Charlene Li is an Analyst at Forrester Research and co-author of the new book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, which she wrote with Josh Bernoff. Charlene is one of the leading voices in the area of Social Computing and Web 2.0.

I briefly caught up with Charlene Li after hearing her speak at Forrester Research’s Marketing Forum 2008 in Los Angeles.

In this podcast, Charlene talks about getting the book written, and her and Josh’s goals of helping marketers understand the wild world of social media and engage with consumers in the groundswell.

Charlene also describes how marketing is evolving from highly controlled one-way messaging to a much less controlled process of creating relationships with consumers. In particular, she outlines how one of the best-known and most successful consumer tech brands, Apple, breaks the rules for engaging the groundswell, and the risks that other brands face if they follow Apple’s lead.

 

 Digital Podcast 48 [7:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2116)

Technorati Tags: Forrester 2008 Marketing Forum, Forrester Research, Charlene Li, Groundswell, Apple

In Digital Podcast 41, we connect with Wizzard Media’s CEO Chris Spencer to talk about podcast based advertising. As Chris puts it, how else can you advertise on an iPod.

We cover some of the history of Wizzard and how they have brought together some of the most popular podcast hosting companies such as Libsyn and SwitchPod, and built a podcast advertising network to go with it.

The show focuses on podcast based advertising and in particular we discuss the two advertising campaigns Wizzard is running for the US Navy.

 

 Digital Podcast 41 [56:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3086)

The first of those ran on 20 podcasts with wide distribution and focused on recruitment. The current campaign is much more focused and is running on 7 podcasts. It focuses on recruiting medical personnel.

We get into some good detail about how the process works, what Wizzard does and what podcasters have to do to make it all work. We talk numbers and Chris tells us how different ads support different CPMs, depending upon their placement and whether they are audio or video. Videos commands the highest CPMs running $5-7 to $20-35 depending upon whether it’s a pre-roll or a mid-roll. Audio runs at lower CPMs that range from $3-5 to $15-25 depending upon placement.

Chris explains how the revenue share works. The advertising agencies get their 15% off the top and then Wizzard and the podcasters split the rest 50-50. Wizzard pays the sales force and covers the costs of setting up and running the campaign.

Wizzard published that they supported over one billion downloads last year from the over 8,500 podcasts that use their hosting services. Some have questioned how that could be, so we ask Chris to help us verify those numbers and to understand how 8,500 podcasts produce so many downloads. Chris explains how they count downloads and filter out the spiders and bots. He says that there are some blockbuster podcasts that do really high volumes and just as in other media forms there is a long tail of podcasters, so looking at mean based average per podcast just does not make sense. It’s the old 80-20 rule once again. Chris also clarifies that some recent problems with reporting to podcasters has nothing to do with how the count their download figure.

Chris ends the show by providing some tips for podcasters - The one to remember most is that if you think you want to advertise in your podcast someday, start tagging them now so that ad inserts are easy to do and you don’t have to go back and re-edit your catalog.

It’s good to see organizations like Wizzard taking up the flag and promoting podcasting. Wizzard along with a few others is taking the risk to build the platforms that we need to scale the downloadable media business. We wish them well on their mission to help marketers advertise on an iPod (or a Zune for you Zune fans.)

Technorati Tags: Wizzard Media, podcast advertising, podcast hosting, downloadable media

How to get podcasts into iTunes and how to get more than just the most recent show to download are questions I get frequently.

In the past, I have used the descriptions in the Digital Podcast Forums, but I thought I would create a short video tutorial that explains how to get podcasts into your iTunes player, download multiple episodes and delete podcasts from iTunes.

If you just got your new iPod and want to get some podcasts into iTunes so you can listen to them on your computer or iPod this video is for you.

Technorati Tags: how to get podcasts into itunes, how to get podcasts on iPod

In what must have been some marvelous licensing legal wizardry, The Financial Times is reporting that Apple has signed a deal with News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to provide an online video-on-demand service. The service will allow consumers to rent the latest Fox DVD releases by downloading a digital copy from Apple’s iTunes platform for a limited time.

Both Apple and Fox are officially quiet about the deal and the Financial Times says that it is likely the deal will be announced at Macworld on January 14th.

The deal goes beyond movie rentals in that Apple will also for the first time extend its FairPlay digital rights management system beyond its own products.

A digital file protected by FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to be transferred or “ripped” from the disc to a computer and video iPod. DVD content can already be moved to an iPod but this requires special software and is considered piracy by some studios.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Fox, video, iTunes, Fairplay, DRM, online video rental

I just checked Google analytics for the daily stats at Digital Podcast and I saw the biggest one time increase in daily visitors and page views. Digital Podcast’s traffic jumped up by 80% on Christmas day. I looked at the distribution of search terms for some anomaly, but it wasn’t there. Search terms remained consistent in their distribution.

I think that people got lots of iPods, Zunes and the like for Christmas and went looking for content.

I also think that Christmas day has probably become the biggest day ever for the music industry thanks to iTunes cards. I know for sure that’s the case in my home as my daughter spent her $30 iTunes gift cards before noon and my son spent his by 4pm. That’s the first time either of them has bought music online and it didn’t take long.

No wonder Apple’s stock almost hit $200 per share.

Technorati Tags: ipod, Apple, iTunes, Zune, Microsoft

This video from The Digital Lounge covers three different sources of free video for your portable player: TiVo, your own DVD collection, and Windows Media Center. Watch and learn how you can easily use the video content you already have to fill up your media library in either the Zune software or iTunes.

Technorati Tags: tivo, zune, ipod, video, dvd, ipod movie downloads, zune movie downloads

Business Week is reporting that Universal chief Doug Morris is enlisting other big music players for a service to challenge iTunes and the iPod.

The world’s most powerful music executive aims to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service. BusinessWeek has learned that Morris has already enlisted Sony BMG Music Entertainment as a potential partner and is talking to Warner Music Group. Together the three would control about 75% of the music sold in the U.S. Besides competing head-on with Apple Inc.’s (AAPL ) music store, Morris and his allies hope to move digital music beyond the iPod-iTunes universe by nurturing the likes of Microsoft’s Zune media player and Sony’s PlayStation and by working with the wireless carriers. The service, which is one of several initiatives the music majors are considering to help reverse sliding sales, will be called Total Music.

While I like the idea of a service that could compete effectively with iTunes and create a more compelling solution for the other device makers, it’s hard for me to see how they will get past the DOJ antitrust issues relating to companies who control 75% of the market joining together to offer a bundled product.

Even more problematic are the issues relating to the economics of the deal.

The big question is whether the makers of music players and phones can charge enough to cover the cost of baking in the subscription. Under one scenario industry insiders figure the cost per player would amount to about $90. They arrived at that number by assuming people hang on to a music player or phone for 18 months before upgrading. Eighteen times a $5 subscription fee equals $90.

Even if they can get past the DOJ anti-trust issues relating to Total Music, it does not seem to me that the economics of a bundled $90 subscription per player would work for either the device or recording industry. Adding $90 to the price of a player would surely depress player sales and probably still not be enough to cover the royalties required for a service that will let you play anything any time.

Is this idea destined for a pileup somewhere along the digital media highway?

Via Techmeme

Technorati Tags: Universal, UMG, TotalMusic, Total Music, iPod, iTunes

Apple and T-Mobile today announced that T-Mobile will be the exclusive German carrier of Apple’s revolutionary iPhone when it makes its debut in Germany on November 9.

iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold in Germany through Telekom Shops of Deutsche Telekom and the T-Mobile web shop. iPhone requires a new 2-year T-Mobile tariff and will be available in an 8GB model for €399 including V.A.T. and will work with either a PC or Mac.

Technorati Tags: iphone, apple, t-mobile, tmobile

Apple and O2 announced today that O2, a UK wireless carrier, will be the exclusive UK carrier for Apple’s iPhone when it makes its debut in the UK on November 9th.

Unique to the UK, iPhone users will have free access to the O2’s public Wi-Fi network, covering over 7,500 cafes, restaurants, airport lounges, pubs and other locations across the UK.

iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold exclusively in the UK through Apple’s retail and online stores, O2 and The Carphone Warehouse’s retail and online stores. iPhone will be available in an 8GB model for £269 (inc VAT) and will work with either a PC or Mac. Three iPhone tariffs will be available from O2 starting at £35.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, iPhone UK, O2, Apple, mobile

eMusic, the music service that has given Apple’s iTunes the most competition in the song-download arena will now offer audiobooks in mp3 format, too.

The biggest selling point for eMusic is also its biggest point of controversy: the site uses the MP3 format, which works on any digital player but lacks digital rights management technology, that protects copyrighted material from unlimited duplication.

This should provide some really interesting competition between iTunes, eMusic and Audible.

NOTE: Digital Podcast is an affiliate of eMusic and if you use the link above to purchase eMusic we will get some money sent our way.