The Podcast is the Ad

This is the most straight-forward, up-front reason why independent podcasters have had a difficult time becoming ad-supported.

“Most periodical publications, whether they are print, audio or television, are essentially ad delivery mechanisms. Because of this, big media publishers don’t start by coming up with ideas for new magazines, radio or television shows – they start by identifying attractive groups of advertisers that need a way to connect with audiences.”

Emphasis mine.

Last year I pitched a podcast project that was all about making money and being ad-supported. While the project’s on hold for a bit, I started with talking with the people whose support I wanted.

Well, actually it was Step 2.

Step 1? A conversation about innovative ad modules within a podcast.

Putting the ‘Fish’ in AmigoFish

After 3-years of knowing what a fantastic idea it would be – I finally moved the Mac Mini into the living room and plugged it into the HDTV.

While the initial plan was to use it as a DVD player1, it piqued my interested in video podcasts 2. Not knowing where to start, I headed over to AmigoFish and loaded up a “Feed for Predictions of Video greater or equal to 1.0 stars with confidence of Wild Guess”.

Immediately, it sends me National Geographic’s Wild Chronicles, or as the little guy calls it “Wild Crocodiles”. They’re 6-minute, highly informative, segments on cool animal stories that are a blast to watch with a toddler. This afternoon, we caught a segment on re-introducing monkeys back into the wild and learning how octopuses eat. Cool stuff.

And it’s great to have something on hand when I hear, “Papa, I wanna see fish.”

1. The mini replaces a sub-$100 Philips Upconverting DVD player that I can’t say anything good about.
2. As much as I dislike iTunes for podcast management, it’s far better than Tivo.

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-11

  • @arikjones thanks for the great review of @cullect http://basemint.tumblr.com/post/23419515 #
  • Cullect.com – Read, Write, and Get Out of the Way http://tinyurl.com/2ctbve #
  • Feed Aggregation is Like Water http://tinyurl.com/23oy7u #
  • is looking at Google’s APIs and remembering why I didn’t build support for them in @cullect earlier. #
  • down to inbox 5…until I looked in my ‘respond to’ smart folder. #
  • Her: "it’s in with the kids’ stuff". Me: "kids?…..oh, right, we have 2 now." #
  • @gapingvoid – I know there’s at least 5 people here in Minnesota. 🙂 #
  • now that I’m happy w/ where @cullect is at, I’m looking for topical curators: comedy, politics, etc. The more niché the better. DM me. #
  • is giving his blog some much needed love. #

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RE: The debate about the worth of podcasting

I’ve yet to hear of success stories of sustaining a podcast with outside advertising (in contrast to using an internally produced podcast as marketing).

It doesn’t surprise me – in fact, it’d surprise me if ad-supported podcasts were repeatable. The economics just don’t make sense to me (but neither do the economics of discount retail).

I’ve got some ideas for re-energizing my podcast. These ideas were inspired by a commercial entity, but there’s no contract or CPM behind it, and I’ll be mentioning their name when I hit record.

Is it an ad?

“But let’s be clear blogging and podcasting exist independent of a professional’s ability to eek out a living using the tools of blogging and podcasting. ” – Dave Winer

Feed Aggregation is Like Water

While catching up on my feeds between diaper changes, I caught the news that NewsGator dropping the price of their client apps to $0.

According to the announcement, it’s a ubiquity play. Be everywhere, while focusing revenue-generation efforts on the server side by incorporating (and selling?) “attention” or activity data1. Congrats to them to be able to make that move.

NetNewsWire was my primary feed reader for years, but about a year ago, we stopped getting along. I wanted more than straight feed aggregation and reading.

Aggregation, like water, is everywhere – it’s easy to do. Ping a handful of feeds and present them together. Cheap, easy. It only gets interesting and valuable when there’s something more happening. Filtering, sorting, discovery, integration, sharing are just a few of the places where there’s work to be done.

And money to be made.

Again, think about all the places in your home that dispense water and the corresponding price tag.

1. Personally, I’ve yet to be sold on the usefulness of attention data in general and APML specifically. I’m looking for compelling examples of it though – if you have some, please share. Thanks.

Cullect.com – Read, Write, and Get Out of the Way

Last night, I pulled the ‘secret knock’ off cullect.com. To me, that means it’s stable and reliable enough to use as a primary feed reader and I know a few people that have left their previous reader.

“Cullect is one application that gets out of my way and lets me do what I came do, read feeds.” – Arik Jones

That’s the idea.

RE: Starbucks Might Be Helping, Not Hurting, Independent Coffee Shops

“‘Anyone who complains about having a Starbucks put in next to you is crazy. You want to welcome the manager, give them flowers. It should be the best news that any local coffeehouse ever had.'” – Martin Diedrich, coffeehouse owner in Orange County, CA.

Competition increases demand and you can succeed by outsourcing your marketing to your competition?

What a wonderful world we live in.