In a recent Industry Standard post, Ian Lamont makes some points about how and why Podcast is "failing." I can summarize a lot of things in the article with an old cliche:

"Failure to plan, is planning to fail."

Michael Geoghegan started Grape Radio with one intent: to make it a business. He planned his success, and the last time I checked he was being played as part of the in flight entertainment on airplanes. Not to shabby. By producing great content, he can ask for (and get) great advertising revenue. It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of great content, and it takes a little luck. Michael had a plan. He also knows it takes time to create great content, and it takes a lot of work.

The article states that, "Making programs is a labor-intensive process requiring special skills." To this I ask, "Please show me a technology where you can reach the world for less than 300 dollars start up cost, and the skills needed are basic file management, the ability to work a word processor (Word Press), and the ability to talk.  I've helped 60+ year old people with Alzheimer's learn how to podcast. It's not that hard. Special Skills?

 

Being an organ grinder requires "Special skills" (how to turn a crank, oh yeah and you need a Monkey).  Let's not get too silly shall we?

 

 

 

 

I think the lack of a plan is because Podcasting is still relatively new. We are throwing things on the wall to see if they stick. However, if nothing sticks we get frustrated and quit. There needs to be a plan. In my last episode of the School of Podcasting I comment on Paul Colligan's Post that we need to quit "preaching to the choir."

The article makes a great statement: "that means just over four million Americans are listening (or watching) podcasts on a given day — out of a total population of more than 300 million Americans." To this I say, four down, 296 million to go.

I don't think people realize that when they get into it, a one minute podcast will take 4 minutes to produce. A 15 minute podcast will takes an hour to produce. If you are doing video..um… OOFAH, you might want to double that (rendering video is a sloooooow process).

With this in mind dear podcasters do the following:

Pick your topic wisely
Plan how you will promote it
Plan how you monetize it (if you want)
Figure out where your fans are (and go there)
Think good and hard about "starting a second, third, fourth, podcast
Always remember that content is king, and production is queen.
Consistentcy will create fans you can count on because they count on you.

In a recent story I see where Podtech was sold for 500,00. You may think this is a lot of money until you hear they had taken in 7 million in venture capital.  One of the reasons listed in the article at webware is " the niche of "podcasting" didn't play out."This is my only worry about this story. It may fuel "Podcasting is Dead" tsunami that we saw at the beginning of the year. I hop not

I don't really have an opinion because I never heard about Podtech (probably part of the problem). I only knew they hired "big name" people, and um… that's it.  When I look at their directory of shows they seem to have some interesting topics (especially in the tech field).

In the meantime the little company that everyone loves to hate "Mevio" as secured their third round of funding.

According to a press release, "MEVIO today announced that it has secured $15 million in a Series C funding round led by Crosslink Capital and including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Sherpalo Ventures and DAG Ventures. MEVIO will use the investment to continue expansion of its broadband entertainment offering and to launch new vertical entertainment networks that offer advertisers a "brand-safe" platform to reach audiences on the scale and frequency offered by traditional broadcast networks"

Here are some other points from the story.

In the last six months alone, MEVIO launched a new online entertainment network, doubled the amount of media it delivers, re-branded the company (formerly PodShow) and introduced a growing lineup of top shows that generate over 50 million views per month, strictly from MEVIO's wholly-owned properties and without the benefit of integration of an ad network.

In May of 2008, the company attracted over 9 million unique monthly visitors, up over 800 percent in the last twelve months. For the second quarter of 2008, MEVIO estimates page-views to exceed 140 million, up over 1,800 percent quarter over quarter.

But podcasting is dead right?

I lead my first Podcamp session this past weekend. I was told "All attendees must be treated equally. Everyone is a rockstar. " So I designed my presentation to have lots of room for questions. I made it loose by asking people to come up and help illustrate points. But realize there are good rock stars and then there is Axl Rose, Amy Winehouse, Pete Dougherty, and Mindy McCreedy. Would you want them to take over the presentation?

I did a presentation titled "Podcasting in Plain English." It was geared towards people just getting into podcasting. A person who knows NOTHING about podcast. I thought I was going to have 60 minutes, and I had 50. That is 100%  my fault, and in the end the 20 minutes I was going to have for Q&A was 10. I accept responsibility for this, and apologize. However, everyone made it to their next session on time.

Apparently Owen Winkler did not like my presentation. While he did say it was "decent," he states on his blog that he didn't like my analogy for bandwidth stating,

"For example, "bandwidth" is not "number of cars on a bridge," but rather, "the width of the bridge, which increases its capacity to hold cars." 

To this I say: Bandwidth - if you don't have unlimited (Which was my point) - can't "Change its capacity." You either pay a bill when you go over your limit, or your site gets turned off. We call cars going over a bridge "traffic" that we would measure by weight. This bridge can only have 50 tons an hour. We call files going over the Internet Bandwidth that we measure by file size. "You can only have 10 gigs of files per month."

Another question that came up was if you could create a podcast without an RSS feed. I explained that by definition a podcast is delivered via RSS feed. If you put an audio file on your website, and send the link via e-mail it's "audio on your website" - NOT a podcast.  People did this in the late 90s. Everyone had a flash button that people clicked on to hear audio. That is not a podcast. When Stephen Pierce took his audio generator buttons, and put that content into an RSS feed, it became a podcast. No RSS feed? No Podcast.  From wikipedia "A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds "

oh no let's keep talking about this and waste some time and see if it changes?  Oops there goes me being the Rock Star again…

Then there was a discussion on if you need a blog to create an RSS. When I get a copy of the audio I'm sure you will hear me say, "Yes you do, - then I catch myself - No you don't." I mentioned that you can use tools like Feed For All, or NOTEPAD to create your RSS feed, but the easiest way (and again, the target audience here is newbies looking for "easy") is to create a Wordpress Blog. Well apparently Owen was insulted that I didn't mention Habari who was a sponsor. I'm sorry I don't know Habari, and apparently Owen loves it. That's why Owen mentioned it in his presentation and I didn't in mine. I also didn't mention Space Blue (as I have no idea what they do either). I see when talking about Habari's sponsorship he states "not sure what we were expecting for our money." We? So let me get this straight the guy who works on/with Habri was upset that I was singing the praises of Wordpress. OK, this is starting to make sense now (and at least now people know about Habari).

Apprently I ended this "do you need a blog" discussion with "OK, but you really need a blog" and this deeply offended Owen. This was not following the rules of podcamps. I was acting like a "rock star." (You're right Owen, the housewife from Dayton will start using Notepad tomorrow). It was not my intention to offend, and to that I say, "I'm sorry."  Meanwhile in Owen's presentation about "tools" he was talking about coding tools for writing ajax and java script. To this I point to podcamp rule "The event must be new-media focused - blogging, podcasting, social networking, video on the net." When somone pointed "hey lets talk about the recording software that everyone is using," that got "Shot down" and the coding discussion continued. I'm sure the people who were just starting their podcasts enjoyed the session on troubleshooting code. For the record, Owen had some great input on choosing  hosting.

Apparently after I "shot him down", he says "I should tell you that I did not try after that first session (to chime into sessions) many speakers were set on a path to talk about what they signed up for, and didn't seem to want to be interrupted from their task."  This has prompted him to say people shouldn't sponsor future podcamps, and people shouldn't attend. I'm sorry you feel this way, but on the other hand, people know about Habari now!

So I'm confused.

I understand you don't want 60 minutes of lecture with no chance for questions.  You need a leader to help stear the conversation into appropriate, and useful  areas that will not waste the attendee's time. I will agree, my presentation could've been more "open" but you will hear on the tape where I frequently ask "Any Questins?" Looking back I should've asked, "what are you using?".  If a presenter "guides" the conversation is he/she acting like a Rock star?

In a freak accdentident today my cousin was killed (he was a BMX bike racer). He was 33. He has two kids under the age of 7 (I can't remember). There is no "tomorrow" for Sean. Sean always thought he was invincible, and a helmet wouldn't have saved him in this case (his chest slamed into another guys handlebars). How doesn't really matter. He's gone. He was here yesterday, and now he's not.

So if you have kids, hug them a little tighter tonight. If you haven't talked to your parents lately, call them now. If you are arguing with someone, holding a grudge, put down your pride and pick up the phone.

Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

I just spoke with Todd Cochrane from http://www.blubrry.com/ I was unaware that they have a system that makes it easy to upload, and publish a podcast. It's been around for months! There is no dynmic aspects of it, it just takes the mp3 file you created and takes it and publishes it for you. Pretty cool, I'll have to look into it.

My presentation "Podcasting in plain english" is tomorrow at 10.

At the School of Podcasting roundtable last night I was speakign with J.R. from the Lord Lifted Me Live podcast. He was explaining that he has a website that has Christian related t-shirts four 4 months that received around 70 visitors a day. They would get one order a week.

He started his podcast (that features interviews of Christians about their connection with Jesus) on April 17th, and now he is getting about 75 visitors a day, and he is getting one order a day. So while traffic has not gone wait up, the quality of the visitor has gone up, and that quality has increased business by 7 times.

If you are looking to start a Podcast Check out the School Of Podcasting where you can learn how to podcast. You can also hear J.R.'s testimonial on the Members Testimonial page. If you are looking for a Podcast Turnkey solution, check out www.podcastfastpass.com

I think I'm a curse. Every time I attend a Paul Colligan webinar something flaky happens with the technology (in this instance firefox got "persnickety").  I know it's me. When I watch replays of other webinars Paul does, they are fine. This webinar was about setting up a membership site with his Premiumcast system. I was very curious about this as I get a request to build a membership site about once a week (and I typically sent them to Amember or Easy Member Pro). 

Here is the great part. Even with a technical glitch, and even with explaining what he was doing Paul set up a Membership site in about 20 minutes. Later when I went back and tried one myself, I clocked in right around 5 minutes.

The other cool thing is it used to be "Do you want a membership site, or premium podcast feed?" It was kind of an either or situation, and now Paul's system offers BOTH.  People can sign up and login to the members area, subscribe to a premium feed, and never come back (and still get every ounce of "members only" material). You can also choose to just have a "traditional" membership site (no premium podcast feed).

The other cool thing is he has a built in API system that allows you to do, well, anything Premiumcast can't do (um I can't think of any). An example might be to have the Premiumcast system "talk" to your system. I've never used this feature (a bit too technical for me), but its nice to know its there if needed.

The only difference between Premiumcast and a software package like amember is ameber runs on your site (and thus there is only a one time fee). However, I can say in the last few months the monthly fees to Premiumcast have paid for many, many  new features (coupons, numerous  pricing options for selling digital products and more - I expect it to do my laundry any day now). You just can't do all the stuff premiumcast does with those other systems. I've loved premiumcast since day 1, and it just keeps getting better. 

Check it out at Premiumcast.com

One the members has this unit, and just swears by it (expect to hear one on my podcast soon). Well BSW is having a 50% this great microphone premamp, noise gate, compressor, the DBX 286a. Normally it's 300 bucks, not its $150.

 

My friend Paul Colligan is hosting 5 free webinars next week. These include:

Wednesday June 25, 12p Pacific / 3p Eastern
Building A Web 2.0 Membership Site In 60 Minutes Or Less

Thursday July 3rd, 12p Pacific / 3p Eastern
The Seven Secrets Of Web (2.0) Design

Wednesday July 9, 12p Pacific / 3p Eastern
Affiliate Marketing In A New Media Market

Wednesday July 16, 12p Pacific / 3p Eastern
What Your Mom (And Your Consultant) Won’t Tell You About Blogging

Wednesday, July 23, 12p Pacific / 3p Eastern
Twittering Your Business Without Twittering Away Your Life

I will be attending  the one on building a membership site at least. I know these feature has been added to Paul's already robust Premium Cast Service, and I can wait to see how to set up a memberhsip site (as I get a request every week to set one up). If you want to end thse webinars (they are all free) go to http://www.paulcolligan.com/2008/06/18/freesummerwebinars/ and sign up.