As part of our Super Fan podcast series, I spoke with Jeffrey Bridges, founder and executive producer of Pendant Productions. Pendant is an audio production group dedicated to making radio dramas like the old radio serials of the ’30s and ’40s, only modernized for today’s audiences. Pendant had 986,000 downloads of their shows in 2007 which just goes to show how popular the productions are.

Jeffrey started Pendant in 2004 to pursue his interest in fan fiction and fan generated radio dramas. Pendant is an all volunteer effort producing more than a dozen different shows, both takeoffs on existing properties and original properties produced by Pendant.

Pendant got its start with “Star Trek: Defiant” a text based story list that Jeffrey started way back in 1995. Jeffrey got interested in producing an audio version of the stories, and was able to find enough sound effects and audio mixing programs to make it possible. He went on to produce “Star Trek: Defiant” as an audio file. Not long after starting the first Defiant audio, Jeffrey was listening to some of the old Superman radio serials from the 1940s and had the inspiration to do Superman audio too, which led to the formation of Pendant Productions in 2004.

Jeffrey told me about Pendant’s history and how they make so many great radio shows. It is a fascinating story that shows just how much Super Fans can achieve and produce.

 

 Digital Podcast 32 [15:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Superman: Last Son of Krypton	Batman: The Ace of Detectives
Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira	Supergirl: Lost Daughter of Krypton
The Pendant Shakespeare	Star Trek: Defiant
Star Wars: Blue Harvest	Seminar
This Week in Pendant	Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion
The Kingery	Once Upon a Time in Vegas
Imperium: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman Crossover	James Bond: To The End	Indiana Jones and the Well of Life
Indiana Jones and the Well of Life

Downloads are available in web-quality and CD quality. The CD quality downloads are available via BitTorrent.
[tags]super fans, podcast, pendant productions, Jeffrey Bridges, superman, batman, wonder woman, supergirl[/tags]

As part of our new Super Fan podcast series, we met with Chris Adams after last year’s Digital Hollywood conference to discuss his experience working with both movie producers and web producers. We focused on how these two very different organizational cultures need to learn from each other to realize the potential for online video and social media. Having done lots of work with both web based companies and feature film producers, Chris is able to provide excellent insights into the challenges these companies face in this era of new media. He understands the differences between the cultures and the need for help in bridging the gap.

In this podcast, Chris provides some great perspective on the organizational and personnel challenges these companies face in the transition to new business models. He describes the role that social marketing and super fans played in helping properties like Syriana and An Inconvenient Truth break out and build audiences. This podcast interview provides a behind the scenes view into where things are now and some of the major changes to come.

 

 Digital Podcast 31 [44:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Chris is founder and president of Orbit Media Group, where he consults with media and internet companies creating partnerships, programming and relationships between and to the benefit of media, entertainment and online brands. His current clients range from Facebook.com, one of the fastest-growing internet companies on earth, for which he helped to create and produce “Facebook Diaries,” the first-ever hybrid user-generated video/reality TV show to be distributed on Facebook.com, Ziddio.com, Comcast VOD and linear television and the IFC Channel, to HBO to Comcast, the largest cable and broadband company in the US to HBO to Glam.com, the number one site for women to film icons, to Born4Sports, a social network, marketplace and ecommerce platform for sports and sports lifestyle with presence in Europe, Asia and soon, the US.

Prior to launching his own consulting company, Chris co-founded Participant Productions in 2004 with Jeff Skoll, eBay’s first President. Participant’s vision is to create entertainment that inspires audiences to make social change. In this capacity, Chris developed and executed on the business plan, was intimately involved in finding and hiring initial executive personnel and managed the company overall. Participant’s first slate of movies — Syriana, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon; North Country, starring Charlize Theron; Good Night and Good Luck, starring David Strathairn and George Clooney, and the documentary Murderball – were nominated for an unprecedented 11 Academy Awards. Chris is also proud to have identified and helped to develop former Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth which won the Oscar for Best Documentary and Gore’s work participated in his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition to the above-mentioned films, Chris developed and Executive Produced Participant’s first feature: American Gun starring Marcia Gay-Harden, Forrest Whittaker, Donald Sutherland, Linda Cardelini and Tony Goldwyn.

[tags]Chris Adams, Super Fans, social marketing, social media, Digital Hollywood[/tags]

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, posts on What does the Media Business Model mean and with some help from friends goes on to list 24+ business models for monetizing media that do not require cash payment by the consumer (what he calls free or almost free). Whether it’s really free or not is in the eye of the beholder, but that’s a different discussion.

Making money podcasting has been tough for some, so I think the list of business models is great, particularly for those who might not have exhausted their imaginations for ideas on how to monetize media. However, I think that the immediate focus on business models is like losing sight of the forest because we are gazing so intently at the trees and the different types of trees that grow there.

If we step back from the business model forest created by the economics of impressions, and ask is there something more. Is there something beyond our forest of impression based models? I think the answer is yes.

Forests don’t exist by themselves, they exist as parts of ecosystems. So, what are the media based ecosystems that are inspired, created and formed around content? Content based communities seem like a logical answer, and beyond that networks of content based communities. Content has always been a powerful driver of community – just look at MySpace and YouTube.

We can and should recast the discussion from economics of impressions to the economics of communities. And what are the economics of communities? They are micro-economies where trade, commerce and personal interaction are all intermingled with each other. Think of Second Life and their booming economy.

When the economic infrastructure is put in place to allow commerce to start and thrive, the business models based upon community economics are truly endless. We can stop worrying about impressions and leads and start monetizing the “utilities” that make community based economies work. And what are the utilities? Think currency, banking, trading, land and all the other stuff we take for granted in the physical world.

How might this work? Let’s take Madonna and the Live Nation deal for an example. They did the deal premised on expanding the revenue stream from selling content to selling entertainment, merchandise and whatever else they can sell. That seems like a good first step towards expanding from monetizing Madonna’s content to monetizing the Madonna community.

But what else could be done to monetize the Madonna community and how could it be done in remote places like Myspace, YouTube and Facebook? If we free our imaginations from the constraints of impression based thinking, what if Live Nation created a Madonna currency that they would honor for goods, products and shows and a payment system for exchanging currency for goods and services. They could create an economic utility that fans could use to trade and exchange for goods and services.

Need a Madonna based theme for your MySpace page, 10 Madonas(10Ms) please. Incentive for Super Fans who share user generated content at YouTube and assign the rights to Live Nation – 3Ms per video or whatever makes sense. And guess who’s the bank and chief payment processor – Live Nation. Now that’s a business model worth shooting for.

So what do people think? If you ran a community and could turn it into an economy what business would you want to run? If you think this won’t work why not?

Here’s the list of impression based business models from Chris’s post:

• CPM ads (”cost per thousand views”; banner ads online and regular ads in print, TV and radio)
• CPC ads (”cost per click”; think Google ads)
• CPT ads (”cost per transaction”; you pay only if the customer brought to you from a media sites becomes a paying customer. Here’s an example.)
• Lead generation (you pay for qualified names of potential customers)
• Subscription revenues
• Affiliate revenues (think: Amazon Associates)
• Rental of subscriber lists
• Sale of information (selling data about users–aggregate/statistical or individual–to third parties)
• Licensing of brand (people pay to use a media brand as implied endorsement)
• Licensing of content (syndication)
• Getting the users to create something of value for free and applying any of the above to monetize it. (Like Digg or our own Reddit)
• Upgraded service/content (ed: aka “freemium”)
• Alternate output (pdf; print/print-on-demand; customized Shared Book style; etc.)
• Custom services/feeds
• Live events
• “Souvenirs”/”Merchandise”
• Co-branded spinoff
• Cost Per Install (popular with top Facebook apps who can help others get installs)
• E-commerce (selling stuff directly on your website)
• Sponsorships (ads of some sort that are sold based on time, not on the number of impressions)
• Listings (paying a time based amount to list something like a job or real estate on your website)
• Paid Inclusion (a form of CPC advertising where an advertiser pays to be included in a search result)
• Streaming Audio Advertising (like radio advertising delivered in the audio stream after a certain amount of audio content has been delivered)
• Streaming Video Advertising (like streaming audio but in video)
• API Fees (charging third parties to access your API)

[tags]new media, business models, economics of community[/tags]

Chey Bell, host of Outside Voice, was hosting NowLive when I spoke with NowLive’s CEO Kevin Bromber. Chey and I had a good conversation about Digital Podcast, super fans, social media, podcasting and how people can promote their podcasts. If you have a show of your own it has some good tips for promoting your podcast.

About Outside Voice:

Chey’s show delves into the hot-button social and political issues of the week, Outside Voice delivers a fresh perspective, and a chance for anyone to participate in the discussion. You can chat with public figures, analysts, and entertainers as Chey conducts a virtual town hall meeting that is smart, timely, and interactive. Add your voice every Wednesday, 7pm- 8pm PST.

 

 Digital Podcast 26 [27:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[tags]Chey Bell, NowLive, podcasting, podcast promotion, social media, super fans, Digital Hollywood[/tags]