Best MP3 Players for Podcasts
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
CNET published a review today of the 5 best MP3 players for podcasts. The Zune beat out the iPod, which was #2. But a bigger surprise to me was that they named Cowon's D2 #4 because it comes preloaded with Podcast Ready's myPodder application. :)
Labels: myPodder, Podcast Ready, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 10:29 PM,
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The Bright and Shiny
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Tech Crunch reports on a new eMarketer article saying that podcast are "taking off (again)." The funny thing is, that's not what it says. It simply reports on the steady and continued growth in podcast advertising that is expected to reach $435M by 2012. The market itself has seen nothing but constant growth.
It hasn't been, however, bright and shiny. Just as quickly as it hit the scene, podcasting moved on to be an industry... a media market. The hype died, but the industry grew (thanks mostly to the major media outlets according to eMarketer). As someone that's tried very hard to raise additional capital for their podcasting endeavor, I can tell you that it doesn't matter. Its a business now, and no longer very bright and shiny, and that means that most investors these days just aren't interested.Labels: advertising, emarketing, podcast, Podcast Ready, podcasting, tech crunch
posted by Russell @ 7:53 AM,
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Podcast and New Media Expo
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Like so many in the new media space, I'll be heading to Ontario, California this evening for the 3rd annual Podcast and New Media Expo. We're not sponsoring the event as in the past, which means for once I might actually get to spend some time with friends and have a little fun. I'll post a few pictures to my Flickr page from time to time, some video to Pickle, and will probably be giving some updates here in the evenings. And of course, you can always follow my ramblings via Twitter. (RSS feeds for all of these are in the right sidebar).Wheels up at 6:10pm CST.
Labels: podcast, podcast and new media expo, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 12:01 PM,
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Podcast Industry Maturing
Rob Greenlee at Mobilecaster News has an interesting take on the closing of Yahoo's Podcast Directory. (Oh yea, did I forget to mention that Yahoo has posted an announcement that they will be closing their directory on October 31? Sorry...)He sees it as a sign that the industry is maturing, and although that's not my take (nor Yahoo's explanation for the move) I do agree with a lot of what he says regarding what the industry needs, etc.
I started to post a comment to his blog, but then realized that if I am going to blatantly plug my company, I should restrict that to my own site and not spam his. Rob points out that there needs to be a connection between the devices and the content, ala iTunes and the iPod. A single click that will deliver the content to mobile phones, MP3 players, etc.
YES! This is what we've been working towards at Podcast Ready for the last two years. Today, if you purchase an iRiver device (which Rob mentions) it comes pre-loaded with Podcast Ready technology. This technology allows users to select (with a single click) content not only from our directory, but with the use of a browser shortcut any directory or web site regardless of what one-click solutions they've chosen to provide - which is usually only iTunes at this point.
Its been a slow process, but over the next 12 months we should see around 25-35 million of these "Podcast Ready enabled" devices hit the streets and to us that's very exciting news for the podcast industry.
Labels: podcast, Podcast Ready, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 10:58 AM,
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Drive 100,000 new listeners to your podcast
Thursday, June 21, 2007
"100K Play" Contest
What's it worth to get 100,000 first-time downloads of your podcast? Here's your chance to find out. Podcast Ready is giving away one placement on every copy of myPodder to one lucky podcaster. This means that your podcast feed will be pre-configured on MP3 devices from iRiver, Cowon, Skullcandy, and Wolverine (just to name a few) as well as in every copy of myPodder downloaded from our site, and other's. Your show will remain in the line up until you've received 100,000 downloads from new myPodder users. This is a huge opportunity to expand your audience, and its free!
Here's how you enter:
- Send an email to 100kplay@podcastready.com and include your contact information, your show's name, website address, feed address, and a desired promotional code.
- Urge your listeners to visit Podcast Ready's site (http://www.podcastready.com) and register a new account (this will require a valid email address) or update their existing profile using your promotional code.
It's that simple. The show with the most registrations wins. And one lucky listener who registers using the winner's promotional code will win a free video iPod!
What's the catch? No catch. Before you can be entered, I will have to check out your show and make sure that it's not overly offensive or anything. After all, your podcast will end up on MP3 players sold through Amazon and Wal-Mart so I have to make sure that the content is "retail safe." (And before you ask what "retail safe" is, it's entirely up to me to decide... I'll know it when I see it).
Once you've received confirmation that your promotional code is registered, then you are set. The contest will end on July 31st, so what are you waiting for... more?
Okay, here's a little more: if you have a Podcast Ready chicklet on your site when you register your promo-code you will automatically start off on the scorecard with 1000 registrations to your credit! Now what are you waiting for?
Labels: 100kplay, contest, myPodder, podcast, Podcast Ready, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 12:30 AM,
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Podcast Week Continues; I Have My Doubts
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Podcast Week 2007 continues today with the posting: Free Small Business Podcasting Kit. The information seems professional and includes a free PDF. The reason I'm doubtful of its usefulness (I've not read the whole package) is because of the directories they mention. No, they don't mention Podcast Ready (the default directory for millions of devices from iRiver, Cowon, and many others) and no, I don't hold that against them. But they do recommend specifically that podcasters should register with (among others) iPodderx.com, Loomia.com, and OpenPodcast.org. The iPodderx site is a spam site, Loomia got out of the podcasting business a while back, and OpenPodcast when it was on-line was more of a party-line for podcasts than a directory.Labels: podcast, podcasting, professional
posted by Russell @ 3:15 PM,
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Free Podcasting Gear
The "Create Business Growth" blog is running a contest in which you can win a set of some great podcasting gear. Check the site for details, but in a nutshell all you have to do is subscribe to the feed. The prize package includes such things as an MXL 990 Condenser Microphone, a Behringer Microphono PP400 Phono Preamp, and more.Labels: business, contest, podcast, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 11:33 AM,
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Voice.com kicks off Podcasting Week 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Voices.com, the site for professional voice talents, has launched their "Podcasting Week 2007" today: we're covering the ins and outs of podcasting including how to find, listen to and subscribe to podcasts as well as the business side of podcast production and making some dough as a podcaster or as the voice of an independent or corporate podcast.In addition to blog posts talking about podcasting, they have launched at least one podcast on the topic of voice talent: Voice Over Experts. Voice.com calls themselves the #1 voice marketplace, and the site appears to be a great one for people in the voice industry as well as businesses seeking voice talent. They even have a section called "Podcasts and Podcasting Voices" where you can check out several examples of (I assume) their members in podcasting intros and the like.
Labels: podcast, podcasting, professional, voice talent
posted by Russell @ 3:41 PM,
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New Canola Beta brings podcasting to the N800
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
I played around with Canola when I first got my Nokia N800 and thought it was a pretty good all around media player, but it was kind of buggy. Today I saw that there was an upgrade, so I went ahead and installed it.
The first thing I noticed was that it now has support for internet radio and podcasts. The process for setting it up to receive a podcast is a little difficult, but it works. You have to go into the administrative console and enter your feeds manually. Make sure that you have connection to the internet at this point, because it will parse the feed to get the title, etc.
Once configured, just fire it up and go to the 'Audio' section where you will find the menu item for podcasting. Select one of your feeds; it will parse the feed and present you with a list of the episodes. Once selected, the episode will begin to stream right to the N800. There is no option for downloading or subscribing, but its pretty handy for listening to shows while I work at my desk.Labels: canola, n800, nokia, podcast, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 12:27 AM,
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Clickcaster gets "hacked" too?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Posted to Clickcaster's blog is a message that their email system was also compromised recently. Basically they say that the attacker managed to get their system to send out 84K spam messages to their customers, but never actually had access to the email addresses themselves.
Is there some effort out there to attack podcast companies?
Just for the record Podcast Ready isn't planning on spamming anyone in the next couple of days, so if you get some from us... its not me.
Labels: clickcaster, hacker, podcast, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 10:38 PM,
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Clickcaster Now Offers Free Accounts
Monday, June 04, 2007
Clickcaster, which closed their free accounts about a month ago, just announced that they are bringing them back. They do offer expanded services for a fee, but the basics can be had at no charge.Labels: clickcaster, podcast, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 6:28 PM,
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Amazon Podcasts
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Amazon has launched their podcast directory. So far it seems mostly geared
toward selling books, etc. and it seems to be focused on web consumption via a flash player, but they do publish RSS feeds for the shows, and for the select few from the community that are represented, Amazon just links right back to the lucky podcaster's home page.Labels: amazon, podcast, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 12:49 PM,
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The Truth Can Hurt
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
In the earliest days of podcasting, most newcomers to the space would comment about the chatter. Specifically, how self-gratifying and boring it was. One of the most notable detractors at the time was Dvorak. (Of course, that only lasted until he started podcasting himself.)
Valleywag today reports on a very snarky review of Podtech's content:
Videobloggers interviewing OTHER videobloggers. What fun. Bloggers interviewing other bloggers. Bloggers interviewing videobloggers. Videobloggers interviewing bloggers. Tech party people interviewing other tech party people. When no one left to interview, interview others interviewing you. The incestuous fun never ends.ouch.
Podtech seems focused on producing media for the "early adopters" and
"insiders." From someone on the inside, it does seem rather incestuous - an echo chamber. What they need to consider is how this content will be thought of by people outside the loop who don't know who all the bloggers are, who just got a MySpace account, and started using Flickr when Yahoo made them switch, who found 'podcasting' because it came embedded on their new MP3 player... those are the people that are going to find this (whether its Podtech or some other niche content) very refreshing.Labels: content, media, podcast, podcasting, podtech, valleywag
posted by Russell @ 8:52 PM,
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Spashcast - Cool New Service, Needs Some Work
Monday, April 30, 2007
Someone asked me today about Splashcast, and then I saw an article on Podcasting News about their new service, so I thought I would take a look.
Its a very interesting concept: Splashcast provides its users a way to create a "show" from video, audio, images, and even documents, and play the latest content on their web page or blog using Splashcast's management system and flash player.
Splashcast also has support for adding podcasts to your channel from either their directory or by adding the feed yourself. Since I'm mostly interested in podcast promotion and audience acquisition I made a channel of video and audio podcasts, although I did include one of my images from flickr that was tagged 'ppme' for the Podcast and Portable Media Expo.
The directory is a little light, and although it lets the user add podcasts by the show's feed directly I wasn't successful in getting this to work with one of my favorites: Riding with the Window Down. (It did however work just fine with the feed from Geeknews Central.)
| My Splashcast Channel |
The user interface takes a little getting used to - the flash interface is small and cannot be expanded to take up the browser window. Its simple enough though: add the podcasts that you like, organize them into channels, create a player, and assign the channels to players. My player above contains my one channel I created.
There are a couple of things I think podcasters might take issue with regarding how Splashcast handles their content: caching, and repackaging feeds. The caching was discussed in the comments following the Podcasting News post and I think the response from the Splashcast team shows that they are already on top of the potential issue.
The feeds that Splashcast publishes for each show is not the podcaster's original feed, but rather a repackaged feed coming from Splashcast's own server. Odeo did this in the very beginning, as did Podcast Alley, but both companies changed that very quickly. Its been an issue in the past (that led to a rather overblown [IMHO] news cycle) and quite frankly I was a little surprised to see anyone still doing it.
The thing I found more troubling is that the feeds they do provide have no "enclosure" statements, meaning that a would-be subscriber to my show cannot plug it into iTunes or myPodder and automatically receive my content. The feeds do work in "standard" RSS readers such as Google's and the latest episode is presented there in Flash, but it does not link back to the content owner's original content and the credits are a fuzzy. (For instance, the feed for GeekbriefTV reads: "GeekBrief.TV | Video Podcast by SplashCast Feed Agent")
At the end of the day, its really up to the individual podcaster to decide if any of these are real issues; I'm assuming they can choose to participate or not. I think its a very interesting service though, and will give podcasters a good tool for creating content, promoting podcasts and grow ing their audience, as well as users the ability to show off their favorite shows.
Labels: podcast, podcasting, splashcast
posted by Russell @ 10:56 PM,
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Battle Over - Apple Won
Monday, April 23, 2007
That was the title of a recent Valleywag blog posting about podcasting. I love it when people declare something "over". In this case, they come to this conclusion because of two main things: Odeo's sale and Loomia's transition from the podcast directory space.
If you've been following the stories, then you know why Odeo quit: Twitter. From the Obvious Blog on the subject:
In the last few months, we here at Obvious have been increasingly focused on Twitter. As a result, our original product, Odeo, has not gotten the attention it deserves.And according to Valleywag, Loomia changed directions because:
It does not cost us much to run - in fact, AdSense covers the hosting—but on the web you need to constantly improve, or fade away. We've put too much into Odeo to want to see it fade away. And it still has tons of potential. But we're not improving it fast enough.
We estimated the market share of various competitors, and it was immediately clear that Apple had grabbed more than 50% of the "podcast finding" business overnight....We were all just fighting over a small slice of the pie.In short, one service fell behind while the other gave up - and that's enough to define an industry according to the crack analysts of Valleywag. Don't get me wrong. I recognize that Apple's has the lion's share of the market. And I acknowledge that as a founder of a podcast-related company I want there to be hope. The fact is though, Apple has held on to their share because no one has tackled the market at Apple's level: the retail device.
This is also the reason that podcasting saw very little growth going into 2007 (which by the way is already roughly the size of satellite radio in the U.S.). There are a lot of companies that are concentrating on the content and the advertising, but hardly any seem to be focused on audience acquisition and distribution.
At Podcast Ready we spent most of 2006 quietly working with device manufacturers to make their MP3 players "podcast ready" - meaning that they are capable of receiving podcasts right out of the box without the user having to install software, learn about RSS, or any of the other obstacles that currently impede podcast adoption.
Podcast Ready partners like iRiver, Cowon, and Wolverine expect to ship about 5M "podcast ready enabled" devices in 2007 (and that's just as of today). With an initial activation rate of over 90%, and an eventual adoption rate of over 40%, we expect to bring a considerable number of new podcast audience members into the market this year.
This is a great opportunity for the manufacturers (who add additional functionality to their offerings) and content creators (who can expand their distribution by having their content placed on the devices at the factory). If all goes according to plan it should be a major step in mainstreaming the technology and jump-starting its adoption.
Just because no one has yet to take on the problems of podcast distribution and adoption does not mean that Apple has "won" or that the opportunities have flattened. Podcast Ready aside, imagine the day when podcast functionality is added to the desktops of 90% of the world's computers ala Microsoft Media Player...
I personally love it when folks declare that "the battle is over" and so-and-so have won. It keeps them focused on other things while those behind the scenes continue to execute. If these kinds of declarations were true there'd be no Google...
Labels: loomia, odeo, podcast, podcasting, valleywag
posted by Russell @ 8:06 PM,
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Adobe Announces Portable Flash Media Player
Monday, April 16, 2007
Adobe announced that they will be shipping a portable media player for Flash in the coming months. This could end up being quite significant for the future of on-line video and advertising, and for podcasting.
Unlike other video formats, Flash video on the web allows the content owners to better protect their content, and it allows advertisers to better track the effectiveness and reach of their ads.
The big buzz right now is of course on-line, user generated content (ala YouTube or Pickle) and a device that allows that content to be taken off-line while keeping the tracking and advertising in tact is a huge step forward in getting media companies to buy-in to the concept of digital distribution.
This also could address the main issue that is keeping video podcasting from growing the way audio podcasting has: the file format. MP3 is of course (nearly) universal, but virtually every video player uses its own format (even my Sony mylo won't play all the videos formatted for my Sony PSP). If this technology is licensed to other manufacturers it could be the shift that the digital media industry needs.
For podcasters, it could make the production process easier while giving them the ability to track (and thereby sell) ads in their podcasts. It could also ease the fears of major media companies and get them to start using podcasting as a distribution method.
Labels: adobe, flash, mobile, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 12:11 PM,
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Charging Stations
Friday, April 13, 2007
I arrived in Las Vegas safe and sound this morning and headed straight to the convention center for the kick-off of the Podcast Bootcamp - part of the NAB 2007 conference.
I noticed one of these stations at the airport and didn't think much about it.
Then I saw another at the convention center and thought I'd take a closer look. It really is what it appears: for $5.00 you can plug in your device and charge it up. The fine print does warn the customer that they are not responsible for stolen devices. I guess people leave them for a couple of hours and actually expect their phones to be there when they get back.
Labels: las vegas, nab2007, podcasting
posted by Russell @ 5:14 PM,
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long-term memory loss
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
dvorak then (referring to IT Conversations):
Okay, so at least now I can listen to this podcast. You too can listen to this miserable ramble if you want to, but I must warn you that it's hard to take. It seems to go on forever. The pedantry is boundless and there doesn't seem to be any desire to make these chats interesting. If podcasting such as this becomes popular then its place in the pecking order for all forms of fun entertainment would be as follows:
* Circuses
* Nightclubs
* Movies
* Sporting events
* Cable TV
* Network TV
* County fairs
* Talk radio
* PBS
* Whittling
* Fingernail clipping
* Podcasting
dvorak now:
There is no doubt in my mind that podcasting is not only here to stay but will also shortly threaten established media broadcast systems. It's not so much that they will all be destroyed by homebrew networks, but podcasts will be taking away just enough listeners to be a major concern.
what changed? someone gave him a chance to become part of that "boundless pendantry" where "there doesn't seem to be any desire to make these chats interesting."
what a bonehead.... mmmm... bones...
Labels: dvorak, podcasting
posted by clyde @ 8:35 PM,
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