Podonomics

A few weeks back, I said it was fine time for a podcasting association. Seems like someone heard my call because the Association of Downloadable Media (ADM) launched last week. Its aim? According to its mission statement, the ADM aims:

“To provide leadership in and organization of advertising and audience measurement standards, research, education and advocacy to all those involved in portable media (Podcasts/ATOM/RSS media enclosures) across the Internet, iPods, MP3 players, mobile devices, P2P and other upcoming platforms.”

Will I become a member?

(more…)

Just got wind that my pal John C. Havens is joining the BlogTalkRadio team as the VP of Business Development. Havens was the lead organizer behind Podcamp NY, an unconference which drew over 850 attendees, a couple dozen exhibitors and criticism from some saying that Havens was running a regular conference. Havens is also the Guide for About.com’s Podcasting section.

This is awesome, so congratulations John!

The Brokeback Podcaster is a term you’ll find in the introduction of my book. This is the person that adamantly says that you should never make money podcasting, but then complains that they’re tired of doing the editing stuff and wish they could hire someone to do it for them.

They say that money in podcasting is evil, but then complain that they had to stay up until 3 in the morning preparing the next episode of their podcast. Then their partner gets mad at them for staying up late.

I wrote about the brokeback entrepreneur about a year ago. It came out of my frustration with some entrepreneurs who wanted me to bend over backwards, but not compensate me for my time. Or, worst yet, their idea of compensation was to barter a basket of candles and hand lotion. I’m not kidding.

(more…)

Just read that Scott McNealy totally skipped over the blogging thing and launched a podcast instead.

I’m not surprised. I don’t think his strength is in writing. In the 5-years I worked at Sun Microsystems, I sent 2 emails to Scott. He always replied, usually the same day, however, I can count on my 2 hands the number of words he typed up in his email responses to me.

(more…)

I get emails from people who tell me about their brand spanking new, hot off the presses, better than sliced bread podcasting service. Sometimes these emails are personalized. The person will mention my blog, one of my products and one of my podcasts.

The majority of these solicitations are general, a template that doesn’t mention anything about me. The worst is when they spell my first name wrong and then ask me to point them to my podcast.

Whatever.

(more…)

My pal (he knows I call him this) and mentor (he doesn’t know I call him this), Scott Bourne has partnered with Podango as an executive strategic advisor, according to their press release.

Exciting news for podcasting since Scott, who hosts a couple of podcasts on Leo Laporte’s TWIT network, has a serious passion for this field. The guys behind Podango, Lee Gibbons and Doug Smith, both of whom I met at the Podcast & New Media Show have one of the coolest podcasting platforms out there.

What makes Podango so unique?

(more…)

I have followed a comic book theme this week on this blog (see here and here). Judging from the title of this post, it seems that the super hero theme continues.

Yet, instead of super heros, I want to draw your attention to Scott Bourne’s list of unsung heros in podcasting. Yours truly is one of them. Ah shucks, thanks for the nod, Scott.

Some of you may be wondering, “Great job Leesa, but who’s Scott Bourne?” Well, he’s just the author of a few dozen technology books, host of a few podcasts on Leo Laporte’s monster podcasting network called TWIT, has a few blogs on technology and podcasting (namely, this one, this one & this one) and is one of the coolest people I met at the Podcast & Portable Media Expo in September.

Who else can you nominate as an unsung hero in podcasting? Let’s contribute to this list.

What a great niche and what an awesome moniker. Jerry Franklin, the Audacity Guy, led a session at the International Podcasting Expo on basic editing techniques using Audacity.

While I know everything there is to know about Audacity, I did pick up these tips:

• Use the solo button in the track control panel to only listen to one track at a time when you have many tracks open. That way, you don’t have to move things around just to isolate the sound your really want to hear from one track.
• The Audacity Guy warned against editing out every um, ah or what he called “artifact.” It’d take too long, but more importantly, everyone will sound the same. Your goal is to make your guest sound authoritative and you want your podcast to move along, but don’t edit to the point where the personalities are removed.
• Don’t forget to save early and save often.
• The Audacity Guy took us through the envelope tool. Unfortunately, I was distracted by something my mother was saying to me, so I missed it. It appears the envelope tool can help you increase and decrease the volume of a chunk of your audio without having to use the selection tool.

As I sit here at my computer attending a few sessions at the International Podcasting Expo, I stumbled upon some interesting news bits in the podcasting world.

Here are just a few of my musings:

• Self-Proclaimed Podcasting Thought Leader? While I don’t want to remove the bulbs from anyone’s scoreboard on game day, I’m curious to know what makes Bruce Stasch, President of Apex Marketing Group, a podcasting thought leader? Again, I’m just curious as I’ve never heard of him and I’ve been engrossed in this field for close to 2-years now.

• iTunes Only Loves the Big Boys, Sorry. More and more I believe that unless you have a big corporate name in the title of your podcast, you will find yourself swimming in the sea of nothingness in iTunes. Check out who’s listed in the Top 25 in each category in iTunes. What is ratio between podcasts produced by those with recognizable corporate names vs. the small fries?

• Podcasts Are Made By Geeks, For Geeks Says Writer. Two years after I discovered podcasts, I’m still amazed at how many people still think podcasting are only for geeks. Rachel Cooke comes to this realization after listening to 1 podcast that had what she called “a Dallas theme song.” Actually, after reading her article a second time, I’m still not clear what she’s rambling about. However, I’m shocked that based on the production values of a few podcasts, Rachel makes this sweeping generalization that podcasts are only for geeks. Comments like this only help to keep mainstream audiences from embracing podcasting. Thanks Rachel.

• Podcasts Piss Prof. I feel like I’ve just written a headline for the Toronto Sun (check out Friday’s front cover to the left talking about the number of pedestrians killed by distracted drivers in Toronto - Fatal Distraction (**groan**). Looks like not all professors embrace podcasting. Robert Schneider, Associate Professor of Theater and Dance at Northern Illinois University, laments at length that podcasts are ruining the classroom learning experience. While podcasting may not be an appropriate alternative, it is an appropriate compliment, Rob.

• Great Podcasting Idea: Pre-Conference Podcasting Roadshow. There’s a conference coming up called IT@Cork and they plan on interviewing each speaker and releasing them as a podcast each week until the week of the conference. While this isn’t a new idea, it’s certainly something you can look at to promote your own event.

• Mr. Penguin Girl Signs Off. By way of Paul Colligan, I found out that Jon Watson said farewell to his BizPodcasting blog this week. I knew something was amiss when I didn’t see any new blog posts on his blog for about 2-days (Jon usually updates his blog 4-5 times per day). Jon’s voice was unique and independent. Because of his autonomy, he was able to freely talk about what he liked and didn’t like about podcasting. I’m sad to see Jon go as that means one less Canuck voicing their podcasting opinions, however, I’ve made an awesome friend because of his blog. Cheers dude.

By way of Paul, I discovered that I’m one of the featured faces on the October 3rd episode of Rocketboom. They recapped the Podcast & Portable Media Expo by interviewing a few people, yours truly included.

So, I’ve been boomed. It’s an honour.

Technorati: podcasting, rocketboom, paul colligan, pme, Podcast Expo 2006