Category: Podcasting

Social Media Summit – Day 1

I had planned to live blog this ALI meeting, but found out when I got to the room that there was no wireless internet access. So, here are some highlights from the presentations, less detailed than if I had blogged contemporaneously.
Michael Rudnick from Watson Wyatt gave the conference introduction and overview. He talked about the Google applications that make it possible for consumers to buy a new computer and never purchase Microsoft Office. There are likely security issues for businesses, but in five years we could see business using on-line applications instead of the desktop. That would be a huge blow to Redmond.

He referenced a McKinsey & Co. report on social media use in business, and his summary advice was helpful:
Focus on benefits, not technology or risks. Security and legal issues will stop anything. Focus on business benefits first and foremost.

Don’t position this as something ‘completely’ new. People instinctively fear radical change. Let them experience the real difference for themselves

Use betas and move quickly. Deploy a quick beta site and let it loose on the users. They’ll tell you if it’s any good or not, what needs changing and what needs adding.

Don’t get hung up on measurement. The tools are inexpensive and easy to change; if it takes off, the users will write the business case for you.

Or, as Zig Ziglar would say, “wait until all the lights are on green, you’ll never leave the garage.”

Christopher Barger, the former “blogger-in-chief” at IBM who moved to General Motors about a month ago, reprised much of his presentation from the San Francisco conference. He has new challenges with GM, moving from a tech company to one that is more traditional.

Likewise, it was good to hear from Mark Jen again, too (and to join Chris, Mark and several others for dinner this evening.) We also heard presentations from Jim Goldstein from Informatica, who attended the San Francisco conference and went home and applied what he learned, Susan Russ from the Reader’s Digest Association and two gentlemen who worked with the Acuvue-sponsored podcast for Johnson & Johnson Vision Care.

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Low-Power Community Radio?

A comment on this post reminded me of something I was thinking a few days ago: remember when the commercial radio stations were fighting with the low-power radio stations? I haven’t been involved in this debate for a while (I used to work for a member of Congress, so I recall something of the issue; I’ve been out of politics for about 7 years, so I don’t know whether it’s still a live issue.)

Some in the community at that time were concerned about consolidation by Clear Channel and other big players, and that radio would lack local community voices…so they wanted to have extremely low-power stations that would preserve that local megaphone (or maybe I should say miniphone.)

Now we seem to have come full-circle. Clear Channel is going private and selling off hundreds of its stations. And with the advent of podcasting less than three years ago, now anybody can get as big an audience as they can attract. No FCC license needed.

In fact, that’s my working definition of New Media: anything that doesn’t require an FCC license.

Admittedly, the FCC licenses are for public airwaves, and there is a stewardship responsibility. I don’t know how exactly what the ownership rules are (and Nabisco, whose name links to the NAB site) obviously has a dog in this fight, as he properly disclosed in his comment.

Who disagrees with him and why? I can see that the broadcast stations are going to have a significant advantage in building an audience because they are using the public airwaves for transmission. But with bandwidth costs essentially approaching zero, now almost anyone has very similar ability to reach an audience through audio. And we can do video, too…which radio stations can’t, except on their web sites.

And as we see on the net, communities aren’t necessarily geographic. FIR, for instance, reaches a community of people interested in PR and technology.

In a world of infinite choice for audio entertainment and information, does it still make sense to limit ownership of local radio stations?

I don’t know…I’m sure open to hearing arguments on the other side. But it seems the days of media monopolies are over.

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Multimedia Radio

From this morning’s Star Tribune:

In a move it hopes will change the morning drive-time habits of public radio listeners nationwide, Minneapolis-based Public Radio International (PRI) has teamed up with a roster of other media providers to develop a live national news program that would compete with National Public Radio’s venerable “Morning Edition” show.
PRI and its partner, WNYC, New York Public Radio, will produce the show in collaboration with the BBC World Service, New York Times Radio and WGBH, the Boston public radio station. The show will launch as an interactive multiplatform program, inviting radio and online listeners’ participation, the partners said.

Meanwhile, NPR is launching its own new competitor to “Morning Edition”:
“We’re actually developing our own program to compete with ‘Morning Edition,’ ” said Andi Sporkin, NPR’s vice president for communications. She said a show aimed at a slightly younger audience — 25 to 44 — will debut in September, launched simultaneously on radio, online, high-definition radio via satellite and podcasts.

So, between the two public radio organizations, we’re seeing multiplatform delivery from both and high involvement from listeners (at least in the PRI program). Clearly, they’re not going to just be doing radio; they’ll be incorporating photos and video on the web, and are trying to build deeper relationships and develop community.

Just another sign of all the media converging (note the PRI partners); and because radio and print organizations don’t carry the same psychic baggage about video that TV stations do, they may actually do online video better.

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I See Debt People

Dave Ramsey has done a good job of blending broadcast radio and new media for his mission of inspiring Americans to get out of debt.

He’s got a great web site, and offers an hour of his daily three-hour program as a free podcast on iTunes. The one-hour version is funded by commercials. The full three-hour podcast is available without commercials for members of his subscription web site, mytotalmoneymakeover.com, for $8.95 a month.

I subscribe to lots of podcasts. This is the only one I pay to receive.

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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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