Tag: podcasting

Podcasting with .NET and Paramagnus

[This post originally appeared at the Canadian Developers blog on MSDN, so check it out, it’s a great blog. For those of you who might consider parts of this post somewhat dated, that’s because it was written a couple weeks ago!]

Post ImageIf you’re a .NET developer in Canada, you’ve probably already heard of Plumbers at Work and if you haven’t, you should! It’s a great podcast featuring “four geeks from Canada” talking about all things .NET and Microsoft. I’m not exactly sure how they create and publish their episodes, but I am guessing it’s not as easy as they would like. In fact, most podcasters are pretty technical folks – at least for the time being.

Along with Dickson Wong, I run the Edmonton .NET Wizards user group in Edmonton, Alberta, but we have another connection to .NET development too – we create tools and services for podcasting. Our software company is Paramagnus Developments Inc., and we are trying to make podcasting as easy and as fun as possible.

We have created two applications and two services – Podcast Spot is our hosting service, Podcast Wizard is our Windows-based creation tool, Podcast Tags is our directory/tagging service, and Podcast Basket is our “podcatcher”, an application that helps you find, subscribe to, and manage podcast downloads. Our entire solution has been built using .NET and related technologies, and it has really allowed us to accomplish our development goals very quickly. We’re are currently on track to launch in May 2006.

Just recently we had some great success in a couple of business plan competitions. We were one of three finalists in the Alberta-wide VenturePrize business plan competition, and the following day we won the national Wes Nicol competition. Both competitions were a boost for our business, and the idea of a podcasting company in general, as the judges were some of the most respected investors and business people in the country.

We’ll be at Canada’s Web 2.0 conference called Mesh in May, so stop by and check out the products we have created! We’ll also do our best to get Plumbers at Work to start using a Canadian-made, .NET-based solution for podcasting 😉

Read: Canadian Developers

Podcasting and Radio

Post ImageRadio industry research firm Arbitron has released a new report that has some information related to podcasting, though they consider it a form of radio. I wondered the other day, as I have in the past, if podcasting was stealing some of the audience away from traditional radio, and the Arbitron report seems to answer no:

According to the report, “Seventy-seven percent of Americans say they expect to listen to AM/FM radio as much as they do now despite increasing advancements in technology.” For people that have listened to podcasts, 27% expect to listen to less radio, and among satellite radio users, 36% expect to listen to less radio.

I guess we’ll find out won’t we? The report also states that 22% of Americans have heard of podcasting, and that 11% have actually tried podcasting. Evidently, the people that are using podcasts are young and relatively affluent.

Read: Podcasting News

Edmonton Radio Ratings Spring 2006

As you may recall, back in December I posted about 96X becoming Big Earl and the reasoning behind the switch, which was based mainly on ratings. Now that the first quarter of 2006 is complete, the radio station ratings have been updated, and it doesn’t look good for poor old Earl:

The Spring book measured Edmonton radio audiences from January 9th to March 5th, 2006.

CKRA “Big Earl 96.3” (Newcap) had a more disappointing book than newcomer Magic 99, posting an all-time low at 2.7 for station formats occupying the 96.3 frequency. Despite the popularity of the country format in Northern Alberta, Big Earl seems to have repelled listeners rather than attract. If Corus is to take some good news from this book it would be that CISN seems bulletproof.

Yeah no doubt! CISN fell from 11.2 to 10.5, but still easily occupied the second spot. I am impressed that The Bear made such a comeback, rising from 5.5 to 8.7, totally didn’t expect that. You can check out the full listing and commentary at lastlinkontheleft.com. The site also contains the Fall 2005 data, and links to more detailed data sources.

In a somewhat related story, it seems that podcasting and MP3 players are in fact stealing some of the audience away from radio:

According to Dave Van Dyke, President of Bridge Ratings, “By 2010, today’s 94% penetration for terrestrial radio will have sunk to 85%.”

27% of people 12-24 attribute their reduced use of radio to MP3 use; 22% attributed it to tired radio programming; 3% attributed it to podcast listening.

I can only expect that last number to grow as podcasting becomes more widely adopted. And once it does, advertising dollars will follow. Too bad there is no geographical data. It would be interesting to know if the audience in Edmonton has shrunk at all because of MP3 players or podcasting or something.

UPDATE: Check out the new 630 CHED helicopter which launched on Wednesday, April 12th!

How many podcasters are there?

Post ImageI read some of the comments and other blog posts that referenced the Forrester report I linked to yesterday, and it seems that most people think the numbers are far too low. John Furrier has an excellent roundup of estimates, and Todd Cochrane said he thinks the unique listener number of 700,000 is actually “about 10 times that many.”

After I thought about things a little more, I realized that the problem is not whether they are too high or too low, but rather that we have no idea how many people are creating podcasts. Seems to me you need to have creators actually producing something before you can have listeners! I know there’s more to it than that, but a good idea of the number of people who are creating podcasts might help in trying to establish a credible number for how many listeners there are.

So far I haven’t really been able to find any such data. Our own estimates here at Paramagnus peg the number of creators at somewhere around 30,000 worldwide, but that is an extremely “back of the envelope” guess, and I would not be surprised to find it is wrong. Does anyone have reliable data on this sort of thing? Also, we haven’t yet bought the Forrester report – does it contain information on podcast creation, or just the listener side of things?

Podcasting Research from Forrester

Post ImageNo disrespect to Peter Chen or the Diffusion Group or anyone else that has done podcasting research thus far, but I was pleased to see a research report from Forrester. Finally something from a widely respected and referenced research group. Also refreshing is the fact that the report doesn’t make podcasting out to be an amazingly fast growing technology (though it is growing pretty quickly and will probably grow faster over the next couple years). In the new report, titled “Podcasting Hits The Charts“, Forrester shows that only 1% of North American households regularly download and listen to podcasts:

Podcasting will get easier and the content will get better, but it will all take time.

So should companies be putting podcasting on the backburner? Hardly. Content that already exists – such as earning calls, training updates, and executive presentations are all excellent fodder for podcasts. Think of us poor analysts who must listen to streamed quarterly calls while chained to our laptops! My caution is that companies shouldn’t be dashing out to create expensive original content for a small audience – unless they gain value from being seen as innovative.

That first sentence is incredibly important, I think. Podcasting still isn’t easy enough for most people! And yes, these things take time, but hopefully we can help solve that problem in a couple months. The goal of our podcasting solution is to first of all make it easy.

The second bit of stuff I quoted there is important too. We’re doing a lot of our own research on the business sector of podcasting right now, and we really agree – there’s a huge market. Podcasting is an excellent way to solve some communication problems that have always existed.

Read: Charlene Li

Podcasters Across Borders

Post ImageThere are so many podcasting events taking place now, which is a good sign of the buzz level surrounding the technology. The latest one I have run across is called Podcasters Across Borders, taking place on June 23rd and 24th in Kingston, Ontario. There isn’t too much information on the event yet, so stay tuned to their blog if you’re interested in going. They also have a details page with a little more information.

I think we’ll start to see more and more targeted podcasting events appear. I have a feeling that there can only be so many “general purpose” podcasting events, and with the Portable Media Expo, Podcastercon, and other conferences like Gnomedex or Northern Voice, I’m willing to bet that we’re getting close to reaching the limit. So if you’re a conference organizer looking for a great topic related to podcasting, let me suggest one! I’d love to go to a conference about business podcasting. How are businesses using podcasting? How could they use it? That sort of thing.

Paramagnus Press Coverage

Post ImageWe’ve received a lot of great press for our business plan competitions lately. Of course, we were in the Ottawa Citizen the day after the Wes Nicol competition, and today we were featured in the Edmonton Journal:

Mack Male and Dickson Wong’s disappointment at not winning this year’s TEC Edmonton VenturePrize melted away 24 hours later when the University of Alberta students won a national business plan competition in Ottawa.

Unfortunately you need an account to read the entire article online, so go pick up a physical copy. There’s a great picture of us in there too, page G3.

We’re also featured on the Innovation Alberta website. There is text, audio, and an image:

One of the two runners up in TEC Edmonton’s VenturePrize Competition was Paramagnus Developments Inc. Paramagnus deals in podcasting software Tools, and is the brainchild of Edmonton computing science students Mack Male and Dickson Wong. Here’s what Mack has to say about being a finalist in VenturePrize.

And there’s more on the way too! If you run across something I haven’t, let me know.

Sex Podcasting

Post ImageOkay, admit it. The only reason you read my blog at all is for the sex-related podcast news right? Well it seems that’s why some people read my blog anyway. I discovered today that my blog made it into AVN Online’s February 2006 resource guide called Sex and the Podcast:

Here are some of the sites that either offer podcasts of adult content, maintain directories of adult-oriented podcasts, offer podcast search engines, or syndicate podcasts. New ones are being created daily.

And just in case they take it down, here’s an image from the page:

So if you’ve come to my blog looking for sex podcast related content, here it is:

It never ceases to amaze me what can be accomplished with a Google search and an aptly titled blog post or two.

Read: AVN Online

U of A ExpressNews Podcast

Post ImageAs Dickson mentioned yesterday, the University of Alberta has decided to get more involved with podcasting, joining many other universities like Duke, Princeton, UBC, and the University of Western Ontario. The brand new ExpressNews podcast is a project of the UofA’s Office of Public Affairs:

Stories in the inaugural newscast include a fascinating interview with forestry researcher Dr. Mel Tyree, complete with the sound of trees drinking; a Parkland Institute report calling for a five-year moratorium on new oilsands projects, a reading by former U of A writer-in-residence David Adams Richards, and more.

The coming weeks will see a greater expansion of the podcast, with the development of a web page dedicated to audio and video files.

This podcast will probably become the U of A’s most well known, but it was not the first. Our ever-ahead-of-the-game Library has been experimenting with podcasting since September of 2005, and the Library site is full of links to other podcasts from around the world.

I’m really happy that my school has seen the light and will start podcasting. I only wish that Paramagnus could have helped them do it!

Read: U of A ExpressNews

Paramagnus selected as VenturePrize semi-finalist!

I am really pleased to announce that Paramagnus Developments Inc. has been selected as one of six semi-finalists in this year’s VenturePrize Fast-Growth Enterprise Award category. As some of you may know, Dickson and I have been working on a business plan for Paramagnus for the last four or five months, and we submitted it to the VenturePrize business plan competition at the end of January. From the press release:

These six semifinalists will present their concepts to a judging panel who will announce the final three contenders at a March 6 special reception. These three finalists will then make a final pitch to judges and a sold-out audience at the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) Annual Luncheon on March 22, 2006, where the grand prize winner will be crowned.

“This is an exciting group of contestants representing a range of innovative business opportunities,” said Jay Krysler, VenturePrize Program Manager for TEC Edmonton. “The business plan screening panel, who are business and finance industry professionals, certainly had a difficult time selecting only six from so many great business concepts. Alberta will be well-served when all these plans move forward.”

It feels very good to have your business receive validation and recognition from some very smart people. We’ve learned a lot throughout the process so far, and I know there’s far more learning ahead.

We’re really excited about making it this far in the competition, and we’re going to do our best to blow the judges away with our presentation. If all goes well, I’ll be posting again on March 6th that we made it to the final three! No matter what happens, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished already, and I am eager to see the feedback on our business plan.

I also can’t wait to get our products and services launched!

Read: TEC Edmonton