Podonomics

Dr. Kathy King and Peter Yanke led a session at the International Podcasting Expo exploring the difference between internet radio and podcasts.

From their slide, here are the characteristics of Internet radio:

• Delivered to a computer via a web browser
• You click a button on the page and listen to the content
• It’s not portable

And from their slide, here’s the characteristics of podcasting:

• Posted on the web and pushed out by a feed
• Need a podcatching program to listen
• Posted on website for download or via a flash player
• Plus (this is my addition), it’s portable

With Internet radio, the listener shows up and listen. With podcasts, the listener downloads and listens on the go.

Dick Schiferli introduced a product called Pamela for Skype. Although it was launched close to 2-years ago on February 16, 2005, I never heard of it until now. Pamela is localized in 30 languages and there has been 260,000+ downloads to date.

Pamela is your Skype virtual assistant, in other words, an answering machine for Skype. If someone rings you through Skype and you’re not around, Pamela will pick up and ask the person to leave a message.

From a podcasting standpoint, you could use Pamela as a comment line. People call your Skype id, Pamela records it, then Pamela will save it to your computer or automatically publish the recording directly to your blog.

Some drawbacks?

• It’s a Windows only tool. There’s isn’t a Pamela version for Mac users.
• No multiple feed support. So, if you’re using one blog to host multiple podcast feeds, Pamela won’t know how to publish recordings to your blog using multiple feeds. Pamela is a 1:1 tool.

Despite these 2 drawbacks, I’m going to give Pamela a try. Everyone who attended the International Podcasting Expo gets a complimentary Professional license of Pamela (valued at $24.95), so I have no excuse not to discover all that Pamela has to offer.

Leila Thigpen, a professional voice coach, gave podcasters tips on how to use their voice for impact at the International Podcasting Expo. She gave us tips on breathing, speaking and how to use our voice for impact on our podcasts.

Here are some tips from Leila:

• You don’t need to stand to make your voice carry. Just sit in a good position and tuck in your butt.
• To have impact, speak slowly, speak broadly and speak distinctly. In particular, emphasize the last letter on each word. She took people through an orator exercise to practice speaking broader.
• Someone asked about accents. Leila said that because podcasting isn’t national radio where everyone has to have the same sound, you can be unique and keep your accent.
• Leila took us through a pitch exercise and said that varying pitches helps to add variety to your podcast, especially if there’s only 1 host.
• I asked Leila for tips on how to avoid the intake of breath right before talking. Leila said that this is because the throat feels closed. She recommended that you think that you’re going to yawn right before you speak and that will open up your mouth. Telling your conscious that you’re going to yawn helps you avoid the intake of breath.