Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Podcasting is NOT Dead

poddead
I just need to rant for a second... I am sick and tired of people claiming that podcasting is dead. The truth is that it is far from it. While the names and flavors may change, podcasting is alive and well. Here’s what I have spent the past week doing.

I spoke in New York City for 3 days at the
. I was joined by great podcasters like
of
,
and
from
, and
from
. We had healthy crowds with great questions. There were also big companies there, like TiVo and HP, as well as representation from several universities. I also had some great meetings with Apple and
... two great companies with cool things coming.

While I was gone, my crew was helping Community Health Charities create a series of podcasts to help raise awareness about health issues in the workplace. We had participation of major non-profit groups like the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and the American Cancer Society. The non-profit world is abuzz about podcasting.

I then returned for an open house at
, my company. We invited people from the Washington, DC community for free seminars. Our podcasting seminar was standing room only with nearly 40 people in the room. Nearly all those people stayed to learn creative approaches for creating web video as well. Some of you will think 40 people is small... we only invited 100 people to the event... 40% came just to this one seminar.

I then gave up a few hours this weekend to join Paul Vogelzang and we spoke together and
. The room was packed with educators, communications professionals, and non-profit agencies. I met people wanting to inspire students and reach out to others for education and political action.

Speaking of political action... I’m pretty pleased that we have a new president who “gets” podcasting. This is especially good since I live in DC and work for a company that is an authorized GSA vendor to give the government podcasting services.

What the “get-rich-quick” people seem to forget is that technology takes time. For example,
. It was invented in 1997. That took 13 years! Podcasting is already a part of 18% of Americans life... we are right on track and continuing to grow fast. The key to success, matching content, to an audience, with consistent releases and good quality.

It looks like we will have secured sponsorship for four of the seven shows we produce by year’s end. I’ve also been fortunate to help great companies like
and
expand their reach with quality content. Our
is selling well and the
is about to add its 150th member.

Lets just say I’m looking forward to the new year.
If you need a little ammunition for your defense of podcasting, download and
.... then pass it on.



Sunday, September 21, 2008

More Than One Billion Users Will View Online Video in 2013

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Recently came across a new article about the growth in online video viewership. Be sure to check out what
has to say...

“Sparked by increasing broadband penetration and rising connection speeds available to a growing percentage of the world’s population, over-the-top video has seen phenomenal growth in very recent years. A new study from ABI Research forecasts the number of viewers who access video via the Web to nearly quadruple in the next few years, reaching at least one billion in 2013.

 

“The rapid expansion of broadband video creates opportunities across a number of market sectors,” comments senior analyst Cesar Bachelet. “A wide variety of actors aim to gain a share of this fast-growing market: not only content owners such as the BBC and NBC Universal, and Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo!, but also a range of new entrants including user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, broadband video sites such as CinemaNow and Lovefilm, and Internet TV providers such as Apple and Zattoo.”

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Podcast Advertising Shown to Be Highly Effective

Study results released this spring found that podcast advertising is three times more effective than online video advertising and seven times more effective than television, when measured in terms of unaided ad awareness 52 online shows and podcasts participated in the four campaigns studied and 6,869 audience members participated in the research.

Ad formats consisted of: embedded :15 and :30 host-read audio and video ads, embedded :10 and :15 produced video ads, ad banners on publisher websites, and social networking in the form of publisher blog entries about advertised brands and related topics. Podtrac developed the advertising effectiveness methodology in conjunction with TNS.

The study showed embedded advertising in online shows and podcasts to be highly effective for increasing brand awareness, usage intent and positively impacting brand perceptions across four diverse product categories: television programming, automobiles, financial service, and digital imaging. Results included:

• Average unaided ad recall of 68%
• Average aided ad recall of 89%
• 73% average increase in likelihood to use/buy vs control group
• 69% having a more favorable view of advertiser due to ad exposure

“The unaided awareness level of 68% is considerably higher in podcasts and online shows than in other offline and online media,” said Mark McCrery, Podtrac’s CEO and Co-Founder. “Narrowly targeted audiences, appropriate ad formats, content relevance, and show host involvement are some of the factors which come together to produce highly effective ads in online shows and podcasts.”

“The data also suggest audiences are paying close attention to show content and the embedded ads within them which greatly increased ad effectiveness in the studies,” said Doug Keith, former Vice President of the Media & Entertainment Group at TNS and currently President of Future Research Consulting. “The high unaided ad recall figures are no doubt the results of a less cluttered environment.”

“Online shows and podcasts have loyal audiences who pay attention to advertisers who support the shows they regularly listen to or watch,” said Velvet Beard, Podtrac’s Vice President of Products. “The studies showed a 73% increase in likelihood to use or buy an advertised product which is an indication of successful targeting, the unique relationship audience members have with the hosts of today’s online shows, and their ability to quickly move audiences from awareness to consideration to purchase. The studies showed that 69% of audience members have a more favorable view of in-show advertisers, which means a tremendous amount of goodwill goes to advertisers of online shows when show selection is intentional and advertising and ad formats are integrated into show formats.”

The 52 podcasts and online shows studied as part of the research include: This Week in Tech, MacBreak Weekly, net@night, and Daily Giz Wiz all with TWiT.tv’s Leo Laporte; MacBreak, MacBreak Tech and This Week in Media with PixelCorp.tv’s Alex Lindsey; Geek News Central with Todd Cochran;SDR News with Andy McCaskey; Feast of Fools; Filmspotting; and FlashTV.

Podcast Audience is Growing Steadily

The Pew Internet & American Life Project conducts surveys about podcast and other online media usage.  According to Pew Researchers, the number of women and the number of people over age 65 who have downloaded podcasts has doubled over the past two years, and 19% of Americans have downloaded a podcast, compared with 12% in 2006.

The podcast audience continues to be educated and tech-savvy, with a wide range of incomes and ages.  

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Microsoft Zune

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington speaks to Microsoft Zune podcasting guru Rob Greenlee at the 2008 New Media Expo.





Monday, June 23, 2008

Advertisers Begin To Target Podcasts

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A great article about podcasters and advertisers....
I’ve often scratched my head how I can gather 2 million people each month... but advertisrs still go with magazines that deliver less than 25% of that. This article from Investor’s Business Daily is an important read. It also features a colleague of mine... Scott Bourne.

Lend Me Your Ears: Advertisers Begin To Target Podcasts

Podcast audiences have branched out far beyond just geeks. And advertisers are starting to like them, too.
After having placed ads with Web sites and search engines, more advertisers are starting to spread their ad dollars to audio and video podcasts in an attempt to reach certain consumers.





Saturday, May 17, 2008

Episodic Viewing of Podcasts

Deeje Cooley from Adobe shares some interesting thoughts about episodic viewing of podcasts. Don't miss this
on what's possible with the new Adobe Media Player.

“There is a better way. More and more,
feeds, which allows for a completely "on-demand" experience. What's more,
the coolest feature
of
, called "Storyline Subscriptions", takes advantage of the reverse chronological order inherent in RSS to deliver every episode of a show, in order, from the beginning, at a pace determined by each individual viewer.

Adobe Media PlayerScreenSnapz001


Most video RSS aggregators will pull the most recent episodes of a show, which is great for news and magazine-style shows. But for story-based shows, viewers really want to start from the beginning, in order to follow the story arcs and character developments. When you subscribe to a show in Adobe Media Player, you can choose to either pull the N most recent episodes, or choose to pull N episodes starting with a specific episode, usually the first one. And of course you can change these settings, on a per-show basis, at any time.”
Be sure to

Friday, May 16, 2008

Near NYC? Check Out Rocketboom.

vlog
If you're near New York City, you might want to
featuring
of
.

When: Thursday, May 29, 7:00 PM

Meeting Description: We'd like to welcome Andrew Baron as this month's speaker. Andrew is best know for the hit videoblog Rocketboom. Andrew will talk about the current state of the industry; Where is the ad market at? Where is traditional media at in moving online? What options are avail to startups? What happened to Podshow and Podtec? What's wrong with Revision3 and Next New Networks?

Andrew Michael Baron is the creator and founder of the popular daily videoblog, Rocketboom. He is also the lead writer and producer of the show which has garnered international notoriety.

In Austin during the 1990s, Baron played in bands, ran a visual and performing art gallery and worked a variety of tech jobs. After receiving a BA in Philosophy from Bates College (Maine), Baron graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Design and Technology in 2003 from Parson in New York City. He was teaching graduate classes at Parsons and MIT when the notion of Rocketboom came to him. Although he has little interest in television (and did not own a TV set during the past decade), Baron has always been inspired by the implications of the democratization of media.


Tuesday, May 6, 2008

NIN – The Times are Changing

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One of the first bands I fell in love with during college was Nine Inch Nails (actually back then, it wasn't a band). The seminal record,
was a mash-up of Prince Samples and Orchestral Scores from Stephen King and Clive Barker films (along with many other sounds). Since then Trent Reznor has continued to evolve/

Yesreday they‘ve releases The Slip—a new 10-track album—for free on
The record is available in virtually every flavor of DRM-free digital format, all you need to do is give them your email address. The album will eventually be available in traditional formats as well. This move mirrors those of both
and
.

Available in several DRM-free formats, the record will be released on CD and vinyl in July.

"Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years," Reznor wrote. "This one's on me."

There's a great article over at
that goes deeper into the whys... what I think is amazing is where the industry seems to be going. Here's an artist who's always been pushing limits (including abandonning his record label recently). This record, along with his last
were released under Creative Commons (in fact much of Ghosts is also free).

Taking it a step further, Reznor offers many of his tracks for remix at
). So here's a guy who not only tries new things, but wants his fans to remix his records and have fun. In fact you can share your remix and listen to others off his site. I think its interesting that there's a financial model here thats all about creating a relationship with the fan base.

Bottom line... check this out... the future is at hand.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Does the World Need Another Media Player?

layers_logo
The fine folks over at Layers Magazine have published the article:
This time its had the benefit of being scrubbed by an editor (not just spell-checker). You can read it here:
.

A few folks have commented on the length of the article... here’s the Spark Notes version:
  • Flash Video is getting really popular
  • The Adobe Media Player will be easier for corporations, schools, and government to use due to Adobe's greater acceptance over Apple (and especially iTunes).
  • The media player supports several models that are attractive to content creators
  • The media player supports very rich statistics on media consumption
  • The application is going to move onto all sorts of devices and platforms in the near future.
  • If you are a podcaster... I predict the Adobe Media Player will have as great of an impact as iTunes did on podcast consumption.




Sunday, April 27, 2008

Interesting Video to Explain Podcasting


Thursday, April 24, 2008

Adobe Demos Future Technology at NAB

Adobe has actually posted their "secret" presentation from NAB. Hart Shafer talks about four cool things Adobe has up their sleeve.



You
SO
need to watch this... trust me. BTW (for those of you waiting... they did show
for Mac in this demo).


Wednesday, April 23, 2008

School of Podcasting Interview about Video Podcasting

SOP
Thanks to the
for having us on the show. I had a chance to catch up and talk with the host about what folks need to think about when moving into the world of video podcasting. The interview also features my co-author (and business partner) Mark Weiser.

You can get the interview for free right here (
) and you should also check out their other shows which offer great perspective.

-Rich Harrington

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Time to Comment on Advertising and Measurement Standards

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The Association for Downloadable Media just unveiled Advertisement Unit Standards and Download Measurement Guidelines. They'd like public comments on both. They encourage public comments in order to refine and enhance the documentation. The public comment period will end on May 16, 2008. You can download and comment on the draft standards for advertising and measurement
The open comment period will conclude May 16, 2008.


Thursday, March 20, 2008

New Book on Video Podcasting is Out

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Our new book called Producing Video Podcasts is shipping. We're really happy with how its turned out. It's a comprehensive title that explores all aspects of producing video podcasts (as well as web video).

If you are a budding podcaster or a multimedia professional I strongly encourage you to check out the book. Here are several links to give you a good idea of what its all about.

The Book:



Saturday, March 15, 2008

21 Years of Apple Evolution

Picture 2
When I look at what Apple has accomplished its been an interesting journey. The company has released a ton of great products (and also a few clunkers). I have found a
that lets you see much of the product line laid out chronologically. After all, you can't get to the great Mighty Mouse without first passing the "hockey puck."

It really is pretty interesting to
. Be sure to click on the graphic so you can zoom in and view.

Monday, March 10, 2008

What's Your Angle?

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While it may seem a little cliché, another way to refine your show’s concept is to ask the standard Who, What, Where, When, and Why questions.

Who –
Who is going to watch the show? Who is going to host the show?

What –
What topics will the show cover? What genre or format will it use?

Where –
Where will the show be recorded? A studio? On location?

When –
When will the show come out? Weekly? Monthly?

Why –
Why would a viewer subscribe to the show? Why would they come back for another episode?

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Open Television Network Launches

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Podcasters looking to monetize their content have a new option called the Open Television Network, powered by klickTab. The site has been under development for a long time and has now launched.

“klickTab is a unique service that lets you create single item, or channel feeds (aka podcasts) where there is a charge per item downloaded.

As a content owner, you create an account for yourself at
.  You can check out the process through the screencasts on that page, along with some resources on encoding, hosting and protecting content.

Once you have created an content owner merchant account, you then create the feeds (podcasts) and add items to those feeds. We provide you with an embed code that has the klickTab graphic and all necessary code behind it so that a viewer customer can click on the link, enter their email address and password and download the link to iTunes or Miro. In iTunes or Miro they can browse the previews (trailers) you provide, buy content items, manage them, view and/or synchronize to an iPod or stream to an Apple TV.”

You can find more details on their
and in this
.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

New Podcast Advertising and Traffic Standards to Be Announced

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Mashable.com, the Social Networking News site reports that “the Association for Downloadable Media
for when they plan to release their long awaited Advertising and Sponsorship Standard and Guidelines for Traffic Measurement - April 16th. The announcement will be made during the
.”

to read the full article.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Podcasts Reach A Desirable Market Segment

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New media marketing is all about engagement, and nothing engages customers and constituents like blogs, social networks, and podcasts.


Arbriton assesses that 13% of all Americans have listened to an audio podcast, not counting the millions who have tuned in to “You Tube.” This desirable market segment is well-educated and affluent, listens to news and public affairs shows, and shops online.

Gender-wise, podcast audiences are almost evenly distributed between men and women. About half of all podcast enthusiasts are 35 or older, while the other half of podcast listeners and viewers are between the ages of 12 and 34.

You can review the Arbitron Report on Podcasting (2007) at