Tag: podcast

My Return to Podcasting: Mack & Cheese

Today I am excited to introduce a new project called Mack & Cheese. It’s a podcast that I’m doing with Graham Hicks, who I’m sure you know from his newspaper days. He’s the “cheese” in our duo, but is it because he’s cheesy or is it because he’s the big cheese? You decide!

His five-times-a-week town-crier style column “Hicks on Six” in the Edmonton Sun and the Edmonton Sun online, was considered Edmonton’s best-read newspaper column.

I approached Graham in the fall with the idea for the podcast and was thrilled when he said he wanted to take part. You can check out the first episode here. We both love talking about current affairs in Edmonton so that’s what you can look forward to on future episodes, though in our intro episode we talk entirely too much about ourselves.

Podcasting in 2004
Me podcasting way back in 2004

For me, this is a return to podcasting. I started podcasting in September 2004 actually. To give you some context, that was just a few months after Facebook initially launched and nearly two years before Twitter existed. My friends and I liked the idea of doing our own radio show, and podcasting gave us a way to do that. We created a site called BlogosphereRadio which was a series of shows that discussed various aspects of blogging. While some of our shows probably sounded like they were created just for our group of friends, some shows attempted to be more professional-sounding. We covered the first ever blog auctions for instance, and we recorded sessions for the Northern Voice conference a couple of years. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of work!

Podcasting in 2004
My usual setup back in the day

So much work as a matter of fact, that I decided I could build some software to make it easier. That led to Podcast Spot, a hosting service that my business partner Dickson and I launched in September 2006 (you check out some of our features here). We had limited success with the effort, and ultimately decided to shut it down in October 2008. Podcasting had lost some of its lustre by that time, and we felt our service had come to a fork in the road. That was kind of the end of my podcasting career, if you could call it that! I look back now and am pretty happy with what we were able to accomplish (we even built some cool things like a real podcasting robot, pictured below). We were ahead of the curve in some areas, but were inexperienced and up against some stiff competition. I learned an incredible amount through the whole experience.

Finished Side View
The Podbot, which we controlled wirelessly!

While I stopped podcasting and put my effort into other projects, I never did lose my interest in it. I still think podcasting is a particularly interesting method of communication, even if it’s not as “big” as we hoped it would become. Some things are best discussed in a blog post, but I think there are plenty of things that podcasting is appropriate for. I’m looking forward to exploring that further with Mack & Cheese.

Here in Edmonton, there are now some really great podcasts to choose from. I have been completely inspired by what Adam and Scott have done with The Unknown Studio (and we use their studio for our recording…thanks guys!). If you aren’t already a regular listener, you should be! There’s also UserCreatedContent, Jay n’ J, Prairie Belles, and Product People that you should check out.

I think there’s a place for what Graham and I want to do, and I hope that some of you find it interesting enough to listen to. If you do take a listen and have some feedback, I’d love to hear it!

Patent for podcasting? Seriously?

A company you’ve probably never heard of before announced today that it has been awarded a patent on podcasting. VoloMedia was awarded U.S. Patent 7,568,213  titled "Method for Providing Episodic Media" yesterday. I think the fact that VoloMedia’s Murgesh Navar posted an entry defending the patent before anyone even knew about it underscores just how silly it is.

Here’s what Dave Winer wrote today in response:

I’m certainly not a lawyer or an expert in patent law, but it seems the work Adam Curry and I did in creating the format and protocol for podcasting, in 2001, may have inspired their "invention." It certainly predates it.

Honestly it boggles my mind how software patents are awarded. First of all, VoloMedia applied for the patent in November 2003. Why did it take nearly six years for it to be decided? It’s a cliche, but that’s an eternity on the Internet. Second of all, how could the patent office not discover prior art within those six years? It’s just ridiculous.

According to NewTeeVee, VoloMedia is in talks with Apple and TV networks, among others, “about growing the business and market.” Seriously? I hope VoloMedia fails fast. I really dislike companies that exist solely to sue other companies for violating patents they should never have been awarded in the first place. That’s exactly what VoloMedia is becoming.

For more, check out Ars Technica. Here’s to hoping that VoloMedia’s patent is invalidated.

Ups and Downs for Podcast Hosting in 2008

podcasting Back in October, Dickson and I announced that we were shutting down our hosting service Podcast Spot. At the end of November, we disabled uploading and are now in the final transition phase for downloads and RSS feeds. In February 2009, the site will be taken offline completely.

We’re not the only podcast hosting service that shutdown in 2008 – at least two other services also called it quits recently:

The most visible of these services was Podango, so news of its demise created some discussion over the holidays. From Podcasting News:

While Smith attributes Podango’s state to the effects of the financial market, Podango and other podcast hosting services have not demonstrated that there’s much of a need for podcast-specific Web hosting services.

Podcango’s situation raises the question: Is there a real need for podcast-specific hosting services?

It’s a good question, and one I have thought about quite a bit in the latter half of 2008. For the vast majority of people, YouTube, Flickr, and similar tools are good enough. If they want to share some audio or (more likely) video, these services make it easy to do so. Increasingly, video cameras come with built-in support for YouTube, so the user doesn’t really have to do anything but record. This was the curve we attempted to get ahead of with Podcast Spot.

For a smaller number of people, something more advanced is required. Maybe they want to sell advertising, or have more control over production quality, or gain access to better statistics. I think this group can be split into two – the DIY crowd, and the use-a-hosting-service crowd. So yes, there is a need for podcast-specific hosting services, but perhaps the market is a lot smaller than everyone thought.

It wasn’t all bad news for podcast hosting in 2008 though. Some familiar services still appear to be going strong: Libsyn, Podbean, and Podkive to name just a few. Back in July, RawVoice announced they were entering the market with Blubrry. In August, Wizzard Software announced increased revenues and decreased expenses and losses. And on October 21st, Blip.tv announced they had raised another round of investment.

I’d expect 2009 to be similar – a mix of ups and downs for podcast hosting services.

It’s important to realize that we’re talking about podcast hosting here. I don’t think the demise of Podango or any other service should be taken to mean that podcasting itself is in trouble. As Paul Colligan said:

Podango’s problems say as little about the future of Podcasting as GM’s problems say about the future of cars.

Podcasting is all about communication, and the need for that hasn’t gone away. Podcasting itself is doing just fine.

Yahoo! Podcasts is dead

Post ImageI’ve seen a few blog posts on this now, and I wanted to add my own thoughts. Some time in the last couple days Yahoo added a message to the top of their forever-in-beta podcast directory site that reads “Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007.” Not really a surprise as far as I’m concerned. Most people in the podcasting community would be able to tell you that Yahoo has ignored the site for months.

Here is what I said about the site when it launched almost two years ago:

Yahoo’s Podcasts directory is put together very nicely, I think. The layout and organization make intuitive sense, and the search functionality seems to work quite well also.

I’m not sure how many podcast directories we need, but I’d have to say that Yahoo’s is a welcome addition to the bunch.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stay true for very long.

Both Read/WriteWeb and TechCrunch invoke the magic word – video – when suggesting reasons for the site’s demise. I’m not so sure the rise of YouTube and the clones had any impact whatsoever on Yahoo Podcasts. As a matter of fact, the site lists both audio and video podcasts.

I think Yahoo chose to kill the site in part because it contains the word “podcast” in its name. I’ve written about this before, as have many others. It’s not the process or idea that’s bad, just the name.

I suspect the main reason Yahoo shut down the site is a renewed focus for the company, as speculated in the comments on TechCrunch. Just as well I guess.

Read: TechCrunch

Audio: Review of Dragon's Den Episode 1

Post ImageWednesday night was the first episode of CBC Television’s new business reality series, Dragon’s Den. I found out about the show a long time ago through VenturePrize when the show’s producers were looking for contestants. Dickson and I considered throwing our names in the hat, but we decided we didn’t necessarily want the exposure (at the time we still hadn’t launched Podcast Spot). After watching the first episode, two things were confirmed for me (barring any changes in future episodes):

  • Had we participated, we’d have been the youngest ones, which is pretty normal for us.
  • I think our idea would have fared really well compared with the other contestants.

What I didn’t expect, was that I wouldn’t really like the show! As a result, I decided to do a review. I have always thought that podcasting is a great way to do reviews, because they are usually somewhat boring to type and somewhat boring to read. It’s much more interesting to listen to or to watch a review I think. So with that in mind, here’s my audio review of the first episode of Dragon’s Den!

I’ll probably watch again next week, just to see if my opinions change at all. And to see if any of the contestants have really interesting ideas.

Read: Audio Review

BlogosphereRadio Archives

Post ImageLong time readers of my blog will know that BlogosphereRadio was my first foray into podcasting, created way back in September of 2004. In my initial post about the site, I said it would probably always be a work in progress. I guess that was sort of correct – the site has been dormant since roughly March 2005. The idea has lived on though, as BlogosphereRadio was definitely the inspiration for Podcast Spot (at least in the beginning).

I have been doing some cleanup work on some our servers lately, and I realized that I hadn’t touched BlogosphereRadio in a very long time. Things were broken, etc, so I made some changes. The forums are now unavailable, and the “play” links don’t work. I fixed the download links however, so you can now download any of the shows in both WMA and MP3 format. I also stuck a little “dormant” message at the top of most of the pages.

I can’t see a revival of BlogosphereRadio being likely, but never say never. My intent for now is to leave the site up for archival purposes and nothing more. I won’t be adding to it, so don’t bother subscribing to the feeds.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of BlogosphereRadio, download my favorite episode.

Podcasting or Text?

Post Image“Why listen to a podcast when you can get ten times the content when you read?” That’s the question Peter Davis recently asked, and I’d like to attempt to answer it. Scoble chimed in with his response, essentially saying with communication, you should use the right tool for the job. Maybe that’s text, but in other cases, it might be audio or video.

Here’s why I think you should listen to or watch a podcast, even if you can get ten times the content when you read:

  • The Right Tool For The Job
    Like Scoble, I think that sometimes audio or video is better suited to the job than text. I’ll just cite his example too – I’d much rather watch a short video about Halo 3 than read an essay on it. It really depends on what you’re trying to communicate.
  • Mobility
    Can you read an email or the newspaper while you’re driving your car? I certainly can’t. But I can listen to a podcast. Do you carry all your books and magazines with you everywhere? Probably not, but I’ll bet you carry an MP3 player! There are a lot of scenarios where podcasting on the go works and text simply doesn’t.
  • Show Some Emotion!
    Try to write a really emotional blog post. Or a post that is sarcastic. It’s not as easy as you’d like to believe! Most times, your emotion or sarcasm will be misinterpreted. Audio and video allow you to convey emotion, sarcasm, and other things using tone of voice and body language. Sometimes it’s not what you say, but how you say it.
  • Ease of Creation
    You’re probably thinking I’m nuts, saying that it’s easier to create a podcast than write a blog post, but in some cases it’s true. The tools to create a podcast will soon be as easy to use as blogging tools, and when that happens, the creation time really depends simply on the content. Most people can talk a heck of a lot faster than they can type, and with regards to video, a picture really is worth a thousand words! Sometimes it might be easier to get your message across in a podcast. Heck, I should be podcasting this post!
  • Multitasking!
    I’ve always got some sort of background noise going on, as it helps me concentrate. Sometimes I just block it out, while other times I’ll sort of half listen and if I hear something interesting, I’ll pay attention. The idea here is that I can play a podcast in the background and continue working, and if something being said catches my interest, I might pay a little more attention. Can’t do that with text. I’ve called this multitasking, but you can think of it as passive podcasting consumption!

Don’t be fooled by the comments on Peter’s post and elsewhere – this discussion is about more than just those who listen in the car and those who don’t. Podcasting is an extremely viable communications technology, for a wide variety of scenarios.

To be clear, I’m not saying one should always use podcasting. The most important of the reasons above is to use the right tool for the job. Developers are told this all the time – use the right programming language for the task at hand! Same holds true with communication. If you can communicate something better using text, go for it. If some sound or a short video is better, maybe podcasting will work for you.

Peter is correct in stating that podcasting is not as efficient at delivering information as text is. However, if you consider the amount of overlap that exists in text (look at Google News for a news story, or the hundreds of blog posts on a given topic) it might start to even out. At least for the time being, podcasting does not suffer from the same “echo chamber” as text does.

Now hopefully I’ve offered some good reasons for why you might use podcasting over text. There are many more reasons that podcasting is great, but they go beyond a comparison with text, so I’ll save them for another post. There’s still a long way to go to make podcasting incredibly useful, but it definitely has some inherent properties that make it pretty attractive.

Read: Peter Davis

Podtrac Survey Results

Post ImageI am happy to see a large number of podcasting surveys and research efforts lately. The latest comes from Podtrac, who claims to have developed the largest podcasting demographics database in the world, with over 55,000 detailed demographic profiles. Some of the findings:

  • 56% of podcast audiences listen to and view podcasts on their computer, compared with 46% on a mobile device.
  • A huge majority, 88%, listen to or view podcast episodes in their entirety.
  • 76% of podcast users are also online shoppers.
  • 41% of U.S. online adults were aware of the term “podcasting” at the end of Q1 2006, compared with just 32% at the end of Q4 2005.

The results are more or less the same as some other similar surveys. Perhaps the only one that seems low is the number that listen/watch on their computers. I think the true number is actually quite a bit higher. I also wonder about the 88% who listen to an entire episode – I am willing to bet that will go down over time.

Read: Podcasting News

Canadian Podcasting Survey

Post ImageFound this item via Podcasting News this morning – there’s a new survey aimed at discovering what is happening with podcasting in Canada. I just took the survey, which was relatively quick and painless, so you should too.

Toronto-based Sequentia Communications and Caprica Interacitve Marketing Inc. have joined forces to launch this podcast listeners survey. All of the findings will be part of a whitepaper on Canadian podcasting habits and audience size, to be released in June 2006.

The goal of this survey and its findings are to better understand the growth of podcasting in Canada and how quickly Canadians are adopting this new form of technology.

Apparently the survey is only available until tomorrow, so you better hurry if you want to fill it out! At the end of the survey you can enter an email address to get a summary of the results.

Read: Take The Survey

Podcast is Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year

Post ImagePodcasting has had an amazing year, and it just keeps getting better. Steve Rubel reports that the Oxford Dictionary has chosen “Podcast” as its word of the year for 2005 (press release also available):

“Only a year ago, podcasting was an arcane activity, the domain of a few techies and self-admitted ‘geeks.’ Now you can hear everything from NASCAR coverage to NPR’s All Things Considered in downloadable audio files called ‘podcasts.’ Thousands of podcasts are available at the iTunes Music Store, and websites such as iPodder.com and Podcast.net track thousands more. That’s why the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected ‘podcast’ as the Word of the Year for 2005. Podcast, defined as ”a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player,“ will be added to the next online update of the New Oxford American Dictionary, due in early 2006.”

That’s a very broad definition though, don’t you think? Shouldn’t there be a requirement for a web feed (RSS or Atom or something)? The podcasting naysayers will be quick to point out that there’s nothing new about “a digital recording…made available on the Internet for downloading” and they are absolutely right. It’s the addition of a web feed that makes podcasting a fresh take on old technology!

Read: Steve Rubel