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.
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. Popul
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?