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

By way of background, Susan told me that they were working on ways to connect more effectively with brand advertisers and found real interest from the marketers in putting content from Personal Life Media right on the brand marketers’ web sites.  That led to the development of Personal Life Media’s new brandable player widget which can be loaded with up to five RSS feeds for audio podcasts and customized by color and size to match any web site.  Just like most widgets, the player can be embedded in blogs, Facebook, Myspace and anywhere else you want to use it.  Not only can you customize the player, the widget enables the the brand to be the exclusive sponsor of the podcast content in the customized player.

Imagine the new pitch to advertisers, we give you content you can use on your site, you get your own branded player that your enthusiast supporters can reuse and you get to the be the exclusive advertiser on content played through the branded player.  This gives the marketers some really interesting new ways to engage visitors to the site and gives Personal Life Media the ability to reuse its content on other players with different marketing programs.

At launch, they will have a number of brands using the widget including

• AccuQuote has integrated their “Life Insurance Podcast” along with four shows from Personal Life Media including “Aging Gratefully,” “GreenTalk Radio,” “Living Green” and “Coaching by the Life Coach.”  The player can be found on their multimedia page and their corporate blog.
• CardScan is distributing “Evolutionary Sales,” “Conscious Business,” “Money, Mission and Meaning,” and “Coaching by the Life Coach” in their customized player.
• Oceanus Naturals is providing “Just For Women,” “Tantra & Kama Sutra,” “Sex Love & Intimacy,” “Expanded Lovemaking” and “Fearless Lover” to site http://oceanusnaturals.com site visitors.
• Sinclair Institute is offering a series of five relationship shows on their Sinclair University site at http://www.bettersex.com/t-bsu-university.aspx.
• Zen by Design, makers of meditation chairs, is featuring “Buddhist Geeks,” “The New Man,” “Living Dialogues,” “Living Green” and “GreenTalk Radio” on their site at http://zenbydesign.com along with a group of relationship shows on http://tantrachair.com.
• Music discovery publisher IndieFeed is using two customized players to distribute their 7 weekly music shows on Facebook and MySpace in addition to offering the widget for their fans to get and share for free at http://indiefeed.com.

Even more exciting is that Personal Life Media is making this brandable player available to other podcasters. Here’s a sample of the player I built using their widget builder.

Powered by Personal Life Media

According to the press release:

The widget creator at http://personallifemedia.com/widget is free for any company, podcaster or content fan. Fees may be involved if a marketer wants to offer shows from Personal Life Media that exclusively feature the brand’s messages. Otherwise, the shows will feature existing sponsor’s ads.

Three simple steps customize your player:

1. Select up to five RSS feeds for audio podcasts.
2. Customize the player’s color and background, pick a size and add a logo.
3. Click “Get” and insert it directly on a blog, website and more than 20 social media services.  Any time a visitor to the brand’s site wants to “get” the widget for their own site, blog or social media page, the sponsor’s logo will be displayed along with the podcasts that include the sponsor’s marketing messages.

I look forward to seeing how this changes the way marketers think about downloadable media.

If anyone has a different take on this leave us some comments or make your own podcast answering the 17 questions.

1. How did podcasting come about?
2. Why do you think podcasting came to be in such a way and at such a time?
3. What were the pioneers motives behind the birth of podcasting?
4. What vacuum do you think podcasting covers on the web and in “traditional” media?
5. What makes podcasting so unique?
6. What does it contribute to the contemporary media landscape?
7. In comparison to other 2.0 instruments, what are its strong points?
8. Podcasting is radio or video also. Should we talk of vodcast or videopodcast?
9. Why does a podcaster make podcasts?
10. Is the voice itself important?
11. And the form itself, for example sound production?
12. What should a quality podcast be like?
13. Podcasting in other media. In relation to radio, what can it contribute?
14. What do you think about podcasts in the press?
15. Do you think podcasting has fulfilled the expectations it generated?
16. What fields take greater advantage of podcasting?
17. Have other fields been sufficiently explored?

[tags]podcast, podcasting, history of podcasting[/tags]

Fundamentally, we are entering a new era of media economics where supply is outstripping demand. We are on the verge of seeing what I believe will be hyper-deflation in impression based economics. There is simply too much supply and not enough demand. Consumers are increasingly unwilling to spend time watching ads to consume media. The alternatives for consumers are expanding every day and the media companies are struggling to keep up.

Media companies need to rethink their business models. They need to get beyond impression based business models and figure out community based business models that use media content as the centerpiece of social conversation. When the industry figures out the potential for communities to make make good money, I believe we will see the industry revive and go on to some remarkable things. Until then, look out. The hyper-deflation we are seeing in music will spread to video and if the industry does not adjust, it is in for a bad time.

Please let us know what you think.

[tags]media economics, podcast[/tags]

Poll Answers“

[tags]podcast, podcast poll, social polling, sodahead[/tags]

Reuters’ history of syndication is proving a valuable capability as Reuters manages highly distributed content across their own sites, partner sites and other third party sites. They have decided who they want to target specifically and use content creatively to drive audience.

Stephen Smyth is responsible for Reuters Americas consumer business, driving revenue and audience for the online, mobile, interactive TV, digital signage and online syndication services. In addition, Stephen oversees global business development as well as local programming and production, traffic and ad operations in the Americas. Prior to his current role, Stephen led Reuters mobile, video, and digital signage business globally. He was responsible for maximizing revenues and brand value from the company’s presence on these platforms and oversaw relationships with key technology providers and distribution affiliates across the globe. In addition, he headed up Reuters Labs, a public showcase of the latest consumer product innovations from Reuters. Previously, Stephen was responsible for media strategy and business development for Reuters.

[tags]Reuters, Stephen Smyth, super fans, syndication, podcast[/tags]

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.

Here are the Pendant Productions:

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]

The Company attributes this substantial increase in download requests to the growing popularity of these internet radio and television style shows with consumers. According to demographic survey data collected by Wizzard Media, nearly 40% of respondents are new podcast audience members and have been watching or listening to podcasts for less than one year.

And it’s not just listeners. Advertisers are increasing their use of podcasts as part of their advertising initiatives. According to a fall 2007 survey conducted by Advertiser Perceptions, 30% of advertisers and agency media executives polled have included podcasts as part of their advertising plans for the next six months, up 6% from their spring 2007 survey.

Go forth and Podcast

[tags]podcast, podcasting, podcasting growth, podcast growth, Wizzard Media[/tags]