Awesome year. Awesome series by the Lakers. Kobe, Pau, Fish, Odom, Ariza and all the guys were GREAT.

Phil did his usual, incredible job of helping great athletes focus and perform. He did it for Michael Jordan and he’s done it for Kobe. Congrats on #10.

Orlando put up a great fight. They played hard all the way through, but in the end just did not have the depth to beat the Lakers.

Pau showed how tough he really is, going up against Dwight Howard. He could not have faced a stronger challenger.

Kobe showed some amazing leadership. It is his time.

Goooooo Lakers. It’s celebration time.

Podcasting has been around for just over four years now and people are still struggling to make money podcasting.  What’s the problem?  Maybe we just haven’t discovered the business model(s) that work.  There are lots of ideas out there and I thought it would be a good idea to make a list ( and make some money doing it - Note: If you click on links on this post and try the services, it will make me money.  Many of the links use affliate program links to illustrate one of these business models.  I use all of these programs and refer you to only the ones that seem good.  Hope you don’t mind me making some money from writing about ways you can make money:)

Here’s my list.  I’ve ordered the list from the what may be the most obvious ideas to the not so obvious ideas.  Read to the end to find something you may not have thought about.

If you have another idea add it with a comment.  Or you can comment on these ideas.

1.  Sell your content

This seems like it should be the most obvious idea of all.  Make content, sell content.  The execution however may be somewhat more difficult.  The easiest way to do this is to put your content onto CDs or DVDs and sell them on your site, like Ask A Ninja and Will It Blend.

Another way is to sell some or all of your content via a subscription basis.  This can be accomplished by making members only sections of a website or using a service like PremiumCast.  If you want a members only section to a website, there are ways to do it using Wordpress, or you can use a forum or a membership website from someone like Wild Apricot.

NOTE: If someone buys something, get them to sign up for your mailing list so they can get your PodZine Newsletter.  Don’t have a list?  START NOW.  DO NOT WAIT. DO NOT PASS GO.  GO DIRECTLY TO START A MAILING LIST.  IT COULD BE YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET.   Ok, enough screaming about getting a list.  I use Aweber.  It’s inexpensive, easy and works great.

2.  Donations

Think NPR.  Think Public Television.  Ask people to donate money or buy you things from an Amazon Wish List.  Both of these ideas are easy to execute.  You can get donation button code from Paypal and Amazon Wish Lists are really easy to make an publish.  Here’s my Wish List.

And if you want to make a donation to Digital Podcast you can do so using my PayPal Donation Button.

If someone donates, give them a free subscription to your PodZine with some bonus, like a personal thank you picture or some other creative thing.  See mailing list comment in idea number 1.

3.  Run ads within your podcast

Another obvious idea.  But you have to sell some ads.  Bummer.  This is often where this becomes a problem for podcasters.  Selling ads is hard work.  There are some Podcast ad networks you can join, although I have no idea how much they pay.  If this is for you try here or here or here.

If you want to run ads, but don’t want to sell ads or use an ad network stay tuned, because the last two ideas on the list may be what you need.

Make sure you have an ad in your podcast with instructions on how to sign up for your free PodZine subscription. See mailing list comment in idea number 1.

4.  Promote a sponsor within your podcast

This is one of my favorites.  Leo Laporte does a great job of this.  He has some deal with Audible and promotes a book each week. I have seen presentations where people behind Grape Radio and Endurance Radio talked about selling sponsorships for decent amounts of money.  To execute this, find someone who would really benefit from some exposure and sell them on how great it would be to promote them to your audience.

Give people who sign up for you free PodZine some bonus from your sponsor as another way to promote your sponsor.  See mailing list comment in idea number 1.

5.  Run ads on your webpage and use your podcast to drive traffic

This should be easy to do, if you don’t mind low CPM rates.  Adsense and Yahoo Publisher are worth trying.  Other Adsense like programs include Adbrite and Adengage. You can also set these up as a way to sell ads on your site.  Adbrite and Adengage will also work with explicit content.  Just be careful not to run Adsense on the same page as something similar.  That’s against the Google rules.

Chitka is another option.  They run ads on your site with specific products within categories.

There are also online ad networks that have lots of banners you can run.  Adsense can be set up just to run banners and you can find lots of other banner ad networks such as ValueClick and ClickHype out there.  CPM rates tend to be very low however.

If you want higher CPMs, you will have to get busy selling your own ads or get creative in creating your own high paying ads which I will explore in the last two ideas on the list.

Don’t forget to advertise your PodZine on your webpage. See mailing list comment in idea number 1.

6.  Sell your own product

Maybe you make blenders or some other widget.  Use your podcast to sell your widget.  Don’t make a widget?  Make and sell an ebook that would appeal to your audience.  You can also set up affiliates to sell your ebook using something lick Clickbank.

If you want to sell your own T-shirts, cups etc. get a CafePress store.

Or maybe even sell a premium version of your PodZine with special content. See mailing list comment in idea number 1.

7.  Sell Professional Services

If you don’t make stuff, you can sell time.  Not very scalable if it’s just you, but depending on what you do you may be able to make good money.

Create a contest for people who sign up for your podzine subscription.  Winner gets 30 minutes on the phone with you.  Or some such thing.

8.  Sell Training

Training is another great way to make money selling time.  If you don’t know how to build a training course, then take a course about building a paid membership training site.  If you are looking for some help in making an online course or a information product Bill Myers Online is a good resource for developing online products.

Promote a 30 minute training session contest for people who sign up for your PodZine.

9.  Affliate Sales

This is where things get really interesting.  You don’t have to sell you own products, services, ads, ebooks or time.

You can make money selling other people’s products, services,  ebooks or time.  You can find an affiliate program for selling just about everything.

An affiliate program is where you make a commission or a fixed payment when someone buys something that you linked them to. If it can be sold, you can probably find an affiliate program for it.

For example, here’s an affiliate link to a book, a record, and a microphone.  You can even use these tools to build yourself an online store for you site.

I’m working on a page with affiliate sales links that would work for different podcast categories. I will post it when I’m done.

Even better, if you don’t want to sell ads, you can run ads on your podcast or website to promote your affliate store or the products you are selling via the affiliate program.  This way you have sales cost, you control the ads, you control the presentation and you get the full commission.

Good affiliate programs to check out for products are Commission Junction, Amazon, and  ShareASale.   There are lots more if you look around.

You can also sell ebooks if you want.  ClickBank is the king of ebook sales.  Just be careful in there as they also have a lot dubious quality products.  I’ve found I have to buy the product first to make sure it’s not bogus or some consumer rip off.

Many companies also have their own affiliate programs.  You can usually find a link to the program at the bottom of websites if they have a program, although sometimes you have to ask via an email.  If there is something you think you can sell, get in contact with the maker and cut a deal.  For example, I wanted a sound effects package for podcasters and got the link by asking.

Don’t forget to tell your PodZine subscribers about the great products you’re now selling.

10.  Affliate Lead Generation

Selling stuff can be hard.  The good news is you don’t have to sell to get paid.  You can get paid for just providing a lead.  There are tons of programs that pay you for providing traffic that turns into leads.  Some are great, while others can be a bit dubious so beware.

What kinds of leads can you make money on? If a lead is worth something to someone, you can probably find a way to get paid for providing it.

For example, here are lead generation programs for

• Controlling diabetes
• Controlling sleep apnea
• Selling timeshares
• 1 Cent Business Cards
• Free gift cards from Walmart, etc
• and the list goes on and on.

Some of these,like the control diabetes offer, are really good offers for consumers , others are not so clearly good for consumers. For example, the free gift card offers harvest lots of info and funnel the consumer into a lead generation process which sends them off to some other affliate program without ever giving the consumer a gift card.  So be careful with what you recommend.  My recommendation is to only recommend what you would use and what your audience will find truly valuable.

I’m also working on a page with affiliate lead generation links that would work for different podcast categories. I will post it when I’m done.

If you are interested in this kind of program, here are links to programs to lead generation programs I’ve used:

• MaxBounty, RevenueLoop, Advaliant, and you can Google for many more.  By the way, those are affiliate links too.

Bonus: Mine Your Podzine

If done correctly, your PodZine list could turn into one of your biggest assets.  First, you get a direct channel to your audience in addition to your podcast.  Second, unlike your podcast, your PodZine can carry links.  Links to the products and services you recommend.  If you like something, make it a habit to tell your audience - put it in your PodZine.  Be sure to check to see if there’s an affiliate program for it, because then you will get paid to promote stuff you like.  I suggest only promoting stuff you really like.  It’s more fun, more genuine and probably works better over the long haul.

And some programs are email only.  For example, there is a free business card campaign that pays our $12 per lead, but is email only.  This is something that might fit nicely on a business oriented podcast’s PodZine.

If you need help setting up your PodZine, I recommend Aweber.  If you want an alternative, I’ve also seen people use Constant Contact, but have not tried it myself.

Let me know what you think.  Which of these pays your bills?  Got other ideas.  Post a comment and let me know.

Today, only big companies get a tax deduction for health insurance.

Get laid off, no tax deduction for you.  You pay taxes on your health insurance bill.

Work for yourself.   You pay taxes on your health insurance bill.

To me, this is one of the biggest problems with our health care system.

It makes people captive to working for big companies and captive to the health care plans the company decides on.

It means the unemployed and the entrepreneurs pay much more for health insurance.

The current system is bad policy, bad for business, bad for personal choice and totally BS.

The American Medical Association is asking people to tell their representatives to change this bad policy.

I’ve read their proposal and it seems good.

Tell the bozos in Washington to fix it.  I did and I hope you will too.

Here’s a short cut http://ta.gg/2v9

Alex

If you want health care fixed, pass it on.

 

 Digital Podcast 58 [8:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (667)

1. The strong financial performance of the game industry continues despite the bad economy
2. The rise of free to play - see FreeRealms.com as an example
3. The power of virtual currency, goods, commerce to monetize play and turn communities into economies (Got to wonder when will Facebook and Myspace figure this out?)
4. Apple doubled the mobile games market almost overnight
5. Phones will become one of the interfaces for games
6. Mobile applications are emerging as a new ad unit
7. The mobile game/iPhone application market is creating a huge merchandising problem
8. Integration of games/real world - See Nolan Bushnell
9. Rise of electronic Distribution - Steam
10. Emergence of cloud based distribution - Onlive

Ashton Kutcher and CNN seem to be in a race to 1,000,000 Twitter followers. Ashton brings everyone up to date with this video from his car via Qik.

Some memorable quotes from Ashton:

I found it astonishing that one person can have as big a voice as an entire media company on Twitter.

In response to being invited to talk about it on the Larry King Show,

This is a message to Larry. Why don’t you come on my Qik show? We’ll put it on Twitter and then maybe we’ll get Ted Turner to call. Let’s do it on the internet. This is a saga for the internet. See, I love how CNN wants we to come on their program and promote their thing which only gets them more views.

If you’re an author, info marketer or publisher and your sick and tired of producing events or content that only a few people consume and you would like to make more money podcasting, then you should learn about Podcast Secrets.  Podcast Secrets is a system for monetizing podcasts developed by Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian.

Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian have taken the Podcast concept to new heights because their new and improved system for Podcast Monetization lets you connect directly with your readers and audiences with nothing more than a telephone in your hand!

To introduce Podcast Secrets, Paul and Alex are having a special teleseminar, where they will be covering

• The 8 reasons why Podcasting brings them, and can bring you, a critical business (and profit) advantage.
• 7 secrets to producing profitable Podcasting content in the fastest possible time.
• 9 marketing channels for the Podcasters … and how to leverage each one.
• The 6-Step Podcast Monetization Roadmap
• How to part-the-curtain on the listening habits of your audience, and leverage that knowledge to produce profitable audience action.
• At least 5 things, you can implement today that will integrate your Podcast content into your business structure … and how to see results almost instantly.
• 7 steps to getting your Podcast audience to take the very actions you want them to take.

The guys were kind enough to provide me with a discount code that will save you $79.

Sign up quick - the call is Thursday, April 9, 2009 @ 6p Pacific / 9p Eastern

You can still get the recording of the call at the link below.

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Kevin Reilly - President of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Interviewed by David Wertheimer, Executive Director, The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC.

How is the business different today?

When Kevin started at NBC in 1988, he started to see articles being written about how network TV was a dinosaur. The articles we see today are similar. The death of TV is greatly exaggerated. Back then you could see that cable would grow and network TV would lose share to cable.

There was no discussion of how the business model would change back then. TV was the greatest advertising mechanism every invented. While the media mix will change, there is so much information coming out now that people actually miss ads when they get pulled out of shows. People want to know about products and ads play a useful role.

People will declare TV dead. While there is no turning back the clock, there will be TV networks in the future.

What are the fundamentals that will always apply?

Kevin says he’s really shocked to see how much sometimes nobody knows anything.

We can’t make declarations about what will work and what won’t. He tells the story of how everybody passed on the Sopranos, how Law & Order was not seen as the great show and the same thing applies to the media and the business model. There is massive change going on, but when people declare something to be the “way things will be” it’s more often wrong. He says the one constant is quality content.

If we were at this conference 2 years ago everybody would be saying long form video won’t work on the web. Now, we see it as one of the leading drivers of video on the web.

Where are you on UGC?

We all love a polished production, but great entertainment can be some 5 minutes of truly entertaining content. He’s all for it if we can make a living with it.

What experiments have worked and what haven’t?

This is not like trying to re-tool the auto industry. He says the media business is very responsive. It’s all about the risk takers. He points to Rupert Murdoch as someone who has challenged the status quo and its one of the traits of News Corp.

Talk about year round development

The more things stay the same, the more they stay the same. The old network model was a license to print money. The cycle worked. It wasn’t very efficient. Peaks and valleys in work were huge.

It seemed to outlive it’s usefulness, but people kept doing it. When we came out to the strike, it seemed like an opportunity to move to a year round basis. It’s a risk, but it creates opportunity to use highly viewed shows at the end of their season to promote new shows.

Talk about the Remote Free TV idea.

The idea is an experiment. Last year they were setting the schedule and they decided they needed to do something different. They had been stuffing more and more commercials into shows. Advertisers had come to view the commercial load as clutter. They decided to cut the ads in half and charge twice as much per ad. Fringe was the first experiment. It was really received well by the audience. The rub was that the advertisers who would pay the premium were few in number.

Not sure whether this will be the model for the future, but it may be the way to go. (My note: he should read the Innovators Dilemma. TV is in segment retreat to the high end. Higher quality ads at higher prices. Same move as the steel industry etc. Worth reading if you care about this stuff.)

What about the relationship with Cable Networks.

We are at a saturation point with cable. People have 118 networks and watch 16. It’s no longer good to add more networks. They are negotiating with cable networks to take cash for their network broadcasts, but it may mean a reduction in the number of cable networks that companies like Fox have.

When things are available online via Hulu, how does that change the relationship with cable companies?

We have to create legitimate models before illegitimate ones pop up, like they did in music industry. Fox makes high end content which need 10 minutes of premium advertising to support. When people watch 24 on Hulu we make less money. How we balance this is important. Windowing might help this. Cable companies have a 7 day delay before it goes online. It’s just one of many challenges we are dealing with.

For example, the way we finance these shows has changed as well. It used to be getting to re-run syndication. That market has seriously contracted. We need to figure out new revenue models.

What’s popped culture?

Pop culture and mass media had a symbiotic relationship. It was a great robust time for media. Now we’re living in the era of Moore’s law. Everything is moving much faster. Managing the relationship with pop culture is challenging when things are moving so fast. Media is not moving in lock step with pop culture. It’s the beginning of a really big transition. Even in a forest fire, there is rebirth after the fire.

Stan Rogow, Executive Producer/Director, Gemini Division and CEO of Electric Farm Entertainment.

Why is a successful producer even dealing with the Internet?

Stan says he has a son who was just not watching TV. He says his son asked him about CSI which he saw on YouTube. His son’s generation just doesn’t know about networks.

The Internet is just growing and growing.

What does it take to make a successful show on the internet?

Principally, it starts with a simple thing - a great idea that the audience will embrace. If you don’t have that nothing else matters, no matter what channel of distribution you use.

The difficulty of making a 3 minute episode with a beginning, middle and an end, with a cliff hanger to bring people back is very hard. Some writers figure that out, some don’t. It’s very challenging to make that short format work.

The other thing that is becoming very important is the social networks into account. They are different and they will evolve into places where different type of entertainment will migrate to different places.

The challenge is to stay ahead of the curve. It changes always.

One of Stan’s partners spent two years working on games. They see the game aspects of the core piece of entertainment is important and growing in importance.

How did you get Rosario to do the show?

One of the writers of Afterworld is a friend of hers. She did one of the voices on Afterglow and it turns out she’s a sci-fi fan. We asked if we could do something with her and she said yes. Finding an artist that thinks the internet is cool and wants to be there, is what it takes.

Where’s the money?

Gemini Division has different model. They are using product integration with 5 different brands that are very organic. Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, UPS. They talked to the brands to find what was really cool about their stuff. They then could integrate the product features into the show.

The show starts with Rosario talking into the PDA, they had her talking into the Windows Mobile software. They created a new interface which was not the traditional Windows Mobile interface. Microsoft let them go ahead and it got really good reviews. Now waiting to see what Microsoft does with the interface.

They have not done pre-rolls - but they are open to experimenting. They believe there is more value in product integration, but traditional media buyers still want the things they know.

What about distribution?

Phase 1 was tied to NBC for the first 50 episodes. Phase 2 will be opened up to much wider distribution. There are lots of people who love the show now, but it can be opened up to many more people with wider distribution.

What can be learned from Quarterlife?

Internet entertainment is internet entertainment and TV entertainment is TV entertainment. They will re-cut the web version to make a DVD, but the TV version is a different thing as is a game version of the show.

At the 2009 Future of Hollywood conference, held at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, Blair Westlake, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Media & Entertainment Group was interviewed by Tom Adams, President of Adams Media Research.

Hulu has been a great consumer success. But it’s not clear how it plays out for the traditional distributors like cable and the content producers.

The traditional distributors are saying hold on, we’re paying to distribute this content and you are giving it away for free online.

The content producers are used to the TV load of advertising revenues which is much higher than the ad load at Hulu. We may not be talking about trading analog dollars for digital pennies, but it may be analog dollars for digital dimes.

If the cost per thousand impressions doesn’t change, it’s a hard to see how things progress quickly. It just doesn’t make economic sense for Madison Avenue.

One of the things that technology allows to do is to target ads much more effectively, which may be a way to increase the digital revenue without the same advertising load. There is some certainty that advertising will remain a major component of the revenue model.

There’s a tendency to lump music, TV and movies into an entertainment bucket. Movies have two primary sources of revenue. Renting a night at the movies which represent about 30% of revenues and then the sales of DVDs and the like representing the bulk of the revenue.

Cloud computing based movie distribution will begin to substitute for DVD’s as rental on demand grows. For example, while DVD sales may be down 30%, Xbox video on demand revenues have roughly doubled.

Looking at TV, before DVRs, TV viewers would watch about 2 out of 4 episodes of shows. With DVRs, that number has increased to the average viewer watching 3 out of 4 episodes. Cloud based access could play a role in further increasing the viewing ratio.

Is the next step the Netflix subscription model? Fewer and fewer movies are being distributed via the ad supported model. The Netflix model is not new. HBO has been around for a long time and is the premier movie channel. Netflix is a different time window than HBO. It’s offering access to the library. One in ten Netflix subscribers use the Xbox Live service to access movies to consume billions of minutes of media.

The two models that seem to make the most sense are subscription and ad supported distribution.

What’s been the impact on the rental market? The VOD market should see strong growth. The average consumer only watches a movie a couple of times which makes rental a sensible alternative.

However, the switch to online will take longer than people expect. It won’t be one model for everyone.

Westlake looks at the audience and see different segments. The older audiences will be stay wedded to the traditional channels. The younger generation will be different. Just like they prefer cell phones, they will be looking at it with a very different set of eyes. They will drive the change.

In the first session at the Future of Television Conference, held at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, was full of stats and data from analysts at SmithGeiger, Parks Associates and Magid Associates.

The bottom line - the internet has caught up with TV for entertainment use. TV viewing is down by about 2 hours from last year, with most of the increase being in watching online video.

The interesting thing is that there is lots of data to suggest that TV and Internet media reinforce each other. Much of the online activity revolves around catching up with what’s going on with TV shows. Watching shows you missed is a highly popular use of online video.

There appears to be a future for TV, but one quite different from that of the past. TV won’t be the single dominant entertainment channel. It’s going to have to share prime time with the Internet.

You can follow what’s going on via Twitter search.  Just search for #FOTV.

UPDATE:

# Mike Vorhaus (Magid Advisors) Presentation:
Nielsen versus Consumers - They Say Canabilization Happening
# Seth Geiger (SmithGeiger) Presentation:
Digital Media Trends and the Future of Television