At Digital Hollywood, I caught up with Julie Supan, VP of Marketing for Ning. Ning, a site that lets you set up your own custom social network, has just announced the launch of a virtual gifts platform that allows users to buy and sell virtual goods using Ning’s virtual currency.

I thought it was an exciting announcement as I have written a lot about how to make social networking profitable by turning communities into economies.

Julie describes how Ning’s 1.6 million social networks can now start making money by selling virtual gifts. The net revenue(after Paypal fees) from the gifts is split between Ning and the social network.

Ning’s virtual currency called credits, converts into US funds at a rate of approximately 1 credit to $.02. To help get users started with virtual gifting, Ning will give 100 complimentary credits to all users. All Ning virtual gifts will be priced at 75 credits each, so Ning hopes that each user will get to send one virtual gift as a way to try out the feature.

I hope Ning finds more ways to extend how social networks can use the currency to pay users to take surveys or other actions that will help the networks make some real money.

Here’s the interview with Julie:

 

 Digital Podast 64 - Ning Launches Virtual Goods [4:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The last two days, I attended BlogWorld Expo, held in Las Vegas.  The show covered a wide range of topics interesting to bloggers and podcasters, including topics for bloggers who want to turn their new media efforts into commercial successes, newbies wanting to get started and companies trying to develop strategies and processes for working with social media.  I focused my time on the tracks relating to turning your blog or podcast into a commercial success.

From those tracks, I came away with four key takeaways for bloggers and podcasters who are trying to become commercial successes at what they do.

1.  You have to be willing to work hard.  Whether you’re trying to break through or already well known, you need to put in the hours to make it work.  The evidence suggests that the most successful bloggers 3-5 times every day.  Whether it’s blogging, podcasting, video, or micro-blogging, consistently producing lots of content is a key component of success.

2. You need to be the expert, or a least perceived as the expert.  And you need to put in the time to stay ahead of others in your field.  Expertise leads to credibilty which can lead to trust and conversion.

3.  You need to develop and follow a process for successful new media marketing, capturing attention, engaging your audience, building influence and ultimately getting your audience to take action.  I saw a great presentation on the topic from Jason Van Orden and will be providing detailed notes in a later post, so stay tuned.

4. Most of us need produce a signature product to be commercially successful.  Making money via advertising just doesn’t seem to pay enough to make it work unless you have a huge audience.  Whether it be an ebook, a coaching class or a continuity program, product seems to be the way people make good money.  If you can develop a successful continuity program, that seems to be the most lucrative product.

 Podcast Video [1:30m]: Download

Susan Bratton, author of Talk Show Tips, host of the Dishymix podcast and CEO of a publishing company called Personal Life Media that produces 40 different podcasts, is sharing some of her expertise in podcasting with the Digital Podcast fans.

In this guest post, Susan writes about Show Format and how to use it to build trust and engagement with your audience.

Here’s part one of advice from Susan Bratton, author of Talk Show Tips:

Show Format
In order to create trust with your audience, you have to consistently deliver both in frequency and format. Once you pick a schedule, keep to it. (I work ahead 3-5 episodes so I always have a significant buffer to weather guest cancellations and my own busy life.) The same with a format – keeping it consistent pays off by generating a level of credibility, professionalism and certainty. Sure, you can morph the format over time. I’ve tried show highlights and removed them because of audience feedback that they were confusing. Choosing and sticking with a show format allows your audience relax into the content, rather than wondering what the game plan is for every episode.

The 5 Divas: Sharon, Suzanne, Carrie, Julie and Amy

Carrie Runnals, Words to Mouth

Ryan Oelke and Vince Horn, The Buddhist Geeks

On our network, we have many formats and lengths:

• The DivaCast and Business Success Tips are a group of hosts who convene to discuss salient issues. The DivaCast is five “forty-something” women discussing life. Business Success Tips is as many as six male hosts talking shop.
• Family History and Tantra and Kama Sutra are single host/guest format.
• Joy of Living Creatively, Inside Out Weight Loss and Your Purpose-Centered Life are single host spoken word shows with huge followings.
• Camera Dojo, Buddhist Geeks and Digital Photography Life are dual-host and single guest format.
• Music for Midnight is very lightly hosted and mostly ambient and lounge music.

Some of our shows are 8-12 minutes long, some go over an hour! Some are loosely formatted discussions and others follow very organized question/answer formats. There are hundreds of formats and styles successfully employed. Don’t just choose one of the styles we use on our network, choose the one that supports your content, personality and Persona. (more about Personas in the main eBook.)

There’s a style for everyone. Some people love the conversational nature of our multi-host shows. That drives others crazy and they vehemently reject it. You must develop your style and find your audience. Your future fans are out there, as long as you keep your show tight, the content valuable and you don’t waste your viewer’s time.

Your Show Length
First, select your show length and format. My weekly show is about a half hour. I’d like to do a twenty minute show, but I can’t get as deep as I want in that amount of time. A hallmark of my show is depth, so I need that extra ten minutes to fully develop the character of my guests. My audience gives me that time because they like that character development too.

I also need to have pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ad slots because a big part of my income is advertising revenue. Sometimes I run six or eight ads in a single show. (My audience is marketers and they understand the sponsorship model. I never get any negative feedback on this number of ads because my audience “gets it.”) To generate the revenue for my show, I need thirty minutes of content with a break fifteen minutes in. I don’t believe my listeners, who are busy professionals, have more than a half hour, but there are a LOT of popular shows that go longer. Some of the shows on our network are always over an hour. If you are working in video, your duration is significantly abbreviated — typically :30 seconds to 4 minutes… You have the luxury of overlay ads on your video, whereas audio is more linear.

So pick a length. Then stay within that by 20% every episode. Internet shows have the luxury of being approximate, rather that exact in length. But don’t take advantage of that and go off format. It’s sloppy and erodes audience trust. Ninety five percent of my shows are thirty-ish minutes long. A really long show I did with Tim Ash about landing page conversions recently was a show with a lot of listener questions. I got great feedback on that show from many people. But I like those “bonus material” shows to be the exceptions, not the rule.

On the next guest post, Susan will show you exactly how she handles her show flow and give you a cheat sheet for customizing it to your needs.

************************

Susan has launched Talk Show Tips: 72 Secret ‘Master Host’ Techniques as a training system for anyone who hosts a podcast, vidcast, radio or talk show or for experts who create information products that include interviews as material.

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.

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.

Click here now to register for the teleseminar.

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(Saves you $79 from the normal $99 tuition)

Click Here to See the Full Podcast Secrets Class

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

GrammerGirl, Mignon Fogarty, noticed that the Oxford English Dictionary is adding the words podcasting, podcast, podcaster and podcasted to the OED.

podcasting
A very new word, for a recent phenomenon, and a great example of how technological change, especially that relating to the Internet and the media, can be a driving force not only in generating new words, but in determining whether they survive and succeed. In this case the rapid adoption of podcasting (the technology) as a means of making audio material available has seen podcasting (the word) move quickly from its first tentative steps in 2004, as only one of a number of suggested names for the process, to near-ubiquity in 2008. The current OED quarterly release also includes other members of the same family: podcast as a noun and a verb, podcaster, and even the somewhat ungainly adjective podcasted.

Michael Geoghegan pointed to the provenance of the word, which dates back to a post by Dannie Gregoire in Yahoo group ipodder-dev in September of 2004.  Here’s the post with bolding added:

I can see there being the desire of users in some instances to be able
to easily subscribe and get older posts/episodes/shows (what are we
calling these things anyway? How about pode or sode for short?) that no longer
appear on the rss feed. Right now if for example someone wanted to listen to
all the Daily Source Codes back to sode #1, they would have to manually
go through the archives and download any sodes not automagically received,
somewhat defeating the purpose of an ipodder. Not too much of a problem
now but…

I guess one could argue that this is simply an rss/server side issue, and that
the “podcaster” (yes, I like making up new words) should be responsible enough
to offer a page of seperate feeds of old sodes by month/year/season/etc.
However, if you have a site with many thousands of sodes this could be very
time consuming and awkward means of getting older content, with no standard
means of organization between different sites. In addition listing gobs
of old contnet could produce a tremendous load on the download servers
getting everything in large batches or all at once.

So first, do we need a more standard means of storing/retrieving older
content?

Second, how to limit the amount of data fed to the user at a time and
prevent server overloading? Is the communication with iTunes two way?
Is there a means of seeing which shows have been listend to by the user?
Perhaps give the user the option of starting where ever in the show’s
history they like then only download x number of hours at a time till
they clean their plate. Then, let them come back for another helping?

–dannie

While I normally focus on digital and social media, my focus has been completely distracted by the current economic turmoil and political season. The world is facing a very difficult challenge that will likely result in many disruptive changes for everyone. I wanted to get my thinking straight on some of this stuff and I thought I would share. I hope you find it useful. If you have thoughts you would like to add, please leave a comment.

The Seven Trends of the Current Economic Storm

1. Recognition by everyone that this is a severe economic crisis.
   We are experiencing a massive economic disruption. The mortgage meltdown, the credit default swap market meltdown, and the freezing of the commercial credit markets are causing massive turmoil in the financial markets. It’s driving a self reinforcing cycle of fear and chaos. Jobs are being cut, consumer credit is maxing out, foreclosures are accelerating, pension plans devastated. This is a bad, bad, bad situation and people everywhere are going to know and feel its impact.
2. Consumers will/have started making cost cutting a priority.
   We will be buying Mac and Cheese from Wal-Mart, instead of eating out. Discretionary cash will be in very short supply. They will spend even more time looking for bargains.
3. Demand has stalled for high end purchases by the mass market.
   The auto market is down by 30+%. That’s a huge drop. I was speaking with someone from a major car company earlier this week and he described how $10 billion in revenue just disappeared. Factories that were working hard are coming to a screeching halt. This will mean even more job loss and consumer distress.
4. Businesses are making cost reduction an urgent priority.
   Layoffs are beginning to gain momentum and will continue. Discretionary projects will be put on hold. The cost pressure will be so severe that we will see some radical, but very disruptive innovation.
5. Businesses will slow/put the brakes on capital spending and payables.
   Hording cash will be a key to survival. Businesses will react by slowing and cutting the spending on capital projects, and like consumers they will stretch out their payables as long as possible.
6. People and organizations with cash to invest will buy distressed assets at bargain prices
   Just look at Warren Buffet and his actions recently. He knows that when times are bad, it’s time to get greedy. There will be lots of cash strapped asset owners desperate enough to cut really attractive deals for investors. This will shift money from investment in new growth opportunities to investment in cash producing assets. This is really bad for start ups and anyone who needs venture capital. There will be very little money going to new things in the next 12 months.
7. The government reaction will increase substantially
   The problems we are facing will require even more government action.  There will be increased government deficit spending, cuts to interest rates, stimulus checks to the mass market, big government infrastructure projects and maybe even broad tax cuts. Given the current political trends, friends of Democrats (unions, trial lawyers, Hollywood, etc) are likely see more money coming their way and friends of Republicans (oil, pharma, Halliburton, etc) are likely to be punished as being the bad guys. As the government settles down, they will start putting in incentives to get businesses to invest and spend cash. 

Some preliminary thoughts on what this means

I think that these trends will definitely sway the financial rebound of different companies.

It is clear to me that delays and cut backs in discretionary, high end purchases are bad for the auto, consumer electronics, consumer durables, restaurants and other sectors that depend on these types of purchases. It is time to stay away from this stuff until consumers catch their breath and start feeling some job/financial security.

Companies that can help us cut costs, work out our debt, shop more effectively and help us get credit should be advantaged in this market. Experian looks like a company that should be able to take advantage of this. This is also an attractive potential area for social networking and media to the extent it can help people work out their problems together.

Companies that offer the ability to get results at much lower costs will rebound much more quickly. For example, the extraordinary cost effectiveness of search and online advertising will accelerate the share shift from offline to online. We may not see huge growth online, but offline advertising will get hammered, especially given the importance of the financial and automotive industries to ad spending. Stay away from offline publishers. On the flip side, this makes Google look more interesting and maybe even Yahoo.

This need for much lower costs will also accelerate share shift from costly physical channels to internet based channels.  This may be good for eBay and Amazon, but I’m interested in finding companies that are earlier in the process.  I’m not sure who to look at here.

Given the extraordinary cost cutting we will see in businesses, they will need ways to keep their businesses running with many fewer employees. This is probably good for effective productivity tools and outsource service providers. I think this is particualarly good for collaborative communication tools that really work, like Go To Meeting.  Companies that have cash will spend it very strategically and if you can get in front of  that trend it could be a good thing.

If you have cash to invest, it also makes sense to keep some dry powder waiting for opportunistic investment opportunities in distressed assets.

On the government front, it’s less clear to me which investment opportunities are worth exploring. I need to see the outcome of the election to really know who the winners and losers will be. I think I’m going to take a look at donations to each party to see who looks interesting.

Lastly, for those of you looking for venture capital, it is going to be a serious dry spell. It is time to hunker down hard.

My caveat on all this is that I’m not a stock picker. I think good investments are as much about buying at the right valuation as they are about picking the right areas. I have no perspective on whether or not the companies I’ve talked about have attractive valuations or not. At the time I write this, I don’t own stock in any of the companies I’ve written about, but that may change by the end of the day.

I would love to hear you’re thoughts on other major trends that are in play right now and what it all means. Leave a comment.

The New York Times Company put out a press release this morning announcing its earnings.  Quite a sad situation, the Grey Lady is dying and if they don’t figure out some massive change there will be some type of forced restructuring.

On the positive side, their internet revenues grew 6.7% to reach $87 million.  The bad news, however, is the continued plunge in print advertising which was down by 15.9%.  The net result is that overall revenues dropped by 8.9% to $687 million.  They have cut costs by 6.7%, but the death spiral continues.

According to Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider they only have $46 million in cash left.

At the end of the quarter, cash and cash equivalents were approximately $46 million and total debt was approximately $1.1 billion. The Company’s current source of short-term funding is its revolving credit agreements under which it had approximately $398 million in borrowings outstanding at the end of the quarter.

So what should they do?  A reporter from ZDNet suggests that they should talk to Yahoo, which might be interesting way for Yahoo to tank further.  No, I don’t think that’s the way to go.

What the NY Times needs to do is to start thinking about radical innovation.  They need to think so completely differently about their business that they may not be able to do it.

They need to start thinking about how they increase their productivity by 50 to 100 times (note: not percent, but a multiple of 50 to 100 times their current output with the same cost structure).   At the same time, they need to be thinking about how they increase their exposure by the same multiple of  50 to 100x.  They need to be thinking about how they become a news gathering and distribution platform for the web.  They can’t do it alone, but if they embrace their audience and open their content they might have a chance.  It will take radical innovation, but that’s what they need.

One of the key factors in turning podcasting into a real business is effective execution of best practices in content creation, marketing, distribution, monetization and user experience. Many publishers are not following best practices in these areas. The result often looks more like someone’s hobby than a real business endeavor.

Developing content, building audience and getting advertisers to buy in will take serious effort. Publishers who understand the huge opportunity for subscribable media and its capacity to shape the media industry’s winners and losers will step up and make the investment required.

Putting these elements into a framework allows for systematic evaluation of operating practices across publishers and for the identification of best practices for new media publishing.

The framework links the three key elements of Audience, Content and Advertisers with the critical activities of creative/production, marketing, distribution, monetization and user experience.

In each of these functional areas, there are best practices that need to be deployed to make the most of a new media business. Some of these factors are observable from the outside looking in and others require examining how things work from the inside out.

Creative and production encompass the all important aspects of conceiving the concept, translating it into a show and producing high quality content on a regular schedule.

Marketing involves many factors including the key factors like search engine optimization, iTunes/media directory optimization, syndication via RSS feeds and sharable players. Evidence of best practice marketing can be found in how well things like ID3 tags are populated, the quality of feeds, file naming practices and quality album art. These are all factors that impact how findable the media is.

Monetization can take many forms and best practice players will find the right mix that works for them. While we can’t determine how much a show makes from the outside, we can examine the presence of monetization mechanisms like advertising, premium content, sponsorships, commerce/merchandise and paid syndication.

Distribution is an important component. In this area we are specifically looking for cost effective high quality content delivery. New media files are quite large and how well the distribution infrastructure works can have a significant impact on the user experience. In many cases we can determine whether a content delivery network is being utilized and we can also observe the use of advanced file sharing technologies like BitTorrent.

Perhaps the most important and observable element of the best practice framework is the user experience. How well are the shows presented? Is the content available in a format compatible with the devices consumers want to use? Is it easy for the audience to interact with the show? What’s the online viewing experience like? The answers to these questions and the inputs of the other four elements of the framework all go into determining how effective the user experience is.

By examining these factors in detail, we can begin to identify specific changes that will improve business performance and help publishers get serious about building new media businesses.

In the weeks ahead, we will dive into each of these areas to examine best practices and to review how well different publishers are employing best practices.

[tags]podcasting, best practices, new media[/tags]