Podcasting Growth by Subscribers

Post ImageBlogging is a pretty open, flexible medium and each blog varies greatly from the next, but if there’s one thing that holds true (usually) it’s that some of the best insights are found in the comments. I was reminded of this today when reading Frank Barnako’s post about the latest podcasting stats from FeedBurner:

Rick Klau, vice president, business development, said that at the beginning of the year Feedburner had 1 million subscriptions to podcasts it helped deliver. That number has now grown to 5 million subscribers for 71,000 podcasts. For you math fans, that means the average podcast has … ta da!!! … 70 subscribers.

That stat is interesting all by itself, but when Rick Klau himself dropped by and left a comment, it became really interesting. Here’s what Rick had to say:

I hadn’t realized it (I never do the average thing – must be my life-long aversion to math), but now that you point it out: this average number has doubled in just the last six months.

Indeed it’s right in the headline for the previous article that Rick linked to, in April of this year FeedBurner said the average podcast had 35 subscribers.

I think this is an important statistic to keep track of. Usually when trying to measure the growth of podcasting, you might look to the number of podcasts or the number of episodes created in a given period of time. But just as important is the number of people listening to or watching those podcasts and episodes.

That said, the rate of new podcasts appears to be increasing as well. In the April article, FeedBurner was adding an average of 2278 new podcasts each month (based on the numbers provided). That number has since risen to 4000. Not bad at all!

Read: Frank Barnako

MasterMaq's Podcast: The Sickness Episode

Post ImageI wouldn’t call it “episode 1” or anything, but here’s a quick little episode I recorded tonight for my podcast, powered of course by Podcast Spot. Basically I talk a little about the cold I picked up at the Expo, the drug I am using to get rid of it (Cold-FX), the outbreak at Lister Hall on the UofA campus, and my favorite, Purell.

Downloads, show notes, and much more can be found on the episode page.

For those of you interested in such things, I used the following to record this episode: Samson C03 microphone, Behringer Eurorack UB802 (connected to Audigy sound card), and Adobe Audition.

Read: The Sickness Episode

Samson H4 Handy Recorder

Post ImageWhile at the Portable Media Expo this past weekend, we head the pleasure of being neighbours with the guys from Samson. They make audio equipment, if you’ve never heard of them. In fact, my best microphone is a Samson C03 (they have a USB version now…mine is the original XLR). This weekend they were showing off their latest gadget, the H4 Handy Recorder:

The Zoom H4 Handy Digital Recorder fits in your palm and is ideal for recording live musical performances, interviews, podcasts, meetings, classes and seminars. The H4 allows you to record 24-bit/96 kHz digital audio as well as in MP3 format with bitrates up to 320kbps.

I really wish I had one of these things back when I was doing BlogosphereRadio. Would have made life so much easier. Some of the features include:

  • Two studio quality X/Y pattern condenser microphones for true stereo recording
  • Two combination XLR-1/4-inch input jacks with phantom power
  • Four hours of continuous recording operation from 2 AA batteries
  • 128MB Secure Digital (SD) card included.

And there’s a bunch more too. The combination input jacks are a great idea. When I saw them, I was like “why didn’t anyone else think of that!”

Maybe I don’t want a Zune for Christmas after all?

Read: Samson H4

2006 Portable Media Expo Recap

Now that I am back in Edmonton and feeling a little better, time for a bit of a recap. Dickson has posted his closing thoughts on the expo as well. It’s hard to compare last year’s event with this year’s. In some ways, there seemed to be more people this year, such as on Friday, but Saturday told a different story. One thing is for sure – there were far less “I’ve never heard of podcasting” people in attendance this year.

  • I have to agree with Dickson, the weather in Ontario was really hot. It mattered less on Saturday when I had a bad case of the chills, but still.
  • I am amazed that I met people who were happy to “do it on their own” when it came to podcast hosting. Perhaps this is because podcasting is so new? Heck, I don’t even host my own photo gallery anymore. Why not? Because Flickr does it better than I ever could. I offload all the work to them. That’s what we are trying to do with Podcast Spot too. You as the podcaster can focus on creating great content, because we take care of the rest.
  • Speaking of pictures, you can see the ones I took here.
  • I think we’re going to have to do something more interesting with the booth next year. Our “low-key, low-information-on-the-wall” style worked to an extent, but I think we can do better.
  • We need to do a better job explaining how we charge. We charge based on upload, which is the amount of stuff you send to our servers in any given month. This is in contrast to charging by storage, which is the amount of stuff you have put on the servers since you became a customer. If we charged by storage, you’d eventually hit a limit, after which you wouldn’t be able to add anything new without first removing something old. Fortunately for you, we charge by upload so you never run out of space!
  • I just re-read that, and perhaps it still isn’t clear. I’ll record something soon that should explain it a little better. Visuals always help!
  • Generally speaking, I have the feeling that the Expo is missing something that would take it to the next level. What that something is, I don’t know. I do have a small wish-list though: wireless Internet throughout the convention center, expanded awards (say a “best podcast hosting service”), and more free food/drinks!

Thanks to Tim and the rest of the team at TNC New Media for another great Expo! I’m looking forward to next year already 🙂

Back in Edmonton

Hey we’re back. Actually we got back around 2 PM today, and I’ve been resting pretty much ever since. Trying to shake this damn sickness.

I would like to do an Expo wrap-up post, but I am going back to sleep so in the meantime, here’s an interview I did with the Seattle Podcasting Network for you to enjoy!

Day 3 Notes

Today was the last day of the Expo, and it went very well for us. Well except that I seem to be sick (bad head cold). Anyway, I’d say the Expo was a success for us!

  • I should probably go to sleep, our flight leaves bright and early tomorrow morning.
  • We did three or four interviews today, but I haven’t found any of them online yet. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth!
  • My bag is full of notepads, so don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around. We have around fifty I’d say, which means over 900 were given out at the conference. They must have worked, because people came up all the time and said “hey the notepad people! what do you do?”

We’ll back in the afternoon.

Day 2 Notes

Today was the first official day of the Expo, and it was definitely intense. And by that I mean, much busier than last year in terms of foot traffic. The trade show floor was open from 10 AM until 5 PM, but by the end of it, Dickson and I were pretty drained.

  • Today was excellent for spreading the word about Podcast Spot. Dickson even managed to snag an interview! The portion with Dickson starts at 19:35 and runs for almost exactly 8 minutes.
  • I really like that the Denny’s here is more diner-like than the ones back home. I don’t like that their iced tea is actually tea on ice. I prefer the fake sweetened stuff 🙂
  • If you came by the booth and we told you that the upload limits on the cards was wrong, I apologize again, it was actually correct. We must have been tired this morning when we looked at it, but when we finally got Internet to check the website, we realized there were in fact no printing errors!
  • We managed to get some more notepads today, so we’ll be bringing some home for those of you that have requested one!
  • I have some photos and video and stuff to upload, but the Internet connection is just too painfully slow, so I am gonna wait until we’re back on Sunday.
  • The guys organizing the Expo have been great, except for “the power incident” today. We didn’t need to power anything at our booth, but all booths have a lamp at the top for the banner, and we were going to turn it on. Thing is, they wanted to charge us $90 to power the damn lamp. So I said screw that. Highway robbery.

We’ll be at the Expo all day again tomorrow, so stop by and say hello if you’re in the Ontario, CA area!

Day 1 Notes

Just a few notes from our first full day here in Ontario:

  • The season premiere of Smallville was tonight, and it was damn good. We made sure to be back to the hotel in time to watch.
  • It was hot today, but it sure cooled down this evening (not that I am complaining).
  • Was nice to see some familiar faces tonight at the exhibitor/speaker/press event at the convention center.
  • Turns out the “Starbucks” in the lobby of the hotel isn’t a full-blown Starbucks, but rather, proudly brews Starbucks coffee. Still, not bad.
  • I absolutely hate paying $10 per day for ultra slow Internet. It aggravates me to no end. At least we were prepared enough to bring our own wireless router.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Expo – should be good!

Portable Media Expo Setup

Dickson and I are just killing time here in the nicely air conditioned hotel until 5:30 when there is an event for exhibitors and the press. I mention the air conditioning because it’s a scorching 94 degrees here today, or for everyone back home in Canada, 34 degrees celsius. Edmonton had just started to get some nice weather again before we left, but it was still only about 15 degrees!

We finished setting up our booth in about ten minutes. Like last year, we opted not to do anything fancy, though unlike last year we have a banner this time. You can see what I mean in the pictures. We also decided to sponsor the conference notepads this year, and I am really happy with the way they turned out.

More later!

The Start of a Great Trip

I think this is going to be a great trip! For the first time in recent memory, Dickson and I were not scrambling to finish anything the night before leaving town. That was kind of nice for a change, we’ll have to do it more often! Today didn’t start out so great though. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, cleared customs without any problems (minus Dickson getting manhandled in the security check by an over-eager young man) and then sat down to wait for the flight. Thing is, our flight was over 20 minutes late. And with a 45 minute window to catch our connecting flight in Salt Lake City, that was somewhat distressing.

Turns out we made it just in time to make the flight, but the lady at the counter informed us they had overbooked as they didn’t think we’d make it. So we volunteered to wait for the later flight (only 2 hours later) and in return we got meal vouchers and a $200 credit with the airline (Delta). It was a pretty sweet deal! And such a difference from last year, when we missed our flight and had to pay a lot more to get to Ontario. Another nice side benefit was that our bags arrived ahead of us, so we didn’t have to wait for them to get off the plane – they were waiting for us.

We’re now in the hotel in Ontario – the DoubleTree, which is very nice by the way. They gave us a fresh chocolate chip cookie each upon checking in, and we passed a Starbucks on our way to the room. See what I mean about being a good start?

We just noticed that Podcasting News has an item on Podcast Spot too. I’m really excited for the Expo to start now!