Tag: podcasting

Podcasting: The Next Big Thing

Post ImageI have been reading John C. Dvorak for a long time, and while I don’t always agree, I do today. Here’s what John had to say in his latest opinion piece:

There is no doubt in my mind that podcasting is not only here to stay but will also shortly threaten established media broadcast systems. It’s not so much that they will all be destroyed by homebrew networks, but podcasts will be taking away just enough listeners to be a major concern.

There’s something particularly interesting about the piece. John wasn’t always banging the podcasting drum, as he points out:

Before I go on I should mention that initially I was skeptical about podcasting because it’s in an arena filled with flotsam. It’s not like TV, with 500 stations and nothing on; it’s like radio, with 50,000 stations and nothing on. Or at least nothing you can find.

Once he became involved with podcasting himself via TWIT, once he tried it out, he came around. That’s pretty representative of podcasting in my mind. Sometimes hard to explain, but once you try it, you just get it.

Read: PC Magazine

Technology and Education

Post ImageThe role of technology in education is growing at a blistering pace, in my opinion. Everywhere you look, the classic image of a classroom full of books is being antiquated. Take Joe Wilcox and his family for example:

Today is the first day of school in the county where I live. Middle schoolers arrived at 7:30 a.m. for the long day ahead. For my daughter, it is the first day of home school, where my wife will be the teacher. Among my wife’s growing cadre of teaching tools is a Windows Media Center PC, which role will be significant.

What place in education does a Media Center PC have?

My wife will record some TV programs from the likes of Animal Planet, Discovery and History Channel for use in some of the lessons. Rather than be bound by the broadcast time, she can play program segments at times most convenient to the lessons. The idea is to keep the curriculum lively and interactive. This morning, my daughter will get a science lesson on Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans earlier today

They also make use of Tablet PC’s (which I think no student should be without):

For art, my daughter will use a 6×8 Wacom Intuos3 tablet, which I have been testing. She may even use the tablet as part of today’s science lesson, being given a chance to draw the air flow for a developing hurricane.

That’s powerful stuff! You just can’t match that kind of education in a typical classroom. And it’s not just grade school that is using technology to its benefit – post secondary is as well, like the use of podcasting at Purdue University:

“Many universities are experimenting with podcasting, but I’m not aware of any other university that is deploying a podcasting service on the scale that we are,” says Michael Gay, manager of Broadcast Networks & Services for Information Technology at Purdue. “As far as I know, we are the only university that is offering both streaming and podcasting of lectures in this manner as a central university service.”

Another example of how technology can improve education. I have always thought that a room full of students furiously writing down notes is absurd. It’s much better to listen and let yourself be engaged by what the professor is saying, than to try and write down every word. Having a podcast of the lecture means you can easily go back and review it.

These are just two recent examples, but there’s many more. Makes me wonder what school will look like in 25 years.

CBC workers to launch competing service

Post ImageNormally I hate unions, but this bit of news caught my fancy. In addition to the current Telus strike, the CBC is facing a labour dispute all across the country. And as Tod Maffin reports, things are about to get interesting:

Next week, locked-out workers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will use the Internet to compete against their employer. They are even setting up office and studio space in Toronto.

The site will have a national daily newscast available via podcast or download, released at the usual time of CBC Radio’s flagship World at Six news program (currently off the air). Phase two will include local and regional news, expanded current affairs coverage, and perhaps video-casts.

Watch for the new site at CBCunplugged.com. At least, it sounds like that’s where things will be located:

Turns out a number of locked-out producers have been working on a podcast/news site of their own and they’d planned to call it — go ahead, guess — CBC Unplugged. Great minds think alike I guess. Rather than cause confusion, I’m going to hand the domain over to them and let them run with their own service. So as of next week, CBCunplugged.com will be managed by a different group of people. Stay tuned, they have some exciting things planned!

Will be pretty interesting to watch next week. Apparently if works volunteer ten hours a week on the new site, they only have to walk the picket line half the usual time to get their strike pay. I wonder if anything like this has happened before? I doubt it. Ah, the wonders of the Internet.

Read: I Love Radio.org

Can podcasting save hockey?

Post ImageI’ve been pretty silent about the NHL and its labour dispute, but before you start laughing at the above title, check out the post of the same name by Matt May, in which he says:

The NHL is going to need a full-court press to get and keep the fans’ attention and interest. OLN will also need to increase its exposure, as it treats its NHL content as a draw for its other programming. And Comcast, which owns OLN, is heavily invested in digital cable and broadband Internet. Comcast will be pushing NHL content on its on-demand cable services as well as online.

So, we’re most of the way there: a sports league and a television network both with a vested interest in reaching people more people than they currently have access to. This is a great situation for podcasting, and even better for video in RSS enclosures. I don’t think we’re quite ready for full-game feeds, and we may never need them, given the real-time nature of sporting events. But OLN will be creating hockey-related content around their coverage, and that’s no good to them if nobody is watching it at 11pm. They will already be offering it on demand. Why not serve an MPEG for download on their own broadband network?

He makes a number of good points in his post, noting for example that ESPN recently refused to pick up the NHL coverage for the next few seasons, forcing he league to hook up with the Outdoor Life Network. NBC has also picked up rights for the next two seasons, but without any license fees. Basically, it comes down to the NHL needing to be creative in finding delivery vehicles for its content.

Would people subscribe to NHL podcasts? Might seem crazy, but I think you’d be surprised. Websites for sports are often extremely cutting edge, with advanced real-time statistics, audio, and video, so it’s not unlikely that at least some fans would be willing to try it out. It’s definitely an interesting idea.

While the other major sports in the US are all still swirling their toes in the online water with monthly subscription charges for streaming content, the NHL has a real chance to rebuild by letting more people in. There are millions of monthly impressions to be had. Even OLN and Comcast stand to benefit in this arrangement by increasing their own profile. It would be fascinating for everyone involved to see the league and the network take such a bold step.

I don’t think podcasting is going to “save hockey”, but I think it would be an excellent experiment in delivering content to fans.

Read: Corante

Average Joe Podcasting

Post ImageIt seems that big media has decided they want to get into the podcasting game, with everyone from MSNBC to Fox to BusinessWeek announcing podcasts in the last few weeks. I think that’s great! You know what they say, the more the merrier! And let’s be honest, no matter how much you like listening to an American couple talk about their sex life, you probably wouldn’t mind adding some news or commentary to your daily playlist.

Unfortunately, now that big media (or mainstreamedia) is on board, there’s a good crop of pundits and critics who seem to think that podcasting is over, because the average joe won’t be able to make any money podcasting. The big media players get all the coverage, and thus the advertising dollars.

Except that average joe probably doesn’t want to make any money from his (or her) podcast! Not everyone who starts a podcast is going to want to make money from it, just like not everyone who blogs does so with the intention of making a living. I read a lot about podcasting – news articles, blog posts, etc., and I can’t help but feel that far too many individuals and organizations focus on the “making money from podcasting” idea. Sure, there will be some podcasts that generate revenue, but I don’t see any reason that podcasting should be different from blogging: there are a lot of business blogs, but there are far more personal, average joe, I do it for myself/my family/my friends kind of blogs.

As soon as starting and maintaining a podcast is as simple as starting and maintaining a blog, I think we’ll see the same breakdown in podcasting. Lots of average joe podcasts, and far less big media or big business podcasts. Podcasting is not radio! You can decide what you want to listen to, whether that’s corporate marketing podcasts, flashy radio sounding podcasts, or something more real.

And one last clarification: just because I call them “average joe” podcasts, doesn’t mean they have to suck or sound bad! There will probably be some professional sounding average joe podcasts produced. All I mean by the term is podcasts not created for the sole purpose of making a monetary profit, but more as a labor of love. Or maybe even just ’cause it’s the thing to do 😉

Podcast enters the dictionary

Post ImageHow can you tell if a technology has made it? Sales figures, media buzz, pop culture references (like mentions in a movie or song or something), lots of different ways. Another way is when a word enters the regular lexicon, and eventually, the dictionary:

The Oxford English Dictionary added new words including “podcast” and “phishing,” saying they are now part of the English language, as it published its second edition today.

The words, which refer to music downloading and Internet fraud respectively, are part of a list of new additions that reflect the growing influence of technology on daily life. Oxford Dictionaries uses databases of words compiled from books, television programs and Internet chat rooms. There are 355,000 words in the new dictionary.

I’m still waiting for all the evidence that podcasting is just a fad. Might sound good in an article or two or three, but it doesn’t add up in real life! Not when the number of new podcasters continues to grow exponentially and the word itself makes it into the dictionary.

Read: Bloomberg

No opportunity for podcasting business?

Post ImageFrom David Carr in today’s New York Times:

For the time being, podcasting is a cipher, a technology that seems to further threaten established media’s stranglehold on public consciousness, but offers little opportunity in the way of a real actual business. Big media are aggressively attempting to get their arms around the next big thing. But it remains elusive, a medium that is viral and uncontrollable by nature, and that does not threaten to become a business any time soon.

I’m going to have to respectfully disagree David! How do you explain Audible’s announcement regarding podcasting at Gnomedex? Or the new release of iTunes, focused on podcasting? Or even Adam Curry’s growing PodShow? There is a massive amount of opportunity for business with podcasting.

Read: New York Times

Podbot in Podcasting News

Post ImageThe folks over at Podcasting News were at Gnomedex last week, and they were kind enough to post a little something about our robot:

Podbot is built around a tablet pc with WiFi connectivity, allowing it to be remote-controlled wirelessly. Podbot runs a piece of software called Podcast Wizard. The software, combined with the custom hardware, makes it possible to remotely control and record podcasts, save them to Podbot’s hard drive, and upload them to a web server.

They’ve got a really nice write-up, so check it out. If you’re interesting in checking out the Podbot, it may be making an appearance at the Podcast Hotel in September – with a few upgrades of course.

Read: Podcasting News

Apple launches iTunes 4.9

Post ImageApple today launched the new version of iTunes. Version 4.9 adds support for podcasting:

With iTunes 4.9 you can now browse, find, sample and subscribe to thousands of free radio shows – called podcasts – then sync them to your iPod and listen anytime, anywhere.

I installed the application tonight to see for myself what it’s like. There is now a “Podcasts” button on the left, that shows you all of the podcasts you’re subscribed to. You can change some basic settings, like whether or not to download just the newest episode for each podcast. In the top right is a big button that lets you update your subscriptions.

I think it’s great that Apple decided to add podcasting support into the program, because it will probably help increase adoption of the technology. On the other hand, I am pretty unimpressed by iTunes 4.9. It seems like a very half-hearted attempt by Apple.

Read: Apple iTunes

Podbot in MAKE!

Post ImageWe were really fortunate to meet Phillip Torrone at Gnomedex, and to have the opportunity to chat with him about the Podbot. He’s got a new entry up in the MAKE: Blog on our beloved podcasting robot, so check it out. And watch future issues of Make Magazine because you never know, we might publish instructions on how to build your own!

The entry includes a number of pretty cool photos of the Podbot too. I especially like the one of me holding up my tablet with the control software open, looks pretty intense. If this is the first you’ve heard of the Podbot, be sure to check out our official site.

Read: Make Blog