Podcasting – Page 4 – Garrick van Buren

Pondering a Name Change

Hi, my name is Garrick.

It’s a good name. One I’m happy with – now. As a kid, it was a frustrating name. Relatively long, unfamiliar, and without an easy nickname. Though, in the end, those attributes don’t really matter. Persistence does. Continual usage over decades made me more comfortable with my name and by extension, everyone else in the world.

Wait, not everyone else.

For there’s no way more than 30% of Americans have heard of me. Even though, I’m the “garrick” over at Google.

If I changed my name to say, “Mark”. Would more people have heard of me? Well, yes and no. More people are probably comfortable and familiar with “Mark” – and more Marks exist in the world, but they’re all different than me. So, despite more people knowing my name, fewer would actually know me. For all the people the knew me as “Garrick” would be seriously confused. So, by changing my name won’t increase the number of people that know me – but sticking with it will.

Thankfully, in chapter 6 of Freakonomics Steven and Stephen confirm a name is no indication of success, let alone popularity.

Finally a Good Gillmor Gang

Addiction Gang Part IV pulls the Gillmor Gang out of a lull and really digs into the media transition we’re going through. I too am optimistic about revenue generation models developing out of this that are far more interesting and sustainable than what we have today.

We just gotta get there. Come on folks, we got work to do.

Down and Dirty Listener-Centric Podcasts Metrics Thoughts

The article I whipped up for ID3 Magazine on a listener-to-podcaster metrics method is up; Trees Falling in the Forest: Lowering the Barriers of Connecting Podcasters and their Listeners.

In it, I use Applescript to connect iTunes to WordPress as a way for listeners to rank and send rankings of individual podcasts to the podcasters.

Podcasting is Still Underestimated.

Jim Cuene asks:

[Is podcasting the] Next shiny new object or real game changer?

It all depends on the game in question – and how long the game is (the future takes a while).

For existing ad-supported broadcast radio – yes. The game is over.

Case in point – this weekend we drove 6 hrs listening to podcasts through the car stereo. Some Croncast, some BBC Naked Scientist, some Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, some On The Media.

A year ago, we may have been lucky to listen to 2 of those programs during that drive. Today, these are the most “main stream programming” in my podcast backlog.

For the geographically-specific radio broadcaster to survive – they need to offer something the portable mp3 players can’t: Hyper-local and hyper-timely programming.

In addition, I don’t envy the marketing and customer acquisition teams for HD Radio, XM or Sirius satellite radio. Their job will only get more difficult as podcasting gets easier.

If the game is internet publishing – eh. Podcasting rounds out the capabilities. It’s now as easy to deliver audio, video, documents, and other files, as easy as it is to deliver text to a passionate, niche group of individual customers.

Now You Know I’m Listening To Your Podcast

I’m in the early stages of a couple podcast listener measurement methods. Methods that put the control in the hands of the listener – not the podcaster or a third-party – and the metrics in the hand of the podcaster, not a third-party.

I’m trying one of the methods out with a small handful of my favorite podcasts. So, if you’re one of those podcasters – you now know for sure that I’m subscribed.

Your Podcast Is Easy To Igonore

Elsewhere:

“I’m doing my best to find a show that doesn’t spend most of it’s time discussing the goods or services of a third party” – Conrad Slater

Conrad, might I suggest the First Crack podcast

“The slicker you make your show, the more it looks like a Pepsi commercial. It also gets less interesting to me…” – Dave Slusher

Forrester Confirms Podcasting Isn’t Interesting

Recently, I was asked for a list of the top 25 podcasts. Period. Like a list of top foods, another attribute is required to have any value (fruits, husband-wife chatter, technology, frozen, music, independent, sparkly).

I’ve said it before – Podcasting is more like voicemail than radio.

Forrester’s Charlene Li backs me up with two points:

Podcasting is hard to accurately measure. (Seth Godin just said, “there are important things you can’t measure”)
Podcasting existing audio is more valuable than creating something new.

I’m pretty impressed that with all the hype, the interesting things with podcasting are still happening outside the scope of the analysts and the podcast directories.

More on the podcasting-as-voicemail from Rex Hammock:

“I believe podcasting’s greatest impact will be as a personal medium for small groups — as small as two”

RSS Feeds Replacing CDs – It’s Starting

A while back I pondered RSS feeds replacing Compact Discs as the primary way to receive music from your favorite artists.

As I mentioned in that post:

“With a podcast, musicians can release whatever they’d like, whenever they’d like; demo tracks, rough tracks, experiments, final edits, interviews, conversations about the song writing process, anything their fans would enjoy. All of it delivered automatically to their biggest fans.”

So, yes, I’m excited to see Jonathan Coulton – one of my favorite artists – experiment with a Thing-a-Week Subscription. Every week I get a new song from Jonathan Coulton and he gets a $1 from me (minus Paypal transaction fees, plus lots of word-of-mouth publicity).

I hope to see more more experiments with this model.

Wanted – A Better Gillmor Gang

I’m the first to admit I frequently listen podcasts for the guest not the host – TechNation, PodTech, Larry’s World, and more recently – Gillmor Gang.

For the latter, it wasn’t the ads that bugged me, or the hub-bub around them. I’ll fast-forward past them until a new podcast-appropriate ad format is introduced.

I completely agree with Kurtiss Hare on the ad issue:

“[Steve Gillmore] continues to rehash the same point and refuses to raise the level of discourse.”

Yes, it’s great that someone with Earthlink’s reputation is sponsoring podcasts. I’ve had mixed experiences with them (yeah for mobile phone, boo for dsl). Shoehorning radio ads into podcasts won’t change that. Especially one’s I don’t hear. Remember the fast-forward button.

While I really enjoy the high-level strategic discussion of internet and business, I’m finding Steve’s fixation on specific vendors, continual hijacking of the conversation, and insistence that 30 second off-topic ads are cool – all tiresome.

Unsubscribing from the Gillmor Gang leaves a void in my listening and I’m looking for a replacement. Something with the same format – 5 people on a conference call, same topics – companies and how they’re adapting to the changing relationship between customer and vendors, and really heated discussion.

Any suggestions?

Om & Niall’s Podsession and This Week in Tech are both close, but a little too tactial

A Proposal for a TiVo, iTunes, Podcast Ad Formats

30 seconds is way too long. On the TiVo, we’re fast-forwarding through the commercials and other boring bits. We’re still watching as we fast-forward (we get the brand-impression, just more quickly and without sound).

Same with podcasts. As I’ve mentioned earlier, we’re not skipping the ads, just getting through them more quickly. I know one of the podcasts I listen to is sponsored by Earthlink. The host mentions it the moment before I start fast-forwarding. I don’t need to hear Earthlink themselves waste my time – the host already told me everything I need to know. Using 3 words – “sponsored by Earthlink”.

Likewise, television advertisers need to embraces the fast-forward and create media entertaining at both speeds. Something akin to the Levi’s ads from the 80s – a big logo taking up most of the screen surrounded by entertaining animations. This would scale to smaller video devices like the iPod, PSP, and Archos while giving TiVo viewers a reason to replay.