How to Build a Business from Podcasting

“I spent the better part of last year trying to envision a business built on podcasting, and didn’t come up with anything that I believed in.” – Dave Winer

Like Dave and so many others, I’ve done the same thing and ended up with the same conclusion. Recently on the PodcastMN mailing list the conversation of making money from podcasting came up. Though there’s a big difference between making money and building a business, these are the half dozen off-the-top-of-my-head strategies that make sense to me.

  1. Build better tools and sell them – making podcasting easier.
    This is what software companies like Rogue Amoeba, Odeo, and AudioBlog.com are doing.
  2. Sell implementation of the free, open source tools you build.
    Take a look at the BetDirCaster, it ties together a bunch of open source tools, you can download it and install it yourself for free or you can pay Working Pathways (or your geeky nephew) to do it.
  3. Sell training helping people become podcasters.
    These are classes, tutorials, and other one-on-one interactions helping people use the tools they’re most comfortable with to publish a podcast. This is what we did with MOMbo.org
  4. Sell production services to companies with more money than time.
    Think professional services podcasts – I’m also a big fan of this one. Anyone that’s been podcasting for more than 9 months is an expert enough to produce other podcasts.
  5. Sell filtering services
    Help people find the most relevant podcasts for them. This is huge and yet unanswered. I’ve talked about this before in A Business Model for Abundance. I’ve heard of a couple projects in the works that acknowledge this problem, but I haven’t seen anything that addresses it in a useful way.
  6. Sell other stuff through your show like the CDs from the bands on your podcast where a couple bucks goes to your podcast.
    I’ve praised Dave Slusher for going down this road, also Kris Smith is now offering the Best of the Croncast CD & DVD. I expect more of this.

As you can tell from this list, I prefer the ‘because of…not with’ models, as in “it’s far more important (and interesting) to make money because of our blogs, rather than with them” – Doc Searls.

Advertising might work as product placement, on a one-off basis. Ad networks won’t work for two reasons:

  1. The larger the network, the more generic the ad message, the more inappropriate the ad message
  2. Any commonality across a podcast can be skipped or re-edited programmatically. If listeners know an ad message will last 10 seconds at the beginning of a podcast, a script could be written to splice out that bit upon download. Though, you could probably charge for that splicing app.

Charging to access mp3 podcasts will work once. Customer #1 will buy them, then redistribute them for free. Anything other than an mp3 (m4p, mov, etc) artificially limits reception. And if you want to limit when and where people listen to a podcast – just stream it.

IBM Employee Podcasting Guidelines

In an age when every employee and customer is a few mouse clicks from their own weblog and podcast and Forbes is spreading blog FUD it’s refreshing to see Big Blue is not only publishing podcasts, but encouraging their employees to do the same.

As a nearly hundred year-old company that no one ever got fired for choosing, you might anticipate a hundred page document signed off by every lawyer this side of the Mississippi. Nope. Just seven very reasonable, sensible points in the IBM podcasting guidelines.

I agree with 6.5 of them.

I only half agree with high audio quality. As you’ve heard me say before – if we as people were concerned with high audio quality, telephones wouldn’t exist. That said, higher quality audio quality is easier to listen to over the wind noise in my car. There is a different expected level of quality with the IBM-brand than say, MOMbo.org. IBM is admitting that.

Kudos to IBM for leading the charge for sane employee guidelines.

Amazing Race 8 – Episode 7

Looks like the Detour is painting wheels or hauling bamboo (needless to say, I’m not paying as close attention as other weeks). Loading bamboo seems much less tedious than painting wooden wheels.

We’ve watched enough Amazing Race to know the game is won and lost at the airport – finding the right seat on the right flight. As we saw tonight the earliest departing flight doesn’t always arrive first. My favorites – the Lintz Family – caught a flight arriving in Phoenix at 9:35. Everyone else, found a different flight leaving later, but arriving 15 minutes earlier.

Now if you’ve flown at all – you know 15 minutes doesn’t really matter- especially when you have an unfriendly, sour puss attitude towards the people between you and a million dollars. In the Amazing Race, 15 minutes is lost searching for your marked car in the parking lot.

Jen’s taking the 50 laps in the SuperCart.

If you’ve watched enough Amazing Race, you notice how the teams develop cute, patronizing nicknames for each other – like; “ChaChaCha”, “Team Smiley”, and oddly in this season – “Desperate Housewives”. Since the team was in the lead on this leg, that phrase must have been stated a dozen times this episode.

Yes, it’s cool that iTunes is offering next-day downloads of the hit ABC series. It’s even more interesting that CBS is doing free advertising for them on their hit series.

Wow, a 2-hour episode, I really didn’t expect that. Um, just dawned on me – the ‘pause-live-tv’ of Tivo was made for parents. I’m sure all of you already knew that.

360 in a combat fighter plane? I’ve got this one. I need to see how useful my hours of Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Training were.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

  • Lintz – #2

Tuesday’s Triple Play – The Robots We Love and Hate

Sony’s dog is just the first step in machines taking over – via our hearts. This week’s triple play is dedicated the androids so near to us me must destroy them.

  1. “Small Wonder” from the Vandals’ Fear of a Punk Planet
  2. “Todd the T1000” from Jonathan Coulton’s Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms
  3. “My Girlfriend’s a Robot” from the Hanson Brothers’ Gross Misconduct

Power of Podcasting #4 – Thats a Scion – Maybe Kris is in Town

As you know, I’m a big fan of Kris and Betsy’s Croncast. A while back, Kris bought a Scion xB. In a recent episode, Betsy commented how the car fits Kris. How it’s the right car for him and who he is. It’s still a unique enough vehicle round these parts that I notice each one. Every time I see one, I think of Kris. So, yes, Betsy, I agree.

Moose and Sadies Almost Best Coffee Shop in Warehouse District

A couple years back I spent a good chunk of time in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District. Aside from convenience (it’s right between downtown and NE) it’s got a nice comfortable, creative vibe to it. Unfortunately, there’s not a hands down winner for a good cup of coffee.

If you prefer coffee mixed with single speed bikes – the Go Coffee inside the 1 on 1 bike studio has free wifi, great service, great people, and decent espresso.

If you’re looking for a quieter place with plush seats and perhaps a glass of wine instead of their on average coffee, then walk across the street to Marysburg Books.

Then, a block north, there’s Moose and Sadies. My memories of it are dark, cave of a place emanating 50 years of cigarette smoke and stale pastries. When I needed a hit of second-hand smoke, I’d pop in there.

Not anymore.

They’ve completely remodeled the place. Today, it’s bright, sunny, place that’s easy to move around, with a good looking breakfast menu. I was stunned. Impressed. Amazed at the transformation. The coffee even tastes better. Still not free wifi though.

UPDATE 28 Friday 2006:
There’s a Dunn Bros in that neighborhood now – 228 Washington Ave North specifically. So, the race for best coffee shop is fully on.

Who Listens If Everyones Podcasting?

Local NBC affiliate KARE11 came by this morning to talk podcasting and we continued the ‘who’s the audience when everyone publishes?’ conversation.

I don’t think this is a question about too much stuff to pay attention to, it’s a question about ownership of the publication process.

Traditionally, recording companies, television stations, newspaper publishers had an iron grip on the voices that were published. Their whims determined which perspectives received airtime and column inches. They kept the amount of information published down to what their capacity could support – an no more. They were gatekeepers not filters.

I’d much rather have the problem of too much to choose from than gatekeepers preventing things from being published.