Podonomics

One of the things that Dr. Kathy King mentioned at the International Podcasting Expo in her presentation on Podcasting in Education is that if the audio you create doesn’t need to be heard by strangers, then don’t podcast.

I echo this point.

At WebProWorld, they have a very vibrant discussion forum. On one of the topics, someone asks if it would be a good idea to podcast their product descriptions and provide a link to the audio beside every product in their shopping cart.

It wouldn’t work for one main reason:

• Podcast aren’t infomercials. If as the poster said he wants to provide additional information about his products, this would make more content for a podcast.

Instead, this website owner should just plug some audio on his website. Since this type of content doesn’t need to be broadcast to the world, there’s no need to wrap the audio in a RSS cocoon and release it as a podcast.

Remember, podcasts are lead generating tools that are infotainment based. Just rattling off the features of your products in a 3-minute podcast isn’t good enough. No one would listen anyways.

Podonomics explores corporate & business podcasting tactics. Host Leesa Barnes does a live recording at the International Podcasting Expo, asking podcasters how businesses can make multiple streams of income from podcasting, aside from ads.

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Episode Notes

• Why advertising in a podcast won’t work (unless you’re Rocketboom).
• How to use your podcast as a lead generating tool using the pink spoon method.
• The challenges with using the transcripts of your podcasts as an income stream and how to use them instead.
• The benefits of using a membership website in producing multiple streams of podcasting income.
• Ways to use exclusive podcasting content as an income stream.
• Final thoughts concerning multiple streams of podcasting income.

Episode Resources

Rocketboom
WAHM Talk Radio
Pink Spoon Marketing
Andy Wibbels
Tisha Saves Time
School of Podcasting
Elance
Xtnserve
Podzinger
InnerToob
The Engaging Brand Podcast
Wordpress
Zedcast
Dr. Kathy King - Podcasting in Education

To leave your comments or feedback about this episode, type it up in the comments area or pick up your phone and call 206-339-4348 to leave your audio feedback (no one will answer - it’s a voicemail system).

Next podcast - November 6, 2006

Although this has nothing to do with podcasting, it has everything to do with the importance of protecting your online image in the social media space.

Our Governor General, the Queen’s reprsentative in Canada, is a Black woman. Born in Haiti, Michaëlle Jean (pronounced me-kile shon) fled the dictatorship on her birth island when she was a child and with her family, settled in Quebec.

Her rise to one of the top jobs in the country has been lauded as a true success story and she’s adored by many for her rags to riches experience.

However, the picture you see on the left at the top isn’t Michaëlle Jean. I have no clue who it is, but unfortunately, a Canadian Press (CP) article that ran on Yahoo Canada about the rise of violence against women showed that picture of a stranger as being our Governor General.

The picture on the bottom right is indeed our Governor General. I can definitely see a difference, so how Yahoo! Canada (or maybe it was CP) could make this mistake with one of our heads of state is a mystery to me. Especially since traditional media has so many layers to go through before a story is approved for publication.

While I’m not going to surmise why this happened, I will comment that this is a prime reason why it’s important to have at least 1 official picture and insist that it be used in all materials that reference you.

Now, many of us won’t have much control over the images that are run in traditional media. Many newspapers and magazines prefer to run their own photos of you as it’s fresh and different.

But in the social media space, I recommend that you have 1 official photo of yourself that you share with other podcasters, bloggers and anyone who wants to profile or promote you online.

And if you’re curious to see what images are floating around of you, start with Google Images. Just plug in your name, then analyze the results.

Technorati: canada, Politics, Media, canadian news, Canadian Politics, governor general, Michaelle Jean

What used to take hours in the editing process, now only takes seconds.

I’m preparing a podcast right at this second and there are a variety of voices in the audio. Some come through really loud, others really soft. I rolled my eyes, slumped my shoulders and pursed my lips knowing that it would take me hours to even out all the voices.

In comes the Levelator, a nice little tool made by Gigavox that has a huge impact. If you notice that the levels are off in your recording, in other words, one person sounds really loud, another sounds really soft:

1. Save your recording as a .wav file.
2. Drag and drop your file into the Levelator applet that sits on your desktop.
3. Wait a few seconds as the Levelator, well…levelates.
4. When it’s finished, it say that your file has been levelated.
5. Open up the output file (not the original) in your editing software, listen and you’ll notice that all the voices are at the same level.

This is the missing can from the six pack. The Levelator is a podcast producer’s best friend. Use it to cut down on some of your production time.

By way of Podcasting Scout, I found out about some podcasting statistics that I missed. Here’s a quick summary.

• According to Nielsen, only 42% of Britains know what podcasting is. That’s lower than what Canadians reported in the Canadian Podcast Listeners Survey. Seventy-seven percent of Canadian respondents were somewhat or very familiar with the word podcasting.
• According to Edison Media Research, those between 18-24 years old are listening to 24% less radio today compared to the same age bracket 10-years ago. In Canada, there’s a similiar decline in radio listeningship amongst Canadian adults according to a report released by Statistics Canada.
• According to some digging around by the person who updates the blog over at Typical Mac User Podcast (what’s your name?), there are now 82,978 podcasts listed in iTunes, a ten fold increase in just 12-months. Compare that to the 25,883 in PodcastAlley and the 10,771 listed in PodcastPickle and you can see why iTunes is the Google of podcast directories.

On a cold, rainy weekend here in Toronto, I’m glad that while I hibernated indoors, I was able to attend a conference online all about podcasting. I sat through 70% of the sessions at the International Podcasting Expo that started Friday night at 8pm and ended Sunday evening at 6pm. I had a chance to listen to many experts share tips and tricks on how to make a podcast even better.

For the sessions I did attend, I provided a summary. Here’s the list below:

• Leila Thigpen on Voice Techniques for Podcasters
• Pamela for Skype
• Difference Between Internet Radio & Podcasts
• Nicole Simon on Growing an International Audience
• Dave Nelsen on Interactive Talk Podcasts
• Rich Roszel on Upgrading Your Studio Equipment
• How to Plan a Killer Podcast
• Penny Haynes on Pulling RSS Feeds Through Your Website
• Steven Stewart on Nokia Podcasting
• Dr. Kathy King on Podcasting for Education
• Jerry Franklin, The Audacity Guy on Audacity
• Jason Van Orden on Guerilla Podcasting (coming soon)

Overall, I’m encouraged to see that more and more people are thinking about podcasting in a more critical light. I don’t mean that they’re being critical about podcasting, but instead, they are thinking way beyond the gadgets and content.

For many people who attended the International Podcasting Expo, they’re thinking about their podcasts as a way to grow a community, create a sense of belonging and add value to the global conversations.
This is truly refreshing.

Rob Anderson is the brains behind Co-op World, the tool used to handle all the live online sessions (including the recordings) for the International Podcasting Expo.

He explained how much it would cost to run a live online event through Co-op World and answered general questions about the platform.

• Someone asked if he was looking at incorporating a 3-D interface such as the one used for Second Life. Rob said that this would create a resource intensive environment and he created a web conferencing system so that no one is excluded from accessing the various sessions.
• The price to run an expo like the one IPE did, with $40+ sessions, all live sessions, all being recorded, it would be in the thousands of dollars. Rob will quote on an individual basis.
• The recordings of the sessions are crystal clear (depending on the person’s mic). I’ll be using a recording from the Expo for Monday’s Podonomics episode and you can be the judge yourself. You may want to consider using one of the Studio rooms to record a “live” session for your podcast.

What a great niche and what an awesome moniker. Jerry Franklin, the Audacity Guy, led a session at the International Podcasting Expo on basic editing techniques using Audacity.

While I know everything there is to know about Audacity, I did pick up these tips:

• Use the solo button in the track control panel to only listen to one track at a time when you have many tracks open. That way, you don’t have to move things around just to isolate the sound your really want to hear from one track.
• The Audacity Guy warned against editing out every um, ah or what he called “artifact.” It’d take too long, but more importantly, everyone will sound the same. Your goal is to make your guest sound authoritative and you want your podcast to move along, but don’t edit to the point where the personalities are removed.
• Don’t forget to save early and save often.
• The Audacity Guy took us through the envelope tool. Unfortunately, I was distracted by something my mother was saying to me, so I missed it. It appears the envelope tool can help you increase and decrease the volume of a chunk of your audio without having to use the selection tool.

Dr. Kathy King really understands the role of podcasting in the educational environment. She just gets it and her enthuasiasm about podcasting for education is just infectious. At the International Podcasting Expo, Dr. King shared some of these insights:

• Education just isn’t relegated to the classroom. Lifelong learning comes through the changes we go through in life. Dr. King said that this is called transformative learning and she wrote a book on it. These changes and how we deal with them can be great content for a podcast.
• Podcasts in education is professional development on demand (PODcast). Yet another variation on what podcast means.
• The value of podcasting in the educational context is the content, allowing teachers to reach further than what the classroom could offer.
• An excellent point - Not every situation warrants a podcast. Dr. King said that teachers may want to record their students and fear putting up the audio online because it will be accessible by everyone. Dr. King suggested that if teachers want to make the audio content private, don’t attach it to an RSS feed. Simple. Private content is not suitable as a podcast.
• Plan, Design, Track and Revise. If you’re not listening to your audience, they will vote with the click of the mouse and you’ll lose a listener who will never return.
• Break down the barriers. Not everyone understands what it means to subscribe to a podcast. Provide some tips, provide tutorials and make it easy for your listeners to listen and then subscribe to your podcast.

Some interesting things happening with Nokia and podcasting. Steven Stewart, a fellow Battlestar Galactica fan, presented some insights on what Nokia is doing to support podcasters through its phones.

He gave us tips on how to optimize your feeds for Nokia customers, how to create your own OPML file, how to search for podcasts using Nokia and how to download podcasts to your Nokia cellphone.

I really like the direction that companies such as Nokia are taking to make it easier for people to download and consume podcasting content. Anything that moves us away from the cumbersome task of using the computer and the multitude of podcast directories to find really great content, I support it.

I just love wireless.