds of content." As Doc would say, this isn't about shipping, this is about language and how we converse.
In 1993, America Online jumped into the Internet with both feet, and the waves took an awful long time to subside. A huge influx of new users discovered Usenet, and thanks to AOL's poor stewardship of the situation, the newsgroups were overrun with newbies who thought they were merely an extension of AOL. The phenomenon came to be known as "Eternal September," since it came in like the newbie college freshmen, who were suitably chastened by October -- only the freshmen kept coming, month after month, year after year.
Eternal September is a valuable lesson in corporate responsibility. AOL didn't pay the least bit of attention to the existing community on Usenet, who had built its value steadily over the years. As a result, the community was altered forever, with long-time users disappearing, and a flood of bad feelings toward AOL for letting the horse out of the barn. Some of that bad blood continues to this day.
The lesson that every corporation should take away from Eternal September is this: beware the unintended consequences of introducing dramatic changes in existing communities. Podcasting is not just TiVo for radio. It's an independent medium consisting of thousands of producers who, rather than spending their energies to compete with one another, have instead pushed each other along. It's the social aspect of rough consensus and running mouths that make it what it is.
Apple has had its blockbuster hits over the years, with the iPod itself likely to go down as its biggest. I'm a huge Apple partisan, myself, having seen them time and time again make it easier for any old user to do what they couldn't before, like make DVDs, arrange music, or buy shape-shifting blue-and-white polka-dotted computers. And Apple absolutely deserves credit for integrating podcasting into iTunes a scant 10 months after it started rolling. Podcast producers will benefit greatly, over time, by having one fewer application that users need to download.
Maybe Apple is losing out in my view because I grade them at the top of the usability curve among software vendors, but the part that pains me about the iTunes 4.9 release is knowing how much better it could have been. As the first exposure to podcasting for many, I think they could have made things a lot cleaner and more comfortable for those users. For example, the Podcasts section could be much more effective if it were an integrated aggregator and marketing tool. It doesn't make sense to shop the iTunes Music Store for free podcasts, leaving users with two disjointed interfaces to navigate.
As I said in an earlier post, there's time to fix all of this, but the iTunes developers have to break themselves of their innately secretive nature and actively engage those folks who have been doing it. Take the built-in RSS aggregator. Its performance, according to people who know, is, shall we say, suboptimal. Sam Ruby, who does know, has been gathering detailed research on iTunes' RSS parser, outlining its limitations based on black-box testing. These limitations hurt end users by degrading their experience. But because Apple is not communicating, Sam has had to beg for links to try to make sure someone gets the message through to them. Again, this would have been a lot easier if Apple had come out to the syndication community a week or two before hand and let them mess around with the parser. We'd have known a lot more about what we needed to do, and they'd have had a chance to fix what is now, after the fact, seen to be broken.
AOL erroneously believed that paying for the connection to the Internet gave them some sense of ownership over the community that was already there. It's a lesson that Apple can take to heart when trying to parlay ownership of the iPod and iTunes into ownership of the content community. Right now, many of the people adding value in this community aren't happy.
A few readers have ascribed my criticism of iTunes to sour grapes for not having been included in their directory. That doesn't bother me: I don't deserve any special privileges simply because I have a mic and a mixer. Really, the only thing that bugs me is that I don't know why I'm not listed. There are dozens of podcast directories out there, and my show usually appears in them from day one, by virtue of its presence in the iPodder directory, and some number of listeners who submit me where they can. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to hear that someone at Apple listened to one of my shows and didn't like it; that information alone would be enough to keep me from having to check the directory every so often to see if I've been added.
It's not hard to put out one sentence explaining how shows are added to the directory. Here, Apple, pick one of these and add it to your submission page:
"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that its content is appropriate for our audience."
"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that it is of suitable quality to our audience."
"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that it is not using unauthorized copyrighted content."
"Apple updates its directory with podcast submissions every (n days|x weeks|y months)."
"Apple will notify the owner of the submitted feed when it has been processed."
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: communication. Not hand-holding, not operators standing by, and not handwritten letters from Steve. All I'm asking for is some participation in the community, at ground level. Podcasting is not something that can be "owned". Podcasting is an organic, collaborative medium, where a large number of players share largely common goals. It's social media. And those players will not respond well to what is perceived as pressure from an external force. Smart people work in Cupertino. Let us talk with some of them.
FMQB reports that this week, online music licensing will be a topic of discussion in a US Senate subcommittee on copyright. Subscription services and blanket licensing mechanisms will be up for debate. The subscription sites are asking for a blanket license because of the complexity of seeking rights from all of the content owners, while the owners themselves appear concerned that they can't capitalize to the greatest extent possible on their hits.
Naturally, podcasters have a dog in this race, though I'm not confident that we will be represented in any sense in the debate. Some sense will need to be made of how to license music distributed in podcast form. Clearly, the volume of material being made available and its relatively short lifespan on the devices of downloaders should add up to a lot less than the rates charged for duplication, which can be north of a dollar per track per download. Will content owners and performing rights organizations continue to ignore a content marketing and revenue stream that's begging to do business with it, or will podcasts be added to an expanded definition of streaming, for the purposes of licensing? Now may be the time to call your senator.
Mark Cuban makes a point that there is a big difference between repurposed content for a podcast and trying to make a living off starting your own podcast. He suggests folks trying to get into this business to look back at the streaming business ten years ago.
The good news, according to Cuban: podcasting is a low cost mediium for pushing out speeches, trade show presentations, customer education, etc. The bad news, the Internet is one heck of a long tail and there are no hits. They're just blips on the radar.
From Cuban's blog:
"Talk Radio Shows repurposed from radio to a podcast. No brainer. It’s cheap and easy. Repurposing industry specific information from tradeshows, speeches, product presentations for employee or customer education or as sales support. No brainer. These are just extensions of existing content into a new low cost medium.
For those who are tying to jump on the podcasting bandwagon and create a “hit” podcast that you plan on selling advertising in, its cheap and easy to do, but even with Google Adsense for RSS its going to be really tough to do it as a fulltime job and make minimum wage back."
Instructions for SmarterCasters
For the nearly 10,000 of you podcasters currently using FeedBurner's SmartCast service, all you need to do is check a box to include iTunes enhancements and then provide your own description, copyright, author names, etc. Don't forget to include a link to your logo (if you have one). You can also select the correct iTunes-provided category so your podcast is assigned to the appropriate directories. If you are already including iTunes tags in your feed, we do not overwrite or edit any existing iTunes tags we find in your feed. To get started, simply log in to FeedBurner, choose the "Edit" link for your podcast feed and look for all of this goodness under the SmartCast Service (located among the other Essential Feed Services)
Boy, the New York Times Business section really loves podcasting! Today's edition has yet another article, this one by David Carr. Once again, I would characterize the article as a kind of primer for those unfamiliar with podcasting, with a particular emphasis on how "big media" are beginning to experiment with it. Carr seems to get it, and in his closing paragraph, he offers a very firm conclusion about podcasting's current state:
For the time being, podcasting is a cipher, a technology that seems to further threaten established media's stranglehold on public consciousness, but offers little opportunity in the way of a real actual business. Big media are aggressively attempting to get their arms around the next big thing. But it remains elusive, a medium that is viral and uncontrollable by nature, and that does not threaten to become a business any time soon. (Emphasis added)
I can't wait to see what's in the paper for the rest of the week! And I'm looking forward to your comments on Carr's views. Please share them here!
First of all, am I the only one who LOVES the word, "portmanteau?" I just think it sounds great...thank you Wikipedia!
In today's New York Times Business section, writer Randall Stross offers a brief primer on podcasting for the uninitiated, and discusses the possible impact of Apple's embrace of podcasting on the fortunes of Audible. It's an interesting article and worth reading.
What is most intriguing to me is just how many articles there are in the print media these days about podcasting. It's amazing how much coverage something that "manages to be a double misnomer" can get from the very media it threatens. It's fantabulous!
On Monday, I was presenting at a conference and Shel Holtz of the For Immediate Release podcast came up prior to the session to share some magic words that absolutely thrilled me:
I was simply ecstatic for the rest of the day, and I'm still feeling pretty good. I realize that for many readers of this blog, the idea of getting so jazzed about one fan might be odd, but for me it is terribly exciting. Before Shel introduced himself, I was reasonably certain that only my friends were listening to my podcast. When I told my friends about the encounter, they teased me a bit, but only because they know how much making this connection means to me.
Actually meeting someone who enjoys my podcast but doesn't know me personally is a source of great validation, a real endorsement of the show and what it's about. I love podcasting and I want to spend more time on it, and so I'm trying to incorporate it into my consulting business. Knowing that the show has at least one fan (and perhaps others) creates a new impetus to accelerate that process. Thanks Shel!
So my question to you is this: how did you feel when you first discovered that you and your podcast have fans? As your fan base has grown, has your thinking about your fans changed at all? What responsibility do you feel toward your fans? I look forward to the conversation.
Apple released iTunes 4.9 with podcast capabilities today.
The basics:
* Apple is initially is offering 3,000 podcasts that people can listen to through iTunes
* Shows include those from: ABC News, Adam Curry, BBC, Clear Channel, The Dawn and Drew Show, Disney, Engadget, ESPN, Newsweek and NPR member stations such as KCRW in Los Angeles and WGBH in Boston.
"iTunes enables anyone to quickly and easily find and subscribe to their favorite Podcasts so that every time there's a new episode, it's automatically downloaded to their Mac® or PC and Auto-Synced to their iPod. iTunes also makes it easy to manage multiple Podcast subscriptions with simple organization and display by episode and date. Starting today, iPods will offer an easy to use Podcast menu, including bookmarking within a Podcast and the ability to display color Podcast artwork."
"Online lifestyle community MySpace.com has expanded the kinds of exclusive content it offers its members.
Among the new features unavailable elsewhere are a podcast by Foo Fighters and a personal blog maintained by Smashing Pumpkins founder Billy Corgan.
In the Foo Fighters podcast, founding member Dave Grohl plays clips as he relates the making of the new two-disc set "In Your Honor," which is currently No. 2 on the U.S. pop charts. The downloadable audio is offered with streams of the first single and other items of interest to fans.
"Podcasting is probably more hype than people are using it, particularly since the majority is talk radio or bad talent, but it's a good fit for MySpace because of the personal connection," MySpace.com CEO Chris DeWolfe said."
"In launching the guides at virginatlantic.com/podcast, the firm is also making available a branded, downloadable pice of software called Podcatcher.
The four guides include a look at the "10 coolest restaurants", an insider's guide to shopping, a guide to the quirky side of the city and the 10 best things to do for the first-time visitor.
The Podcatcher and host site have been created by UK-based software firm Loudish with content sourcing, development and editing handled by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R and Manning Gottlieb OMD."
"In launching the guides at virginatlantic.com/podcast, the firm is also making available a branded, downloadable pice of software called Podcatcher.
The four guides include a look at the "10 coolest restaurants", an insider's guide to shopping, a guide to the quirky side of the city and the 10 best things to do for the first-time visitor.
The Podcatcher and host site have been created by UK-based software firm Loudish with content sourcing, development and editing handled by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R and Manning Gottlieb OMD."
I had the chance to interview Chris Pirillo just after the close of Gnomedex 5. It's a 15-minute chat about the show itself, memorable moments, and how conferences have changed since COMDEX.
"Called FeedStation, the new Podcast receiver will download audio and video files automatically to your favorite portable media player. Both NewsGator and FeedDemon will support the new Podcast audio and video files and let you store the content to your iPod, or any other portable media device that uses Windows Media Player or Apple iTunes."
IE 7.0 is being shown for the first time at Gnomedex right now. RSS is built into the browser. The theme, as explained by Dean Hachamovitch, is making it easy.
Highlights:
* Simple RSS subscription
* Talking about podcasting:
Dean says podcasting is more about "feeds of content": audio, music, photos, videos, calendar events, contacts, documents.
This is interesting. They are consciously moving away from the term podcasting.
"Buoyed by the success of its "Phone Tap" podcast downloads on WHTZ-FM, Clear Channel's Top 40 station in New York, the company announced Thursday it will expand its portfolio of podcast feeds. The accelerated rollout will offer nearly 20 new podcasts of popular on-air content from 12 more stations, with an additional 10 expected to launch later this week. "
Who made BadApple? It's a plug in for iTunes 4.9 made by BadFruit that turns the Apple iTunes software into a downloading podcast machine.
The BadApple news comes as Apple's CEO Steve Jobs announced recently that Apple iTunes 4.9 will support podcasting. Apple is reported to be a few weeks ahead of schedule and are evangelizing their support for podcasting. Jobs even goes as far to call podcasting the hottest thing in radio.
But who is behind BadApple? No one has fessed up. But behind it is some pretty sophisticated programming that is causing some to speculate that this is not some lone hacker making a play.
"At this point, there is no official indication of BadFruit's origin. But a handful of signs seem to link the site to MP3Tunes.com, the online song store opened a few months ago by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson.
Log files created by the software indicate that it talks to a server hosted by MP3Tunes. Code inside the software package, once downloaded, also show links to MP3Tunes.
The privacy policies displayed by MP3Tunes.com and BadFruit are also identical in almost every way, with details such as the name of the company and the name of the service changed. BadFruit's terms of use say that any legal actions concerning the software should be taken in San Diego County, where Robertson's companies are based. "
So, who madeBadApple? What does it mean for Apple? What is the next move? Is it a legal one?
Pennyslvania's Senate Republicans are offering a weekly podcast. I wonder about politician's interest in podcasting. Thes podcasts seem more like the well-scripted radio addresses that elected representatives often do. If a Republican caucus is podcasting, whose goal it is to achieve their objectives on state legislation, then questions will surface about their authenticity. How should politcians use podcasting? How do our views change about DIY media when that technology is being used by politicians to achieve some form of power?
A few weeks ago I published an interview with Mike Torres about MSN Spaces over at Feedfest. We talked for a while about MSN Spaces policy about censorship. I thought it might be of interest now that MSN is reported to be censoring Chinese bloggers.
A note: One commenter had a bit of an issue with my interview style. The style had a lot to do with the problems of the recording cutting out. We had thought the service was not hearing me talk and automatically stopped the recording. To ty and solve the problem, I used the interview style of agreeing, saying "mm-hmm," etc. Well, I am still having the issue with the recording dropping out. So, on to other tests to try and make this work.
A question: Do you have a method that works well for recording phone calls? Looks like I am going to have to give Skype a go.
AppleInsider reports that iTunes 4.9 is ahead of schedule with plans for a high profile technology launch.
On May 22, Steve Jobs said in his keynote address that iTunes 4.9 would be available in 60 days. Now, it appears that the launch will be sometime in late June or early July, about three weeks ahead of schedule.
There have been reports this week of iTunes forays into the podosphere. It's obvious these guys are going into high gear.
Now, here is what I find most interesting from the article. The company is taking a three-tier approach to simplifying podcasting:
Here's a recap. Check out the article for the full report.
Recap:
* Apple is developing a user-friendly "Podcasts" area in its iTunes Music Store that will closely resemble the existing "Audiobooks" store.
* Apple is tying trying to simplify the process of locating relevant Podcasts.
* Apple is simplifying categories, finding that the iPodder.org directory is too complex for the average user.
Plus...
* Aple is reaching out to all kinds of players to produce podcasts, including television stations, radio stations and motion picture studios.
Here's an Odeo screen shot. Folks are jumping up and down about Odeo. They're in the media stream, so to speak. And they seem to be a lightning rod, too.
Todd Cochrane claimed that Odeo was creating custom RSS feeds, amounting to a podcast hijack.
Showing how sensitive they are to this sort of furor in the podcast world, the folks at Odeo quickly responded.
That shows a lot. They're listening. But Cochrane makes a good point in his follow up post. He says that people should be more concerned about this practice.
Re-directing RSS feeds is a hot issue. Dave Winer has been critical of Feedburner for creating custom feeds from the original feeds people provide when using the Feedburner service.
Recently, Feedburner developed a redirect method. Here is excerpt from their June 10 blog:
"So, beginning today, we're providing a detailed service for publishers who choose to leave FeedBurner. When you delete your FeedBurner feed, we have added an option to redirect your feed. If you select this, we begin a one month process of transitioning your subscribers back to your source feed. This is the interesting part; because of the very different capabilities of the different feed readers, we have to take a few different approaches."
As more business interests get into podcasting, look for this issue to keep showing itself. People will be sensitive about keeping their feed address as it will be a measure of traffic and a factor in brand awareness. And for many folks, that RSS feed is a sign of identity.
This seems to be the big issue that will hit us over the next few months. As the big guns emerge, services like Odeo will be portals for podcasts. Who will get the brand attention?
Will the services essentially swallow up any recognition for the independents? And if they do, what does that mean for the long term vitality of this fresh and vibrant form of radio?
A CNET article explores some of the efforts underway to reach some accord in what music can be played in a podcast.
Brian Ibbott, who does the podcast show Coverville, is quoted extensively in the article. He is currently involved in the negotiating with the Recording Industry Association of America.
From the article:
"If the most important part is to ensure that the songs they broadcast aren't used as substitutes for purchased music, podcasters could agree to use a format that doesn't provide CD-quality music, such as 128-kilobyte-per-second MP3s, Ibbott said. They could also wrap their podcasts in some kind of copy protection as a condition of using music legally."
The Diffusion Group is forecasting that podcasting users will reach 60 million by 2010. The press release does not state how The Diffusion Group come to that figure. Instead, they state that the demand or time-shifted digital audio files or podcasts is expected to grow from less than 15 percent of portable digital music player owners in 2004 to 75 percent by 2010.
The report is definitely designed for a corporate audience, trying to get their heads around podcasting. Check out the link to the report and you'll see why. The price tag for the report is a hefty $1,495.
Here aresome more of their findings:
"Podcasting: Fact, Fiction and Opportunity," suggests that between 2004 and 2010, the use of podcasting among U.S. consumers will enjoy a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 101%."
What is fueling the podcasting growth? According to Marc Freedman, contributing analyst with The Diffusion Group, it is the discovery of time-shifting by consumers. People understand that they can liusten to their programs when they want and how they want.
According to the press release:
"Consumers were already accustomed to downloading music for playback on portable devices – this is a well-engrained activity that precedes online digital music," said Freedman. "However, the downloading of online 'audio blogs' for portable on-demand consumption is certainly new. Yes, the roots of podcasting lie in non-commercial amateur blogging, but podcasting's non-commercial status is changing as more businesses begin to find creative ways to use this new delivery medium to push audio content."
In a few years, perhaps we'll ask a similar question when the podcasts start hitting a volume pace: Where do all the iTunes podcasts come from? If the math shows that very few songs on an iPod are from the iTunes music store, than what chances are there that any tiny percentage of podcasts will be from some iTunes equivalent?
There won't be 60 million podcasts that have been purchased. There may not even be an iTunes service that allows you to charge for a podcast. And even if there is, most podcasts won't cost a dime. So, where will they come from? How many podcasts will people have on their iPods that they have purchased?
Here's an excerpt from the Gear Live web site where the iPod math quetion is discussed:
"While talking with Tiffiniy Cheng of Participatory Culture earlier today for our next Gear Live Podcast, she mentioned the website put out by them called iTunes Per iPod. Essentially, it aims to show that while many people walk around with iPods filled to the brim with their favorite tracks, barely any of them are from the iTunes Music Store. Granted, the data is a bit outdated as it is from April 2004, I think it is safe to say that the data probably hasn’t changed all that much. Based on their calculations, in April 2004, if you divided the number of songs sold on iTunes by the number of iPods out there, you would find an average of 21 iTunes songs per iPod. Now I understand that many people rip CD’s that they have purchased legally to their computers as well, and this accounts for a percentage of the music on iPods - but I will go out on a limb and say that is a small percentage as well. Gotta love Bittorrent."
The smallest iPod holds 1,000 songs. The largers ones hold 10,000 songs. There is plenty of room for podcasts that feature the spoken word.
So, I ask again, where will the podcasts come from? How many of those podcasts will be ones that people have purchased?
Just listened to a podcast at hypecasting, featurng the innermost thoughts of Dakota Fanning.
I wondered what this might be about. Would it be funny? Well, I laughed. Satire and comedy just seem to work in podcasting.
Hypecasting, which sharply describes itself in its tagline: "...Podcasting The Knife Right Into Hollywood's Lazy Heart," is the offspring of MovieJuice, written by Mark Ramsey, a comedian and satirist.
A taste of hypecasting:
'What are the innermost secret thoughts of Dakota Fanning, star of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds?
I don't think even she knows, but listen for yourself and find out!"
The new podcasting services, like the just launched Podblaze, reminds me of all-in-one packages that have emerged with other DIY media.
They offer templates, unique urls, uploading of logos, etc. And they are hosted by the service provider.
The idea is to make DIY media easier for people who want to visit a web site, register and have the everything there for them to podcast, write a blog, whatever the DIY media may be.
Podcasting is now in that stage where a host of DIY platforms are emerging. They'll continue to pop up. Odeo is getting a lot of attention. I often use Audioblog.com. BlogMatrix Sparks offers a service to share videos and podcasts.
They're worth trying. I'd like to hear how people view these platforms. Have you tried any of them? What do you think?
I talked with Eric Rice recently who said that podcasting reminds him of pirate radio back in its day.
I get a picture of what Eric was talking about when listening to Tim read from Carpenter's book. Carpenter sounds like a podcaster at heart. She wants to broadcast the indie music that she loves.
From Publisher's Weekly in a review of the book:
"But her frank, often funny narrative is easily absorbed, and the story's a good one: one woman quitting a humdrum receptionist job to flout the law by filling the airwaves with the indie rock she loves, music she believes the monolithic Clear Channels of the world aren't playing."
Tim does a good job in his read. It's worth the listen.
Heh. Makes me think. Perhaps I should get a parrot, a patch for my eye and call myself a paarrrrrrrdcaster.
Last week on the Yahoo podcasters group, there was an extremely passionate discussion (complete with name calling) of profanity in podcasting and how it can be screened by listeners who prefer to avoid it themselves or want to keep it away from their kids. At the moment, of course, there isn't a way to screen for profanity short of listening to the podcasts. Some group members advocated a voluntary ratings system, while others recoiled at the suggestion. A key question is who gets to decide what is or isn't profane and by what cultural standard, an extremely relevant matter given podcasting's global reach.
The energy and, in some cases, the anger in these postings reveals this issue to be something of a possible fault line in the podcasting world. On one side, are the podcasters and listeners who will not tolerate any encroachment of the right to free speech under any circumstances. On the other side, are the podcasters and listeners who have a range of concerns about our present inability to easily identify explicit or prurient content. From my perspective, both sides have important things to say. I'm convinced, however, there must be a common sense solution somewhere in between the polar positions. If you have thoughts on this topic, please post a comment.
But there is an even more fundamental inquiry I'd like to pose here: what is the role of profanity in podcasting?Do we need to curse to demonstrate our fidelity to free speech?What is the point at which our defiant acts against the FCC will cease to be purposeful, and we will just become garbage mouths in the eyes (and ears) of our listeners? I know I'm probably messing with the bull here, so I'll be prepared!
Tod Maffin of CBC and I Love Radio reports that music licensing will be based on where you're hosted. That is, if you're Canadian, and you're hosted in the United States, you'll have to license from ASCAP and BMI rather than Canada's SOCAN agency. The coverage will be Web-wide.
What Todd says here is evidence that someone, somewhere is not just thinking about this stuff at the performing rights organizations, but coordinating with others. This is a good thing, to be sure. However, unless I've missed something, nobody from the record labels or Harry Fox has signed off as yet, so we're still looking at around $600 (US or Canadian) per year to license the performances, and what's behind Door Number Three for the master and reproduction rights on each track. And so it goes.
Right now, I'm wondering who will be the first offshore podcaster. That kind of thing has quite a history in the analog world.
A thread at the Yahoo! podcasting group last week posed a question to explore:
What will Microsoft call podcasting?
Blogcasting?
Microcasting?
Will they accept the term podcasting even if it is so associated with Apple? Seems hard to believe that they would.
Podcasting is now pretty much accepted. It caught. It also fit with something cool, the iPod, a minimalist little white box, that people treat as if it is magic.
So, what do you think Microsoft will call podcasting? Why?
Check out the continued growth of podcasting in this chart from Feedburner.
Feedburner reports that they now have 60,000 feeds, of which 6,000 are podcasts.
Other highlights of the Feedburner report:
* Podcasts managed by Feedburner have an average of 33 subscribers, up from an average of 15 in February. Discounting the number of podcasts with less than five subscribers, the average number of subscribers per podcast is in the neighborhbood of 65 listeners.
* Feedburber says that hundreds of podcasts have more than 100 subscribers.
From Feedburner about podcasts and the long-tail effect:
"As we noted in our first podcasting report in February, a typical "long tail" is developing. Granted, these are still very small numbers we are talking about when contrasted with other media, but considering the wealth of additional podcasting tools and services about to come to market, both podcast production and subscription will undoubtedly become easier. So, an order of magnitude leap in attention in just a few months is exciting."
In his keynote at the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference, Steve Jobs called podcasting the hottest thing in radio.
According to the AP:
"Jobs previewed iTunes version 4.9. The software allows users to click on and subscribe to different podcasts, then automatically delivers the shows to any connected iPod — far less cumbersome than the third-party applications many listeners now need.
The newest iTunes will include a directory of podcasts, and creators will be able to register their shows with Apple's iTunes Music Store.
"We think it's going to take podcasting mainstream, to where anyone can do it," Jobs told the gathering of software developers."
Audio Graphics, a Chagrin Falls, Ohio company that provides advertising services for terrestrial radio stations and their advertisers, apparently doesn't believe that the podcasting phenomenon will last. Here are a couple of paragraphs from a recent posting:
Podcasts, the good ones, will probably be those supported with corporate marketing dollars. Radio shows which can be downloaded at a later time will show up as marketable in very few cases. Maybe the top show in each of the top twenty-five markets will have a shot at putting podcasts up and generating revenue.
As for the remaining ocean of programs, they're drifting around bouyed up with wishes based on a "build it and they will come" philosophy. Most podcasts won't last beyond when their hosts' egos get deflated.
Notwithstanding the company's obvious bias, I'm wondering how this blog's readers would describe the current state of podcasting. Is it still on its upward trajectory or will it soon level off? Is podcasting hype becoming overblown and in danger of compromising the medium's promise? As some podcasts and podcasters move toward and into the mainstream, will the broader universe of podcasters benefit or be left behind?
I know that our reflexive response to criticism from terrestrial radio types is to blast them for not getting it. But, in this case, I think a reflective response is a better choice. It's useful to take stock, especially with new developments coming on almost a daily basis. So, in your view, where does podcasting stand right now?
Infinity and Clear Channel have both announced this week that they are adding to their existing offerings. Infinity, of KYOUradio fame, is planning to offer free news podcasts from its stations in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, and two outlets each in New York and Los Angeles. WINS in New York will be first, in mid-July.
Meanwhile, Clear Channel starts repurposing segments of Phone Tap from its Morning Zoo show in New York, along with 15-second spots. CC's Premiere Radio Networks subsidiary has also added Dr. Laura, Jim Rome, and four other talk shows to the pay-podcast genre, alongside Rush Limbaugh, whose podcast feed went live today.
Note that all of these offerings are the networks' original content. The big guns here, like the little podcasters, seem to be waiting with bated breath for a legal means of playing music on podcasts. The question that follows is: what's taking the various licensing agencies so long to come up with an answer?
Today, my fellow flannel-wearing, soy-latte-sipping Seattleites have published an RSS feed of Sub Pop music, the contents of which are available, at least for now, for podcasting:
While we're unable to give you blanket permission to use any ole song you want from our catalog, you may incorporate any of the songs that are freely available as MP3s in the multimedia section of this website http://www.subpop.com/scripts/main/multimedia.php into your podcasts. HOWEVER, we do reserve the right to change our mind about the availability of any song for any reason at any time. Fickle, no?
Cheeky. But this looks like good news to me: a well-known label offering their promotional tracks as podsafe. Dean Hudson, Sub Pop's new media guy, had already gotten the religion when we talked at the SXSW podcasting session. Kudos to him and the label for diving in.
The race to podcast is escalating among broadcasters with both Clear Channel and Infinity announcing new efforts to make their programs available in the increasingly popular podcasting format.
According to Billboard Monitor, Clear Channel will repurpose programs from its morning shows and making it available as podcasts.
Infinity, meanwhile, announced it is planning to podcast nine all news stations.
Clear Channel's efforts are far more gingerly than Infinity. Starting June 6, Clear Channel will offer podcasts of their morning pranks they do on New York's Z100.
According to Billboard:
"Evan Harrison, senior VP of online music & radio (for ClearChannel), says educating listeners and taking small steps are part of the company’s podcasting strategy. “I want to build the knowledge base of what we’re doing first and start with premium content in shorter segments,” he tells Billboard Radio Monitor. “Podcasting has more confusion than any of the latest buzz fads. There’s been exponential amounts of press” but limited available content."
Last I checked, more than 860 podcasts have been submitted to KYOU. That's a pretty fair number of submissions. It looks like Clear Channel will take a different approach, looking more to its programming than that from the podcast community.
Infinity will podcast nine news stations, lead by 1010 WINS in New York City.
According to Billboard Monitor:
Infinity will offer free daily podcasts from its nine news stations, with flagship WINS (1010 Wins) New York set to lead the way in July.
The podcasts, which will vary in length, will include local and national news, sports, business and entertainment headlines, as well as weather and traffic updates, plus content developed exclusively for download.
"Thunderbird already supports RSS feeds as they are commonly utilised by blogs, but a new patch will deal with Podcast-type content by opening a dialog box through which the user can summon a helper application such as a Web browser or audio player."
I saw this post at antimusic.com, talking about The Transfer, a band that is pushing their new independent release "Romantics & Addicts." The press release claims that the first single "Down With Everything" is now getting hundreds of plays on podcast and internet radio stations alike.
I guess podcasters now operate their own stations? Funny how language is used to fit podcasting/blogging into old media terminology.
Are more bands starting to use podcasts to promote their music? Know of any good examples?
Via Dave Winer: Tod Maffin reports that "CBC Radio, Canada's public broadcaster, is in the process of developing a weekly on-air program about the blogosphere and podcast community, using the voices of audio bloggers and podcasters."
I listened to the Gillmor Gang Monday night and heard Adam Curry talk about his conversations with Steve Jobs about podcasting. Striking is how much Apple seems to get it. Podcasting fits into the DIY decade of self-expression, which increasingly seems to be the theme of Apple's product ecosystem.
Now it looks as if Microsoft is getting into the podcasting game. I see (via Steve Rubel and the Seattle PI) that Microsoft is putting together a podcasting team. Scoble made the hint on his blog.
"It was like 15 minutes after it showed up in the Wall Street Journal when Microsoft called, saying, 'Hey, how do we get in this?' I don't know a lot about Microsoft. I do see they're a lot hungrier company than they used to be. But every single time you talk to them about anything that's new, or in this case iPodder functionality inside Windows Media Player, the almost standard answer is, 'Yeah we're going to have a lot of that in Longhorn.' That to me means there is this huge steamboat that is very difficult to steer left or right, and it's just harder to get stuff done at Microsoft."
That was the main point I gleaned from what Curry and the other guests said on the Gillmor Gang. It's not that the work can't be done. It's just that people need to make decisions to get the work done.
In the end, the ultimate difference may be who embraces the DIY culture most. And so far, Apple seems to be winning the race to embrace. Microsoft is talking a lot about Longhorn. But it is still a top-down, horns locked operating system. Let's be clear that Apple does not have an open environment. And in defense of Microsoft, the company has taken to the open nature of blogging. But if you look at the product lines of the two companies, the differences are clear. The iPod and iTunes products are like magic swords, giving people the semblance of freedom to cut through the controls, obstructions and emptiness of sterotypical, top-down media. Their embrace of podcasting is just another magic weapon they are creating for those who seek strength in the freedom to express and absorb themselves with digital technology. Microsoft provides DIY tools, too. But their real strength is in the corporations, where their operating system dominates the enterprise.
Somehow, Apple has turned the iPod and iTunes ino mythic weapons that people see as hip. And in the process, they have aligned themselves with DIY youth culture, who live in the remix world.
No doubt, there are shades of grey. But I leave with a few questions:
Is the future of podcasting really not about the DIY culture that Apple embraces? Is it broader? And if so, how will Microsoft achieve the zeitgeist that Apple so increasingly seems to possess?
Let's hope you never leave old friend
Like all good things on you we depend
So stick around 'cos we might miss you
When we grow tired of all this visual
You had your time - you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour
Radio - radio
Lyrics from Radio Ga Ga by Queen
Do advertisers get that radio may still not have reached its finest hour?
Let's look at the where the money is flowing and go from there.
The rush is on. GM and Ford are advertising in podcasts. Lifestyle brands such as Heineken are using podcasts.
Can it be that the ones really starting to understand th DIY media are advertisers, not the big media? This sets up a dynamic that will sure to affect how the mainstream media adopts DIY media. But if the trend continues, how will it affect the ways that the mainstream media tells their stories? Will they change so the advertisers continue to grow their advertising with them? Podcasts are personal outlets. They're radio but as far from terrestrial as you can get. Podcasts also reach small audiences. The advertising costs for a sponsor are far less than what they would pay on syndicated radio or on TV. How does that balance out for big media companies? Creating a new network may be the answer. A network that is comprised of small shows that reach micro audiences. These may even be premium channels that use a Salon.com model so people may either subscribe for $35 per year or get it free by going through a series of ads to get to the good stuff.
Either way, advertising execs will no doubt be eager to try it out. Here's what one ad exec said in the Business Week story:
"Podcasting is one of the developments, along with online digital music services like iTunes and Rhapsody, that allow a consumer to be their own programmer. That will obsolete terrestrial radio for many advertisers," says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media.
GM's chief marketing exec even went as far to say inthe Business Week story that he can see a day when the broadcast budget is far less than what it spends to advertise across the Internet:
"GM marketing chief Mark LaNeve says he's very keen on such nontraditional media, especially for brands that have an "enthusiast" audience, such as Hummer, the Chevy Corvette, Cadillac's new V-Series of performance cars, and Chevrolet's SS performance cars. "The key will be improving the production and entertainment levels of these so they're really compelling and get passed around," says LaNeve.
In future, he says, brands like Pontiac may have a very small TV ad budget. Instead, GM could advertise Pontiac mostly on the Internet. Podcasting is one of the formats LaNeve is looking at for multiple products and brands."
One striking aspect of podcasting may be the creative platfor that it provides advertisers. It's far more playful to use than traditonal mediums. You can use it for radio theater or to do comedy sketches.
That may be where the big media players can use the podcasting platform to its advantage. But with their desire to get big names, I'd guess that they would be reaching a far more general audience. And it seems to be going this way already. Adam Curry going to Sirius is the clearest example of this trend.
What the great number of podcasters do is show that radio can be one of the most creative places for telling your story, be it commentary, comedy or high drama. Advetrtisers seem to be understanding this trend.
And as that podcast network extends, so will the advertising reach new pockets, new places where, perhaps it may actually be useful for the listener.
And perhaps those advertisers will hear the call of DIY media and use their clever creative ways not to destroy the medium, as some fear, but actually help propel radio to that time that Roger Taylor dreamed about when he penned that tune for Freddie Mercury to sing for Queen back in 1984:
So don't become some background noise
A backdrop for the girls and boys
Who just don't know or just don't care
And just complain when you're not there
You had your time, you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour
Radio - radio
Let's hope you never leave old friend
Like all good things on you we depend
So stick around 'cos we might miss you
When we grow tired of all this visual
You had your time - you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour
Radio - radio
The rush is on. GM and Ford are advertising in podcasts. Lifestyle brands such as Heineken are using podcasts.
Can it be that the ones really starting to understand th DIY media are advertisers, not the big media? This sets up a dynamic that will sure to affect how the mainstream media adopts DIY media. But if the trend continues, how will it affect the ways that the mainstream media tells their stories? Podcasts are personal outlets. They're radio but as far from terrestrial as you can get. Podcasts also reach small audiences. The advertising costs for a sponsor are far less than what they would pay on syndicated radio or on TV. How does that balance out for big media companies.
Here's what one ad exec said in the Business Week story:
"Podcasting is one of the developments, along with online digital music services like iTunes and Rhapsody, that allow a consumer to be their own programmer. That will obsolete terrestrial radio for many advertisers," says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media.
GM's chief marketing exec even went as far to say that he can see a day when the TV budget is far less than what it pays to advertise across the Internet:
"GM marketing chief Mark LaNeve says he's very keen on such nontraditional media, especially for brands that have an "enthusiast" audience, such as Hummer, the Chevy Corvette, Cadillac's new V-Series of performance cars, and Chevrolet's SS performance cars. "The key will be improving the production and entertainment levels of these so they're really compelling and get passed around," says LaNeve.
In future, he says, brands like Pontiac may have a very small TV ad budget. Instead, GM could advertise Pontiac mostly on the Internet. Podcasting is one of the formats LaNeve is looking at for multiple products and brands."
One striking aspect of podcasting may be the creative platfor that it provides advertisers. It's far more playful to use than traditonal mediums. You can use it for radio theater or to do comedy sketches.
That may be where the big media players can use the podcasting platform to its advantage. But with their desire to get big names, I'd guess that they would be reaching a far more general audience. And it seems to be going this way already with Adam Curry going to Sirius as the clearest example of this trend.
What the great number of podcasters do is show that radio can be one of the most creative places for telling your story, be it commentary, comedy or high drama.
And as that network extends, so will the advertising reach new pockets, new places where, perhaps it may actually be useful for the listener.
And perhaps those advertisers will hear the call of DIY media and use their clever creative ways to propel radio to that time that Roger Taylor dreamed about when he penned that tune for Freddie Mercury to sing backl in 1984:
So don't become some background noise
A backdrop for the girls and boys
Who just don't know or just don't care
And just complain when you're not there
You had your time, you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour
Radio - radio
ABC News is looking to its efforts in blogging as a model for its podcasting efforts. According to Reuters, ABC will offer a combination of original and recycled content.
Reuters reports: "Among the original content will be "The AfterNote," a two- to three-minute wrapup of the daily's political news modeled on ABC News' blog "The Note." There also is original material and segments from such ABC News shows as "Nightline" and "Good Morning America." "
NBC News' podcasts will be available in June on MSNBC.com, with initial efforts to be recycled content. NBCwill offer hourly updates, clips from popular shows like "Today," and headlines from MSNBC.
Both efforts demonstrate a mainstream approach to podcasting. What original content comes from these network players will largely be based on their traditional approaches to the news. Just the facts.
Someday, perhaps, these big broadcast outfits may accept other ways to tell a story other than gathering the news and reporting it as fact. Perhaps they will embrace the conversation style that you find with bloggers, podcasters and videobloggers. It seems like that approach would be tough for them. Blogs are personal expressions as are most podcasts and videoblogs. They flow with the voices of the individual. They speak in the first person, telling a story, giving their thoughts on what matters to them and what it means for us all. Can you see broadcasters using this approach? Their approach wil resemble the style they sculpted over the better part of the last 100 years. Just the facts.
I spoke with Charlene Li of Forrester Research at the Syndicate Conference. Her point is that these big media companies are not going to make some radical shift to adopt blogs, podcasts and other social media. They have shareholders, who demand healthy profits. Instead, they'll ride the profits on traditional platforms as long as possible before making large investments in innovation technology.
That makes sense. And in the process, the media that emerges out of the blogosphere will continue to rise in popularity.
The question I have? Where do the new and old intersect? And what strategies will the big media guns use to push out or pull in the DIY media players? When will we really see this emerge?
His point of his blog, I think, is that like blogging, podcasting will take time to mature. So, I guess as Cooper might say, be ready for a lot of crap. In other words, blow it off.
Well, the TV market has had a lot of time to mature. And there's still a lot of (more sophisticated prose) crap blowing across the airwaves. I blow it off all the time. But I still love to watch Seinfeld reruns on TV. Heh. Notice the Seinfeld banner across the top of Cooper's blog? CNET gets a lot of web traffic. Perhaps, Cooper needs to write inflammatory columns to keep the traffic numbers pumping in so we can continue to see Jerry Seinfeld's smiling face in a banner ad? Hmm...
There will always be lousy content. We'll be assured of that now and always. What Cooper needs is a better way to find the good stuff.
Then maybe he would have found IT Converations and spared us of his blanket, podcast blow off.
Here's my question. Hey, Chuck, did you write that column to draw traffic to your column or did you honestly believe that all podcasts blow?
I only ask because I would think that a journalist like Charles Cooper would have a far more sophisticated perspective on subjects he chooses to cover.
Well, I guess I can only speculate.
And just hope that Cooper doesn't have to follow up the next time with an embarrasing admission that well, perhaps (name topic) doesn't all suck after all.
There is a discussion on the Podcasting News site about the relevance of the TiVo comparison for podcasting. The comparison was made again recently in a USA Today article about how podcasting is different from terrestrial radio.
Personally, I'm not fond of the comparison, although I understand that it may help to explain the time-shifting aspect of podcasting to the uninitiated. But if that is the best analogy we have, then IMHO we need to come up with better ways of talking about the whole phenomenon. I think it is far more important to build enthusiasm around the experimentation and freedom of expression made possible by podcasting. Of course, it isn't an either/or choice, but I guess I'd rather emphasize creation over use. I suppose that reflects my bias as a podcaster.
My questions to you: how do you feel about the TiVo comparison? Does it matter to you? What role, if any, does it play in the business of podcasting? Do you have an alternative to share?
But he writes that the stock may actually be a bargain.
Why? According to the article, Apple is retooling itself to fit with the "decade of self-expression, where people employ digital tools as creative outlets."
That self-expression is manifested in efforts such as blogging, podcasting and the growing popularity of digital video.
People are looking for simplicity in these tools and Apple offers it with an ecosystem of computers, software and music players.
He writes:
"It goes way beyond sleek designs and colors, or the popular iPod for that matter, says Darcy Travlos a digital technology analyst who follows Apple for CreditSights, an independent research firm.
To understand Apple, Travlos says, you have to see how it’s retooled itself to fit in with the “decade of self-expression” -- a time when people employ digital tools as creative outlets.
Online commentary can take the written form, via blogging. Or a broadcast form, via podcasting. Some are venturing into cinematography, or laying down tracks of original music in home studios, or simply producing slide shows of family photos. And, of course, they’re loading music onto iPods.
Apple has positioned itself as an important player by creating an ecosystem of computers, software, music players, and other devices that fit together nicely, says Travlos. “Consumers have much more digital content to play with, and they want an integrated system to do this,” she says. That’s what Apple offers."
"Search Interest in Podcasts and Podcasting is up more than 1,000 percent. Thanks to Apple's iPod, this year's most popular gadget has given birth to the latest technological evolution; the podcast. Podcasting enables anyone to create and host his or her own radio show and make it available for others to download to a computer or portable media player. One of the hottest trends in podcasting is "Godcasts," with many "pod preachers" of all faiths converting their weekly sermons into Godcasts, to more easily spread the word."
The latest Corante podcast is now available. Almost too much to cover this week, but Alex and I discuss the Podshow strategy session (and why turning off the mobile is a good idea when podcasting), KYOUradio, and Public Radio International taking a dip in the podcasting pool.
Greg Narain of Beercasting launched a newsgroup at Yahoo! called podbiz.
Greg started the new group in realization that the commercialization of podcasting is now upon us, especially with the news of the Sirius/Adam Curry deal. He noted that conversation on the Yahoo! podcasting discussion list has become polarized. Good points on the discussion group, but in Greg's view, it is looking more like art v. capitalism. And so, he is providing a new space for discussions about the business discussion as it relates to podcasting.
I inteviewed Greg today about the announcement and followed up with a little commentary of my own. People are getting fiercely passionate about podcasting. And it seems to come down to expression. How you express yourself in the public domain is deeply personal to a lot of people. When money and big corporations come into the picture, questions surface about authenticity, a hallmark of DIY media. And emotions run raw.
Commentary...You Don't Need A Satellite To Do A Podcast
It's not just podcasting that is getting attention from the marketers and corporations with money to spend. The drive for DIY media is running fast. As money comes into the picture, the feeling of control also surfaces. Who controls what you say? With podcasting, blogging and other DIY stuff, the control is only in the hands of the creator, the person making the content. If corporations come into the picture, what happens to the authenticity of the medium?
For now, anyone can be a podcaster, their own radio star. And isn't that what is giving this medium its power? It's not Adam or Sirius and its machines flying through space. It's the DIY trend that's fueling the podcast craze.
You don't need a satellite to create a podcast. But someday it sure would be cool to make one. Anyone out there have a DIY satellite kit? Phil?
Chicago radio veteran Steve Dahl has suspended the podcast of his regular radio show because podcasting is not covered under any of the Infinity ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC licenses or under the statutory streaming license.
Steve goes on to say that he is also a performer who enjoys the occasional royalty check and is therefore probably not the guy to argue this point of law.
Adam Curry will do a daily, four-hour podcast for Sirius Satellite Radio. The news comes as Viacom announced last week it is converting a San Francisco radio station to an all-podcast format called kyouradio.
According to the Associated Press, Curry will begin podcasting May 13 on Sirius channel 148, a talk-radio station that does carry commercials, unlike Sirius' all-music channels.
Podcasting News reports of a new advertising network for podcasters and videocasters called CastFire.
From the CastiFre web site:
"CastFire is developing inventories of leading content producers and pioneering advertisers who work together to develop this new method of content distribution. The power of audio and portable mp3 players is the ability to listen to content any time, any place, and as many times as desired. As technology progresses (and exists today with the PlayStation® Portable by Sony), videocasting will take lead in enabling consumers the ability to watch what they choose, when they choose."
This one seems to have come out of left field: Infinity, one of the major American radio networks, has reformatted an "underperforming" station in San Francisco... to play podcasts. KYOURADIO will launch on May 16th.
So much to say. I have to give credit to Infinity for experimenting with a format that not only can't be controlled by them, but didn't exist a year ago. The AP article admits they have little to lose by tapping a money-losing station for this, but it's still more newsworthy than the daily story about another local station's conversion to the Jack format ("It's like your iPod, on shuffle"). The article does note that Infinity itself is not in the best of shape, being the source of a nearly $11 billion chargeoff by its parent company, Viacom, so it's probably an auspicious occasion to start shaking things up.
There's been talk about selling satellite radio on the idea of an all-podcast channel, but in my opinion this is actually bigger news: a big, entrenched radio network, the kind most music podcasters started their shows to get away from, just took the bait. Let's just see if we can boat this bass. The implications of podcasts on the open airwaves, with the potential for lots of local flavor, is more empowering for more podcasters than having a handful of folks getting smashed somewhere between the French Chansons and Schnauzer Talk channels on satellite.
I wonder what radio DJs are thinking as they read this news. Is it realistic to lock unpaid podcasters with non-broadcast-quality equipment into regular shows, challenging the paradigm of the live studio jock and/or news room? Are we going to be held up as a bogeyman used to further limit the role of on-air talent at the station? Or are we seeing the beginnings of a hybridization, where the talent is a free agent, and the line between who is a podcaster and who is a DJ is blurred, or obliterated?
Days like this, it's fun to prognosticate. I thought I'd see news like this in two or three years, but not nearly so soon as this.
In their own words, the INA is an international trade organization "dedicated to accelerating the growth of commercial Internet radio and Nanocasting (commercial podcasting) and to promoting the necessary self-regulation required for the industry to stably expand."
What it looks like is a group marketing their own organization to promote a five-city conference tour designed to train people on how to become professional podcasters or what they call nanocasters. The conference series, Moving from Podcasting to Nanocasting," is sponsored by Guerilla Marketing International and Jack Street Media, the same two companies that are founders of the INA.
Further, nanocasting is a trademarked name owned by Errol Smith, founder of Jack Street. In essence, they are forming an organization to promote their trademarked term. And they want members to support this effort.
Dig a bit more and you see the roots of the relationship between these two companies.
Jay Conrad Levinson writes the popular Guerilla Marketing books and works as a consultant. And Erroll Smith is the founder of Jack Street Media and now director of the Guerilla Marketing Radio Network. He is an Emmy award winner. No doubt, two smart marketing guys seeing a huge opportunity with the podboom.
What it looks like is two companies doing some fancy marketing to pull in people looking to make a buck out of podcasting. And in the meantime, using the organization to create a membership that they can market back their products and services. Yes, they are smart marketers. But, how does this strike you?
Two things are certain. Podcasting sure is capturing people's imagination. And marketer's are seeing gold flowing from the wallets of dreamers.
Radio elder statesmen Bob and Tom announced that they will be podcasting as of May 9th. Their comedy show, all four hours of every weekday, will be available to their "VIP" members, who pay $55 a year for outtakes and archives of their show.
Two notes on this announcement: first, being a comedy-based show, they'll get to dodge a lot of the gray areas of podcast licensing, because they'll be dealing mostly in their own original content. That makes it a smart move. Second, they have another advantage most commercial radio shows don't have, which is an existing revenue model and distribution system. With five million listeners, they won't need to convert many to make this a profitable move. And while $50 to $60 a year is a bit hard to swallow for an hour or two a week of this or that, it's pretty reasonable for twenty hours a week of original content. Smart move.
The Star Trek Enterprise podcast is an audio commentary from an April 22 Star Trek Enterprise episode. Episode writer Mike Sussman and Tim Gaskill, the site's ediorial director, recorded the podcast prior to the show, publicizing it on the web site on April 21.
What they are doing looks to take podcasting beyond just doing an audio recording. Instead, they are taking a page from the remix culture. They are using podcasts to comment on Star Trek Enterprise episodes that they ask people to tape or record with TiVo. The idea is for people to listen to commentary (mp3 or stream) from the writer while they are watching the television programming that the viewer has taped.
Now, think of the implications. We can all do recordings of our favorite TV shows, providing our own commentary. We can then ask people to tape the shows and listen to what we have to say about the show. We could do the same thing for films or better yet, presidential press conferences, local television news, etc.
And what if each TV show episode had its own podcast, featuring running commentary of the weekly show?
Here's how they describe it at the Star Trek web site:
How it Works
To get the maximum benefit out of your podcast experience, we suggest you take the following steps:
1. Tape or TiVo the episode on UPN this Friday night (please check your local listings for time). We encourage you to watch the episode first...
2. Then download the commentary in either MP3, QuickTime or Windows Media format. Click here for the audio commentary.
3. Replay the episode and simultaneously listen to the commentary, either on your computer or digital media player. We provide cues for the ad breaks, so you should be able to follow along with the episode.
If you have a podcast application, use the following address to subscribe to our podcast feed:
The third episode of the Corante podcast is now available. In this show (actually recorded twice, so you know it's good), we talk about the birth of a medium, the licensing issues that remain in podcasting (with a possible solution), and start looking for copies of the first podcasts, in our own little digital history project. (For those who are waiting for an RSS feed with enclosures: fear not, gentle reader. We are working on a permanent podcast feed, and we'll close the loop on that very soon.)
"The reason podcasting is so attractive is because it empowers anyone
with the smallest of means to share a passion with the whole world.
In my opinion, the most successful podcasts will be the ones that
provide something not already being offered. So, why would
potential listeners - many already disenchanted with the standard
commercial Radio offerings - want to subscribe to a podcast that
duplicates what's already there.
For the same reason Satellite Radio is finding its audience, so will
podcasts. You love wine? There's a podcast about it. You love
travel? Carpentry? Insect Life? Stamp collecting? Someone is going
to want to share that passion. Talking costs you nothing. Sharing
your own music costs you nothing. Interviews cost you nothing.
Advice costs you nothing. Using any audio in the public domain costs
you nothing.
The real subjects NOT being addressed on Radio, public or otherwise,
that people want to hear and learn more about are most likely not
necessarily music-based or at least don't have to use copyrighted
music to garner an audience.
Yes, it poses a problem for podcasters who want to have a weekly
show highlighting their favorite metal band's music - but - if
that's truly your passion, then you will have to be willing to go
along with the current copyright law when and as it's enforced or
operate as a renegade and hope you don't get sued.
What excites me the most about podcasting is the potential for
variety as never experienced before. This is podcasting's forte and
should be exploited to its fullest.
The second Corante podcast is now available. Alex Williams and I talk in more detail about music licensing, listening to podcasts in the car, and how in the future, we may each have our own broadcast radio station.
This one is posted quite a bit late, so listen quickly, because Corante Podcast #3 is coming Thursday evening.
Podguests.com is a service started by Corey Deitz. The sevice helps podcasters find guests. Experts may use the service to connect with podcasters as guests for their shows.
Looks like part of their business model is to charge people to register.
Our first Corante Podcast is now available. Please excuse our dust, as we're in the midst of setting up our host, and experimenting with Skype. We'll have a podcast feed shortly.
Topics:
Licensing
Major League Baseball: is it safe to call balls and strikes?
There are a few subjects in podcasting that will always invite discussion. Chief among them, at this point in time, is licensing of music for use in a podcast. Usually, that topic is enough to create a lot of heat, but not a lot of light. The first thing that people need to know is that you do need a license (or licenses) to play almost all of the music found in your CD collections in a podcast.
What we don't know, because of the misfit nature of the podcast medium, is how much we owe, and to whom. There are various scenarios under which pretty much everyone involved in creating music has a claim to a royalty payment in connection with a podcast. What follows is an explanation of each of those royalty schemes.
Feedburner has raised $7 million. Who is smoking the podcast dope? Heh. It looks like the VC's. Either that or they see podcasting for what it is: a bona fide movement that is turning our conceptions of the media and how we communicate in society as personal media machines.
Here come the corporations. In recent weeks, podcasting as a story has evolved from basement hobby and curiosity to untapped market, and it's no surprise what comes after that. Virgin Radio, following the lead of a number of public radio outlets, has started a podcast of its morning show. Warner Bros. is not only sponsoring Eric Rice's podcast, but has cleared music for the show as well.
Now the 800-pound gorilla of American radio, Clear Channel, has jumped into the fray. Yes, folks, in a Reuters article, a bigwig at the radio conglomerate has said the P word. (Hat tip: Dave Hodson)
Clear Channel announced its online strategy yesterday. Starting next week, the company will be offering original video programming on 200 of its 1200 outlets. As early as July, says the Reuters article, the company plans to sell subscription services, digital tracks, CDs and ringtones.
Oh, and make podcasts. Did we mention podcasting? Still no hint on what they consider to be a "podcast", however. Will they charge a fee? Will the product be a standard MP3 file? Will they use RSS enclosures? Sources hazy. This could be a sign of big media starting to get the concept of the distribution model, or it could be another exercise in buzzword-compliance.
"Online is radio's for the taking," says Clear Channel executive VP Evan Harrison. Such big talk. I wonder if they realize just what they're getting into. A radio-sized market for podcasting is certain to benefit independent podcasters. Those listeners who are already bemoaning the cookie-cutter uniformity of terrestrial radio will soon discover podcasts that offer compelling alternatives to Mitch and Marty's Wacky Morning Drive. The question isn't whether moving online will slow radio's downward slide. The question is whether it will accelerate it.
And here's how they decribed the service in a post to the Yahoo! podcasting group:
The main thing to understand is that we're tagging episodes, not podcasts. What's the difference? A podcast is your entire feed. It's your radio station, so to speak. An episode is each show. So if you record and post something every day, you'll end up with seven episodes at the end of a week. If all seven of those episodes had tags, you'll appear on Podcast Tags seven times.
Hopefully you like the service and find it useful! Give it a shot, and let us know what you think. Feedback, suggestions, questions, complaints are all welcome. A good way to get in touch is via our blog at http://blog.podcasttag.com.
Adam Curry is keynoting Gnomedex. Chris Pirillo also posted a note at the Yahoo! podcasting group that podcasters are welcome one and all:
We've got Wifi, a dedicated outlet for you in the main hall, and
unlimited food / beverage throughout the day. Consider this an
invitation to join us, and to grab guests for your own efforts.
Everybody here is welcome.
Doug Kaye points out that Blogads survey says people who read blogs rarely listen to podcasts.
Doug writes:
According to a survey by Blogads, 92.1% of those who read blogs say they never listen to podcasts. What percentage of the people in the world read blogs and could have participated in this survey? Perhaps 5%? Less? Your guess is as good as mine, but in any case – despite the recent rash of mainstream-journalism coverage of podcasting – podcasting isn’t even a speck on the head of a pin yet.
Alex Williams
Matt May
Nicole Simon
Roland Tanglao
Just saw a post about the Playboy Bodcast. Still not convinced that video podcasting won't bring more riches to the porn biz? 
Here's a sketch that Tod says he received from a "mole," in the group. 
Here's an 
There won't be 60 million podcasts that have been purchased. There may not even be an iTunes service that allows you to charge for a podcast. And even if there is, most podcasts won't cost a dime. So, where will they come from? How many podcasts will people have on their iPods that they have purchased?
