Category: Internet

Pew Says I’m an Unusual Podcast Subscriber

The Pew Internet & American Life Projects latest report on podcasting finds some growth in podcast downloading over the last six months:

Some 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time. This finding compares to the 7% of internet users who reported podcast downloading in our February-April 2006 survey. However, few internet users are downloading podcasts with great frequency; in both surveys, just 1% report downloading a podcast on a typical day.

It’s surprising to me that it’s only 12 percent that have downloaded a podcast, and only one percent on an average day. Maybe the key point is downloading for later listening vs. listening to audio or watching video on the web. Given the serial nature of podcasting, that you subscribe to feeds which may mean you get a daily segment automatically, I would think most podcasting subscribers would have downloaded a segment on a given day without any special effort.

I subscribe to several podcasts, including these from ABC and NBC, the For Immediate Release podcast from Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, and radio programs from Alistair Begg, John Piper and R.C. Sproul. I guess that puts me way outside the normal range.

I’m obviously an early adopter on this, or else maybe I’m just odd…but I really like to be able to take audio and video for in the car (audio) or on the bus. I also like having my iPod next to my bed, so if I wake up at night I can listen to a program (which often puts me back to sleep quickly.) I think over time we will see continued growth in podcasting, as people try it and understand that it’s like TiVo or another DVR.

I’m also betting this will take a jump when Apple’s iTV comes out.

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Electronic Disruption Not Just for Media

Whatever you think of global warming as a scientific phenomenon, from the perspective of John Kotter’s penguin fable it is undeniable that economic icebergs are melting from underneath all sorts of businesses and their employees.

Time magazine announced some huge changes this week, and Jeff Jarvis, as usual, has a spot-on commentary. I found this statement particularly compelling:

I think that general-interest magazines may well be fated to fade away. General-interest anything is probably cursed. For the truth is that interest never was as general editors and publishers thought it was, back in the mass-media age. Old media just assumed we were interested in what they told us to be interested in. But we weren’t. We’re proving that with every new choice the internet enables.

Yet special-interest magazines — community magazines, to put it another way — have a brighter prospect — if they understand how to enable that community.

Time‘s travails, the ouster of the LA Times‘ editor for refusing to adapt to economic realities, the continued decline of newspaper readership, and Gannett’s more realistic approach to the kinds of changes needed for long-term success in the news business highlight the pace and extent of change we all face.

Large, established news media organizations probably feel this most acutely, because they have seen their core business as creating, editing and distributing content to mass audiences. Too often they also have tacked “on paper” to the end of that sentence (or some other specific medium that reflects the way they have always done it.) As technology drives the costs of developing and distributing content toward zero and choices multiply, the erosion of mindshare for the old-media oligopoly is inevitable.

But although those working in media may feel the changes most acutely (or at least have a bigger megaphone, even in a fragmented media landscape, to talk about it), icebergs are melting in all sorts of industries.

The New York Stock Exchange announced this week that it would cut employment by 17 percent, or 500 jobs, largely through and because of more electronic trading.

Amazon’s S3 service (I need to look into this) offers unlimited data storage and transfer at low flat rates, enabling start-ups or more established companies to focus on building their business and traffic, instead of how to scale their server space. Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, details how S3 has saved his company well over $500,000 in the last seven months, and how he expects savings of well over $1M in 2007. He was spending that money somewhere else before he made the change to S3, so for whoever those vendors were, some warm water is coming under their iceberg.

Congratulations to those organizations that are keeping their eye on meeting needs and serving customers, and finding ways to meaningfully contribute. Not all will be successful. But it’s great to see organizations like CBS sending out “scout penguins” by launching a service like this, to see if this is a way to provide information people want.

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Thoughts from the Bulldog Online Measurement Teleconference

In the Bulldog teleconference today I came away with some helpful insights about how to use online monitoring. My earlier post has more of the points I made.

Evan made a really good point that you need to measure things that are in keeping with your goal, and what the desired user response is. For example, if your goal is to influence opinion through an initiative as opposed to selling something, focusing on click-throughs is short-sighted; it gives you numbers that are relatively meaningless.

Angie Jeffrey walked us through a measurement matrix she has developed. You can reach her for a copy of this by email at (I think she will be willing to share this if you ask. Please let her know Lee sent you her way…which would be one way of getting some anecdotal measurement of how many people are taking action based on this post.)

Donna added that setting measurable objectives means we need to define the target audience, what we want them to do, and in what time frame. For example, we want 75 percent of articles in electronics trade publications that mention our company to include at least half of our key brand messages. She also showed her dashboard of key measures, which she uses to share information with TI management.

I would welcome any comments or questions from people who want to have a discussion about this.

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Not the end of the Press Release, but…

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox has responded favorably to Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s idea that financial disclosures currently required to be made by press release could be posted to a company blog instead.

Schwartz had suggested it in a letter to Cox, and also had posted the correspondence to his blog.

The AP now reports that Cox responded to Schwartz not only by mail, but also on Schwartz’s blog.

“The (SEC) encourages the use of Web sites as a source of information to the market and investors, and we welcome your offer to further discuss with us your views in this area,” Cox told Schwartz in his posting on the CEO’s blog. (He also sent Schwartz a letter by mail.)

Said Cox: “Assuming that the (SEC) were to embrace your suggestion that the ‘widespread dissemination’ requirement of Regulation FD can be satisfied through Web disclosure, among the questions that would need to be addressed is whether there exist effective means to guarantee that a corporation uses its Web site in ways that assure broad non-exclusionary access …”

What could be broader and more non-exclusionary than a company blog, to which anyone can subscribe? I thought this was a great idea when Schwartz suggested it, and I’m really glad to hear Chairman Cox being supportive.

You can read Chairman Cox’s comments in full here.

Regulation FD was designed to prevent insiders and analysts from unfairly trading on insider information. Blogs democratize information and make everyone an insider.

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