Category: Podcasting

  • Marketing Over Coffee Serving Again

    The WordPress install for Marketing Over Coffee went bye-bye for a little while tonight, but fear not – the best marketing podcast has its web site back and a new episode for your listening pleasure, featuring my dauntless co-host, John Wall.

  • Crosspost: Student Loan Radio 44: Becca Loebe at the Lizard Lounge

    Crosspost: Student Loan Radio 44: Becca Loebe at the Lizard Lounge

    Becca Loebe played a great concert at the Lizard Lounge on September 16, 2007. Recent events, like PodCamp Boston, conferences, etc. have kept me so busy that I didn’t get around to publishing it until now, but here it is for your listening enjoyment.

    Enjoy, and stop by her site, RebeccaLoebe.com, for more information.

    Direct MP3 file download: MP3 file

    Reminders
    + Get the Financial Aid Podcast by email!
    + Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com.
    + Discuss this episode at the Financial Aid Forum!
    + Private student loans available at any time – visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com
    + Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com
    + Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
    + FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com
    + The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

    I want to hear from you! Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit https://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208.

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  • Cover Music on the Podsafe Music Network

    There was a great discussion on Twitter today about cover songs and the Podsafe Music Network. Disclosure: I am not a lawyer. My understanding of copyright and intellectual property law is based solely on all the stuff I’ve read to be in compliance with the law and what ASCAP/BMI sent me when I applied for licenses for my show, the Financial Aid Podcast.

    There are three basic rights when a song is created by a musician:

    1. Composition rights. This is the sheet music, the notes themselves.
    2. Performance rights. This is the expression of the music out loud.
    3. Mechanical rights. This is the recording of the music. Sometimes called reproduction rights.

    In the United States, performance rights and mechanical rights are often lumped together, while composition rights are kept separate, thus necessitating clearinghouses like ASCAP and BMI for composition rights, and labels and Harry Fox Agency for mechanical rights. As I learned at Podcasters Across Borders this summer, Canada separates all three and has three distinct licensing agencies to deal with the varying rights.

    When it comes to cover music on the Podsafe Music Network, an artist who uploads a cover has rights only to the performance and the mechanical; the MP3 file is both performance and recording in one. The artist does NOT have rights to the composition itself, and uploading a cover to the PMN is a violation of the terms of service, because they’re essentially misrepresenting someone else’s composition rights as their own. This also means the composer is NOT getting paid for use of their work.

    When it comes to playing music on your podcast, play it safe. Only play original podsafe music uploaded by the artists or their legal representation (labels), unless you have an ASCAP/BMI license. If you’re not sure whether a song is original or not, Google the title and a lyric or two, and you’ll soon find out.

  • So about those podcasting associations…

    So about those podcasting associations…

    … with Tim Bourquin’s Podcast Expo coming up, I’ve gotten no less than six emails in the past week (names withheld to protect the guilty) asking me either what I thought of the ADM and APOMP, ADM vs. APOMP, etc., both as a podcaster and as that PodCamp guy along with Mr. Brogan.

    Short version: I’m waiting to see. Until I get a chance to study what these two organizations are doing, I can’t offer a valid opinion. I do think podcasting needs standards, but I also think podcasting needs to move away from the pageviews/downloads mindset and towards metrics that count – funded student loans for me, maybe speaking gigs for Mitch Joel, maybe Webinar opportunities for Bryan Person, etc. At the end of the day, whose name will be on the paycheck or accounts receivables?

    Ultimately, if podcasting is to be a valid vehicle for business, it needs to have more than just eyeballs as a metric. The last time folks tried that was 1999, and we all know how that ended.

  • The iPod Nano and iPod Touch – 8 Implications for Podcasting and Podsafe Music

    The iPod Nano and iPod Touch – Implications for Podcasting and Podsafe Music

    A few highlights from Apple’s refresh of the iPod line for podcasters and new media makers.

    1. The iPod nano now plays iPod video – 320×240 H.264 video. With this, video iPods are much more affordable and in reach of more of the population. At 149 and199, the nanos are priced well – but 4 GB and 8 GB won’t go too far with lots of video.

    Want to be the best video podcaster you can be? Get up to speed on video compression utilities to make your video high quality but small file size – tools like TechSpansion’s iSquint and VisualHub can do serious two pass encoding, making good quality at a small disk price.

    2. CoverFlow is enabled on the nano. Again, because the nano line is so popular, it will have greater reach than the high end iPod. If you’re not using your show’s logo as cover art in every episode, you’re going to miss out on an increasingly important branding opportunity.

    3. The iPod Touch is an iPhone-sized screen. Again, Coverflow means a huge branding opportunity for your show. The iPod Touch also incorporates the Safari Web Browser, which means that the Podcaster iPhone Kit is now the Podcaster iKit.

    4. If you’re a video podcaster, YouTube is a required distribution point if you want maximum exposure. Apple has built YouTube browser functionality into two of its products now, iMovie 8 and now the iPod Touch. For maximum distribution, consider looking into a distributor like TubeMogul.com to hit as many video sites as possible.

    5. If you’re a podsafe musician and you don’t have your music in the iTunes Music Store, do so immediately as long as it makes financial sense. The iTunes Music Store wireless edition now allows immediate, impulse purchases from the store, and with the holidays coming up, it’ll be even more important.

    6. If you’re a podsafe musician, the iTunes Music Store available wirelessly also means a game change for drop cards. Instead of giving someone a dropcard and hoping they follow up, you can gift a song immediately to them – just with their email address. Instant way to build a mailing list at a relatively low acquisition cost!

    7. The Starbucks Now Playing selection in the iTunes Wifi Music Store is interesting in its own right, but I look forward to the packet sniffer and relayer that can mimic a Starbucks, letting independent WiFi access points create a Starbucks-like access point. In turn, this could be used to promote independent artists’ music on a public WiFi point.

    8. Search is in style again in iTunes. With a smaller interface than a PC and a smaller keyboard, having your podcast, music, or video easily searchable is going to be a Very Big Deal ™. Make your stuff searchable. Complete your ID3 tags on EVERY episode to reap the maximum benefits. If you work with a vendor that puts your music in the store, make sure they are doing a top shelf job with metadata and ID3 tags.

  • Call a K7 Number on the 7s!

    As many of you know, those who have K7 free call in numbers have to have activity on those numbers every 30 days or they get deleted. Instead of just calling our own, why not call someone else’s today? (call your own too, just to be safe) Here’s the ones listed on NewEnglandPodcasting.com:

    206-202-2974 – The Mind of Men
    206-222-9130 – New Comm Road
    206-309-7228 – QCast
    206-309-7257 – Going Fourth
    206-333-1339 – Comedy4Cast
    206-339-8723 – Extra Points Fantasy Football
    206-350-1208 – Financial Aid Podcast
    206-350-2583 – Blue Box Podcast
    206-350-4411 – Pod Music 411
    206-350-7287 – Patriot World
    206-600-4475 – Rumor Girls
    206-600-5869 – Sox and Stripes
    206-600-6277 – Wicked Good Podcast
    206-666-3557 – Podcast Pendulum
    206-888-4274 – Accident Hash
    206-888-6465 – Net Results
    206-984-2233 – U Turn Cafe

  • Happy Birthday, Julien Smith

    To the man who coined the phrase: “Your podcast is not a f***ing toaster!”

    Happy Birthday, Julien Smith

    Happy birthday, Julien Smith.

  • Podcasting Goes Mainstream

    Podcasting has gone mainstream.

    How do I know?

    Sunday morning televangelists are encouraging viewers to subscribe to their podcasts.

    Podcasting goes mainstream

    Welcome to the revolution, guys and gals.

  • I Want Different Podcast Awards

    The Podcast Awards must be happening. In the past 24 hours, I’ve gotten 12 emails, over 40 bulletins on MySpace, and on virtually every other channel you can reach out to your audience with, I’ve had fellow podcasters begging, pleading, and pimping for votes for the 2007 Podcast Awards.

    Now, don’t get me wrong. If my day job podcast, the Financial Aid Podcast, were to win an award, cool. More stuff for the resume, etc. As a prize, you know what I would want?

    A PR Newswire US ENT-N1 press release, a promo on every nominated show, AND $500 in Google Adwords credits that I could use to build new audience. Here’s the thing I don’t like about the Podcast Awards – and believe me, it’s no dig on Todd Cochrane or the Podcast Connect folks, who do a great job with the awards – but the Podcast Awards are a fishbowl decoration.

    What do I mean? To quote PodCamp co-founder and partner Chris Brogan, they’re an internal thing to the podcasting community, news inside the fishbowl, inside the echo chamber. Show the award to anyone deep inside the podcasting community, and they’ll know of it at the least (particularly if they’re friends of the winner on MySpace and got the same bulletin 6 times in 30 minutes). Show the award to the average passerby on Fifth Avenue or Ghirardelli Square or Faneuil Hall, and they’ll look at you very, very blankly, and probably mutter something polite as they run away from you.

    What would be cool is if the Podcast Awards, or an award like it, had some of the values that I think are so essential to new media built right into them, the same values we try to build into PodCamp – transparency, openness, and most of all, outreach to people who are just getting into podcasting or are thinking about jumping in. What would that look like?

    Well, for starters, nominees would need to provide a data set to the awards committee – statistics for a minimum of 3 months from two different, unaffiliated data sources. They could be Libsyn stats combined with Feedburner numbers, or Blubrry info combined with Podshow PDN info, or Apache weblogs and Kiptronic data. Whatever the numbers are you’d submit as an award participant, you’d agree to have them published publicly, because transparency is the key to fairness.

    What would the judges be looking for?

    – Largest audience. That’s a good metric. Measure a 30 day running average based on downloads per unique IP address.
    – Most improved audience. A show that went from 10 listeners/viewers to 10,000 listeners in 3 months would be a huge gain. Again, downloads per unique IP address.
    – Most diverse audience. Take a look at your web logs. I’d bet you that you don’t have a giant long tail of referrers in it. Suppose a show had referring site links – inbound links – from over 10,000 different web sites? That’d be some definite outreach (for the record, Bum Rush the Charts had about 13,000 referring sites at peak).
    – One subjective award to the person or persons who’ve done the most to bring in new listeners to the podcasting community – not to your show, but to podcasting in general.

    As part of the award acceptance, the winners would need to provide details on how they achieved their accomplishments, and suggestions for others to help them grow their audiences, too.

    Podcasting is practically self-selling – free, legal music, infinite choice in subject matter (and quality), unique perspectives on issues, and everything under the sun. More variety than Clear Channel’s swill, and it keeps the ol’ iPod fresh instead of shuffling the same library over and over again. However, podcasting needs to get people involved into at least one show – and then the listener will likely get curious about what ELSE is available. But you have to get them exposed to that one show first.

    Outreach. Distribution. These are what podcasting is missing right now in a systematic fashion, and these are our Dip (Seth Godin, thank you) that we must overcome in order to make this podcasting phenomenon more than a passing fad.

    So what do you say? Should we have the Podcasting Outreach Awards?

  • Nokia Podcasting on the N91 Handset

    Nokia Podcasting on the N91 Handset

    System: 2.20
    Software: Podcatching Client 1.00.3 SIS

    Here’s what I’ve discovered after having a Nokia N91 for 48 hours…

    Risto K. from Nokia flat out said at PodCamp Europe that the only directory Nokia *searches* for podcasts is DigitalPodcast.com. Make sure your show is listed in there.

    Joe Carpenter from Podshow asked about Podshow’s directory listings. Unfortunately for Podshow, they’ve changed the lineup quite a bit in 1.00.3. Here’s a series of screenshots to get to the directories.

    Directories:

    Podcasting on the Nokia N91

    Featured Podcasts:

    Podcasting on the Nokia N91

    Recommended:

    Podcasting on the Nokia N91

    Currently, Blubrry tops the stack in the 1.00.3 release of the client.

    More importantly for podcasters, think VERY carefully about how you do your ID3 tags and show titles. This is how much room you get on the N91 for your show titles:

    Podcasting on the Nokia N91

    I definitely recommend making a short tag that you can glance at to see which show you’re on.

    Finally, OPML support for podcasts in the browser on the phone is non-existent. When you click on an OPML file, it tries to load it into a text-based feedreader. If anyone from Nokia is reading, how do I set up one-click OPML to Podcatcher on the N series?

    Other tidbit: if you have direct MP3 links on your show notes/blog page, the N91 will download the MP3 file to the music folder, so make sure you’ve got direct links. Between the iPhone and the N-series, direct MP3 links are the currency of the mobile realm for the time being.

    Special thanks to CC Chapman for giving me the N91 to experiment with.

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