by Shelly Brisbin

As you read this, we’re right between two of the biggest gatherings of the year in our industry: Podcast & New Media Expo, and BlogWorld & New Media Expo. It will be a busy fall for those fortunate enough to be able to travel to such events, and good blog reading and podcast listening for the rest. It’s also worth pointing out that you’re reading the sixth issue of Blogger & Podcaster Magazine. We’re in a groove, and I’m feeling good about where we fit into the new-media landscape.

I don’t usually write about the magazine itself in this column. I figure you can read the table of contents yourself, or flip through to find what you want to read. But this month we’re making some changes that I think you’ll like, and that will make this magazine more useful to you, as well. As always, my goal is to make these pages interesting, informative, and relevant to your work and life as podcasters and bloggers.

This month, and from now on, we are expanding the 10 Questions feature from its home on the back page. When talking to industry leaders like Leo Laporte, Matt Mullenweg, or this month’s subject, Cameron Reilly, we have repeatedly found that a single page just doesn’t provide enough room to capture what these folks have to tell us. Of course, you can listen to the podcast editions of 10 Questions, which are unedited versions of our interviews, and I hope you will. But with a bit of extra room in the magazine, know you’ll have a more complete sense of our conversation. Just a tip for podcast listeners, the audio interviews almost always include more than ten questions.

We’re also adding a feature in this issue called Blog Scorecard, a look at top blogs in different categories each month. Blog-industry consultant Rob Neppel applies his ranking system to the scorecard, and also writes about a particular blogging category and its leaders. This month, with storms still a threat, Rob takes a look at hurricane blogs.

I also want to put a little plug in for our news section, called LeadIn. As a monthly magazine, we really can’t match the breaking news coverage of blogs, or even podcasts. We don’t want to try. What we do in our news section is provide context for stories that matter in the blogging and podcasting world, and perhaps point out a few things you missed while browsing your own favorite news sources on a daily basis. Coverage of industry and community events forms another important component of the news pages. I’ve asked several well-known podcasters and bloggers to write about the events they attend, and explain what they learned, what people were talking about, and why because of new media, but there’s always the chance you know something we don’t.

We have a lot of ideas for making the magazine better, and deepening our coverage of new media. Central to these efforts is getting thinkers and leaders involved with us. We’re working hard to find writers and commentators who bring the most up-to-date, innovative ideas on podcasting and blogging to you. In fact, this month we’ve recruited blog evangelist extraordinaire Lorelle VanFossen to contribute a feature article called “7 Steps to a Better Blog.” Look for Lorelle’s byline in future issues, as well. We plan to keep rolling out new kinds of articles in the coming months, so keep watching! Again, your suggestions are always welcome here.

Thank you for all of your great comments about Blogger & Podcaster, and for your support during our first six months. I’m looking forward to seeing some of you at BlogWorld, and at PodCamp Boston, later this month.

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By Elisa M Welch

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September was the month for podcast recognition and appreciation, with no fewer than three awards events honoring ’casters in every category imaginable.

The second annual Parsec Awards (parsecawards.com) constituted a celebration of speculative fiction podcasting. Presented by Farpoint Media, the September 1st awards event was held for the second year at the Dragon*Con convention in Atlanta, August 31 through September 3. Contenders were nominated by fans, and finalists were chosen by a committee of judges who scored shows based on content, production, and presentation. Prizes were awarded in 18 categories for science-fictionand fantasy original content, podiobooks, and other categories dealing with the new frontiers of portable media.

This year’s fete was hosted by FarPoint Media’s Michael R. Mennenga, Blogger & Podcaster columnist Tee Morris (who headed the Parsec steering committee), and podcaster and freelance writer Mur Lafferty. Among the winners were The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd (Best Audio Drama Short Form and Best Audio Production), Missing Pages (Best Video Production and Best Video), The Signal (Best Fan Podcast), Pulp Gamer — Out of Character (Best Infotainment Cast), and Command Line (Best Tech Podcast).

But wait, still more prizes were handed out at Dragon*Con, as the third Podcast Peer Awards (www.podcastpeers.org) were held on September 2. Dr. Floyd picked up another trophy for Best Family Friendly Podcast. Other prize recipients included Grammar Girl (Favorite Audio Podcast), The Financial Aid Podcast (Best Business Podcast), and Comedy4Cast (Best Comedy Podcast and Best Short Podcast).

Podcast Connect managed the People’s Choice Podcast Awards (www.podcastawards.com), presented at Podcast and New Media Expo (PMME) in Ontario, CA on September 28. Prizes in 20 categories were announced in August, with the two top honors, People’s Choice and Best Produced, revealed at PNME. Nominees for the big prizes ranged from Grammar Girl to Keith and the Girl, from Firefly Talk to Reduced Shakespeare Company. Other Podcast Awards winners included Ask a Ninja (Best Video Podcast), Praystation Portable (Best Mobile Phone Formatted Podcast), Manager Tools (Business), Nobody Likes Onions (Comedy), This American Life (Cultural/Arts), Grammar Girl (Education), The Lost Podcast (Entertainment), CoffeeGeek (Food and Drink), CAGast (Gaming), ShowGirls (General), Feast of Fools (GLBT), Sex Is Fun (Health/Fitness), Keith and the Girl (Mature), Firefly Talk (Movies/Films), Catholic Rockers (Podsafe Music), Free Talk Live (Political), Daily Breakfast (Religion /Inspiration), Phedippidations (Sports), Security Now (Technology/Science), and WDW Radio (Travel).

Those awards, which included trophies and podcasting equipment, were also handed out at PNME. ::

Who Needs Net Neutrality?

By Elisa M Welch

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On September 6, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) cautioning against “imposing regulations that could hamper the development of the Internet and related services.” The filing came in response to an FCC Notice of Inquiry regarding broadband practices. In its filing DOJ stated that some regulatory proposals offered in the name of “Net neutrality” could deter broadband Internet providers from upgrading and expanding their networks to reach more Americans.

In other words, let the free market rule: the Department’s filing says that it may make economic sense for content providers who want a higher quality of service to pay for the Internet upgrades necessary to provide such service, arguing that “any regulation that prohibits this type of pricing may leave broadband providers unable to raise the capital necessary to fund these investments.”

Proponents of Net neutrality seek to regulate how broadband Internet providers transmit and deliver Internet traffic over their networks. The DOJ opines that precluding broadband providers from charging content and application providers directly for faster or more reliable service “could shift the entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers.”

The Department also notes that offering different service levels and pricing is a common and often efficient way of allocating scarce resources and satisfying consumer demand: the US Postal Service, it posits, allows consumers to send packages with a variety of delivery guarantees and speeds, from bulk mail to overnight delivery. These differentiated services respond to market demand and expand consumer choice, it claims. “

The FCC should be highly skeptical of calls to substitute special economic regulation of the Internet for free and open competition enforced by the antitrust laws,” says DOJ in its filing. “Marketplace restrictions proposed by some proponents of Net neutrality could in fact prevent, rather than promote, optimal investment and innovation in the Internet, with significant negative effects for the economy and consumers.”

While cautioning against premature regulation of the Internet, the Department reiterates its authority to enforce antitrust laws. “Anticompetitive conduct about which the proponents of regulation are concerned will remain subject to the antitrust laws and enforcement actions by government as well as private plaintiffs, and the Department will continue to monitor developments, taking enforcement action where appropriate to ensure a competitive broadband Internet access market,” the Department states.

A copy of the filing is available from the Department of Justice on the Antitrust Division’s Web site (www.usdoj.gov/atr). Paper copies of the filing are also available from DOJ’s Antitrust Documents Group; phone 202-514-2481 or email atrdoc.grp@usdoj.gov. ::

Internet Radio Reprieve

By Elisa M Welch

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Net radio supporters can breathe a bit easier about royalties, at least for now. Iin Aaugust, the SsaveNnetRadio coalition of webcasters, net radio listeners, and the artists they support announced its endorsement of an agreement reached between the Ddigital Media Aassociation (DdMAa) and SsoundExchange that will establish a $50,000 per service cap on the “$500 per channel minimum royalty.”

Jake Ward, a spokesperson for SsaveNnetRadio, says, “Tthis agreement is a clear sign of progress in the ongoing negotiations between webcasters and SsoundExchange and a very good first step toward a viable solution, but it is just the beginning. Aas the negotiation of recording royalty rates and terms continues, SsaveNnetRadio urges everyone involved to work in good faith toward a resolution.”

Webcasters will provide SsoundExchange with a comprehensive and accurate annual record of songs played. DdMAa, which represents a large number of Web broadcasters, will work with SsoundExchange to form a committee to look into the practice of “streamripping,” in which listeners record songs from the radio stream. Ddiscussions over per-song royalty rates are ongoing. For more info visit www.savenetradio.org or www.soundexchange.com. ::

Podcast Ready Inks MP3 Player and Flash Bundle Deals

By Shelly Brisbin

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Though Apple doesn’t want you to think too much about it, not all MP3 players are iPods. And many of those non-iTunes-using players contain podcasts, or will, once Podcast Ready’s myPodder software begins appearing on millions of players this holiday season.

Houston-based Podcast Ready makes software for subscribing to and syncing podcasts, and has recently signed deals with MP3-player and thumb-drive manufacturers to have the software (and a selection of podcasts) bundled with the players. MyPodder currently comes standard with MP3 players from mobiBlu and other manufacturers. The new deals add SanDisk U3-compatible flash drives, and Coby: the company estimates that myPodder will be on 5-10 million Coby MP3 players, and another 20-25 million SanDisk devices.

Podcasts find their way into myPodder in one of several ways: Podcast Ready sells slots to a podcaster, or a content network can buy one or more slots that they program with content chosen by the network. Podcast Ready has also run contests, allowing podcasters to win slots in their bundles. Users can also subscribe to any podcast directly.

The duration of a “slot” is measured by the number of downloads for a particular podcast. Once a podcaster’s allotted number of downloads — say, 10,000 — is exhausted, that slot is available to another podcaster. Tech Talk for Families won a recent contest, and will receive 100,000 downloads.

Podcast Ready made news in the fall of 2006 when it received a letter from Apple (not a cease and desist, according to Podcast Ready’s Chris Doelle), requesting that it suspend the use of the term myPodder for its software. At the time, fears that Apple was trying to trademark the word “podcast” ran rampant on the Internet. Doelle says Podcast Ready has not been sued or threatened, and that Apple’s action seemed to be intended to establish precedent for a future claim to the right to use the term “pod” exclusively. The company intends to continue using the myPodder name. ::

Casting to the Next Level: PodCamp Philly 07

By David Beaudouin

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Hit revise and call it “the City of Podderly Love.” A growing sense of community and purpose was clearly in evidence as Philadelphia hosted its first “unconference,” PodCamp Philly www.podcampphilly.com, September 8-10, on the Drexel University campus.

For the more than 300 campers who attended from as far away as Canada, this PodCamp was an occasion to celebrate the anniversary of the first, PodCamp Boston, staged only a year ago by organizers Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn. (Although Brogan was unable to attend Philly’s PodCamp, Penn, producer of the Financial Aid Podcast www.financialaidpodcast.com was actively involved as a volunteer and session leader.)

While camp after-hours were spent in lively socializing, doing a “Rocky Run” up the Philadelphia Art Museum steps to benefit Children’s Hospital, and chowing down on (what else?) cheesesteaks, more than 40 sessions on Saturday and Sunday provided campers with fresh perspectives on the rapidly growing impact of social media, as well as the latest tools and techniques. (Webcasts of several sessions are available at www.drexel.edu/irt/news/pod philly.html. For many attendees, this year’s camp centered on next steps: how podcasting can shed its marginal image and gain a great commercial presence in mainstream media, while remaining true to its social roots.

“A lot of people here are talking about what happens next,” says Whitney Hoffman, PodCamp Philly’s lead organizer. “Looking ahead, I think a lot of the focus in the coming year will be on how to get out of the fishbowl and not just talk to each other — how to bring new people in.” Hoffman, who was an organizer of PodCampNYC and consults for the PodCamp Foundation, sees PodCamp as a natural fulcrum for building this momentum. “There aren’t just podcasters and bloggers here, but people who are interested in social media as part of their overall digital footprint,” she notes. “The community really is broadening out.”

PodCamp Philly presenter C.C. Chapman agrees. “There’s definitely more merging of the media happening in this community,” he says. “It’s still called PodCamp — but now bloggers, podcasters, Flickr people, video makers, even some of the old media, are all coming together and connecting to this hub. We’re all gathering around the fire!” ::

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by Paul Colligan

As my podcasting business continuesto grow, I will be hiring out more and more work to podcast consultants and engineers. I’ve been hinting at this on my blog (www.paul colligan.com) for some time now and I’ve seen a number of people offering their services accordingly. Good for them, this is the true spirit: Get better on someone else’s dime.

Wait a minute. It ain’t that easy. I will be hiring only a very specific “type” and I recommend others do the same. There has been some chat about this before but I am insisting — and I strongly recommendthat others do, too — that anyone I hire to work for me in the podcast “space” follow these ten commandments:

I. Thou shalt have, in iTunes, a podcast of thine own. It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be popular. It doesn’t have to be award-winning. I just want to know that you’ve done this before and that you won’t be learning at my expense. Tell me about what you’re already doing — it will make my life (and decision) easier.

II. Thou shalt own an iPod. I don’t care if you don’t like the iPod. My audience (at least a huge chunk of them) does, and if you don’t have one to test against, I’m not interested in your services.

III. Thou shalt respect my technology choices. I’m doing things a certain way because that’s the way I want to do them (and have found them to work in my situation). Since I’m paying for a consultant to do some work for me, trust me here, I’ve thought this out.

IV. Thou shalt offer, never push. Now, the cool thing is that you are “in this space” and you probably have some ideas and insights that I don’t have. Please, let me know what you’re thinking of doing and how it might affect me. If I’m not interested, it’s not an attack on you; I’m just not interested.

V. Thou shalt archive uncompressed audio. Chances are very good that one day I’m going to want the original files, in their uncompressed form. Please don’t tell me that a high bit-rate MP3 is “just as good.” If you really want to impress me, offer to send me a DVD of the (uncompressed) components for each episode.

VI. Thou shalt tag for all media players. If I’m paying for a consultant/engineer, I’m in this for the long run. This means I expect to get lots of episodes out there and I want my audience to be able to listen to them in the order desired. I don’t expect my audience to understand the tagging, I just want it to work for them.

VII. Thou shalt never skimp on security. I can’t have “easy to remember (or figure out)” passwords on my FTP/stats/etc. Please don’t open me up like that.

VIII. Thou shalt pay for thine own training and experiments. I can’t wait to hear all of the things you’ve learned and have figured out in this space. Hopefully you can one day charge me more because you are that much better. But, and this is the key, I don’t expect
you to charge me for the process of making yourself better.

IX. Thou shalt leave no identifying marks. This is my podcast, not yours. I don’t want to see your name in the files, the meta tags, the RSS, the Web site, or anywhere. Clean work is what I expect.

X. Thou shalt brag with my permission only. I have no problem with you listing me as a reference. Heck, treat me right and I’ll probably send you so much business that your head will spin. But let’s work together. I do some projects that must be associated only with the name on the marquee. If my name can’t be associated with it, neither can yours.

See, this is business. This is about getting the job done — and getting it done well. I have deadlines and quality requirements and these commandments not only let me collect revenue, but pay my support team as well.

If you want to get into this business (on either side of the story), I can’t recommend enough that you take the same approach. Revenue comes faster when everyone involved stops playing around and gets to work.

If you’re just in this as a hobby, I don’t recommend that a column called “Syndicated Profits” should be on your regular reading list. ::

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by Shel isSrael

There is a fundamental change going on and it is significant as to who blogs, who reads blogs, and how blogs will be used.

Let’s look at some recent events: A while back I noticed that while my Technorati rankings were remaining constant, my visitor log showed a measurable drop. This would indicate one of two situations: (1) Technorati was becoming increasingly inaccurate, or (2) other bloggers were also being read less.

I blogged about it and the answer came back clearly. Prominent bloggers were experiencing shrinking audiences, thus becoming less prominent. Part of the reason is that prominent bloggers are blogging less and moving into other forms of social media. Sometimes, it is that after several years, they are rediscovering First Life, where they spend time face-to-face with real people in the tangible world.

Consider Robert Scoble. He looked into the face of a friend’s 19-day-old baby and realized that from a certain perspective, blogging is trivial. He realized
the miracle of his own new son, Milan, scheduled for delivery September 17. Writing that he had things on his mind (scobleizer.com/2007/08/13/things-on-my-mind), he went on self-imposed sabbatical.

While a few years ago, it seemed that the main thing bloggers blogged about was blogging, lately it seems that bloggers have shifted to talking about not blogging.

Cartoonist-philosopher Hugh Mac-Leod posted the best summary of what is going on, from my perspective (www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/
archives/004076.html):

1. We got busy. For many of us, blogging created opportunities for us in the offline world, just like the early blog evangelists predicted. And as we found out the hard way, it’s actually quite hard to do stuff and blog about it at the same time. As my father, a very smart and observant man once quipped, “A lot of these bloggers seem to have a lot of time on their hands.” That may have been true in 2002, back when the recession was still on. It’s certainly less true with a lot of people I know.

2. Blogging [turned out to not be] for everybody. Web 2.0 is for everybody. Keeping a half-decent blog going is very time-consuming work. So of course there was a market for more time-friendly Web 2.0 apps, like Facebook
and Twitter. That doesn’t mean blogs will go away. It just means more opportunities for people to create and use new tools. The Web stands still for nobody, etc.

3. Believe it or not, some of us have better things to do than to be continually justifying ourselves to a crowd of passive- aggressive, self-loathing, losers. Thankfully, these folk are a minority, but their one skill set in life seems to be in the less-than-noble art of “using up too much oxygen,” which makes “The Conversation” less appealing for the rest of us.

4. The future we spent so much time evangelizing has arrived. Blogs are not the future. Blogs are the present. So we’re all looking for new things to keep our restless brain cells occupied.

5. They said what they had to say. Then they moved on. It happens all the time with book writers, why not the same with bloggers? Hugh very accurately summarizes what has happened in blogging’s inner circle. Many of us got into blogging during a period when we had a great deal of time and very little money. I miss having so much time, but I must admit that I am also fond of making money. But more important is that the bell curve that you studied in college business courses is now taking shape and this tells you where blogging is going. Innovators like Scoble and MacLeod are moving on to other forms of social media. Early adopters like me are starting to hang out more in online video and on Facebook or Twitter as well.

But the vertical line placed on that bell-curve chart is moving to the right, past the early adopters into the segment called “late early adopters.” Historically and currently these are people who bring innovation into large organizations. This is the juiciest, steepest, and most lucrative part of the bell curve.

This is where blogging is right now. Josh Hallett, who is a Web strategy consultant for enterprise consultants, tells me his business is booming and what corporate clients want is blogging. Technorati says more blogs are being started and more people are reading blogs despite atrophy on the part of some blogging pioneers.

Like Hugh MacLeod says: the future is now. ::

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by Tee MorrisS

MySpace, quickly closing on the 200 million registered users mark, reigns supreme as the “Big Thing” in social networking Web sites. In the wake of this success, numerous imitators have appeared, all promising to be the next big thing. Frappr Maps (remember those?) were fun at first, only to disappear into obscurity. Flickr continues to fight the good fight, but remains “on the outside, looking in” when its registered users (4 million) are compared against Bebo (37 million), Friendster (47 million), and hi5 (50 million). (The things you learn on Wikipedia!) No one can really say for certain what the next big thing will be, but podcasters continue to sign up for these networks in a frenzy akin to the mass exodus Skype users made to Gizmo on August 16, 2007 (when the Internet phone service went down for a couple of days). Constantly I am asked, “Where are you on (current flavor of the month)?” My reply is “I am busy. Podcasting. You’re suggesting I join this timesink called (current flavor of the month) so I can talk about how I have no time to podcast?” For many of these distractions, I remained vigilant.

That was until July, when I signed on with Twitter (www.twitter.com).

So what exactly is Twitter? This unassuming Web site offers subscribers the ability to build a network by “following” other Twitter-registered friends, and invite people via email, blog widgets, and website badges. When someone follows you, a notification arrives in your email labeled “ is now following you on Twitter.” You’re then able to message others instantly using Twitter-driven posts, also known as “tweets.” Pretty straightforward. Nothing new here.

Now, the interesting bit: Twitter does not allow you to post anything beyond 140 characters. Not words, but characters. Including spaces. Unlike Skype, where comments can dovetail into time-consuming chats, Twitter limits you to short, concise comments, becoming a nanoblog based on what you’re doing at that moment. Tweets do not warrant a reply; but you can share your personalized tweet across your network.

I knew Twitter was going to be a lot of fun when I received the email declaring “ScottSigler is following you on Twitter.” On an impulse, I looked over my shoulder. And I was in my home office. I am also discovering how fantastic a tool Twitter is for podcasters. Once a network is created, show hosts and producers send out random tweets, such as “editing (podcast’s title) Episode #7” or “trying to decide between recording, or an emergency run to Cold Stone.” Podcasters like Paul Levinson (lighton lightthrough.com) and Grammar Girl (grammar.qdnow.com) will tweet URLs relevant to their latest show. You might even see posted links appear a second or third time. These are members of your network reposting URLs for users not necessarily following you, generating potential traffic.

Along with promotion, Twitter can provide resources for your next episode. Recently, I received a tweet from Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit (www.requiemoftheoutcast.com): “I know many of you have a huge fanbase, and Dragon*Con is a gathering of them. Remember the words of Wheaton: http://rurl.org/7wb.” The URL led to a Suicide Girls’ guest appearance from actor, writer, blogger, and occasional podcaster Wil Wheaton (suicidegirls.com/news/geek/22107), featuring his view of science fiction conventions. This commentary easily lent itself to becoming a show segment. As I am not a Suicide Girls subscriber, I would have completely missed this; but Twitter took me right to it.

Perhaps the biggest appeal of Twitter is the happy medium it serves between blog and instant messenger. You still have an immediate connection; but once a tweet is posted, you have the option of replying. There are days when I use (or more to the point, abuse) Twitter as an instant messenger when it should be regarded as an instant blogger, granting network access, sending out messages quickly and efficiently, and capturing the moment. If I need more, I will simply tweet “Skype or call me.” Twitter also reinforces one of the greatest aspects of podcasting: community. You feel a sense of true networking and social exchange when URLs are posted, podcasts are announced, and banter begins for a period, quells, and then begins again over the next thought-provoking tweet.

Now, while I’m digging Twitter, don’t expect me to pop up on Facebook, LibraryThing, or Jaiku anytime soon. I’ve fallen ridiculously behind in my MySpace upkeep and am struggling to find the time for it. But if you want to keep tabs on your friendly neighborhood podcaster in 140 characters or less, you know where to find me. ::

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by Rrob WalcCh

Many podcasters claim what differentiates podcasting from traditional radio or TV is that a podcast host has a relationship with the audience. And as someone who has been married twice, I can tell you that no relationship works without two-way communication. That is why it is so important to put in place the tools that make it easy for your audience to give you feedback and for you then to respond to that feedback. Let’s start with one of the most common tools podcasters use for getting audio feedback.

K7.net is one of the most widely used free voicemail services in the community. You can quickly recognize a K7.net number because it starts with 206, which makes it look like the call is going to Seattle. With podCast411 I’ve been using the same number for almost three years — 206-666-4357 — and it has not cost me a dime. This is not the only free service, but it is one of the best and most reliable (knock on wood).

For those who do not want their listeners to pay for the toll call, there are also 800 numbers for voicemail, such as the service from KALL8.com. (I’d also like to mention the mychingo.com service. It lets listeners either record directly from their computers into the mychingo voicemail, or record on their computers and email you the feedback. MyChingo is most effective if you have a tech-savvy audience of fellow podcasters.)

It’s one thing to get a voicemail number and it’s quite another to really promote it. I listen to quite a few podcasters whom I never call to give feedback, not because I don’t want to, but rather because they hide their numbers, or give them so quickly or at such a strange place in the show, I just don’t remember the number. I strongly suggest that you place your number in the Name field of your ID3 tags and in the Title of your item (often called an episode) for the RSS feed. (Note that iTunes overwrites the name field in the ID3 tags with whatever is in your Title field for the item — for more on this see my tutorial at www.podcast411.com/id3tags.html). An example of how your Name/Title might look is:

411_070814 - Item number 210 Interview with Quincy Jones - call 206-666-4357

When someone plays your podcast on an iPod or in iTunes, the title will scroll along the top, with your phone number at the end. This makes it very easy to find the call-in number. Don’t give listeners an excuse not to call in. They may listen to five other shows before they get a chance to go to your Web site to find your call-in number, and by then they likely will forgotten why they wanted to call you.

One thing about voicemail messages is that they take a lot of time to go through; you have to listen to the entire message, which in some cases can be 5 minutes or more per message. (Podcast listeners can be just as verbose as the hosts.) If your show takes off you can find yourself spending four hours or more per week sorting through voicemail messages. I talked to the host of one of the most popular podcasts and asked her how she recommends handling large quantities of voicemail. She suggested a pay-for service called Simulscribe (www.simulscribe.com), which turns voicemail into text. Going this route does mean getting away from a free service such as K7.net, but if you find yourself spending multiple hours each week going through voicemail messages, it makes a lot of sense.

The most important point to all of this is that you respond, either on your show or privately, to each piece of feedback. If your show is so big you cannot respond to each, well then, you should be able to afford a college intern to help with the feedback. If you don’t keep the two-way communication going with your audience, one day you will wake up to find your audience has left you for another podcaster — one who knows how to communicate. ::

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BY SHELLY BRISBINt

At a particularly bleak moment in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the three heroes, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, huddle around a “wizard wireless” — radio to mere muggles — waiting for the latest installment of a program devoted to supporting the effort to topple the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. The program, which you need a password to hear (subscribe to?) is called Potterwatch, and it’s the closest thing Rowling’s wizarding world has to a news broadcast; unless you count the bountiful batch of Harry Potter-themed podcasts, that is.

Whether Rowling conceived Potterwatch as an homage to the popularity of podcasting in the Potterverse, or simply needed a vehicle to bring news to her characters, it’s undeniable that
Potter fans have taken to podcasting in droves, and that the producers of the leading shows
have a product that advertisers think is valuable. And like the heroes of Rowling’s books, the Potter casters are mostly young people. Also, like Harry and his friends, leading Potter podcasters are well-traveled, having journeyed to London and Los Angeles for film premiers, and crisscrossed the US, appearing before rapt audiences of Potter fans in libraries and bookstores. Along the way, they’ve topped the iTunes and Podcast Alley charts, and picked up awards for their work, not to mention huge podcast audiences, and active advertisers who help pay the bills.

A SOLID FOUNDATION

Before there were podcasts, there were Harry Potter Web sites run by fans, which have churned out new content for readers of Rowling’s seven books, and fans of the five Potter movies, since the phenomenon began. In the crowded world of Potter fan sites, Muggle- Net and The Leaky Cauldron (TLC, or just Leaky) stand out from the throng because of their sheer size and popularity. Started by 12-year old Emerson Spartz in 1999, MuggleNet (www.mugglenet.com) offers news, discussion, images, games, and other resources, and attracts a largely teenage audience. Spartz, who now attends the University of Notre Dame, runs the site with a large staff of volunteer coders, editors, forum managers, and others who feed fans’ insatiable desire for Potter news.

When journalist Melissa Anelli joined the staff of news-oriented TLC in 2004, she began not only to beef up the site’s information about film and DVD releases, but also made contacts with Warner Brothers Studios (producers of the Potter films) and Scholastic (J.K. Rowling’s US publisher).

“I started pestering Warner Brothers
and Scholastic and everybody I could find. I started sending emails saying, ‘we should be interviewing Dan Radcliffe (star of the Potter films), come on!’” Anelli recalls, pointing out that her emails, which eventually got results in the form of advance news, interviews, premier invitations, and film-set visits, were worded a bit more diplomatically.

The increased traffic brought by Anelli’s scoops raised TLC’s profile in the Potter community considerably, and led Leaky (www.leakynews.com) to transform itself into a full-service site and Potter community. Anelli now runs the site.

When news outlets sought comment about the Potter phenomenon from fans, Anelli and Spartz, along with other leaders from MuggleNet and TLC, became go-to sources. They’ve been quoted in major papers and have appeared on cable news shows. But the ultimate honor and notoriety came in 2005, not from a media quote or visit to a movie set, but an invitation for Spartz and Anelli to meet and interview J.K. Rowling in Scotland, at the time of the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth book in the series.

Not surprisingly, Anelli says meeting Rowling is the highlight of her time as a Potter fan. “Your idol is often a disappointment when you meet them. And she was not. She was everything we were hoping she would be. She was so down to earth and awesome. She retained her image of awe in my mind.”

For both sites, and for fans who have read it, the Rowling interview still provides an important touchstone. A link to the transcript appears on the MuggleNet front page, and discussions of book plots and theories on Potter podcasts — their own and others — often refer to the interview. And it seems to convey credibility, and an indirect seal of approval from Rowling herself. According to TLC’s About page, Rowling has called it her favorite fan site.

BIRTH OF TWO PODCASTS

In addition to the release of Half Blood Prince, 2005 also marked podcasting’s first full year, and iTunes’ first podcast-capable version, released in June. By August, MuggleNet’s MuggleCast and TLC’s PotterCast were not only available in iTunes, but quickly ascending the charts. Andrew Sims, who was entering his junior year of high school at the time, led the MuggleCast effort, and remains the show’s producer and lead host, with Spartz concentrating on the Web site.

A MuggleNet editor had proposed a podcast for the site, and Sims liked the idea and decided to take on the project. He had already been listening to podcasts, including Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech, and felt he was “ahead of the curve.” He recruited more hosts (the rotating group of seven has been involved since the first five shows), and launched MuggleCast.

Anelli, who had been working on a TLC podcast with several others since February of 2005, says she was excited about the possibilities of podcasting, and had originally planned to produce a short, audio version of TLC’s news page.

“We didn’t really understand what podcasting was about. Then listening to podcasts and we started realizing a more casual, banter-y atmosphere [was the way to go.] We wanted to combine that with a more adult, more segmented radio talk show, but not as structured as, say, CNN,” she says.

What had been a back-burner project for Anelli became more pressing when iTunes added podcasts. TLC decided to post the first PotterCast show after the rush to post Half Blood Prince release coverage had abated somewhat, giving the group time to get organized. Their first podcast appeared in late August, a week after MuggleCast made its debut. The shows’ start dates are still a matter of friendly rivalry between MuggleCast and PotterCast, whose hosts know one another well, and have even done joint podcasts.

Despite having a plan for PotterCast, Anelli says the show’s host lineup developed more organically. John Noe, a TLC graphic designer, had offered to produce, but not appear on, the show. Anelli convinced him to join her for a news discussion on the first episode, then insisted he stick around.

“He made some of the funniest jokes I’d ever heard in my life. We finished recording and I said to him, ‘you will be on the show forever.’” Anelli rounded out what is known to the show’s fans as “The PotterCast Trio” with TLC news editor Sue Upton, who anchors the news segment, and banters with Noe and Anelli throughout each podcast.

MuggleCast follows a similar format, beginning with news and moving through segments including Listener Challenge and Dueling Club (where HP characters are pitted against one another).

EARLY ADOPTERS

TLC and MuggleNet readers quickly took to the new podcasts, vaulting the shows’ subscriber numbers into the tens of thousands soon after their launch.

The first PotterCast drew approximately 30,000 listeners, Anelli says, though it was difficult to be precise about initial numbers.

“Stats were different then because nobody really could measure it effectively,”
she says. Streamload (now MediaMax), which gave PotterCast free bandwidth in exchange for an ad, had to bow out of the deal because it wasn’t prepared for the large number of downloads.

Anelli and TLC weren’t exactly ready for the show’s success, either. “We expected people to download it and think it was cool and that was it. But suddenly there was this massive response. We immediately had to open up a separate section of our forums so that people could talk about it.”

SIMILAR FORMATS, DIFFERENT VIBE

The two shows’ production processes are similar: both are recorded via Skype (each participant records his or her own audio), and then edited by volunteers who work on the shows by segments. Until this year, Sims did all the MuggleCast editing, but turned it over to others to make more time for show planning and travel. Both podcasts also offer transcripts. Sims says more than 2,000 people read each MuggleCast transcript.

What differentiates them, at least in part, are the hosts’ demeanors, and the tone of the shows. MuggleCast, hosted by podcasters ranging from 18 to 24, is an energetic, sometimes raucous, sometimes silly show, loaded with inside jokes and teasing among the hosts.

PotterCast is no less engaging, but it has a slightly more thoughtful feel, especially when hosts discuss the books in detail. Its appeal, says Anelli, is more to adult Potter fans. But Anelli and her cohosts are no less prone to kidding around. Anelli is part anchor, part patient mother to the brood, while Noe fits comfortably into the role of class clown. Upton brings earnestness and enthusiasm, along with the week’s Harry Potter news.

Both podcasts produce weekly shows that are over an hour long.

SUMMER OF POTTER

Getting “out of the studio” has never been a problem for the Potter podcasters. Each show has been recorded before live audiences at film premiers and Potter fan conventions. The groups have even produced a series of joint podcasts, which they call The LeakyMugs. But the summer of 2007 brought a more ambitious kind of live podcasting.

As Deathly Hallows hype reached fever pitch around the world, the hosts of MuggleCast and PotterCast hit the road, producing live shows in libraries and bookstores, and appearing at parties on July 20, when the book was released in the US and UK. Once again, the genesis of the groups’ summer projects was similar. Both Sims and Anelli had gotten to know members of “wizard rock” bands, musicians who write and perform songs based on the Potter books, and those relationships led to an eight-city tour for MuggleCast, 18 for PotterCast, with the podcasters opening for the bands, or inviting them to be guests on the live shows. MuggleCast (and MuggleNet as a whole) was also promoting a book written by several staff members called MuggleNet.com’s What Will Happen in Harry Potter Seven.

“The tour was eight straight days of podcasting,” says Sims, who added the live recordings to the MuggleCast feed throughout the summer. Most shows centered around speculation about what would happen in Deathly Hallows; whether Harry would live or die, how Voldemort would be defeated, and whether Professor Snape would turn out to have been a good or an evil character. In addition to the tour stops, MuggleCast recorded at the Los Angeles and London premiers of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, two Potter conventions, and a book-release event in London.

Anelli and her crew were busy as well, appearing before audiences of 100 to 150 people, with larger crowds for their film-premier and book-release stops. PotterCast spent the evening of the book-release countdown in Naperville, IL, recording as part of an enormous Potter event sponsored by Anderson’s Bookstore. The release party attracted 70,000 people for a daylong event, with PotterCast taking the stage in the late evening hours for a 20- minute show. Anelli estimates the audience numbered 10,000 to 20,000.

PAYING THE BILLS

In a circumstance other producers would kill for, Potter podcasters found themselves dealing with offers of advertising and sponsorship, almost as soon as they got started. Though neither MuggleNet or The Leaky Cauldron are for-profit organizations, both sites include banner advertising, and the podcasters decided to accept advertising on their shows as a way to defray equipment costs, as well as providing funds for trips to cover Potter-related events.

With sustained audiences of 40,000-50,000 listeners each, and significant download spikes around the time of important events in the Potterverse, both shows had multiple sponsorship options.

MuggleCast and PotterCast both became Podtrac clients, posting the ad broker’s survey on their sites to gather demographic info about their audiences. Podtrac CEO Mark McCrery says the Potter-themed shows’ large audiences formed an attractive package for potential
advertisers.

“Their fan bases are extremely loyal, among the most loyal in podcasting, and so if there’s some- thing that the hosts recommend that they do or try, their audience tends to listen to them,” he says.

Before they had even begun to acquire advertisers through Podtrac, MuggleCast and PotterCast gained insight into their own fan bases from the survey, a questionnaire that returns some 50 data points about listener demographics, home PC usage, online shopping habits, and income. MuggleCast, whose survey received thousands of responses, according to McCrery, learned that its audience is 76 percent female, and that more than half of the total are in high school. Sims wasn’t particularly surprised by the high percentage of female listeners. “If you go to any of our live events, you’ll see that makes sense.” Women make up the majority of PotterCast’s audience too, according to Podtrac survey numbers, but they’re a few years older, and more are parents.

McCrery says the high female listenership makes the Potter podcasts more attractive to advertisers. “For the vast majority of podcasts, most of the listeners or viewers are males. So a female audience is something that’s unique and it’s something that’s interesting to advertisers.”

Potter podcast advertisers have also been repeat customers. “We do have advertisers coming back and saying ‘I want to do more in MuggleCast, or I want to do more in PotterCast,’” McCrery says.

Neither podcast works exclusively with Podtrac. Borders, a bookseller with a natural tie-in to a Harry Potter podcast, was also interested. “Borders called me up one day out of the blue. They said we want to advertise with you guys,” says Anelli. When the hype for the seventh Harry Potter book began in earnest, Borders took full advantage, and sought to use advertising on Potter podcasts to boost sales.

“They went really aggressively after the book-7 audiences and it paid off for them. I think they had as many first-day sales as Amazon did. They were just all about us and Harry Potter,” says Anelli, who encouraged PotterCast listeners to print out a 30-percent-off coupon from the PotterCast site. “I remember thinking nobody’s going to take it and go to the store. Nobody actually prints things off a computer and goes to the store.” But the coupon campaign worked, and Borders continues to advertise on PotterCast. MuggleCast’s Borders relationship grew out of the retailer’s banner advertising on the MuggleNet site, says Sims.

The show also signed with podcast staple advertiser, GoDaddy, in February 2006. “They’ve been a really steady source of income for us. GoDaddy has really supported us with just this one ad we do on the show.” Sims says MuggleCast earns $15 for every new GoDaddy customer they bring in.

FUNDING THE ULTIMATE TOUR

When Anelli wanted to put together the 2007 PotterCast summer tour, she approached Borders, and received the support she needed to allow the three hosts to travel, touring-band style, around the country.

To pay for its tour, MuggleCast took funding into its own hands and created a membership program called Pickle Pack (the name refers to an inside joke on the show). For $30, Pickle Pack members got a T-shirt, and access to bonus audio content, along with a daily video-blog post from one of the MuggleCast hosts. Sims says the effort attracted 1,400 subscribers, providing enough revenue to fund all of the show’s summer trips.

“There are some really hard-core MuggleCast fans, so we knew that if we sold them something, gave them more MuggleCast, then we would do really well. It exceeded our expectations [for signups],” Sims says.

Pickle Pack memberships last a year, so Sims and company are still producing bonus content for their loyal fans. “At first we (thought it) was going to be a lot of work, but it’s actually been fun to do because it’s sort of a new thing for us to do on MuggleCast, which is [otherwise] the same thing over and over.”

IS IT OVER?

Will PotterCast and MuggleCast continue to thrive with no more book releases planned, and a long wait before the next Potter film? Both groups plan to continue producing their shows, though the schedule and content aren’t clear. Sims says MuggleCast may become a biweekly show. “We’re still going to put out great shows, we just don’t know if people are going to still be interested in listening.” But recognizing that the hosts account for a portion of the podcast’s popularity, he suggests that MuggleCast might add non-Harry Potter entertainment content to the show. He even hopes to do another tour next summer.

Anelli’s passion has turned into full-time a job. She’s working on a book about the Potter fandom, due for release in November 2008, with the tentative title, Harry: A History: The Fans, Fiction and Phenomenon of Harry Potter. She says PotterCast will continue, but it’s unclear how the end of the book series will affect the show.

Sims and Anelli agree, though, that Potter fandom, and the podcasts it produced, have been exceptional moments in their lives. “At the end of the day [MuggleCast] is one of the best experiences of my life. It’s been so much fun doing this week to week with the hosts, and having all these opportunities to do live shows where people come out to see us,” says Sims.

Melissa Anelli tries not to take the idea that J.K. Rowling’s Potterwatch has its roots in her podcast, or in the Potter podcasting phenomenon as a whole, too seriously, even when listeners or journalists make the connection for her.

“I started to realize that other people thought this. And people just keep emailing us. It would be so flattering, but I cannot believe it. But …”

But she can’t help liking the idea that it might be true.

“It’s cool to imagine, but we can’t … I think it might have been a nod to all the podcasts, to be honest.”

For the Potter casters, an endorsement from J.K. Rowling might just be the greatest success of all those that have come their way. ::

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By Lorelle VanFossen

Participating in a recent multiple guest blogger event, I edited and reviewed posts by many top bloggers before publishing. I was rather stunned to find that even veteran bloggers sometimes forget the most basic blog-writing and search engine optimization techniques these same bloggers frequently blog about.

There could be many reasons why the bloggers overlooked these basic steps. They could have been in a hurry, or a little lazy. Or maybe they think these things aren’t important any more. But they are.

Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques improve your blog’s ranking in search-engine results. If the search engine can move easily through your blog without interruption or error, and your blog is compliant with Web standards, you have a good start on inclusion in a search engine’s results. Where your blog appears in those search results is based upon what Google calls PageRankTM, an algorithm that scores your blog and blog posts ranking in the results based upon a number of factors.

The steps these veteran bloggers missed were critical to improving the blog’s page ranking, and omitting them violated many basic Web standards.

Words are most important to determining PageRank. Search engines can’t “see” nor evaluate images or podcasts. How words are used, and where they’re found within your blog post, influence the PageRank score. These words, known as keywords, are the search terms used by those searching for your blog post. If you don’t use keyword-rich content, searchers can’t find you.

When you use the following SEO, page ranking, and blogging techniques, you win favor not just with search engines, but also with readers. The easier you make it for readers to read and enjoy your blog posts, the more willing they are to dig deeper into your blog and return for more.
Most of these techniques helped many top bloggers get to the top blogging spot. Even if they’ve forgotten how it works, there’s no reason for you to forget.

<1> Write Good Links

Basic SEO 101 covers the benefits and power of links, so why do so many bloggers ignore their links? Web links are required by Web and accessibility standards to feature descriptive text within the anchor HTML tag and the anchor text. The PageRank algorithm uses the keywords within these areas to add or subtract from the final score.

A good link in a blog post or Web site requires the following: » Use Descriptive Anchor Text: The text within the link must describe what the link is to, or contain words that give the reader a clue as to the link’s content. It should never be the words this or that or the dreaded click here or here.

I recommend this article on dog behavior and training as a good resource…

» Include a Link Title: Inside of the anchor tag, the title attribute is required to meet Web standards for accessibility and must include a description of the link’s destination, title, and/or content. For example:

I recommend this article on dog behavior and training as a good resource…

» Use Tags Inside of Links: If the link is a tag, then it should be marked accordingly with the tag attribute. Not all links are tags, but if they are, include the tag attribute in the link. The tag word or phrase becomes the text within the link, not the descriptive title text. For “dog behavior” as a tag, you would use the following:

I recommend this article on dog behavior and training as a good resource…

» Do Not Force Links to Open in a New Window: In the old days of the Web, the worry was that the visitor would click on a link and never come back. Forcing links to open in a new window was believed to keep the visitor coming back to the source. Today, the world honors those who make good recommendations on their blogs, inviting the visitor to leave, which in turn, encourages them to come back without being forced to return.

In fact, forcing links to open in a new window now violates Web and accessibility standards, and can even cause the blogger to lose readers. The ability of Firefox and Internet Explorer to open Web pages in tabs instead of full windows with a simple click or keystroke combination gives control back to readers, letting them decide how they want to visit link recommen¬dations. Most know how to use their back buttons, too.

Currently, the only acceptable rea¬son to force links to open in a new win¬dow is when featuring a demonstration or tutorial requiring the reader go back and forth between the post and the demo. Such a link requires a warning on the link such as:

First, view this video (opens in new window or tab) featuring a new method for training a dog to obey the sit command. When you come back, I’ll describe the pros and cons of this method…

<2> Write Descriptions for Images, Podcasts, Flash, and Video

If we can’t read it in words, search engines can’t see it. Nor can Web users who are visually or physically impaired, relying upon screen readers to read a Web page to them.

Images, podcasts, video, or any graphic or visual elements with no writ¬ten words need words to speak on the visual element’s behalf, helping readers understand what they are about to see or hear. Keywords and search terms found in and around links to images, podcasts, flash, and video add to the wealth of page-ranking scores, espe¬cially when they match the keywords within your post title and links.

» Put Descriptions in Images: The description attribute inside of the image HTML tag describes the image in words for those who can’t see, and for search engines that are also blind.

Playing ball with dogs is a great way to exercise, both you and the dog…

» Put Descriptions Around Nontext Ele¬ments: If you are embedding a video, podcast, or flash in your blog, add a description within the code, but also within the post content. Use key¬words and search terms people will use to find the multimedia. Describe the multimedia element so the reader has a reason to click and enjoy.

» Include an Outline, Show Notes, or Transcription: For video and podcasts embedded in your blog, let the read¬ers read the content within, not just see it. Video and podcasts need to have the minimum of an outline — at most, a transcript — of the content. Include a list of the links discussed in the video or podcast. This helps with SEO and PageRank, and encourages readers to click through to view or listen to the multimedia if they know in advance the value within.

<3> Use Headings Appropriately

Reading a blog post, especially huge paragraphs and long posts, can be hard on the eyes. Break up content into smaller chunks with headings.

Headings involve using the head¬ing HTML tags: h2,h3,and h4. As the number gets bigger, the size of the heading should grow smaller, as well as the emphasis, creating an outline form of subtitles and section titles.

Headings divide the content into sections, encouraging readers to jump down through the text to the section of most importance to them. Headings also draw the eye through the post con¬tent, like breadcrumbs, leading them through to the end.

Use descriptive words that tell the reader what each section is about, and use keyword-rich content to improve your SEO and page-ranking score. Words inside of HTML heading tags get extra points when they match the keywords within your post, post title, post links, and image tags.

Many bloggers create headings without using the HTML tags. They wrap the words in bold and/or capital¬ize them. Use the appropriate headings HTML tag for your blog’s design, as that carries more weight with SEO than the bold tag.

<4> Break Up Paragraphs

It’s very hard to read long columns of unbroken text on a Web page. Most readers read the first line or two and then skip down to the next paragraph, scanning rather than reading.

Blog writing is different from other writing forms because of the visual on-screen element. It’s harder to read on a screen than on paper. Thus, it’s easier to read content in smaller chunks of text.

Traditional writing groups con¬cepts together. An idea is expressed, explained, justified, then summarized at the end of the paragraph.

Blog writing divides concepts into parts and pieces, where the idea is expressed in one paragraph, explained in another, justified in another, and the summary is in another paragraph.

The faster and easier readers can get through the material, the more likely they are to read through to the end. Headings, lists, and smaller paragraphs help move the eye through the content.

<5> Use Block¬quotes Appro¬priately and Correctly

Blockquoting is the process of quoting or referencing a portion of content from another blog post. It is generally wrapped in a HTML tag and indents the content, as well as adding some style to make the quoted content stand out from the rest of the text.Blockquotes are usually preceded or followed by content with a citation link to the referenced blog and/or blog post. Sometimes, the citation is included within.

However, I’ve found many bloggers using blockquote tags for headings, or to create indentations, make lists, or highlight something they’ve said, like a pull-quote in print media, rather than as a quote from another source.

The blockquote tag is specifically for quoting, not for design elements. There are other design elements for creating headings, indentations, lists, or pull-quotes. Use the appropriate HTML tags for the appropriate design elements.

<6> Don’t Abuse Bold and Italic Type Styles

There is no reason why a blog post must be filled with a lot of bold text within the post content, making it look like an old print advertisement. With the correct use of headings, lists, and other elements, the excessive use of bold and italic is abusive and distracting.

Did your eye hopscotch through the above paragraph? You didn’t read it, you just skimmed it, going from bold to bold to bold. In this paragraph, you are prob¬ably wondering about the italic emphasis instead of what it is really saying.

Headings and lists draw the eye naturally through the post. The eye stops on words that are bolded. When the bold emphasis is abused, the eye jerks through the post, without the mind absorbing the content. Anything that distracts the reader along the journey risks losing the reader for good.

Bold should be used only for head¬ings, titles, subtitles, and bullet referenc¬es. It is also used in technical writing in instructions such as “To view blog com¬ments, click on the Comments panel.”

Italics should be used for spe¬cific emphasis, such as on emotions or unusual words. It is also used for proper titles of things like books and movies, and for foreign words.

<7> Stop Writing Inscrutable Post Titles

What are the following posts about?

» Links for the Week of 08-26-07

» I think I’ve found it

» Wow! That was cool!

» I did it again

» Some people never learn

» You should have seen it

» Some Tips for You

Even veteran bloggers forget that the post title tells the whole story and can make or break a potential visitor’s willingness to click through to that blog post in his or her feed reader or search results. Would you click through on any of these titles?

An effective blog post title must do the following:

» Summarize the post content.

» Set expectations for what the reader will read.

» Contain keywords and search terms.

» Catch the reader’s eye.

» Be useful.

» Make them click.

What Are You Forgetting in Your Blog Posts?

These were the most common mis¬takes I found within the code and style of these veteran bloggers. But what are you overlooking within your blog posts that might improve their PageRank and readability? What might you be forget¬ting to do that interferes with your blog’s content and potential success?

The key to writing effective blog posts is found within the balance of words that go into the post content and the code that supports them. Make your blog search-engine friendly, and in turn, you make your blog reader friendly. ::

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By Leesa Barnes

One of my favorite movies is Total Recall, a 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. He plays Douglas Quaid, a man who visits Mars to reclaim his past after getting clues that his memory had been erased.

When the DVD went on sale in the late 1990s, I immediately bought myself a copy. It came in a round tin box that was designed to look like Mars. Although the container made it difficult to store on my bookshelf, the bonus content more than made up for the awkward design of the DVD holder. I popped the DVD into my DVD player and not only watched the film again for the umpteenth time but I flipped through to the hours of bonus material. This premium content extended my own appreciation for the film as I got a behind-the-scenes look at how many obstacles the film went through before it was finally released to the world.

Going behind the scenes and getting access to exclusive content is craved by all, but only a few can afford it. People pay lots of money to be given the star treatment and to be treated like a VIP. These very important people get access to products and services that are not available to the general public.

This special treatment can be applied to your podcast as well. A small percentage of your audience will pay a lot of money for content and services that aren’t available to the rest of your audience. Premium content and paid subscriptions are the special treatment you can offer to your audience. I call this “country clubbing” your podcast.

I first came across the concept of country clubbing your business while reading an ezine sent to me by Alexan¬dria K. Brown, the Ezine Queen. In her ezine, How Starting Your Own “Country Club” Can Skyrocket Your Revenues, Brown wrote about her recent experi¬ence shopping. While visiting a variety of stores, she was asked if she wanted to be added to the stores’ mailing lists. She said no to most of them, except one. The one store she said yes to invited her to become a VIP client.

“In general, [VIP] indicates a level of advantage and prestige. Suddenly, I wanted to be on that mailing list, espe¬cially when the salesman explained to me it came with certain benefits, such as early notice on new arrivals, a personal shopping service, and private trunk shows.”

Brown says that people want to be part of something special and that’s why country clubbing your business is important to help you skyrocket your revenues. People will pay for exclusive content and special deals that they can’t find anywhere else, especially if it helps solve a problem.

Because podcasts are offered for free, you have to be strategic about what kind of content — and how much — you offer through them. In this article, I’ll guide you through a number of case studies about how some pod¬casters are making money by offering premium content for their podcasts.

Success Unwrapped

Heather Vale has a series of podcasts with the unwrapped theme. Her more popular podcast, Success Unwrapped, teaches people how to be more suc¬cessful in their lives and businesses. She interviews self-help gurus, authors, and experts, such as Joe Vitale, Jack Canfield, and Mark Victor Hansen, among others.

While Vale had a lengthy and suc¬cessful career in traditional broadcast¬ing, she craved the days of interviewing people and telling their stories. She describes why she chose podcasting over Internet radio when looking at ways to build her brand online while using her background in broadcasting.

“The big talk online at the time was to host your own radio program talk show streaming live over the Internet. I liked the streaming on demand. When I looked into the different options, the people running these online radio sta¬tions were asking for crazy amounts of money to host a show. I didn’t have a budget at the time. Then I discovered podcasting and I thought, ‘I could put out the same exact show, I have all the parameters that I would’ve had on their [Internet radio] stations and either way, I’d have to promote it myself. So why not put it out as a podcast?”

With one of her other podcasts, Vale found that affiliate marketing worked. She would interview a guest and then invite her audience to purchase the guest’s book or product by clicking on her referral link. However, Vale found that with Success Unwrapped, the length of the content made affiliate marketing too difficult.

“People want to listen to shorter podcasts. My interviews are an hour long, sometimes longer than that. Previously, I would podcast the whole hour show. There was no real way to monetize the Success Unwrapped pod¬cast with affiliate sales for the main reason that I was interviewing a lot of authors and all we were selling was their books. You make a dollar or two on Amazon. So, I couldn’t really do the affiliate sales model.”

Vale applied what she calls selective podcasting where she gives away about 20 minutes of the hour-long interview in her podcast for free. Once they get to the end of the interview, Vale lets listeners know that if they want to hear the complete interview, they can purchase a membership to hear the premium content. People can pay anywhere between $4.95 per month for basic access to the interviews to $19.95 per month for access to all the interviews in the archives. Vale uses content and membership management software called Amember to manage the subscriptions to the Web site. Pay¬ments are processed through PayPal.

Anything But Monday

Frank and Mad Mike met in college back in 1985 and started a comedy radio show a year later. After just three weeks on the air, their show was cancelled for being too edgy. After an 18-year hiatus, Frank and Mad Mike reunited to launch Anything But Monday, a premium comedy podcast. Frank explains why he and his cohost Mad Mike decided not to offer their podcast for free.
“All other business models are fail¬ing. So, what’s the most blatant thing we could do? We could say, ‘Hey, you’re listening to our show, you love our show. The best thing you can do is give us money.’ [Getting money] means we can keep doing the show and down the road, we can do this full-time. This is something that’s in our blood. This is something we’re passionate about.”
Frank and Mad Mike charge $7.99 per month for listeners to access the recordings. Users are given a user name and password after they pay and they can access the premium content in the membership area. Members can also:
» listen to past shows in the archived section
» submit comments on how to improve the show
» see bonus pictures of the hosts
» view videos of the hosts from their college days
» build a community with other listen¬ers around comedy

The Engaging Brand

Anna Farmery believes the world is flat. Her podcast, The Engaging Brand, which gives tips to managers on how to motivate, inspire, and engage people at work, has helped her to connect with people all over the world. At the end of the day, Farmery knows that whether you’re in Denmark, Canada, China, or the United States, being able to moti¬vate employees is a common issue that all companies grapple with.

“There is a strong linkage between happy employees, leading to happy customers, leading to happy leaders, and therefore each week, I interview busi-ness leaders, coaches, and authors all with the intention of helping learn more about how to engage people at work.”

Farmery, an organizational coach, stumbled into podcasting in 2005 after getting an iPod as a Christmas gift. She was eager to add more content to her portable device aside from music. That’s when she discovered the podcast directory in iTunes and her curiosity led her to hundreds of audio and video files that she could download to her iPod.

“Suddenly my whole world changed. I mean it was incredible. I could not believe there was so much great value out there, so much great content and hey, it was all for free.”

Not long after, The Engaging Brand was launched. While Farmery admits that she’s made her fair share of mis¬takes, what she is proud about is how she’s monetized her podcast. After pro¬ducing a few episodes, Farmery started to get emails from people asking how the tips in the podcast could be applied to their own businesses. She saw a need to develop premium content, in other words, individual audio files that featured her giving specific advice to individual listeners who expressed a need. Farmery explains what listeners get in her premium content.

“The individual audio files have work in them for the person to do. Either we have a telephone or email conversation, depending on what they like, and we address their individualized needs.”

For Farmery to create the individual¬ized audio file, the person pays her a fee, usually a few hundred pounds. She then records her advice, posts the audio file on her blog, and sends the lis¬tener a URL. Because she uses Typepad, Farmery can password-protect the post. That way, only the person she shares the password with can access the audio file. Farmery credits 50 percent of her revenue growth in 2006 to podcasting.

Screencasts Online

Screencasts Online was launched in August 2005 and is the creation of Don McAllister. The podcast has a global weekly average audience of over 10,000 viewers and the show has con¬sistently been in the Top 25 technology podcasts and in the Top 100 on iTunes.

All past episodes of Screencasts Online are available in a members’ area. For just $35 over six months, mem¬bers receive immediate access to 80 shows from 2005 and 2006, including 10 members-only shows. In addition, members get to access and view new episodes as they are published.

McAllister offers premium content on a membership Web site. The viewer sees the podcast for free on McAllister’s Web page, but if the viewer wants more, he or she has to pay for a membership that will give him or her access to the archived video content. However, McAllis¬ter goes one step further and offers pre¬mium content on a DVD. The 2005 DVD, which sells for $19.99, includes seven hours of tutorials, while the 2006 DVD, which sells for $39.99, includes 20 hours of tutorials. The extra tutorials, available for free to members, can be purchased individually for $3.99 if someone doesn’t want to pay for membership. ::

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by Miles Durfee

A recent Businessweek report (Is Blogging Good for Business? www.businessweek.com/glo-balbiz/content/aug2007/gb20070817
_773591.htm?chan=search) indicated that 50 percent of Silicon.com survey respondents felt that a blog was not a good way for companies to communi¬cate with customers. The annual survey represents a drop, not an increase, from last year’s results. Because this headline and accompanying story resulted in an instant reaction of shock for me, I head¬ed to the source, Silicon.com. I hoped the site would provide the answer to why these people did not share my vision, beliefs, and understanding of the power of blogging as a customer-communica¬tion tool. Unfortunately, it did not.

Eventually I realized that the survey answers were not the real insight. Many people have questioned me about whether blogging is a legitimate busi¬ness, or business tool for a corporation. Others I have spoken with consider it only a hobby that has very little busi¬ness-world application.

Asking whether a blog is a good way to communicate with a corporation’s customers isn’t the right question. It’s more appropriate and informative to explore how blogs and new media can be used as a tool to enhance a corporation’s contact with its custom¬ers. A blog, wiki, widget, podcast, social network or any other new technology is a tool just like a magazine ad, a press release, or even writing on paper and sticking it in a bottle to float in the ocean. The effectiveness of the tool is dependent on how the tool is used.

One piece of paper in a bottle floating in the ocean might not be effective, but thousands of bottles set floating in the right part of the ocean, with a well crafted message and link to additional informa¬tion could be an effective way to reach a certain target audience (although not very environmentally friendly). If you see a blog as a message floating in a bottle, in the ocean called the Internet, you would have to see the message as much more likely to be found and delivered to the intended recipient. The Internet ocean is filled with optimized search engines, aggregators, and other bottles (bloggers) that tell you the exact location of the bottle you really want to find.

Spending $1 million on another tool, a 30-second television advertisement during the Superbowl, doesn’t seem like a “good way to communicate with customers” from a cost/benefit perspec¬tive, but some companies believe that it is. However, spending $1 million to develop a blogging and new-media Inter¬net strategy for your corporation could provide endless opportunities to com¬municate with customers. The inability to see blogging and new media as a business opportunity or tool is short¬sighted, when you look at its potential to reach its intended recipient, and its abil¬ity to provide a long-term and ongoing relationship with customers.

Using a new-technology tool to open a dialogue with customers is a new way to do something that actually was the cornerstone of business and business products. The mom-and-pop shop, the local hardware store, and the local grocery store all were built on open and honest dialogue between a trusted store owner and the consumer, and yes, the dialogue was about recommending a trusted brand. Colleen Barrett, South¬west Airlines president, is only one example of someone who gets it. She used the August print edition of SPIRIT Magazine (www.spiritmag.com/2007_08/colleenscorner/index.php) to talk about Southwest Airlines’ culture and its blog, Nuts About Southwest (www.blogsouthwest.com). She discusses how the blog has resulted in the building of relationships with Southwest’s cus¬tomer base, and making changes to the product from the information gained.

The Silicon.com survey respondents and others who have expressed skepti¬cism of blogging and new media as a business tool remind me of a Microsoft seminar I once attended. At that time, the Microsoft speaker was demonstrat¬ing a new partnership with a retailer to sell goods in a virtual store on the Internet. During the presentation, he took every opportunity to point out the many difficulties in buying products on the Internet. He described Internet shopping as something that may never be a good way for companies to interact with their customers. It made sense that he didn’t advocate for it or under¬stand its potential: Netscape Navigator was the premiere browsing software at the time, and buying products on the Internet was not very common. Micro¬soft and most other companies hadn’t yet figured out how to make Internet shopping beneficial to their sharehold¬ers or their customers. Now it’s almost impossible to compete in the market¬place without an online store. I suspect that in the not-too-distant future a company that does not have a blog will find it difficult to compete. ::

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Cameron Reilly founded The Podcast Network (TPN) in early 2005. Today, the network has more than 60 active shows, and 50 more that are inactive. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Reilly runs the network alone, with podcaster Ewan Spence acting as network ambassador around the world. Reilly says TPN is profitable, and announced recently that the network had received 500,000 unique visitors during August alone. The network’s Web site is at www.thepodcastnetwork.com.

Blogger & Podcaster: How did TPN come about?

Cameron Reilly: TPN started in about No¬vember, 2004, not long after the dawn of podcasting. I had noticed that there were no Australian podcasts and wrote on my blog, well, somebody’s got to start the first one. Who wants to do it with me? And a guy put up his hand and we started G’Day World — which was the first Australian podcast, which I still run today. And it was really just as an experiment and we thought maybe a half a dozen other friends would listen in, but there was a great response to G’Day World. I think by the end of the first month there was a couple thousand people listening and so I thought wow, there’s a lot of other sort of podcasts I’d like to listen to, which didn’t really exist back then. So, we reached out to a couple of friends and said, how would you like to do some pod¬casts with us and we’ll do all the hosting and we’ll put it under a common brand and try and build an audience. And it kind of took off from there. We launched the network in February ’05, and at the time I think we were the first commercial pod¬casting network. I think GodCast Network was out by then, but this was quite a few months before PodShow or PodTech or any of these guys were on the scene. So, we’ve been around since then just quietly doing our own thing run out of Australia.

B&P: What percentage of those shows are Australia-based?

CR: Maybe 30 percent of our shows are hosted by an Australian. Seventy-five percent of our audience is in the US, about 12 percent in Australia, 6 percent UK, and then the rest of the world.

We’ve got a couple of fairly top-rated music shows, including the Rock Show, which is an indie rock show that Ewan Spence does. We do The Edinburgh Fringe once a year, every August. Ewan does a show a day from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and that podcast was nominated for a BAFTA Award in the UK a couple of years ago, which is sort of the equivalent to an Emmy.

B&P: You released both your August numbers and your overall numbers of unique downloads and visitors. Is that something that is pretty typical for you, or is this a new thing because they’re such spectacular ones?

CR: We’re privately owned. We haven’t raised any funding. We’ve turned down funding on a number of occasions. So, we’ve really tried to build this sort of slowly, quietly, and with some idea of sustainability. We’ve only got one em¬ployee, which is me. We don’t have a full¬time IT department. So, we’ve really tried to build this sort of slowly, quietly, and with some idea of sustainability. We’re driven by revenue and organic growth as opposed to by funding and massive acquisitions. In terms of the stats, we’ve always talked about them publicly, but I’ve never really published them like this before, just because we’ve been slowly build¬ing and growing and didn’t really think anyone would be interested. But I was with the managing director of an ad agency here in Melbourne late last week. I mentioned

our numbers and he nearly fell out of his chair and said, how come you’re not talking about this more publicly? He said, if you compare that to a radio station in Australia, that would put us in the top ten stations in Melbourne or Sydney in terms of our listenership on a monthly basis, which is around half a million. There are a lot of podcasts out there, individual podcasts that are a lot bigger than that. But if you compare it to a newspaper or magazine circula¬tion, or radio listenership in capitol cities and countries like Australia, anyway, half a million people is a fairly sizeable audience.

B&P: How do you define success, or what are your goals as far as metrics for the coming year?

CR: Well, it’s all about sustainability for us. I’ve always had a vision of spending ten years building a media company that is profitable and sustainable and that enables a whole range of people to produce great content, to be able to do that in a way where they’re able to make some money out of it. By 2010, the vision is to have a thousand shows in production, so we’ve got a lot of growth there. And to have an audience of 15 to 20 million people listening to our shows every month.

The fact that we’re still around is my definition of success at the mo¬ment; I still think podcast advertising is in the very, very early-adopter stage. I speak to ad agencies everywhere from here to the US to the UK and I’m hearing it’s not really on our radar at the moment. I think all of their attention got caught up in the hype around video. And I think that might have been a mistake for them. I think that the relationship that podcasters are developing with their audiences is much more intimate and carries a lot more value than the relationship you build with an audience when you have a short form, five- or ten-minute popup funny video. So, I think there’s a lot of upside in the advertising space in podcasting, but it’s still a couple of years away from being part of the mainstream media mix. And the challenge for all of us that are on the business side of podcasting is to stick around long enough for the advertising revenue to kick in.

B&P: Is advertising your primary source of revenue at this point?

CR: We sell advertising on some of our top shows. We sell it all directly and that’s our main source of revenue. We’re exploring some other ideas of premium-content models, but I really think that advertising is going to be the big opportunity for podcasting. The thing that we do that’s maybe a little bit different from mainstream media, and certainly from what I’ve seen with the other podcasting net¬works, is we try to make sure that the advertising in our shows is relevant to the content of the show. So, when you listen to the Digital Photography Show, the advertising is all for digital photography related companies rather than just sticking GoDaddy ads into everything or big mainstream con¬sumable product advertising. We’re trying to make sure that it’s respect¬ful of the audience’s intelligence and attention and time and that it actually adds value to them. The theory that if you’re listening to a show about digital photography and you hear an ad for a new lens or a new piece of software for 15 seconds, it’s actually going to make your life better, rather than just being an annoyance, as so much advertising unfortunately is today.

B&P: What have you learned, or what has surprised you about podcasting — especially the business side — since you got started?

CR: I guess I’m surprised that I haven’t had more offers from mainstream media companies to come and buy us out. The fact that one guy with no funding has been able to build a little independent media company with half a million monthly visitors or listen¬ers should be extremely concerning or extremely exciting to mainstream media companies. You’d think they’d be all over us like white on rice trying to figure out what it is that we’re doing. And yet we’ve had a few sniffs over the last couple of years, but not what I’d expect. So, I guess they either don’t know about what we’re doing or don’t care. I’m not exactly sure which it is.

I’ve been around the Net since ’94-’95 and I’ve seen too many online entrepreneurs and businesses take this path of raising venture capital and then being in the situation where a year or two years down the track, the market hasn’t grown as fast as you thought it would and the VCs squeeze you out. I’ve seen this happen with lots of busi¬nesses over the last 10 or 12 years. They then morph the business into some¬thing else that doesn’t really look like what it started off looking like, and they end up just becoming another main¬stream-media thing. I’ve really got this vision that new media can be a force for good in the world. You will see on TPN that we’re fairly careful about the shows that we produce. We’re trying to produce shows that are intelligent, that are a little bit challenging, that aren’t just mainstream media on an iPod, that are a little bit more niche, a little bit more focused. And I’ve got this great dream that ten years from now, when we do have 20 million listeners, we can actually enlighten, engage, make them more aware of some of the issues facing the world. We can mobilize them as a political force for good. And if you get bought out by AOL or News Corp. or even perhaps Google or Yahoo, those things don’t tend to happen. You tend

to get sidelined into corporate interests and not trying to make the world a bet¬ter place.

B&P: How do you recruit podcasts or podcasters for TPN?

CR: (Laughing) Ewan Spence and I were talking about doing a press conference at the Podcast Expo just with all of the ex-PodShow hosts that are joining TPN.

It’s mostly through people con¬tacting us, although we’ve had a high degree of failure rate over the last couple of years. One of the other things that’s disappointed me is how many people start a podcast and don’t follow it through for a whole variety of reasons. But they don’t seem to have the same stick-to-it-ness that the best podcasters seem to have, where they realize, well, I’m going to spend the next few years building a community around my programming and it’s going to take time and effort to build that up and then to monetize it. Too many people come and go in weeks or months. And one of the things that I’ve tried to do in the last 12 months is to put higher and higher barriers on people who come to us. In order to have a show on TPN now, you’ve got to have demonstrated that you’ve done a podcast for at least three to six months. You’ve got to have a certain size audience. And really those bar¬riers are just there to show me that you’re serious, because we’ve had so many people start and quit. Having said that, I’ve had a few podcasters that could meet those barriers and still quit a month later after joining TPN. It’s hard to find the good eggs out there. I wish there was a magic formula for finding people that are going to stick to it. Nothing more frustrating than launching a podcast only to have them give up the ghost a month later.

B&P: Should a podcaster join a net¬work, whether it’s TPN or any network? What’s in it for them?

CR: That’s been something that we’ve had to continually refine over the last couple of years. I think that there are podcasters out there who shouldn’t join a network for two reasons. Either they are going to be so completely huge and successful by themselves that there’s probably no value proposition of being part of a network, or they’ve just got so much talent or brand or contacts that they can do it by themselves. And I would talk them out of joining a network in most cases. I guess the people I think can really get value from being part of a network are those that do want to do it seriously and want to be part of a community. It’s more about the fact that we have an audience of half a million people and that brings with it certain opportunities for cross-promo¬tion. When we go out to get guests or to talk to advertisers, we can say ‘I’m the Digital Photography Show on The Podcast Network. We’ve got an audi¬ence of half a million people.’ We’re negotiating syndication deals with big media companies that you can only really do if you’ve got a certain sort of footprint. I’m never going to be one of those podcasters that, just through sheer talent or charisma, is massively successful. I’m happier being part of a colony. The other thing is that we’ve got 50 or 60 podcasters that have a wealth of experience and information on everything from audio produc¬tion to selling advertising to building communities. We’ve learned a lot of stuff about how to build an audience, how to keep an audience, how to find advertisers, how to structure all that kind of stuff. So, hopefully that adds genuine value to the individual podcaster.

B&P: I got the impression that you try hard to integrate the shows and the network pretty tightly. Has that been a priority for you?

CR: Yeah, it’s something that we’re still learning. I don’t think we’re getting the full value of the cross-promotion yet. What’s really challenging is if you’re doing a show on health and fitness, how do you know that the people who listen to that are also going to be in¬terested in the Gay Parenting Show or the Napoleon Bonaparte podcast? They don’t necessarily translate. The cross-linking between the shows does have a genuine value from a Google-rank perspective. Anybody who understands much about SEO will know that the more sites you have linking through to your site the better your Google rank is, and being part of a network that has integrated cross linking certainly adds value. But it’s something that I think we need to get a lot better at; really being able to understand and track. We’re doing a lot of experimentation to try and figure out how we can bring in a new show to TPN and help them get the immediate value of the half a million listeners that we have to build awareness of their show.

B&P: Do you feel that being in Australia either harms or helps you in any way, in terms of communicating with the podcast community or the business side of things?

CR: It has hurt us, absolutely. If I had been based in the US, particularly on the West Coast over the last couple of years, I think we’d have a lot higher awareness around who we are and what we do than we currently do. A lot of the other networks have got a heck of a lot of press over the last couple of years, particularly when podcasting was going through its initial hype curve two years ago, that we missed out on because I’m not over there wining and dining the journalists. But the flip side of it is we didn’t have as many VCs on Sand Hill Road throwing obscene amounts of money at us. So, we might be the only ones left six months from now, as well. ::

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by Shelly Brisbin

I was chatting online the other day with some podcasting friends. A few of us realized that we’d known one another, and been podcasting, since early 2005 — “back in the day” in podcasting terms. The phrase “grey heads” was also used. Holy cow! Is time really passing this fast?

Our chat got started because we were, as grey heads often do, lamenting the passing of shows and podcasting groups we had liked. As long-timers who haven’t “podfaded,” we were wondering what was next for podcasting in general, and for our own shows, too. There was no despair or sadness, just a sense that in a medium that once seemed to be in a huge hurry, nothing much seems to be happening in 2007.

You would think now would be a good time to talk about such things, with Podcast Expo looming at the end of this month. More than most conferences I’ve attended in former lives, Podcast and New Media Expo (PME) is a nexus for this community/industry. Most podcasters I know have been to at least one, and almost all of them return home with stories of what a great experience it was. PME does seem to have the power to invigorate podcasters, even before the show starts.

But as much as I’m looking forward to this year’s PME, to seeing some of my old-timer friends again, and strolling the exhibit hall to see what’s new, I can’t help thinking that this year’s expo is unlikely to mark the long-awaited emergence of podcasting as a full-fledged industry. It feels to me as if, far from being an industry of grey heads, we’re more like a group of high-achieving, but pimply-faced kids, trying to figure out how to get the keys to the car, or whether we’ll be able to get into a good college when high school is finally over.

To be sure, podcasting has its share of sharp business people who have already found ways to make the medium profitable. PME keynoter Howard Lindzon famously sold his Wallstrip podcast to CBS. There have been other headline-grabbing successes for podcast-focused business. But just as the rumored stumbles of companies like PodTech do not provide a gloomy narrative for the future of podcasting, the successes don’t pile up to form a trend, either.

There are signs that podcasting has the raw material to reach what many believe is its full potential. The Association for Downloadable Media, and the Association of Podcasters and New Media Producers (see “Dueling Podcast Trade Groups” page 7) both want to gather podcasting people and companies under an umbrella, and, in different ways, they seek to bring technical and practical standardization to the medium. Why hasn’t this happened before? It’s only now that enough companies and individuals have committed themselves to podcasting for the long haul. They may not be seeing financial rewards from it yet, but they’ve made the commitment, and now they’re looking to combine with others that have done the same.

Like other industries, podcasting has shaken out some. Those early podfaders, especially the ones who saw podcasting as a get-rich quick proposition, have made way for more serious-minded long-term thinkers. The hobbyists who’ve stuck with it have probably decided whether they’ll take the commercial plunge. They’re on their second generation of podcasting gear, and the ones I know talk about esoteric values like presence and story telling. In 2005, we were all just excited to finally be sitting behind microphones, not gamers’ headsets.

So podcasting’s young adulthood, which should be the most productive and creative time of its life, is not yet at hand. Like the metaphorical teenager, we as people and participants in the industry are focused. We’ve built our skills, extended the reach of our imaginations beyond the tips of our own RSS feeds, and started asking ourselves and each other some questions about what we want to be when we grow up.

And now we’re back at Podcast Expo, whose humble home in Ontario, California will, in 2008, give way to the bright lights of Las Vegas. The move has already generated lots of comment: many feel it’s just what the show itself and podcasting need, in order to grow up. (Many also want an excuse to go to Vegas.) Others lament the change, correctly pointing to a potential loss of the community spirit that still pervades podcasting. Despite a certain personal preference on my part for the intimacy of the first three expos, I think PME founder Tim Bourquin gets the two essential reasons for taking the show to the conventio-niest city in the country: if podcasting is to throw away its learner’s permit, we need to get out on the road and face the perils and the opportunities that await us there. And if navel-gazing columns like this one are ever to give way to missives that explain and promote our medium to a wider audience, we have to go where people can see and appreciate us.

Hopefully, what happens in Vegas next August will not stay there.

Bloggers Take Over Chicago

Women bloggers gather for BlogHer, followed by progressive politicos at YearlyKos

By Shelly Brisbin

Perhaps it’s no accident that the third annual BlogHer conference was held a mere week before another blogging convention in the same city, the second annual YearlyKos event. Held in late July and early August, respectively, the two gatherings brought motivated, prolific, and engaged bloggers (both pro and amateur) to Chicago. At BlogHer, where all political stripes were welcome, but where none were required, the theme was “a world of difference,” a slogan designed to remind the blogging community and those who watch them that many women blog on a variety of topics. BlogHer founders worked hard to dispel the myth of “the missing women bloggers.”

At YearlyKos, visibility wasn’t a problem.With all Democratic presidential candidates making appearances, the eyes of the mainstream media and much of the political establishment were turned to Chicago. Some 1,400 bloggers, political operatives, and press made the scene, debating issues ranging from which candidate best represents progressives, to whether bloggers should band together to obtain health insurance.

BlogHer attendees had plenty of chances to become politically active if they wished. The organization’s Blog-Hers Act campaign aims to influence the presidential debate by choosing an issue, and formulating questions to ask candidates during the 2008 elections cycle. The winning issue, voted upon by BlogHer members and conference attendees, was global health.

Attendees did not hear from any presidential hopefuls, but one candidate’s spouse, Elizabeth Edwards, answered questions from a moderator and from the crowd during the closing keynote. She touched on both politics and her personal evolution as a user of online information and as a blogger. Edwards says she writes the blog that bears her name on the John Edwards for President site, and that no campaign staff advises or prereads her posts.

Celebrity BlogHers were not limited to the political realm, however. Author Amy Sedaris spoke to an overflow crowd, as did long-time tech journalist and industry watcher Esther Dyson. Project Runway star Chloe Dao also appeared on a session panel and offered fashion tips to attendees at a closing party.

For the 750 or so noncelebrities at BlogHer 07, the vibe was energetic, and seemed to reflect real enthusiasm for the content and the chance to meet other women bloggers. The energy was infectious, and tended to lead to productive conversations that did not devolve into the kind of one-upmanship often on display at tech conferences.

Dueling Podcast Trade Groups?

By Shelly Brisbin

Within days of the launch of the Association for Downloadable Media (ADM), disconcerted rumblings could be felt in the podcasting community. Led by Podango Productions president Scott Bourne, well-known indie podcasters, and a few people whose names are well-known outside podcasting circles, began working to build an alternative group; one that would not charge pricey membership dues, and which would elect its board and other leadership. In early August, the group, under the working name, Association of Podcasters & Online Media Producers, released a survey, seeking podcaster input on the group’s structure and goals.

Bourne’s beefs with the ADM, which he began posting on his blog a few days after the mid-July launch, are that the $1,000 corporate/$150 individual membership dues ADM is asking for are too high for most podcasters, and that the startup steering committee of representatives from large (or at least well-known) podcasting companies limits the community’s ability to influence the trade group’s work toward standards. Bourne attracted TWiT.TV’s Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay from Pixel Corps, Michael R. Mennenga of FarPoint Media, MommyCast’s Gretchen Vogelzang, and other well-known podcasters. Bourne is emphatic that he will not seek or accept an office in the group, and that the eventual board will be elected by the group’s members.

Just which standards podcasters should be working toward is another difference between the two groups. ADM focuses specifically on metrics for measuring advertising effectiveness and podcast audience. Bourne’s group has not developed a particular focus, and he says it could be as broad as any industry group, working toward establishing best practices, lobbying government, and/or planning industry events. Metrics could also be a part of its charter, if members approve.

Both associations will hold organizational meetings at Podcast and New Media Expo, later this month. To follow the alternative group’s efforts, read Scott Bourne’s blog at www.online
mediatips.com.

New Portable Recorder from Zoom

By Shelly Brisbin

In August, Samson Tech/Zoom shipped the long-awaited and less-expensive sibling to its popular H4 portable digital recorder. The H2 is available for an approximate street price of $199.

Although the Zoom H2 costs $100 less than the H4, it is not a stripped-down version of its older sibling. The microphones and front panel buttons are different, though the LCD interface appears to be similar, if not identical to the older unit. The H2 features four buit-in microphones, intended to allow 360-degree recording. You can adjust the mics’ pickup patterns to the type and directionality of recording you want to do.

MIC IN and LINE IN jacks (1/8-inch) allow you to record with an external mic, or by plugging the H2 in to a mixer, instrument, or other line-level audio source.

Audio specs for the H2 are similar to the H4; both units provide up to 48kHz audio when recording in 16- or 24-bit WAV format, and up to 320kbps bit rates with MP3 files. The unit provides automatic gain control, a three-step gain-level switch, a low-cut filter, and time-stamp and track-marker features to help with audio editing. For musicians, there’s a chromatic bass and guitar tuner built in.

The H2 weighs four ounces and is pocket-size, according to Zoom. It stores recordings on SD memory cards (up to 4GB) and uses AA batteries or AC power. It comes with earbuds, a 1/8-inch stereo-to-RCA cable, a mic-clip adapter, tripod stand, and AC adapter. Learn more at samsontech.com.

B&P in Second Life

Blogger & Podcaster Magazine has acquired a presence in the virtual world, Second Life. The venture, in partnership with Podcast Pickle, will allow the magazine to sponsor events and provide access to past issues.

Second Life lets members create full-body avatars, attend live events, and engage in virtual commerce. Blogger & Podcaster’s presence there consists of an “office tower” on Podcast Island, the Second Life home of the Podcast Pickle podcasting directory.

The tower consists of a meeting space for live events, and offices, and provides visitors a place from which to download digital editions of past magazine issues.

Monthly podcaster meetups began in early August. To get to Blogger & Podcaster tower in Second Life, teleport to Podcast Island, and follow the signs. Meetup information is available at the site.

Bloggers Unite, or Not?

By Shelly Brisbin

A discussion at YearlyKos (see “Bloggers Take Over Chicago” article, page 7) about health insurance for bloggers drew a lot of media interest in mid-August. And apparently, most of the online and offline press got the story wrong. “Bloggers Seeking to Form a Labor Union” was one headline, and most media reports stated that liberal bloggers favored banding together to establish fairer pay scales and other union benefits for pro bloggers. Reactions from new and old media alike tended toward ridicule.

In fact, the discussion centered not on collective bargaining, employees-versus-management battles, or union dues, but instead on finding ways to provide health insurance for bloggers. Susie Madrak, whose blog is called Suburban Guerilla (susiemadrak.com), advocates an insurance pool that bloggers could call upon in the event of serious medical need. She intends the fund to provide resources to liberal political bloggers who she says often do not have access to employer-funded insurance, as their think-tank funded conservative counterparts do.

Madrak has applied to blogpac (www.blogpac.com) for a $5,000 grant to fund the legal costs of creating the pool. To fund the system once established, Madrak would pursue a wide range of sources, including affiliation with union groups. “Possibilities include affiliation (not membership) with a union that will permit us to buy insurance through them, membership in a group like the National Writers Union, and grants from progressive organizations that would provide a partial subsidy,” she wrote in an email.

Madrak also described a separate plan to support progressive bloggers that would call on organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party to get involved financially. “I want to start an emergency fund for progressive bloggers. That’s where I think the Democratic organizations should step up.” She also believes that blog readers, who already donate to their favorite authors, are a likely source of money for the emergency fund.

Madrak blogged recently about the large amount of money liberal bloggers have sent to ActBlue, an organization that directs online donations to Democratic candidates. She’s looking to the beneficiaries of that money to support her efforts to assist bloggers with urgent medical needs.

“We’ve done quite a lot for progressive politics, and now it’s time for them to return the favor,” she writes.

WordCamp in the Castro

By Elisa M Welch

On an unseasonably warm and sunny July weekend, approximately 400 bloggers assembled in San Francisco’s Swedish American Hall, a few short blocks from what may be the world’s largest rainbow flag, for WordCamp, a two-day conference for WordPress users and developers. The stated aim of the gathering was to “get WordPress users together, learn from each other, figure out the future of publishing on the Web, and have a good time.” Although there was some overlap in sessions, day one ostensibly focused on user topics, including how to be a better blogger; day two on development issues and the future of WordPress.

Saturday’s highlights included a public discussion entitled “Blogging vs. Journalism,” led by Om Malik and John C. Dvorak. While the conversation was lightly peppered with occasional (and predictable) Mac-versus-PC jabs between the two pundits, in general the tone was convivial, ultimately positing that there is, or should be, no conflict between blogging and journalism. The main distinction, according to Dvorak, centers around the extent to which “the man” controls what is said, in any form of media.

Another lively session ensued when blogger/evangelist Lorelle VanFossen took the stage. “Kicking Ass Content Connections” began quite informally, with VanFossen strolling the floor among the attendees, passing her microphone around, asking people why they blog. When she returned to the podium she poured forth a slew of insightful suggestions, including “leaving holes” for the reader to fill in (commenting is blogging, as she observed more than once), being authentic rather than faking it, and writing for the future. Several observations drew guffaws, including her request for “a toilet-flushing sound” to accompany Akismet’s spam-tagging feature.

Plans for WordCamp 2008 had not been finalized at press time. Keep an eye on wordpress.org/ for future developments.

Print Your Blog

SharedBook Inc. introduced a new version of its Blog2Print blog-printing widget (www.blog2print.com) in early August. According to the company, enhancements have been added in response to user feedback since the initial beta release on June 28.

The widget makes it possible to turn blog posts into printed books. Participating bloggers can receive a 20-percent share of the retail price of blog books made by others using their content.

The new version of Blog2Print automatically flows photographs and other images into the book format along with the appropriate text, similar to the way content appears online.

Once the blog content flows into the blog book structure, readers can preview and purchase the book, or personalize it further by adding or deleting content. Users can also invite others into their personal book-making space to contribute additional information.

Pricing for a full-color 20-page book begins at $19.95 for soft-cover and $24.95 for hard cover. This includes a readable flipbook version of the book and free shipping of the printed version.

New & Noteworty

Big Blog Network

451 Press says it’s the largest blog network online, with more than 300 daily blogs. The site bases its claim on the number of blogs it hosts, and also boasts 10 million daily visitors.

The network is ad-supported, and pays bloggers for their work. 451Press.com features a blog aggregator, available from its home page, allowing readers to view content from multiple network blogs.

Chinese Actress Is Top Blogger

Speaking of blogging superlatives, Chinese filmmaker and actress Xu Jinglei became the world’s most widely read blogger in July, according to The Beijing News. Xu’s blog traffic topped 100 million page views in 600 days.

Chinese blog host www.sina.com.cn says Xu’s blog topped 100 million views on July 12. The actress began her blog in 2005, and published a book of her posts in 2006.

CallBurner Skype Tool Accessible

The most recent version of CallBurner, which allows Skype users to record their conversations, is fully accessible to blind users and others who use screen-reading software on Windows PCs.

To use CallBurner with either JAWS or WindowEyes screen readers, enable “Screen Reader Compatibility” in the Accessibility submenu. With this option enabled, the software can be operated entirely via the keyboard, and without the use of scripts that are often used as workarounds for screen-reader users.

Published by Netralia, which also developed the Skylook application for recording Skype calls via Microsoft Outlook, CallBurner costs $50, but will record calls for free if at least two parties to the conversation
have the software installed. CallBurner is available at www.callburner.com.

MXL Ships More Podcasting Tools

The inexpensive MXL 990 condenser mic has been a staple piece of hardware for beginning podcasters since the medium came to life in 2004. MXL has released a new version of the popular mic, called the MXL 990 USB Stereo Condenser Microphone. It is available exclusively from Musician’s Friend (www.musiciansfriend.com). MXL also announced the Mic Mate, an adapter for converting a standard condenser mic with XLR connector into a USB device.

The 990 USB Stereo mic is, like the original 990, a large-diaphragm condenser. It retails for $200, and includes a shock mount, carrying case, and mic-stand adapter.

The Mic Mate is a preamp and adapter to convert a standard XLR-based professional mic into a USB mic that can be connected to a Mac or PC. The pocket-size Mic Mate retails for $79 and will be available this month.

NPR Brings Its Podcasts to Facebook

A new Facebook application brings access to NPR’s podcasts to the social-networking site. Based on the SplashCast player, NPR Podcasts streams audio from popular public-radio programs to your Facebook profile page.

At launch, the player provided access to eleven shows, including Fresh Air, Story of the Day, Car Talk, and All Songs Considered. To add the player to Facebook, go to npr.org/Facebook.

Blogger, You’re Fired!

In the latest survey snippet guaranteed to inspire fear and hand-ringing in the blogging world, or at least a couple of headlines, Wired Magazine reports on a survey that says ten percent of companies have fired people for their blogging activities.

The survey results come from Proofpoint, a “messaging security” company. Other interesting factoids include the claim that one-third of companies employ people whose job it is to read outbound corporate email. Twenty percent of companies surveyed, and 30 percent of those with more than 20,000 employees, have been served court papers requiring them to hand over employees’ email messages.

Wired writer Ryan Singel viewed the survey with some skepticism, positing that blog-related firings and disciplinary actions had been lumped in with email violations.

GarageBand Tweaks

Apple’s iLife 08 suite features updates to the company’s popular creative tools. GarageBand, which acquired podcaster-specific features in its previous version, has gotten a few new bells and whistles.

The update that will interest podcasters most is the ability to export directly to MP3. Previously, you could export only to uncompressed AIFF, or AAC.

Visual EQ provides onscreen bands that you can adjust by dragging, while your recording plays. You can use the Analyzer to locate frequencies that need a boost or a cut, and save settings you like for future use.

Multitake recording allows you to save several versions of a recording (say a funny bit or live bumper) and choose the one you like best.

GarageBand (www.apple.com/ilife/garageband) is part of Apple iLife 08, which sells for $79, and is included with all Macintosh computers purchased after August 7.

Correctections

» In our July news item about Balticon, we incorrectly identified Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway’s podcast. It is The Balticon Podcast, and can be found at www.balticonpodcast.org. In addition to the 36 podcasters presenting at Balticon, approximately 45 more were in attendance, according to Fischer.
» In the July “Moms with a Voice” feature, we listed per-month downloads for Manic Mommies at 100,000. Kristin Brandt wrote to correct the number: “We receive about 3,000 to 4,000 downloads per episode within one or two weeks, and approximately 25,000 downloads of all our shows each month.”

by Paul Colligan

The third annual Podcast and New Media Expo (PNME) happens September 28-30 in Ontario, California. I’m not just a huge fan of this event, but also a veteran of many indus-try expos like it. From that perspective, I offer these seven secrets you probably won’t hear or read anywhere else.

I can trace my most profitable ventures to people I met at events such as PNME. Even if you’re reading this article long after the expo is over, I promise you these tips are worth their weight in gold for next year or any similar event. Remember, you’re there to see revenue first.

» Pace yourself for a three-day marathon. The excitement of finally meeting your peers, putting faces to voices, parties with free drinks, dozens of presentations, and opportunities to network (officially and unofficially) can take a lot out of a person. Get plenty of rest, eat right, keep hydrated, and follow the next secret with gusto.

» Know why you’re going. I want to be brutally honest here: If you just want to find out “what’s new” in our industry and learn from some great presenters, you don’t need to make the trip. All of this content will be available online, for free, shortly after the event. Don’t waste your money.
If your goal is to network with specific people or entities, keep your eye on the prize. Be strategic about you goals for the event weeks before you arrive. Setting up even “tentative” meetings before the event is always a good idea.

» Remember that the real action happens outside the presentations and booths. The deals made and the partnerships formed will never happen when you expect them to. You won’t even have a chance to close a deal when there are a zillion people standing around. Look for the right time and place to approach the right people. This level of patience will take longer, but it will be well worth it. This is another reason to stay at the hotel closest to the conference: you’re much more likely to run into the people you want to meet at the bar at the check-in desk, or on the airport shuttle.

» Never underestimate the guy or gal sitting next to you. Introduce yourself to everyone you can. Keep a pen in your pocket to take notes on business cards. Take everyone’s story very seriously — even if they don’t look like the ideal strategic partner. The people you meet will surprise you, and these chance encounters might have a good chance of helping you see revenue from your efforts.

» Get the inside scoop on the “unofficial” events. Check out my calendar (link at the end of the article) to find out what I’ll be up to at PNME, and please do attend our Profitable Podcaster Meetup. Do everything you can to find out about the unofficial gatherings that always happen at an conference like this. These events are often more important and more useful than any keynote or conference session.

» Be strategic about the way you approach the “big names.” The big names in podcasting will be at PNME, and you’ll be surprised just how approachable they are. Don’t fear trying to catch a few words with your ideal connections — just be strategic in how you do it. You can greatly increase your odds of having a real conversation and making possible connections if you catch them when they’re not surrounded by fans, or running to make a presentation. Bonus tip: hand them an unopened bottle of water. You’d be surprised how thirsty busy presenters and in-demand personalities can be.

» Know your USP. Your USP is your “unique selling proposition.” It is what separates you from everyone else. If you introduce yourself as being a podcaster who does a show about “all sorts of things,” you bring nothing to the conversation. The more specific you are about what you bring to the proverbial table, the better connections you will make. A business card or other giveaway with your USP written on it is the best way to make an impression. People will sort business cards, giveaways, and everything else before they head home and if the item doesn’t scream “keep me,” it won’t be kept.

Paul Colligan’s calendar for Podcast and New Media Expo can be found at www.PaulColligan.com/Paul-Colligan-Calendar.

by Shel Israel

Back in the quaint old days of 2005, when Robert Scoble and I were writing Naked Conversations, blogging was the only social-media tool. In our 280-page book, we dedicated just four pages to podcasts and a mere two to online video, which we said was “emerging slowly.”

The term “social media” was not used in the book at all.

Now blogging is but one of a great many tools in an entire social-media toolshed. What a difference two years makes. When you count all the variations, there are over a thousand tools in dozens of languages that allow people to connect with one another on the Internet. Instead of plain old-fashioned text, people can now use social-media tools to interact via pictures, audio, and video.

Blogging itself has become such an everyday tool that it is hardly the subject of much discussion. In fact, blogging has normalized to some degree, and for those of us focused on the edge, tools are hardly worth much more discussion than are telephony, fax, or email. Saying you’ve started a blog in itself is about as exciting in conversations as saying your company has a web site.

In July, as I write this column, I am immersed in a project for SAP, one of the world’s largest software companies. SAP has assigned me to conduct a global survey on social media.

The company has also given me permission to conduct the survey transparently. I am interviewing some of the world’s most prominent thinkers on social media and posting their comments on my blog where everyone, including SAP competitors, can see and share the results.

I have had the pleasure of interviewing he likes of Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Hugh MacLeod, Robert Scoble, Loic Le Meur, and over 50 other bloggers worldwide including at least one high schooler, a Cambodian nonprofit worker, and social-media activists in more than 20 countries, including South Africa, Argentina, Bulgaria, Estonia, as well as Japan, India, and China.

When the survey is completed, I think we will have the best living snapshot of what’s happening in the world regarding social media, and SAP will have established itself as a thought leader because it is allowing everyone to see the results.

I’ve been at it only a few weeks so far, but already some trends are clear. While almost no one I’ve interviewed has even used the word “blog,” there is a great deal of focus on three social-media tool groups:

» Microblogging. This is the John Wayne version of blogging in that the number of words and characters you use is severely limited. Twitter was microblogging’s pioneer. Very recently, several other microblogging tools have emerged, particularly Pownce. By the time you read this, a few weeks after I am writing it, there will undoubtedly be newer tools in this area.

» Online Video. YouTube is big and old hat to people who dwell on the edge. Now there are myriad new online video companies including live streaming from the likes of Justin.TV, Ustream, and BlogTV. The numbers are rapidly expanding, and business has already gotten into the act.

» Social Networks. You’ve heard about MySpace and LinkedIn? Both seem old hat. As Robert Scoble told me, and perhaps the most significant finding so far is, “It’s a Facebook world.”

A Facebook world, indeed. In fact, the tool mentioned most frequently in these interviews is Facebook. It’s the world’s fastest growing network. A year ago, it was still only for students and mostly in North America. Then it opened up to anyone, and business users started coming in steadily. This past spring it lowered its walls to third-party application developers, announcing relationships with 65 developers, most of them social-media companies. There are now nearly 200 third-party apps to Facebook, and the number is growing.

So is the Facebook user base. Some estimate that it has doubled in size to about 50 million users since it opened up its APIs. Facebook is now the platform of choice for social-media strategists.
Enterprise companies are discussing Facebook strategy in their back rooms. Silicon Valley VCs, currently in an invest-ment-friendly mood, are refusing to invest in a startup that does not have a Facebook strategy.

Facebook itself is remarkable because it has taken the social nature of most humans and brought it onto the Internet, making it easy and fun. Someday, something will eclipse it, but for now Facebook is the next best thing to a face-to-face conversation.

If you haven’t yet done so, I suggest you give it a try.

by Tee Morris

I recently attended a podcasting event that gathered talent from all along the East Coast and from as far away as the Midwest. Among the guests was a dear friend of mine just shy of her one-year anniversary in podcasting. (While the podosphere is all about openness, I prefer not to reveal her identity. Let’s call her “Miss Moxie.”) My friend Miss Moxie was pretty excited about this weekend, as her podcast had gained a lot of momentum over a short span of time. The words she used to me about her debut as a “featured guest” were “I am going to party like a rock star.”

Now, I’m sure Miss Moxie was thinking about the kind of rock star parties seen in films like A Hard Day’s Night or Woodstock, where people are celebrating life, and euphoria reigns. Unfortunately, my “party like a rock star” imagery is closer to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. You know — where the lyrics are “Run to the bedroom, in the suitcase on the left you’ll find my favorite axe…” — and we watch as a hotel room is decimated beyond recognition. The scene ends with Bob Hoskins opening the door to find a completely-shaven Sir Bob Geldof deep in a controlled-substance coma.

In this particular instance, my version came true. Miss Moxie got caught up in the thrill of the weekend, enjoying attention from people coming to hear her (and others) speak about podcasting. As the weekend progressed, she continued to spiral out of control, asking for helping hands and shoulders to cry on while trashing her hotel room; and in that “rock star” fashion, Miss Moxie put the pedal to the metal and reveled in her social freefall. What happened afterwards in shared social circles was a severe backlash of judgment, name-calling, and animosity, all directed toward her, most of it unwarranted.

When we launch a podcast, it feels a bit solitary. You, the mic, the RSS feed. We don’t plan for success, nor do we really prepare for it. When success does come our way, we are suddenly showered with compliments, praise, and adulation. People begin turning to us for ideas on how to start their own podcasts because we have become experts. One night, we post a podcast. The next, we are famous.

OK, almost famous. (Good movie, that is!)

I tend to step back from the fame I have as a podcaster. On any scale, I’m pretty low on the celebrity totem pole. Still, I do enjoy a level of fame because my voice, my image, and my point of view have global reach. Other podcasters, news affiliates, and podcasting book authors turn to me for opinions and recommendations. This column, in fact, came about because of the recognition I have earned from Podcasting for Dummies and my work with podcast novels. Being treated as a rock star, being consulted as an expert, can easily go to your head, especially if you have never experienced such notoriety.

Fame is a double-edged sword. When your show hits the podosphere, you’re no longer the anonymous listener but a voice, an active participant. By podcasting you become a public figure, and you sacrifice a degree of privacy. Of course, you are hardly Angelina Jolie or Billy Joel. You can still shop at the supermarket, go to movies, and even head to your local coffee shop for a bagel and café mocha, all without being hassled. On the other hand, when you’re dropped into a setting with other podcasters, where people know you, elevate you, and thrust you into a modest level of stardom, it is easy to allow your ego some inflation. Your success, no matter how you rate it, should be kept in perspective. It only takes a moment to lose control of yourself when you are the subject of admiration from complete strangers who feel as if they “know” you after getting a look in to your life on a regular basis through your podcasts. And even though you are a star in podcasting circles, you aren’t entitled to anything, no matter how good you are. I’m a hell of a podcaster — I won’t be shy about that. I also know that I put my pants on the same way as everyone else, work hard to make my podcasts sound good, and understand that I wouldn’t be regarded as highly if it weren’t for the people listening. Keep a perspective and you keep control.

As for Miss Moxie, the fallout, coupled with her own look back on the weekend of out-of-control emotional abandon, led to one of the most gripping podcasts ever to hit the podosphere. She is still the podcaster who refuses to pull punches or sugarcoat the way she perceives the world around her. But she is a podcaster with a renewed vision and purpose.

She hit the bottom only to bounce back strong. In that respect, she stands as an example we can all strive to emulate.

by Rob Walch

AT&T isn’t the only party that’s getting more subscribers due to the phenomenal sales of the iPhone. Podcasters are also benefiting from the influx of new iPhone owners. Are you riding this wave? The following is a Q&A that any podcaster who has not specifically planned for the iPhone should read.

Q. How does your site look on an iPhone?

A. I don’t know.

Facts: When the iPhone opens your site, it will shrink it down to fit the width of the page on your iPhone. But since that page is on a 3.5-inch screen, text and buttons are usually not readable or clickable, at least not with any accuracy.
If you have not done so already, I highly recommend that you view your site, and try to play your show on an iPhone. If you do not know anyone with an iPhone, go to the local Apple or AT&T store and look at it there. If you’re outside the United States, ask one of your U.S. listeners to do this for you. If you do not have any U.S. listeners, you can always ask me.

Q. Can someone play your latest episode on an iPhone?

A. I don’t know.

Facts: While the iPhone uses Safari as its Web browser, it is not a full-featured version of Safari. At this point, Flash is not supported on the iPhone. If you’re using a Flash player on your site as the only way of playing your show, you’ve left iPhone users without the ability to listen to or watch your podcast. You need an iPhone-friendly button with a direct link to the URL of the MP3, AAC, MP4, or MOV file that can be opened and played in QuickTime.

Q. Do you have an iPhone-friendly button on your site?

A. I don’t think so.

Facts: Again, when a site is opened up on the iPhone, the site is shrunk to fit, making small buttons impossible to hit without zooming in. As a minimum you need to have some kind of button or link that is clearly labeled or designed for iPhone users to find. If you go to www.todayin iphone.com (my podcast on the iPhone) you will see what an iPhone-friendly play button looks like. The optimal size of a button on the iPhone is about 300 pixels x 70 pixels. This button is easy to see, identify, and hit on the iPhone screen, even with a big, thick finger. If you don’t want to put a big clunky button on your home page, then you may want to follow the lead of Seth Harwood for his Jack Palms series at sethharwood.com/iphone.html and create a page specifically for iPhone users. His layout is one of the best I’ve seen, and because the whole page is designed for the iPhone, there’s no need to label the buttons as such.

Many big-name podcasters, especially the video guys, do not have anything labeled for iPhone users. However, a few have started to address iPhone users. Rocketboom (www.rocketboom.com) is an example of a video site that has been set up to play nice with the iPhone. When you go to the Rocketboom site on an iPhone, the video player shows a button on the lower right-hand side. Click it and the video starts. Contrast that with another site — where the host is likely to “kill me soon” for mentioning him — and you will see that the site, at least in mid-July 2007, does not support iPhone users. There is nothing on the site that makes it possible for someone to watch the latest episode on an iPhone. Even the “click here to download for iPod” button (which is hard to locate) does not work on the iPhone. I realize it has only been less than a few weeks since the iPhone was released (at the time this was written), and it is very likely he has been busy fighting dragons or Hollywood agents — but hopefully this will be addressed soon.

Q. How does your video look on the iPhone?

A. I’m not sure.

Fact: Apple has released a new version of QuickTime that includes an “Export to iPhone” option. This provides what Apple believes are the best settings for a video that is to be played on the iPhone.

The iPhone is an incredible (but not perfect) device with two different opportunities for users to consume podcasts. One is through iTunes subscriptions from a computer that syncs with the iPhone. The other is direct web browsing from the iPhone. Most podcasters focus only on the iTunes side, thereby missing the opportunity to take advantage of an impulse desire to download something different. With an iPhone, a user can immediately check out a show that was just mentioned by a friend or was plugged in another podcast. Wouldn’t you like your site to be able to quench the media thirst of those iPhone users who are looking for new content, and are looking for it now?

By Shelly Brisbin

Almost every podcaster has, at one time or another, wanted to take the show on the road. Whether that means recording interviews at a trade show, capturing nature sounds in Muir Woods, or originating your regular show from a baseball stadium, the availability of high-quality, portable digital records for street prices well below $500 has made it possible to podcast from almost anywhere for a reasonable investment, and with a minimum of hassle. In this article, we’ll take a look at the leading portable digital recorders, all available for $500 or less. You’ll learn which features to expect, which ones you can do without, and how to choose the best recorder for the kind of field podcasting you do.

During the same couple of years that podcasting has been taking hold among content-producers, the price of flash memory has been dropping precipitously. That happy convergence has made it possible to record a lot of audio on a tiny, inexpensive memory card, or from an inexpensive device with built-in memory. Portable recorder manufacturers have adapted to this trend, too, releasing smaller and smaller devices, while upping their quality and increasing the number of professional features they offer. Most truly professional field recorders still tip the scales at $1,000 plus, but the units we evaluated do a more than adequate job for most field-recording situations, especially when a hand-held device is desirable.

At the high end of our list, in terms of cost, is the Marantz PMD660, a unit that’s marketed to radio producers and other pros. It’s somewhat more expensive than, but still in the same ballpark as, the other recorders we tested. Though the PMD660 retails for $700, it’s widely available for $499. We also took a look at the Zoom H4 Handy Recorder and Edirol R-09, which are hand-held devices that also use removable flash memory. The Olympus DS-50 and WS-331M are downright tiny, and feature built-in memory. We included the Olympus units because many podcasters want to take advantage of portability and value, but are unsure whether they should spend the extra money for higher-end recorders. Those who began their podcasting careers with an iRiver recorder (see “The Legend of the iRiver,” page 22) will recognize many of the Olympus devices’ features. Finally, we were unable to obtain an M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 for review, despite several requests. Like the R-09 and H4, the MicroTrack is a mid-size hand-held recorder that uses removable media. We have included its specifications in the feature chart (pages 26 - 27) because it is a popular choice among mobile podcasters.

Let’s Get Mic-y

Most podcasters use field recorders to capture voices. Sometimes they’re interview subjects or conference panelists. Some podcasters also need to capture ambient sound, particularly in nature. The portable recorders we evaluated all have built-in mics that allow you to record sound at close range. All but the Olympus WS-331M include stereo mics.

We found the Zoom H4 and Edirol R-09 to have the best internal mics. Both capture ambient sound very well, though not as well as a high-end external mic would. For interviews on the street or on a trade-show floor, though, the built-in mics worked even better. The H4 and R-09 provide good stereo separation, and rich sound. We give the subjective edge to the H4 for sound fullness. The H4 also offers a unique “mic modeling” feature that lets you simulate the characteristics of well-known pro mics with the built-in one. You can also adjust the mic’s pickup pattern, further customizing the recording for your environment. On the downside, we did notice that the H4 is susceptible to wind noise. You’ll want to use the provided windscreen to cut wind considerably. Unfortunately, we quickly lost our windscreen while on a road trip with the H4, which is an all-too-likely scenario. The windscreen is a foam ball with a custom groove to fit the H4’s mics.

We wonder why Marantz bothered to put internal mics in the PMD660. They’re not very good, and chances are that anyone paying $500 for a recorder will also want to invest in a good mic. In addition, the PMD660 is not a hand-held device, making positioning of its built-in mic somewhat problematic in most situations. The DS-50 has two mics, a simple mono one, and a detachable stereo unit that can either sit atop the recorder, or be plugged in to the included mic adapter, which has a three-foot cable and a clip for attaching it to a collar or lapel.

As for external mic options, the PMD660 and H4 are the only recorders with balanced XLR mic connectors of the kind found on professional studio and field microphones. The 660 has two and there’s a pair of combination XLR hybrid connectors on the H4 that can accept both XLR and balanced TRS cables. Both devices provide 48-volt phantom power, required for use with most condenser mics. The R-09 has “plug-in” power — not the industry standard 48 volts used for phantom power — and no XLR input.

Despite its professional chops, the built-in preamps that provide the PMD660 with phantom power have been criticized for being noisy. At least one audio dealer offers a solution for the built-in preamps. If you buy your PMD660 from Oade Brothers Audio (www.oade.com), you can have one of several higher-quality preamps installed at the time of purchase. The most basic upgrade option costs $100 over the usual street price for the PMD660; however, be aware that you will void your Marantz warranty. If you go this route, the premium you pay for the PMD660 takes its cost to double the street price of the H4.

You’ll find 1/8-inch unbalanced mic jacks on the R-09 and DS-50. A number of lapel and other lavaliere mics are compatible with this connector. Most 1/8-inch microphones are unbalanced and supply their own battery power. If yours doesn’t, choose the R-09, which provides plug-in power. XLR to 1/8-inch adapters are available, but the physical difference in connector sizes can introduce stress and other connection problems. It’s best to pair the connector to the recorder without an adapter, if at all possible.

Connecting a portable recorder directly to a mixer or other line-level source is an easy way to cut out the computer middleman when you record a show in a studio or office. You’ll find LINE IN jacks on all but the Olympus recorders. On the H4, the two 1/4-inch jacks are also line-level ports. They’re typically used to plug instruments in to the recorder.

If you want to be able to use both pro mics for exacting recordings, and a built-in mic for quick takes, consider the H4. Its biggest negative in this regard is that switching input settings requires a burrowing trip into the recorder’s menu system. (We have more to say on the user interfaces in the “Interfacing the Music” section.) The H4 also has a unique feature that’s useful if you want to record using a computer: it doubles as a USB audio interface. Connect the H4 to a computer via USB, plug mics or line-level devices in to the recorder, and use your favorite software to record.

The H4’s combination of a great built-in mic and good output/low noise when working with external mics give it an edge over the R-09 for sound quality, and the PMD660 for value.

The Legend of the iRiver

When podcasting was young, budding audio producers listened to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code to learn how to use the new medium. Curry invented terms like “sound seeing” and demonstrated the concept by recording car trips, walks in his backyard, and even business meetings using his iRiver IFP 799, a tiny recorder with 1GB of flash memory. With an adoption rate that his PodShow podcast network would love to display on a flip chart, Curry almost single-handedly turned the iRiver IFP 700/800 line into podcasting’s first must-have piece of gear.

Ranging in price from $100 to $200, the IFP 700 series and the nearly identical 800s were marketed by the Korean company iRiver as MP3 players that, oh by the way, could record. With a built-in microphone and a 1/8-inch jack for an external mic or line-level input source, the tiny devices appealed to podcasters who wanted to record in the field, but couldn’t justify pro gear, and to some who connected it to a mixer for in-studio recording. The IFPs ranged in capacity from the 256MB 790 and 890 models, to the 1GB 799 and 899. Each fit in the palm of one hand.

If you’ve noticed the past tense in the preceding paragraphs, it’s no accident. iRiver stopped making the IFP series in 2005, replacing it with the T10 and T30, both of which include recording capability, but neither of which captured the imagination of the podcast world in quite the same way. In fact, podcasters still cruise eBay for used iRivers. The going rate seems to be between $50 and $100 for a 1GB recorder.

To get the best results from your iRiver, choose good-quality external mics. The iRivers do not supply power, so you’ll need a dynamic mic or a battery-powered one. Giant Squid Audio Lab mics (reviewed on page 40) are popular, and the company has developed a custom connector for the iRiver. You can also find good iRiver-friendly mics from Sound Professionals (www.soundprofessionals.com). With an adapter that ends in a 1/8-inch male connector, you can use mics with XLR connectors, too.

Whichever mic you choose, be sure that it ends in a right-angle connector, or that you are using a right-angle adapter. Plugging a straight-line mic into the iRiver can put pressure on the tiny device’s circuit board.

How do the now out-of-date iRivers compare with the recorders we reviewed? Like the Olympus DS-50 and WS-331M, you can record only compressed audio (MP3 fomat) with an iRiver IFP 700/800 series recorder. You can get 320 kbps bit rates from them, however. Also like the Olympus models, iRiver memory is limited to the built-in 256MB to 1GB. The Olympus DS-50 provides a better built-in mic than the iRiver does. The iRiver mic is usable, but quite noisy. If you can afford a recorder that produces uncompressed files, you will almost certainly be happier with it, however, especially if you intend to edit or process your audio before turning it into a podcast.

Despite its limitations, an old iRiver is still a great starter device for first-time field recorders, assuming you can find one, that it’s in working order, and that you plan to use an external mic. To immerse yourself in all things iRiver, find links to products that work with it, and get support from its many fans, check out MisticRiver

Schlepping and Handling

All of the recorders we tested are extremely portable. Most are easily held and carried in one hand. The PMD660 is the exception: it comes with a strap, allowing you to carry it on your shoulder. At 1.1 pounds, it’s not a heavy burden. The Zoom H4 is the largest of the handheld units, and might be a little hard to hold for extended periods if your hand is small. On the other end of the spectrum is the itty bitty WS-331M, which fits in the palm of a small hand, and is half an inch thick. All of the recorders other than the PMD660 weigh less than seven ounces.

If you want to leave the recorder in a bag, you can purchase an optional remote for the PMD660 for $70. The Olympus DS-50’s aforementioned mic adapter gives you similar flexibility.

The downside of a portable recorder is that holding it can add handling noise. The H4 seems particularly susceptible to handling sounds, but none is immune. If you place a small recorder on a table to record (using an external mic), you’ll need to be careful that the recorder does not skid on the surface, adding more unwanted noise.

The H4 offers a unique option, most suited to recording live music: there’s a tripod mount accessory in the box.

An Audio Formats Primer

The gold standard for audio formats is uncompressed WAV, or the Mac equivalent, AIFF. Recordings (in the field and in the studio) should always be captured in an uncompressed format if possible, especially if you plan to do editing or post-production. When you’ve completed work on the show, you can save it to MP3 or other compressed format. (MP3 is the podcast standard, but some producers prefer AAC, the Apple promoted format that lets you create podcasts with chapter markers.)

Once a file has been compressed, any editing or other alterations you make to the file (including combining it with other tracks for editing and resaving the result) will degrade the file’s quality — more so with each generation. If your field recording will be published unedited, you can use most of the recorders we tested to create native compressed files. That will also save a lot of space on your memory card: WAV files are approximately 10 times the size of high-bit-rate MP3s. If you absolutely must use a compressed format for recording, you’ll want a recorder that can save high-bit-rate MP3s, so that down sampling does the least damage.

In addition to its format, two parameters tell you about an audio file’s quality: bit rate and sample rate.

The bit depth of a recording is the amount of information captured in a file. Generally, higher bit depths will capture a more accurate, higher resolution sonic snapshot of data. A standard audio CD has a resolution, or depth of 16-bits. The bit rate is the resulting data flow required to record or reproduce the file, and the term is usually applied to compressed files like MP3s. For podcasts, bit rates of 96-160 kbps are considered acceptable values.

WAV bit rates come in multiples of eight. A 16-bit WAV file is considered CD quality, and the format is supported by any audio editor worth its salt. The higher-quality 24-bit WAV format is used for music recording and other exacting tasks, but it isn’t universally supported, especially by inexpensive audio software, and it is overkill for spoken podcasts.

Sampling at less than 44.1 kHz can cause compatibility problems for some audio editing software, as well as flash-based audio podcast players on the Web. You know the sample rate is wrong if a file sounds “chipmunked.”

The R-09, H4, and PMD660 can all record in 16-bit WAV, or high bit-rate MP3 formats. The R-09 and H4 will produce 24-bit WAV files. The H4’s MP3 bit rate goes as high as 320 kbps, which makes it likely that interviews or other nonmusical recordings will sound just fine when moved from high-bit rate MP3 down to a more conventional 128 kbps.

All of the recorders we tested can produce 44.1 kHz files. The H4, PMD660, and R-09 can also sample at 48 kHz.

Unfortunately, the Olympus DS-50 and WS-331M have twin problems for podcasters. They record only in Windows Media Audio (WMA), a compressed format that is comparable to MP3 in quality, but not nearly as flexible. Like MP3, WMA and the Olympus recorders support multiple quality settings. The settings have names like ST XQ (the best) and LP (whose files are one-tenth the size of ST XQ). Your source recording will always be a compressed file. In addition, many audio editors, including the freeware Audacity, will not open WMA files natively. You’ll need to download a WMA conversion program that can turn your recording into a WAV file if you intend to edit or process it, or an MP3 to publish the recording unedited as a podcast. Either way, you’ll lose some quality when you convert. Ironically, users of Apple’s QuickTime Pro may have the easiest time converting WMA files to an editable format. You can open and play WMAs in QuickTime, and use the Pro components to export the file to a variety of formats.

Audio Effects and Processing

Portable recorders are no substitute for studio processing of audio. With a hardware compressor, or software tools that add effects to a recording you’ve already made, you have more options for covering up a recording’s flaws or just making it sound better. The portable recorders we tested do, however, offer a few tools for improving sound as you record it.

The R-09 and DS-50, for example, have low-cut filters. When invoked, such a filter helps remove low frequencies that are associated with vibrations, shocks, and handling noise, rather than desirable audio. You’ll find a compressor-limiter on the Zoom H4. Compression decreases the dynamic range of a recording. Limiting prevents signals above a certain volume from being included in your recording. The DS-50 offers voice-filter and noise-cancellation settings.

It’s impossible to say whether these features will always turn a problematic recording into a good one. The answer is very dependent on the environment in which you record. For best results, make some test recordings with and without effects. Experienced producers will probably choose not to use these effects, but their presence adds some flexibility for those who don’t want to do extensive post-production.

Interfacing the Music

If similarities in audio features and form factors make it hard to choose the right digital recorder, you might want to try using one before you push the Buy Now button, or tell the clerk to “wrap it up.” These devices’ interfaces and controls vary widely, and if you plan on doing a lot of recording on the go, you’ll want to be comfortable with the recorder you choose. As we hinted earlier, the interface is especially important if you need to use multiple mics, or connect with a variety of other equipment quickly. You’ll also want to be sure you know what the device is doing — is it recording? are the levels all right? am I almost out of room on this memory card? — when you’ve finally been granted that all-important interview with a CEO or Hollywood star.

The PMD660 packs a lot of interface control into a few buttons. That means you’ll spend some time pushing them to get the recorder configured to your liking. Fortunately, you can save up to three groups of settings (presets), allowing you to quickly switch to the one you need, once configured. To start, you must shuffle through options for Input, Output, Date/Time, Auto Gain Control, and so on. You must repeat the process for each group of preset settings you want to configure. Only input volume and phantom power (on/off) can be set via hardware. On the other hand, presets are a great way to assemble a collection of features. When you grab the PMD660 and a dynamic mic to go into the field, just choose a matching preset with a couple of button presses. When you return to the studio, plug the unit into your mixer and switch presets.

The PMD660’s level meters are on the front edge of the recorder. With the device on your shoulder, or stowed vertically in a bag, you can easily see and adjust the levels. A single, two-part dial controls the left and right channels. The headphone jack and memory-card access door are also on the top/front of the device. Since the PMD660 is bulkier than its competitors, these touches help make it much easier to use while in the field.

All in all, Marantz does a lot to limit the negatives of the PMD660’s large size by making it easy to work with on the go.

The distinctive-looking Zoom H4 tries to split the difference between accessible hardware-based controls and a software-configuration interface. The results are rather mixed.

It’s easy to pick up the H4 and begin recording right away, via the built-in mic. With batteries and an SD card installed (quick and easy to do, even on the go), just press one of four buttons to choose your format, then press Record to enter standby mode. You can choose from three mic volume levels with a switch on the side of the device. Press Record again, and you’re off. The Record button glows subtly to tell you that recording is in progress. The LCD display shows the level of your audio as you record. Unfortunately, the Record button does not supply a satisfying tactile experience. You’ll need to rely on its tiny light to confirm that you’re actually recording.

To configure the H4 for use with a mic or other external input device, you’ll need to get acquainted with the LCD display and a couple of multifunction buttons. It’s likely you’ll need to check the H4’s manual to figure out the sequence of button presses and jog dial movements required to support a mic. That’s a little confusing. It would be nice to have a hardware input select switch, especially since there are switches for choosing the rough gain level for each of the two inputs.

Speaking of switches, you power the H4 on and off with a small one that’s found on the side of the unit. It’s difficult to turn the H4 on by accident; a useful benefit when carrying the portable recorder in a gadget bag.

The H4’s display and related user interface is one of its few real weaknesses. The interface is complex, and not particularly intuitive. The LCD display is small, and the typeface used is tiny. Again, this isn’t a major drawback if you use the recorder in the same way, most of the time, but anyone who wants the machine to do multiple jobs with multiple inputs will probably have a few hiccups along the way.

Though you can choose low or high gain with a switch, you’ll need to burrow into the menu system to adjust the gain in more detail. This could be a significant problem in an environment where you need to ride the levels to maintain consistent gain.

When you press and hold the Power button on the side of the Edirol R-09 to turn it on, you’re greeted with a bright, easy-to read display that contains most of what you need to know about the device’s settings. The rest can be determined by taking a look at the switches on the back and sides, which control mic and line inputs, plus several audio features.

To make a quick recording with the built-in mic, enter standby mode by pressing Record, then check the R-09’s levels to be sure you’re getting the volume you need. If the Peak light on the front of the unit comes on, your audio is clipping. Use the Input Volume buttons on the side of the recorder to adjust the levels. You can also flip the MIC Gain switch to high or low, if the levels are way out of whack. There’s a separate volume control for headphone output. Press Record again to begin.

To use the external mic or line input, plug in to the 1/8-inch jack on top of the R-09. What could be simpler? Hardware switches invoke the low-cut filter, automatic gain control (AGC), and stereo or mono recording for external sources. Placement of the MIC jack on top of the recorder makes it easy to stow the R-09 in a bag or pocket while you record.

You will need to use Edirol’s menu system to set file format and bit rate, but it only takes a couple of clicks to make the changes. The same menu gives you access to the R-09’s plug-in power settings, which you’ll need to use the recorder with unpowered external mics.

Olympus’ DS-50 and WS-331M share many interface features, including the same kinds of transport controls and menu options. The recorder’s simple interface corresponds to its audio features. Most of its controls are available via buttons on the device. The LCD screen, which is easy to read, though not backlit, is used mostly for managing files.

Record, Play, and Stop buttons are on the sides of both the DS-50 and WS-331M. It’s easy (perhaps too easy) to operate the controls while gripping the recorder in your hand. A switch controls coarse gain settings (two positions for the WS-331M, three for the DS-50). A button on the front of the DS-50 enables AGC. You can’t make fine volume adjustments for your recordings.

A 1/8-inch jack for an external mic is located on the top of both Olympus recorders. Enabling it is as simple as plugging the mic in.

There are a few simple audio effects available within the DS-50’s menu system: there’s a low-cut filter, a voice filter, and a noise-cancellation setting. These are toggles, not range settings, and they’re easy to locate by pressing and holding the Menu button and navigating through the screens with arrow keys.

The ability to quickly erase files is especially useful on a device whose memory is built in. From the Erase button on the front of the DS-50 and SW-31M, you can remove files, one at a time. File erasing is available on the other recorders we tested, but not without a trip to the menu system.
One of the most unusual features found on any of the digital recorders we tested is the voice-based menu system. You might well find this unnecessary and annoying, but it’s a great optional feature for blind or visually impaired users. When you first configure the DS-50, you’ll have the choice to disable voice-based menuing.

The Bottom Line

No single recorder provides all the features a mobile podcaster might want. In exchange for extreme portability, you sacrifice high-quality audio options. The more full-featured recorders have other limitations, either in terms of their interface or portability. Your first task is to understand how you want to use a portable digital recorder. How important are price, ease of use, flexible connections to other devices, and high-quality audio output? If you need a recorder that does a lot of things well, we recommend the Zoom H4. Its own microphones are solid, and its support for a variety of other input devices is as complete as you’ll find. At a street price of $299, it’s also an excellent value. Once you figure out the menuing system, you’ll find it a trusty companion in the field. For ease of use and portability, the Edirol R-09 can’t be beat. It’s a solid recorder, whose main drawback is its low audio output.

We would like to be able to recommend the Olympus DS-50 or WS-331M as compact alternatives to the more-expensive and more-complex recorders in our review, but the lack of support for any uncompressed file format, and $250 street price make it hard to do so in the DS-50’s case. Though the WS-331M has the same file-format limitations as its sibling, the $150 price tag, 2 GBs of built-in memory, and tiny size (think iPod Nano) make it a potential starter recorder, when combined with a good lavaliere mic. On the other end of the spectrum, though the $500 Marantz PMD660 is a solid, durable, and well-designed recorder, it has been eclipsed by less-expensive alternatives that are more portable.

BlogHer founders reflect on their organization, the diversity of women’s blogging voices, and how to combat negativity.

The following are edited excerpts from a roundtable discussion with the founders of BlogHer, an organization of and for female bloggers. Learn more about BlogHer at www.blogher.org. Blogger & Podcaster Editor in Chief Shelly Brisbin spoke with Elisa Camahort, Jory Des Jardins, and Lisa Stone as they were preparing for the BlogHer 2007 Conference on July 27 - 29 in Chicago.

Elisa Camahort has managed marketing and general operations for BlogHer since 2005. Previously she was an online marketing consultant for blogging and social-media companies.

Jory Des Jardins runs the business development and sales operations at BlogHer. She has a background in media, helping to bring companies into the Web 2.0 space. She works with sponsors and advertisers, and instituted an ad network in 2006 to build the BlogHer business.

Lisa Stone is a journalist by training, working in online news and content since 1997 at WebTV, and then at Women.com where she was editor in chief. She started blogging in 2004, covering the Democratic National Convention for the L.A. Times, and says she was “completely blown away by how many women were blogging.”

How did the three of you come together to create BlogHer?

Lisa Stone: When I thought up the conference, I knew I definitely did not want to do it by myself, and was lucky enough to meet Elisa and Jory, both of whom have been blogging longer than I have. Since then, we’ve launched three different lines of business: the conference, our true labor of love, remains our big grassroots community effort. Then we launched BlogHer.org, or .com — either one will work in your browser — where we now have 60 editors who cover 24 different topics, and write every day about what women are doing online. And then recently, we launched the BlogHer ad network, where we help women monetize their blogs. Today we have more than 220 members in this network, and we’re really excited to be able to open it up to new applications at blogherads.com. Jory’s done a fantastic job of recruiting new sponsors; I think it means a lot to have a writer actually talking to sponsors about what we’re doing. And I run the product side.

With all that’s going on at BlogHer, do any of you have time to blog anymore?

Elisa Camahort: I actually still have quite a few blogs that I still maintain, but I will admit that my frequency has declined a tad. And also, it’s hard to keep up on the reading and listening to the blogosphere. And I almost think that with what we’re doing with BlogHer, that’s more important for me: to make sure I’m listening to what’s happening out there more than writing myself. So I make sure that time is still there.

Jory Des Jardins: This is a sensitive subject for me. I do have much less time for blogging. It’s something that I used to spend several days a week doing, and I’ve pretty much relegated my blogging to once or twice a week. That’s really just been a temporary decision while we build the business.

I will continue to blog; I mean, there’s no way that I’m going to stop. But you’re absolutely right; with building BlogHer, it certainly has had an effect on my personal blogging.

Lisa Stone: You know what, though? I tell you, I’m going to disagree with my beloved colleagues and say that com-menting is blogging, in today’s world. Given the kinds of substantive conversation that I see happening on both Elisa’s and Jory’s blogs and on Blogher.org, it is blogging if you’re really adding value to the community. So I’m going to call myself a blogger even though I’m paltry compared to what I was.

What trends are you seeing in blogging today, either in terms of the way people practice it or maybe the tools they’re using — just anything that comes to the top of your mind.

Lisa Stone: We’re increasingly seeing, I’d say, three main things. One is the ongoing diversification and specialization of the women’s Web. Women are blogging about everything under the sun, but increasingly we are using it for business, for our personal aspirations after our work hours, for our hobbies, whether it’s food or professional or amateur photography; we’re using it for our families and friends. Today, in fact, we have passed 12,000, almost 13,000 members, and we have more than 10,000 blogs listed under every single topic in our site. So anyone who questions whether or not women are really blogging in all those areas should check those out in our directory. The second thing we’re seeing is women are really embracing social networks, where they can find out what people are doing, what they’re blogging, what they’re saying, what they’re thinking. This is not limited to text; women are blogging addictively about photography, in Flickr, in Twittering. And then the third thing I would say women are doing increasingly is getting more and more involved in both video and audio blogging. It’s easier and it’s more integrated to our blogs — I rarely go to a blog today where someone doesn’t have some kind of multimedia plugged in. So we definitely recommend that developers look hard at women consumers, and figure out what they’re interested in doing next, and we’d be happy to help with that as well.

Elisa Camahort: The one thing I would add is that I see a distinct professionalization of segments of the blogosphere where there are people blogging across industries, across topics, or sometimes as citizen journalists, as consultants, as business people. They are taking more responsibility for what they present in their blogs, and having disclosure policies and guidelines and advertising policies. All of this adds up to combat the image of the blogosphere as being the Wild Wild West, which I don’t believe it is at all. That’s another trend I see continuing. People taking it very seriously even to the parenting bloggers in our advertising network, who realize that they are now making part of their living through this, and so they have to have policies and a real professional attitude toward it.

Are there people or organizations that you think should be blogging that aren’t? I know a lot of people who are active bloggers are also evangelists for blogging, and I don’t know if you find yourselves in that camp.

Lisa Stone: I think anyone who wants to find out what a user thinks about a product, or who wants to share information of any kind, needs to be blogging. There’s nothing like a blog to get your word out, and there’s nothing like listening hard to what your readers say or think of your ideas, or to what your consumers think of your products, to teach you about how you can do a better job.

Jory Des Jardins: I want to add who should not be blogging. Actually, everyone could blog, but sometimes people go into it with the wrong intentions. As the one that talks to companies all the time and hears about companies starting blogs for the sake of starting a blog, I would say there’s no point in starting a blog just to have a presence online. If you’re not going to engage with public discussions online, then you really should not even have a blog, because you’re just asking people to come, but not engaging them when they do.

This is a question for Lisa, because of your background as a journalist. There’s a lot of tension between blogging and traditional news gathering. Do you think blogging can or should replace traditional media, or should the two coexist? Do they have different roles?

Lisa Stone: Without getting too far into the old blog versus journalism debate, I think that your question provides the answer. Blogs are a tool, just like any other publishing medium, whether it’s video, audio, or text, and I certainly use all of them. I think that the value of blogging is that it makes it easy to immediately engage the reader in conversation about the topic. I don’t know a single reporter who is the world’s leading expert on their topic. Most of us go out to find other experts, and hear their opinions and initiate further questions about a given topic. And the ability to offer up questions and answers and comments immediately below the article, I find makes the presentation of the topic much more interesting, engaging, and valuable. It also makes for better reporting, because members of the community who are experts can improve it so significantly. So I’d like to see them coexist in any newsroom I work in. For me, it’s not really an issue anymore, because ours is a virtual news room and we’re all bloggers. But I’m really happy to see those organizations that are doing a great job of it.

Bloggers tend to be very self directed, both in terms of creating content that they are interested in, and also marketing the product that they create. Do you think it’s important for bloggers to seek reader input in determining their blog’s content, or is it more important that people engage in conversations?

Lisa Stone: I’d like to hear what Elisa and Jory have to say about this. I really think it has to do with the blog, because every blog is different. We have one editor in our network named Birdie Jaworski who is an amazing personal essayist. She writes stories about her life and her experiences in New Mexico, her former life as an Avon Lady; they just blow my mind. And it really doesn’t matter to me what anyone says on one of Birdie’s posts, right? Because they’re a writing exercise. However, if I read something by Suzanne Reisman about feminism and gender, or by Mora Aarons about politics, those are often much enhanced by the conversations because Suzanne and Mora are asking women really directly, “What do you think about this candidate? What do you think of this decision? Should President Bush have pardoned Scooter Libby?” and we get right into it, and that makes a blog even more valuable.

Elisa Camahort: I would totally concur that it depends on the kind of blog, and it’s exactly the kind of question that a company should ask when they’re deciding whether or not to blog. [Referring] to Jory’s earlier point: if your intent for the blog is to have conversations with your customers, then yeah, the content of your blog should engender conversation and encourage it, ask questions, and be open to it. But there are plenty of bloggers who do it as a means of self expression, a means of writing practice, even. It’s about something completely different for them, and that’s OK, too. As Lisa said earlier, blogs are a tool, and they can be used many different ways.

These next couple of questions may come from my spending too much time in the tech blogosphere. It seems that there’s a lot of posturing and competitiveness and negativity in some corners of the blogosphere, and maybe competitiveness is the most positive operative word there. Do you agree with that, and do you see that as a reason that women have embraced the idea of BlogHer and other organizations that tend to focus on female bloggers?

Lisa Stone: I don’t know a single medium where there isn’t posturing and competitiveness. I grew up in a small town in Montana, and I have to tell you that reading the opinion editorial page was every morning’s hilarious entertainment for my family, because of what people would say and write about each other. As far as why women have embraced BlogHer, one of the reasons

I enjoy going there every day is our community guidelines — and I do not say “code of conduct” for a reason, because none of the three of us believes that a single code of conduct will work for the entire blogosphere. We very deliberately created community guidelines that are designed to help continue a conversation where we don’t all have to get blown up by hate mail every second. One of the Web’s dirty little secrets is that regularly, women of prominence or women who put their opinions out there will get nasty email or nasty feedback from the community, often anonymous. It doesn’t feel so good. And on our site, we welcome a culture of civil disagreement. But if you write hate speech or you violate a third party’s privacy or you plagiarize or do something like that, you’re just not going to be welcome to post that kind of thing in the community, and we reserve the right to delete it. Is that what you’re getting at?

If you spend a lot of time in certain areas of the blogosphere where people are referring to each other a lot, and sniping either at other well-known bloggers or in comments, it doesn’t feel so great. But it seems like it’s sort of a double-edged sword in terms of a lot of the negativity that is available to people because of anonymous comments and even anonymous blogging.

Lisa Stone: Here’s the thing. I was at CNN from ’95 to ’97, and we all know how well some of their combative political shows have done. And we’ve seen a rise of that across cable news, across radio programming, that snipe sells. Public fights sell. And the question becomes what do you, the user — since the user is now more important to this equation than a programmer, for a news station — what do you want out of your experience? What do you want out of the Internet? It turns out, we’re very happy to say, that there are thousands of women who blog who, like us, would like a place they can go to talk substantively about the world and the issues, whether it’s Lindsay Lohan or Scooter Libby, and not get blown up every second. But that’s just one person’s take on it.

Elisa Camahort: I’ll go back to my disagreement with the contention that the blogosphere is some kind of unique Wild West atmosphere. Some of the ugliest stuff I’ve ever read online was when I first started following Yahoo! Finance boards ten years ago when I first joined a public company. And what we’re talking about is not a problem with the blogosphere. It’s a subsegment of society that will crop up, as Lisa said, across any media channel, in any group — I’ve seen it happen at my homeowners association when I was on the board of directors. Nastiness happens in society. Does the technology of blogging and the anonymity of comments give an opportunity to transmit it more loudly or more widely? That may be true, but we’re not going to fix it with a technical tool. We’re going to fix it by every site owner deciding where they stand on what they will enable on their own site, and making their policies clear and applying them fairly, and knowing that they have the right to do so. And then people can find the locations online where they feel they will get the kind of conversation they want.

Let me turn the “code of conduct” question on its head and ask what your advice would be to a blogger, let’s say a female blogger, who starts getting this kind of vicious commentary that initiated the conversation about the code of conduct. How should they think about that and how should they deal with it?

Lisa Stone: Thank you for asking that, because if there is a silver lining to the horrible hate speech and threats aimed at Kathy Sierra, it’s that women no longer feel like they’re the only people who might get blown up on the Internet. I want to draw distinction between two kinds of experiences. There are the kinds of hate threats, threats of physical violence, and illegal threats made against Kathy Sierra. There are cyber laws on the books in 45 states, and if your health or safety or that of your family is threatened, you should report it to the police. That’s what Kathy did, that’s what any woman should do, and we have a couple of resources on our site. If you go to Blogher.org, enter “Kathy Sierra” in the search field, you will come across a couple of articles where we recommend some key supporting links where you can find the resources in your state. I am sorry to say that international laws are both less well known to me and less established on the books. But it turns out it’s actually not against the law to be a jerk, even a sneaky jerk, and for those of us who receive hate mail or nasty anonymous comments, I really think the most important thing you can possibly do is to ignore them. And I mean shun them like the Amish. What trolls are trying to do is to steal some of your thunder and your spotlight as the blogger. And if you ignore them, they will go away eventually. If you want to have the right to remove certain things on your blog, all you need to do to be fair to your community is have a little comment policy linked from your blog. Put it on your “About” page and say “Hey, this is my virtual living room. I reserve the right to remove comments that include the following kinds of content. Please do feel free to x, y, or z, please don’t feel free to x, y, or z” and then basically you’ve laid the ground rules, it’s your party.

A few questions about BlogHer the organization now. I’ve heard that the most common question about BlogHer is whether men can participate. Rather than asking that, I’ll ask you why you think there is so much concern about this topic. Has it been difficult for BlogHer to shed the sort of “exclusive” label that some people want to put on it?

Jory Des Jardins: That’s interesting because perhaps being on the inside, we always have considered ourselves very, very inclusive. Men can come to the conferences. Perhaps what they are responding to is that it’s a different kind of conference; it is a different format than most people are used to. We don’t actually define it as a male or female format. For us, the format of the conference is inclusive, it is about inducing discussion. There are no talking heads, and anyone who’s up for that, we’d love to come to the conference. That’s really what we try to do at BlogHer. So I’m not sure where that has come out that we are exclusive necessarily. I think that’s maybe by virtue of being BlogHer that there’s an assumption there. But actually, there is no exclusion at the conference. Granted, there are a majority of women at the event.

Elisa Camahort: I would add that it’s true, our mission is to create opportunities for education, exposure, community, and economic empowerment for women bloggers. So to that end, we have women editors who are focused most of the time on highlighting what women are talking about — although they do link to men’s blogs when it’s relevant to the topic. We are focused on highlighting the fact that we’re going to have 150 women speakers at this conference, so we are focused on the fact that on any topic under the sun, you can find qualified, competent, exemplary speakers, and that every conference organizer should be finding them. Really, it hasn’t been that difficult. I can understand that people see that as our mission, so no matter how many times we say men participate on the website, men come to the conferences, absolutely. However, there are plenty of men who are feminists, who want to support all of those aspects of our mission for women bloggers, and who are interested in the content because the content is mostly gender-neutral. It’s just who’s delivering it. Lisa, do you have anything?

Lisa Stone: No, I just want to make sure I understand what Shelly means by exclusivity.

I’ve read some interviews with you and I think I even saw a video — when you’re interviewed by men, it’s a question you seem to get a lot. “Can guys come?” The implication there is either that they’re looking for a date, or that they somehow think that you’re exclusive. I don’t get the impression from looking at your site or reading the conference program that that’s the case at all. But I get the impression that that opinion exists out there maybe among male bloggers.

Lisa Stone: I think it’s very helpful, because it is always an opportunity for us to confirm that absolutely men are welcome. It’s been really exciting to have as much support from men as we have had because, you know, particularly given the amount of professional blogging that we’re finding women do, it’s a terrific way to start talking about blogging in a real human environment without perhaps some of that back and forth that can develop in an office blog or in a business blog if a particular blog has taken on a snarky tone. And sometimes those human connections are just so much more valuable.

What kinds of topics are conference attendees telling you that they particularly want to hear about this year?

Lisa Stone: This year we got such a flood of submissions from all the people who were proposing session ideas — proposing themselves as speakers, or saying “I don’t want to speak, but you should really check out these bloggers,” that we ended up creating six tracks of content, all of which had rabid interest. One thing that is obvious, really, is that politics is going to be big for the next 18 months. So we have a really exciting politics track on day two, and around that, some activism initiatives that people have embraced as we come close to the conference, which is particularly led by our project BlogHer’s Act.

Basically, we told the community that we thought if we all came together as a community and focused our attention on an issue over the next year that we could make measurable impact; that we could make a difference. And so we asked the community to suggest ideas for an issue to follow for a year, and to create an action plan around. Then we gathered all those ideas and we issued a survey and asked the community to vote. We’re going to unveil the chosen issue on Friday at the conference, and we’ll spend the next year managing a program around activism around that issue.

The other part of BlogHer’s Act, though, is around the political campaigns, and what are the issues that women really need to hear about from the candidates to earn our votes. What questions do we want the media to ask, and what questions do we want the candidates to answer. No holds barred. I think this political and activism-oriented content is going to be extremely important at the conference this year. That being said, we also have a track around our passions online, which can include everything from food blogging to crafts. And we have tracks around technology, of course, and technical training. And tracks around the professionalization I was talking about earlier: if bloggers are going to start to consider themselves and their blogging life as part of a business, then how do they make the business? The track is called “The Business of You,” and if you’re the business, how do you become a professional at blogging. So there’s a really broad range of topics available, and I think those are some of the ones that are going to be really very popular this year.

Elisa mentioned to me that you are providing content to the Women in Technology (WITI) conference in September. How did it come about, is this a new thing for you, and what kinds of content are you going to be providing for them?

Elisa Camahort: Yep, we’re doing a mini track for WITI, just like we’ve done a mini track in the past for South by Southwest, and we brought BlogHer panels to other conferences, like the Web 2.0 conference. [WITI] asked us to bring a fairly technical track of content. They have a lot of content around marketing and business, and they really felt they needed to amplify their technical content. So we’re taking some of the best content we’ve put together over this last year, and we’re going to bring it to WITI. We’re going sort of geeky for them, but they really wanted to amp up their content in that regard this year.

And as a final question, with BlogHer 2007 almost upon you, I’m sure you’re thinking about plans for next year. You’ve talked about growing the business with BlogHer, so can you talk a little bit about what you have upcoming?

Lisa Stone: You know, we talk about this all the time, how eager we are to talk about 2008. But first we have to live through July, and we’re doing two key things; we reopened BlogHer ads at blogherads.com to applications from women interested in joining the BlogHer ad network. We would love it if we could get as many women in technology, in business, and any of your [readers] who are interested to come and apply. The second thing is we are redesigning the BlogHer website, at long last. We’ve managed to do some really fun things with it, and we’re excited to hear what the community thinks.

Leaders in Podcasting and Online Video Gather this Fall for Annual Convention

As traditional television and radio networks continue to grapple with fragmented audiences, their competition increasingly isn’t other networks’ fall lineups, but thousands and, perhaps soon, even millions of individuals creating podcasts and digital video online.

As more hardware and video editing software tools become available to bring that content to the traditional television set, the gateway that traditionally kept people from producing programs for television – the network – will no longer be an issue. Independent audio and video creators will be able to reach an audience of millions via a traditional platform previously enjoyed exclusively by big media companies.

In just over four months, thousands of individuals ready to capitalize on this new era of media will converge on Southern California for their annual convention. Creating audio and video content as good as or better than anything on traditional television, these new media moguls will take classes, exchange ideas with fellow creators and learn how to grow their audience.

Unlike their traditional media counterparts, this new breed of media creator isn’t concerned with producing content for a specific platform. Instead, they focus on creating compelling online media that can be consumed on whatever device or platform the audience chooses.

Also unlike traditional media, the attendees to this convention aren’t concerned with being all things to all people. In other words, most are actually more interested in developing content for a niche group and building a fiercely loyal audience by creating content for them not readily available anywhere else.

A perfect example is LetsKnit2gether.com, an online video podcast for knitters with production values equivalent to any well-made documentary you might find on public television or the Discovery Channel®. CAT and Eric Susch, the husband and wife team that produce LetsKnit2gether.com, will be speaking at the Expo.

There are already tools, of course, that allow viewers to watch digital media created by independent people on their television. As they become more common and easy to use, the ability to switch from a major network to a channel created by your next-door neighbor or friend at work will become as simple as switching from channel four to channel seven.

If you think three hundred channels offered by the cable company is a lot of variety, get ready for five or ten thousand channels, all available with a flick of the remote control. Instead of a channel being thought of as a linear progression of show after show at set times, viewers will begin to think of channels as groups of content that are fed to their televisions by a multitude of methods, stored and available for viewing whenever they have time to watch.

The software available today for individuals who want to create high-quality content is blurring the lines between “amateur” and “professional” video. The next generation of independent media moguls attending the third annual Podcast and New Media Expo on September 28-30 are making that happen faster than anyone initially expected.

Here’s a sampling of sessions you canattend at this year’s Expo:

Selling the Unique Value of Your Content: Determining What Your Show is Worth and Convey It To Advertisers, Sponsors and Investors

Track 3: Business & Monetization

Instructor: Michael Geoghegan, CEO of GigaVox Media and co-author of Podcast Solutions

Room: Ballroom C

Description: As an audio or video media producer/podcaster, you are building something of value from the very first show you produce. In this session, Michael will show you ways to determine the value of your content and audience as well as how to convey that value clearly to potential advertisers, sponsors and even investors. If you’re not sure what your show is worth, both from an episode sponsorship model or a paid subscription model, attend this session and walk away with the tools you need to determine those numbers. Too many podcasters undervalue the asset they are building and end up not achieving the financial returns they deserve. Don’t fall into that same trap! Michael will also discuss ways to build additional value into your show by expanding out into merchandising, pay-per-download special episodes and listener appreciation events.

Distributing Video in Various Formats: How To Make the Right Choice

Track 4:Advanced Creation Techniques

Instructor: Craig Syverson, gruntmedia

Room: 200ABC

Description: With the myriad of platforms available to play your content these days and the variety of formats in which you can capture your video, your head may be spinning. Craig Syverson will clarify for you, once and for all, the differences between the video formats, how to use each one and in which situation, and the pros and cons of each. From HD vs. SD, 4:1:1 vs. 4:4:4, h.264 vs.MP4, and everything in between, attend this session and you’ll leave with the confidence you need to make the right decisions based on the vision you have for your video and the wants of your audience. Attend this class so that you can stop worrying about the technical aspects of video formats and start concentrating on just making great video!

The 7 Secrets of Monetization That Big Media Hopes You Don’t Figure Out

Track 3: Business & Monetization

Instructor: Paul Colligan of PodcastSecrets.com and PaulColligan.com

Room: Ballroom C

Description: Ad insertion is only the beginning of the financial faucet that is “Big Media.” Hollywood doesn’t rest until their shows on are on the side of cereal boxes and Podcasters can, and should, take the same attitude. Join Paul Colligan, co-author of The Business Podcasting Bible and host of the Profitable Podcasting Podcast for an interactive hour of monetizing mash-up that brings the best of what Podcasters can learn from Big Media with the opportunities that only New Media can bring to the table. Want a seat in the first few rows? Wear your favorite Podcast t-shirt. Want to take home the grand prize? Bring Podcast schwag that would make Lucas drool. Bring your best ideas but be prepared to take home a business plan worthy of any media mogul. Last year we learned that we were the media. This year we become the machine. Paul is well-known for his creative ways to monetize content. If you intend to make money with your media, don’t miss this session!

Striving for Excellence: The Passion and Pain of Producing a Professional “How To” Video Podcast

Track 4: Advanced Creation Techniques

Instructor: CAT Susch and Eric Susch of LetsKnit2gether.com

Room: 200ABC

Description: Video podcasting is just beginning but it has the potential to compete with and eventually outshine broadcast TV. Be a part of this adventure. Join us as we discuss how to improve your podcast by marrying professional video production values with targeted niche content. This is not a session about what microphone or camera to buy. Instead we’ll discuss how to write, shoot, edit, and shape your video into a tight professional story that looks and sounds as good as anything on TV. Then we’ll go further and discuss how to use the unique strengths of podcasting like portability, niche-casting, and community building, to go way beyond anything TV can do. Our show Let’s Knit2gether, the first video podcast about knitting, gets rave reviews from broadcasters and knitters alike. We’ll show you what we’re doing, what’s worked, the mistakes we’ve made, and all the challenges along the way. If you want to take your video podcast to the next level, then this session is for you.

Simple Post-Production Techniques to Get Professional-Sounding Podcasts

Track 4: Advanced Creation Techniques

Instructor: Bruce Sharpe of Singular Software

Room: 200ABC

Description: Bruce is the inventor of The Levelator, a free tool used by thousands of podcasters to make better-sounding shows. It takes more than just compelling content to attract and keep a podcast audience. Good quality sound will make your shows easier to listen to and help them rise above the crowd. A little judicious editing can make you and your podcast guests sound smarter. And paying attention to basics such as levels will help you achieve a consistent, professional sound. The good news is that the techniques for doing all of the above are not hard to master and there are lots of free tools to help. They have been developed based on the experience of producing hundreds of podcasts for IT Conversations. This session will take you through the techniques step-by-step using free tools like Audacity and The Levelator. There will be lots of examples. No particular expertise is assumed or required, just a desire to make great-sounding podcasts.

Behind the Scenes at MacBreak and PixelCorps: Creating Compelling Content with Organized Video Shoots

Track 4: Advanced Creation Techniques

Instructor: Alex Lindsay, Pixel Corps

Room: 200ABC

Description: The MacBreak Video Podcast’s production value is as good as anything on “regular” TV today. Alex Lindsay, well known for his experience in creating outstanding video, will show you how he creates exciting intros, organizes shoots to save time and money, and leaves the audience wanting more and waiting impatiently for the next episode! This session will also cover tips for various camera shoot situations, whether you are filming in an office or out on a busy street, so that you can work efficiently and capture the content correctly. Finally, Alex will talk about multiple-camera shoots and how they can add to the professionalism of your show. If you’re ready to take your video to the next level, Alex will guide you in creating the best content you are capable of, regardless of your current experience level.

Video Podcasting for Business: Six Steps to Creating Your Branded IPTV

Track 2: Attracting/Growing Your Audience

Instructor: Roxanne Darling of Bare Feet Studios

Room: Ballroom A

Description: This session will show you the necessary steps for getting your company involved in video podcasting. There are many routes to success; we will start at the beginning and address how it works, what is required in terms of company culture, technology expertise, and resources, how to plan the process, what are the pros and cons to expect/anticipate, and what to measure to determine your effectiveness. The point of this session is to provide a comprehensive checklist of everything you’ll want to be considering when developing your own company shows or sponsoring others to create shows for you. After this session, you will be equipped to start getting involved with video podcasting with the confidence - without missing any of the key determining factors along the way. We’ll remove any lingering barriers to you getting in the exciting game of online video. Attend this session and get new ideas to market your business and the practical knowledge to begin implementing them immediately.

How to Generate Buzz and Extend Your Brand with Social Media

Track 2: Attracting/Growing Your Audience

Instructor: Jason Van Orden, author of Promoting Your Podcast: The Ultimate Guide to Building an Audience of Raving Fans

Room: Ballroom A

Description: In the current internet climate, social media is a must-have tool for communicating with your market. In this session you’ll learn the best social media tools and techniques for extending your brand beyond the confines of your own web site and generating buzz throughout social networks and the blogoshpere. You’ll also learn how to build a dynamic online community around your brand. Finally, you’ll learn how YouTube can increase your search engine presence, the number one way to get more people to link to your content, and how to make your site more visible in social media searches. In an increasingly crowded space, you’ll learn how to stand out and get to the target market you want to reach and find new customers.

Join us for three days of education and networking. If you learn just one thing that helps you take your content to the next level, it will have been well worth your time! See you in September!

Giant Squid Omnidirectional Stereo Microphone

There’s much to be said for traveling light. Many podcasters do superb field recording with handheld digital recorders. But what’s picking up the sound? Portable devices’ built-in microphones often have poor quality and are hard to position. To get the most from your recording, you need an external microphone. Giant Squid Audio Lab’s stereo lapel mics are among the smallest, most versatile options available.

Giant Squid founder Darren Nemeth has been custom-building small microphones for nearly a decade. He offers mics in directional, omniddirection, and cardiod patterns, and powered options, with several choices of cable lengths and hand-made connectors. When I ordered my omni stereo mic, he emailed me personally with the date by which he would assemble and ship it.

There’s nothing flashy about this mic: it consists of two small capsules with alligator clips, each at the end of a five-foot cable, with a single stereo plug joining them. You can place them near one other for detailed stereo sound; attach one to yourself and one to an interview guest and have up to ten feet between you; or spread them across a table to record a panel discussion.

Giant Squid mics are very sensitive, with high clarity. My recorder once got turned on accidentally inside my laptop bag, and the mic picked up conversations in the room perfectly. The sound is not particularly warm or deep, but it is detailed. Unfortunately, the omni mic also picks up a great deal of background noise. (Giant Squid also makes cardioid mics with directional noise rejection, but it’s very difficult to place cardioid lapel mics properly.) Using the omni mic, I experienced heavy clipping while recording a rock concert up close. But voices in crowded rooms come out clearly.

The flaws of this microphone are minor: the cables are prone to tangling, and the left and right capsules aren’t clearly marked. It requires a 1/8-inch jack with plug-in power: any consumer device jack labeled MIC IN will work, but devices that have only LINE IN jacks (e.g. the Zoom H4, or newer Apple laptops) require a separate battery box (also available from Giant Squid).

I’ve found my Giant Squid mic indispensable for field work, and even use it sometimes in the studio. If you have the budget for only one microphone, and need it to handle a variety of recording situations, Giant Squid’s mics are a great value.

—STEPHEN ELEY is producer and host of Escape Pod (www.escapepod.org).
Omnidirectional Stereo Microphone
* * * *
Giant Squid Audio Lab
www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com
$65

Sennheiser HD 25-1 II Headphones

The demands podcasters make upon their headphones are not much different from those of radio broadcasting, except that podcasters’ phones will likely encounter less use and abuse. In both environments, accurate sound, durability, and comfort are important considerations. And just as in radio, the idea when selecting podcast headphones is not to color or alter the audio experience, but to accurately and flatly represent the audio as a reference for listeners. Sennheiser’s professional HD 25-1 II headphones are pricey, but they sound great, and wear well.

From my first recording session some time ago with a pair of HD 25-1 headphones, I was hooked. I recently became reacquainted with this model, which has undergone a few minor tweaks. The current offering is called the Sennheiser HD 25-1 II. The “II” designation adds felt-type ear pads that are provided in addition to the standard leather-type that are attached by default.

These headphones look rather unappealing and quite plain. In fact, you wouldn’t know they bore the Sennheiser brand without a look at the top headband. HD 25-1 IIs use a closed design to prevent mic leakage (or feedback). They are supraaural, which means they rest on your outer ears instead of circling around them. Supraaural headphones are surprisingly comfortable, if designed properly.

At 70 ohms, these phones are just about right in terms of output, and can easily be driven to comfortable listening levels. Though they are designed to be used with professional amplifiers, even my laptop’s built-in sound card delivered ample audio power to drive the HD 25-1 IIs. Aluminum voice coils help keep weight to a minimum, while keeping the audio nice and tight. The coils also allow the headphones to absorb very high sound-pressure levels.

Besides an extra set of ear pads, I did notice that the 1.5-meter cable is slightly shorter than the one on the original HD 25-1 model. Also, the cable on the HD 25-1 II is steel instead of copper. The cable is easily detachable from the coils for replacement; a must for professional (and expensive) headphones. The cable connects to one side of the headphones. This may seem trivial, but it is much more comfortable (and easier to manage) than a lanyard-style cable.

A nice touch is that you can move one side of the headphones off your ear, at an angle, allowing temporary single-speaker listening. In broadcast environments, and almost any type of professional recording situation, this is a welcome feature. The box includes an adapter for the native 1/8-inch stereo connector. Also included in the box is a nylon storage bag.

How do they sound? Sennheiser got it right. The sound is as close to reference as my ears can detect. The closed-style cones keep out ambient noise and mic feedback, while the efficient and articulate aluminum driver cones keep the audio tight, clean, and natural.

Are these headphones worth $200? You can easily pick up a pair of closed headphones for $20 at your local department store. The deciding factors come down to personal taste, appreciation for audio accuracy, and your budget. The unassuming HD 25-1 IIs are worth every penny because of their incredible sound reproduction detail, and quality in a studio environment.

—MARK JENSEN is host of Podsqod (www.podsqod.com).
HD 25-1 II
* * * *
Sennheiser
www.sennheiserusa.com
$270 (list price) $200 (street price)

by Miles Durfee

What do presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Ron Paul have in common? It is not their positions on Iraq. It is not their positions on health-care reform. Instead, they, like most candidates for elective office, are turning to blogging, new media, and social networking to reach supporters and communicate outside traditional channels. Official bloggers for these elective hopefuls are sharing messages, posting platform positions, and linking to detailed policy papers.

But the trend toward new media in presidential politics goes beyond the candidates themselves. Live bloggers share minute-by-minute accounts of debates via YouTube clips and post-debate interviews. CNN and YouTube have even teamed up to produce presidential debates featuring both parties’ candidates, consisting of questions from YouTube users. (The Democratic debate occurred in July and the Republican debate is scheduled for November, though a num-ber of candidates have not committed to participating.) OK, just so you don’t think anarchy has taken over, political journalists are filtering the YouTube questions. Even in debate questions, free speech has its limits.

Only four years ago, one of the biggest stories about the use of technology in the presidential campaign was Howard Dean’s successful launch and execution of a major Web-based effort to solicit contributions. Fund-raising via a candidate’s web site is now a standard feature of all campaigns. This campaign season it is clear that you can’t be a le-gitimate presidential hopeful unless you use YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and at least one blog to persuade people to vote for you. The goal is to educate and inform new-media-savvy people so that they can take the candidate’s message to others.

Political bloggers are no different from any other social-media users. Milbloggers, God bloggers, sports bloggers, and bloggers from all other categories know that being able to instantly communicate and publish information is making a difference in our world. It is changing the way people think and how they are influenced. The abundance of blogs, vlogs, and social-networking sites within campaigns, and the expectation of voters that they exist, demonstrates that we can no longer consider new media as anything but mainstream. Blogs, at least for political candidates, are no longer a nice-to-have feature. They are now becoming a have-to-have tool that is necessary for success.

Of course it is easy to see why candidates use new media: they can communicate their messages cost effectively without having reporters filter or edit them. What is less easily understood is why the successful candidate, after being elected, no longer maintains an official blog site. CNET reported in January 2006 that only 11 House and Senate members had official blog sites. While this data is more than a year old, and certainly the number of blogs for federal elected officials has increased, only a small percentage of the 435 House members and 100 senators have official blogs today. There are some notable exceptions. The Hill Blog at www.blog.thehill.com offers a location for Congres-sional representatives to post entries and for others to respond.

I believe that most government executives and elected representatives are missing a great opportunity to engage their constituents and to help those constituents better understand the government that serves all of us. The utilization of blogs and new-media sites offers the ability to seek active involvement and action from the public. In local governments and school districts, for example, significant financial resources are devoted to community outreach and engagement. Blogs and new-media tools offer the opportunity to set up online communities that allow people to participate on their schedule rather than going to evening town hall meetings. And governments can provide this kind of forum at a significantly lower cost while giving elected officials a better way to respond to citizen concerns, complaints, and questions. Rather than respond to every email at length, the elected official’s office could post a com-ment to their blog and send an email with a link to that response. Constituents with similar questions could read the blog to get an answer.

For the blogging and new-media industry, using tools in this way turns what is often seen as a passive information and communication medium into a more action-oriented form of community involvement. IBNMA supports the broadening of our industry to expand the role and impact we can have on the world. As for me, I guess the best way to express this viewpoint is to write or email my Congress member. My representative doesn’t have a blog.

Miles Durfee is president of the International Blogging & New Media Association. Send email to miles@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

Jeff Jarvis created BuzzMachine (www.buzzmachine.com), a widely read blog about media. He also created Entertainment Weekly Magazine and has written for TV Guide, People Magazine, The New York Daily News, and San Francisco Examiner. He consults for media companies and is an associate professor of journalism at the City University of New York.

Blogger & Podcaster: How did you start BuzzMachine?
Jeff Jarvis: I was following blogging when I worked for the Newhouses, who owned Condé Nast. On September 11 I was at the World Trade Center by chance and stayed around to report. The next day I wrote my story, but I found I had more to say. So I started a blog, and I thought I would do it for a few weeks. It changed my view of how media works and changed my career as a result.

B&P: What role does BuzzMachine play in your career now?
JJ: The blog is central, because it’s how I express my ideas, work out ideas with people, hear from people, and meet people. It doesn’t pay the rent, however, so there are times when I feel as though I’m neglecting it. But I can’t stand that, so I try to do it every day.

B&P: Do you think that blogging should replace traditional journalism?
JJ: No, I don’t think anyone really says that. The fact that we, the people, can now gather and share news is a very important way to expand and save journalism as we know it. I hope we find ways to do that cooperatively — professional and amateur working side by side toward an ever-more informed society. That may sound utopian, but I think if we provide the means, the tools, the editing help, and the money, people can help gather a lot more news than was ever possible before.

B&P: What’s the role of the professional journalist in that new world?
JJ: At CUNY, my students are seeing already that they have to operate more independently than they would have a few years ago. Within the organizations, I think the role of the journalist also changes. [The journalist] becomes more of a moderator, an enabler, sometimes even an educator.

B&P: Is there room for people whose skills are in writing and reporting, and not necessarily in the business side?
JJ: There’s always room for people who report and write brilliantly, but I think it’s our responsibility to understand the business of journalism. We want to sustain journalism as a business so we can sustain journalism in society.

B&P: Is it necessary for a journalist to have a point of view?
JJ: I think that objectivity was a false god in American journalism, which doesn’t exist in many other countries. The Times and the Telegraph, a liberal and a conservative paper in the UK, believe in giving you the facts with balance and intellectual honesty. At the same time, they acknowledge that they’re liberal or conservative. And there’s also the ethic of the link that says, “Don’t take my word for this, go see for yourself.”

B&P: Do journalism consumers need to take more responsibility for what they think, rather than just being spoon-fed?
JJ: With the advent of 24-hour cable news, once you start to see news live, you have to be able to judge what’s verified and what’s not. People have always been good at judging things. We have to give them more tools so that they can judge more clearly and tell them, frankly, what we don’t know.

B&P: A lot of the blogosphere concentrates on the demise of newspapers. Do you think the blogosphere is giving TV a pass?
JJ: I think there’s an assumption that TV news is lighter, as in l-i-t-e, and so perhaps the expectations aren’t as high.

B&P: You and a lot of others make fun of the FCC and others who don’t get new media. Does this help, because it prods them to get into the 21st century?
JJ: Making fun certainly feels good. We have people who don’t know what they’re doing limiting our future. It’s very important that we have better broadband in this country, and we don’t have it. It’s very important that we treat our speech online as our own space and we don’t allow it to be regulated. I think the FCC has been very dangerous in this line.

B&P: Is there a positive way to make that change?
JJ: Susan Crawford started OneWebDay as an effort for us all to celebrate how the Web is part of, and adds to our lives now. But I think there is a role for ridicule, for everyone understanding that Ted Stevens doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about when he talks about pipes. We take away the credibility he thought he had with that ridicule. We’re direct and blunt in the blogosphere, and the rest of the world should get used to the fact that the people have that voice.

I know. I know. If this were a blog post, half of you would already be looking for the Comments link, and preparing to accuse me of casting link bait upon the waters. The other half of you would have clicked on a Google ad in disgust, because anything’s better than having to read one more story about the bleepin’ iPhone.

But hear me out, won’t you? I’ll do my best to make it worth your while.

Like a lot of people, I consumed my share of hype in the runup to the release of Apple’s “premium” phone. But the most important nuggets I took from that experience were not information about where I could buy one, or how long I might have to wait in line. What I got from a couple of weeks spent in the iPhonosphere was a look at the future of news coverage, especially in the tech world.

Three days before the hypetastic launch of the iPhone, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Newsweek all published reviews of the phone. Favored journalists had obviously been given prerelease units and told when they could file their stories. The reviews appeared on the Web and subsequently in print, but both David Pogue of The Times, and WSJ’s Walt Mossberg released companion video reviews.

It’s interesting that even these vaunted writers and prestigious publications, who got the entire tech world’s attention with their early iPhone reviews, still felt the need to apply the extra oomph of a video. It’s a cliché to point out that we’re living in a YouTube world, so let’s look at the blogosphere and tech press reaction. Shut out of the kind of prerelease access they usually have to hot new products, the folks who write for computer magazines and gadget sites fell to critiquing the Mossberg and Pogue videos, first evaluating their aesthetics, and then offering their own opinions on whether Apple’s chosen iPhone reviewers had maintained an appropriate level of bjectivity. In other words, who was the bigger fan boy?

While it’s true that the tech press really did need iPhone stories during that long hot week in June, my guess is that the angles they chose had everything to do with the way the newspapers presented their reviews: not only were they first to market, they were using new-media tools to press their advantage.

On June 29, the story of the iPhone shifted to the throngs waiting in line. Lots of excited people flocked to Apple and AT&T stores, and plenty of folks with cameras and mics were there to greet them, or even to document their own campouts. Also in line were celebrities, whose presence seemed intended partly to ensure their early access to the gadget, and partly to increase their own chances of appearing on TV. For these folks, the iPhone lines were a 12-hour photo op.

The tech press, the same people who grumbled when Pogue and Mossberg were first with iPhone reviews, were also in line. Some blogged “the scene,” but most were there for the same reason the civilians were, to get a phone. Even press members, who might have had some hope of getting an evaluation unit from Apple, if only they could wait until Monday, stood in line to pay $500. Why? Because they couldn’t wait for Apple to ship phones to them. They needed to blog and podcast their first reactions on the very evening the phone arrived, or risk losing traffic and credibility to competitors. This was true of gadget blogs, as well as magazines like Macworld, which published its first look at the iPhone in podcast form, just six hours after the iPhone’s release.

I’m not given to drawing huge conclusions from events that happened less than a month ago. It’s just not my style. But I do feel safe in saying that the iPhone experience heralds the coming of the 24-hour news cycle to technology coverage, and potentially to any kind of story that can be covered by blogging and podcasting methods. That’s very satisfying if it’s a hot story that you care about, and overwhelming if it isn’t.

Just as political news isn’t often about the substance of a candidate’s views, or an officeholder’s policies, a 24/7 culture in technology reporting isn’t ideal for getting perspective, or even making thoughtful buying decisions. But it is here to stay, and that will require producers and would-be producers to develop new skills, and sharpen their competitive instincts. Hopefully, standing in line will be optional.

Association for Downloadable Media Aims to Standardize Audience and Ad Measurement

By Shelly Brisbin

Fifteen organizations that produce or promote podcasts, or sell advertising in the podcast marketplace, have formed the Association for Downloadable Media (ADM), a trade group whose goal is to standardize the measurement of podcast listenership and advertising. Founders include representatives from Apple, Libsyn/Wizzard, NPR, PodShow, and Nielson//NetRatings.

According to Personal Life Media founder Susan Bratton, who brought the group together, the ADM (www.downloadablemedia.org) will address standards related to revenue generation from podcasts and other content distributed via syndication, peer-to-peer networks, or other means. ADM intends to work with related organizations, such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), both of which track audience and advertising statistics for traditional media.

ADM committees will divvy up the work of building standards and cementing the organization’s role in the community. Initial committees address five areas: advertising standards, measurement, outreach and education, terminology, and membership.

Most of the ADM’s initial members are companies in the business of providing podcast content or selling advertising. The organizations forming the initial advisory board are: Apple, BlogTalkRadio, Kiptronic, Libsyn, IndieFeed, NPR, Nielsen//NetRatings, Personal Life Media, Podbridge, PodTech, PodShow, Podtrac, Porter Novelli, Rev3 and Vogele Law.

Cry Foul

By Elisa M Welch

Listen up, sports fans. Every so often a large, bureaucratic organization announces a policy so ludicrous it turns out to have a silver lining. In this case said lining comes in the form of an open debate about blogging and the First Amendment.

Perhaps you’ve guessed that we’re talking about: the NCAA’s decision in June to ban live blogging from its tournament events. Ever since the announcement, the blogosphere has been awash in wisecracks from would-be wags of all stripes. Sports writers. Gotta love ’em.

The ruckus erupted on June 10, when Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Brian Bennett was ejected from an NCAA Baseball Tournament game in Louisville, Ky. His offense? Shouting obscenities at an umpire? Hurling trash onto the field? Punching out a fellow reporter? No no and no.

Bennett was live-blogging during the game. NCAA regarded blogging about the facts of the game as a de facto rebroadcast of copyrighted material, and had said as much in a memo circulated two days prior. Here’s an excerpt from NCAA’s June 8 memo:

“…any statistical or other live representation of the Super Regional games falls under the exclusive broadcasting and Internet rights granted to the NCAA’s official rights holders and therefore is not allowed by any other entity. Since blogs are considered a live representation of the game, any blog that has action photos or game reports, including play-by-play, scores or any ingame updates, is specifically prohibited. In essence, no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game.”

The official broadcast rights owners in this case were ESPN and CBS.

The memo came as a surprise to Bennett, who said he had blogged throughout the NCAA Columbia Regional playoffs and that he saw at least three other media representatives doing the same. So with his paper’s blessing, Bennett took his usual place in the press area on June 10 and proceeded to live blog about game three. He continued until the bottom of the fifth inning when an NCAA representative came to his seat on press row, asked for his credential, then asked him to leave. Bennett complied.

Here, for the record, is a sample of the offending material:

“Book your trip to Omaha. Whiting singled to left, and Alfonso scored before Cates was thrown out at third.”

Bennett’s case got plenty of publicity, though not necessarily of the flavor NCAA would like, from The New York Times to the Washington Post, from the Editors Weblog to Bloggapedia.

Perhaps reacting to the negative press and countless angry blog posts (dare we call it a blog swarm?) about its hard line, NCAA softened its stance accordingly. A statement issued on June 20 referred specifically to Bennett’s case:

“Following this incident, the NCAA issued incorrect information to credentialed media which stated that in-game updates of any type are prohibited. In fact, in-game updates to include score and time remaining in competition are permissible by any media entity whether credentialed or not.”

Meanwhile, the Courier-Journal is considering legal action. The moral of the story: Go ahead and take your laptop out to the ball game, but be careful what you type.

Politics Makes Strange Blogfellows

By Elisa M Welch

As the 2008 Presidential campaign looms, apparently every contender and/or his/her handlers has decided that they need “one of those blog thingies.”

In many cases the candidate’s blog turns out to be a standard templated affair with a smattering of not particularly fresh content. One might hope to find personal posts from the candidate in question. One might be disappointed to learn that in most cases, the blog appears to be just another page on a website, a campaign tool administered by staffers or supporters with little evidence of direct input by the candidate.

In most cases, the aim is clear: use New Media to reach a broader audience.

One of the more effective examples is Republican Ron Paul, whose celebrity on the Internet long ago eclipsed his single-digit poll numbers. Through YouTube videos with more than 250,000 views, and stories that supporters have pushed to the top of Digg’s rankings, Paul has become the summer’s online political star, and landed on The Daily Show with John Stewart, and ABC’s This Week, for good measure.

Paul’s campaign site features a section called Daily Update, which turns out to be, surprise, a blog (blog.ronpaul2008.com). Each entry ends with its Technorati rating, a Digg score, an option to share on Facebook, and more. There’s also a social-networking section on the main page, including links to Meetup, YouTube, MySpace, and others. Clearly Paul’s campaign is embracing “the tubes.”

At Democrat John Edwards’ site (blog. johnedwards.com), the candidate, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Cate appear to post personally, via their “diaries.” However, the candidate’s last post was in May. Elizabeth Edwards, who has been making a name for herself (perhaps she should run, instead?) seems the most proactive and articulate blogger in the Edwards clan. Her posts average just one a month, but it’s something.

Fellow Democrat Mike Gravel, whose enigmatically squinting visage engages viewers in a full minute of stony silence on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rZdAB4V_j8), also has a blog (www.gravel2008.us/blog). This one is populated by many supporters providing fresh content on a regular basis. Ralph Nader even puts in an appearance.

Watching Podcasts on Your iPhone

By Bill Palmer

For the tech world at large, the iPhone is a mighty innovation. For podcasters and their isteners, it’s just another video-enabled iPod. Or is it?

Getting your favorite podcasts loaded onto your shiny new iPhone is essentially the same as it was with an iPod: sync the phone to your Mac or PC and you’re done. But the iPhone uses a completely different playback interface from any iPod ever released. You start by tapping the orange iPod button on the main screen. Tap the More button, then the Podcasts menu item. You’ll see a list of your synced podcasts (both audio and video) in alphabetical order, complete with artwork.

Once you’ve started podcast playback, the artwork will occupy most of the screen. Tap the artwork to see a track scrubber appear above the artwork; tap the artwork again and the scrubber disappears. A three-lined button in the upper right hand corner will “flip over” the artwork, displaying a list of all of the podcast’s episodes on the back, making it easy to jump to the next episode.

Podcast video won’t appear if you begin the show from the Podcasts menu. You’ll need to use the Videos button instead. Once you begin playing a video podcast, the iPhone’s screen will automatically rotate 90 degrees, so be prepared to turn your iPhone sideways as soon as you begin video playback.

To see video podcast controls, you’ll have to tap the screen. Additionally, a button in the upper left hand corner lets you toggle between full-screen and widescreen modes. One final new trick up the iPhone’s sleeve, perhaps motivated by the fact that its capacity is so much smaller than that of a video iPod, is the dialog box that appears following video podcast playback, asking whether you want to keep or delete the episode. However, if your iPhone is set to autosync a certain number of “most recent” episodes (as opposed to syncing only unplayed episodes), the deleted show will be copied back onto the iPhone the next time you connect it to your computer. This appears to be a bug.

If video podcasts look fairly impressive on the video iPod, they look positively gorgeous on the iPhone’s high-resolution screen.

Although the iPhone’s small built-in speakers aren’t ideal for listening to music, they do a nice job with spoken word, meaning that you may not need your earbuds to enjoy your favorite podcast, something that can’t be said for the iPod.

BILL PALMER is founder and publisher of iProng (www.iprong.com), an iPod news and reviews site.

Euro Podcasters Set up ’Camp

By Chris Brogan

PodCamp Europe brought over a hundred podcasters and listeners to Stockholm, Sweden, in June. Attendees came from all over Europe, including France, Denmark, UK, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. PodCamp Europe was technically the second in the series to cross the pond (Denmark was first). The event was a great opportunity to gather leaders from several established podcasting communities to talk about the issues and challenges facing the medium.

It was especially eye opening for me and fellow PodCamp founder Christopher Penn. We learned a lot about the European audience and its use of technology. For example, we noticed people in Sweden listen to audio on their mobile phones, rather than iPods.

The goal of the event was to share the unconference experience with community leaders from Europe so that they can build strong events of their own. From all the smiling faces and all the exciting new conversations in the halls, it seems clear that the excitement around new media and podcasting is alive and well on the continent.

CHRIS BROGAN cofounded PodCamp (podcamp.pbwiki.com). He is passionate about personal media and keeps a blog at chrisbrogan.com.

Podcasters Across Borders Emphasizes Community

By Bruce Murray

What started as an excuse to get a few podcasting friends together for a beer blossomed into a full-fledged conference, attracting producers representing more than 110 shows and several countries to Kingston, Ontario. Podcasters Across Borders (PAB) 2007, held June 22-24, marked the second annual gathering anchored by the Canadian podcasting community.

Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis, who host The Canadian Podcast Buffet (www.canadianpodcastbuffet.ca), organized PAB 2007 (www.podcastersacrossborders.com), which emphasized community and the relationships between podcasters and listeners. PAB 2007 featured more sessions and more attendees than the first event, with participants coming from as far away as Argentina and the UK.

PAB is a not-for-profit venture, and attendees paid $75 (Canadian) to attend. All of the money raised went directly into the weekend’s events. PAB also received corporate sponsorship this year, most notably from TD Canada Trust. “It let us do the little things that turned a good conference into a great conference,” said Goyetche.

In 2006, PAB consisted of an evening keynote, followed by a day of hour-long sessions. The 2007 edition was expanded to two full days, with session times cropped to half an hour to accommodate more topics.

One of the big differences between PAB and other podcasting conferences is that there was little talk of “monetization.” Instead the topics tended to revolve around community, mentorship and even a session by Hugh McGuire of LibriVox entitled, “How Podcasting Will Save the World.” Panel discussions focused on podcasting and education, authentic voice and using podcasting to leverage personal and professional ventures.

Two highlights of the weekend came from opposite ends of the public-speaking spectrum. Tod Maffin, a CBC radio journalist and de facto patriarch of Canadian podcasting, presented a condensed version of his “From Idea to Air: Making Radio Stories That Don’t Suck” seminar. Firsttime speaker Neil Gorman of the Comicology Podcast electrified attendees with a session entitled “Broken Toasters, William Shatner and Podcast Burnout.” Gorman spun these seemingly disparate subjects into an entertaining treatise on how to avoid podfading. Among the key concepts, and a PAB catchphrase for the ages, was repeated throughout: “Your podcast is not a f**king toaster!” If your toaster breaks, Gorman said, you throw it away. But you and your listeners have an emotional investment in your show. He offered several suggestions for reviving a burnt-out podcast.

Audio from PAB 2007 sessions will appear throughout the summer on the Canadian Podcast Buffet RSS feed. Podcasters Across Borders 2008 happens in Kingston, Ontario, June 20-22.

BRUCE MURRAY is host of The Zedcast (www.Zedcast.com) and The Running Shoe (www.TheRunningShoe.net).

Podango announced a beta release of its P2 Platform, an enhanced publishing environment for podcasters. The company released its initial platform in mid-2006. Podango offers free podcast hosting for producers, in exchange for ad insertion.

P2 provides publishing tools for audio and video podcast producers, and bloggers. Tools include traffic monitoring tools, search-engine optimization, and support for advertising integration. The platform supports plugins for customizing podcast presentation, and the company offers APIs that allow developers to build custom tools. Podango is at www.podango.com.

Wedding Gifts

Google and FeedBurner made headlines in June when the former acquired the latter for a still-undisclosed amount (estimates hover around $100 million). In early July, FeedBurner announced that it would offer professional versions of two of its previously paid services, TotalStats and MyBrand, for free (blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/07/freeburner_for_everyone.php).

Stats Pro provides users access to the number of people who have viewed or clicked on individual content items in their feeds. A new Reach feature estimates the daily number of subscribers who interacted with feed content. MyBrand Pro lets users maintain consistency between their feed addresses and the hosted web site’s domain. “Pro” customers will not be charged for the month of June 2007 and beyond.

Tool Brings Audio to Twitter

Dave Winer, creator of RSS 2.0, and a pioneer in the development of podcasting, released an experimental service called TwitterGram, a tool and site that allows Twitter users to send short audio messages.

To use TwitterGram (www.twittergram.com), enter your Twitter account information, and attach an MP3 file of less than 30 seconds. Your followers can then click on a link in a Twitter post to hear it. You can also send TwitterGrams via phone, using a tool developed by BlogTalkRadio.

Winer says TwitterGram is built on an XML-RPC based Web service, and that others can write tools that use the service.

Canadian Legal Guide

A Canada-specific version of the Creative Commons Podcasting Legal Guide is available at creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7548. The original Podcasting Legal Guide (wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide), also released by Creative Commons is specific to US law.

One with Everything

Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson announced the launch of a companion web site to their recently released book, How to Do Everything with Podcasting. The site will feature many of the lists in the paper edition, including hardware and software, local podcaster meetups, and, according to Holtz, “other items that are likely to change and evolve over time, rendering them, over time, obsolete and inaccurate in the print version.” Sample excerpts will likely be added, and of course there’s also a blog. You’ll find the site at www.everythingwithpodcasting.com.

Wireless USB Mic from Revolabs

Revolabs (www.revolabs.com) announced the xTag Wireless Microphone System, a clip-on mic and base station that connects to a computer’s USB port, has a stated range of 66 feet, and provides full-duplex audio.

The included base station charges the xTag’s battery pack, which provides eight hours of use, according to Revolabs. xTag retails for $249.

Blogger Sandbox

Blogger in Draft is an experimental version of Blogger, where the developers aim to let users try out new features before releasing them to the public. Described alternately as a sandbox, laboratory, or “Blogger plus new things,” the site (draft.blogger.com/draft) invites feedback from users with respect to what works well and what needs improvement.

Kiptronic Serves Video Ads

Podcast ad broker Kiptronic (www.kiptronic.com) launched a tool that dynamically inserts commercials into video podcasts. The company already provides this service for audio podcasts. Initial users of the new tool include CondéNet, the Internet arm of CondéNast Publishing.

There are a number of bloggers and/or podcasters who will tell you that “email is dead” and that you shouldn’t market “that way.”

In my first column for Blogger &Podcaster Magazine, I suggested that one should “Blog and podcast for opt-ins first.”

Boy, did I get some stink for that. So today I offer seven reasons why you should tell your competitors that email is dead. It is a bit technical in nature but take the big picture, regardless of who you are, and market what it is you have to say, not the technology by which you are saying it. Actually, if you don’t believe the silly little notion that email is dead, just skip this column this month. Seriously, you have my permission. Particularly if you’re not likely to recognize the phenomenon of a columnist typing with his tongue in his cheek.

1. The first thing people do when they turn on their computers is check their RSS feeds. A good marketer hits people where they are. People are reading their emails and occasionally checking their feeds. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule but trust me on this, they aren’t the ideal audience to monetize, anyway.

2. All those people glued to their cell phones and Blackberries are obviously reading RSS feeds. Email is instant and personal. It is about what matters specifically to that individual. There ain’t a cell phone yet that vibrates when my favorite feed is updated. There won’t be one.

3. The average business card today lists the RSS feed first. Beginning to see what I’m getting at here? You get email address, phone number, sometimes web site. Listing the RSS feed would just be silly, and meaningful to only 1% of your audience. Business cards effectively communicate who you are. Consider their example.

4. Everybody knows and understands what RSS is. I could go on forever here but I won’t. The technology is incredible: it powers our blogs and it powers our podcasts. However, when I tell people about what I do, the dialogue refers to iPods and home pages, not validated feed specifications and the value of Atom over RSS 2.0.

5. My Mom can’t get enough of the RSS. I don’t know if RSS will ever be integrated into Mom’s life. She does, however, read email and surf the Web so fiercely that Dad bought Mom her own computer. There is a huge audience that doesn’t care at all about the technology that gets our word out to our audiences.

6. When people change RSS readers or podcatchers, the OPML export function makes it so easy to move feeds. If that’s your idea of easy. Moving from one client to another is a nightmare. Of the few people who even attempt to move and bring some data with them, they usually end up typing in their favorites and starting all over again. Do you want the odds of constantly getting lost in the shuffle? The tech isn’t ready for prime time yet — which is why it hasn’t moved into the prime-time space yet. Go with what you know works.

7. In four years, they’ll still call it RSS and the paradigm will still be one-tomany. When I started on the Internet, we had programs called “stacks” that let us connect to the Internet. We had to choose whether we wanted “Slip” or not. The programs that let us read email were very complicated and my favorite tool was something called “Archie.” Things change. Back then; I got online because of the content. I’m still here for the same reason. By the way, so is your audience. And by the way, if you think this one-to-many paradigm for RSS will remain, I’ll point you to some people who swore they would never let “Gopher” die. Don’t get me wrong. I love the RSS. This is what helps me do what I do. This is what is paying my bills. It, however, gets way too much reverence — instead of the content it delivers. It is also not in the same toolset as is the email address. Don’t give up communicating with your customers this way. And if you do, please keep your day job. There are enough people on unemployment. Go with what works. I said it before and I’ll say it again: Podcast or blog for the opt-in first. That is, of course, if you want to keep and/or monetize your audience.

These are transformational times for marketing people. They are at a crossroads between traditional and conversational marketing. The former has not yet died and the latter has not yet fully come of age. There are good reasons for marketing folks to follow each and significant dangers to ignoring either. But which resources do you throw at each and how do you form a team to handle both? This is the marketer’s dilemma.

Traditional — or broadcast — marketing has dominated for over 50 years. It is now in decline, becoming increasingly expensive even as it becomes less effective. It most certainly is not dead — not yet. If you want to brand a new detergent or weed killer, I would advise you to buy lots of TV network spots and kill trees to direct-mail free samples to people in targeted households, most of whom will forward them to local landfills.

By contrast, the conversational marketing era is rapidly ascendant. Its adoption is directly linked to the fact that most people prefer being talked with to being marketed to. That’s most people, not all.

Traditional marketing still seems to work when the target audience is older. It’s good for purveyors of denture cleaners, supplemental insurance programs or retirement properties.

In some areas — tech startups, for example — a great many companies use conversational marketing exclusively, because it has proven more efficient and effective by orders of magnitude. You may have heard of some companies that have succeeded wildly without ever issuing a press release or inserting a single ad. There’s Google, Amazon.com, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Second Life and even that old granddaddy, ICQ.

Some marketers try to follow these two paths concurrently. They try to braid conversational and traditional marketing paths into one rope and hope that the rope will not hang them. The problem is that the two paths lead to different places. My advice is that you avoid directing one team to follow both courses. Instead, build two teams: one experienced at doing what the company has always done and the other a bunch of fresh-out-of-schoolers who have no respect whatsoever for the way things have been done previously.

One team just can’t follow two paths; the disciplines are too contrasting.

Traditional marketing starts with clever people devising messages. Then they develop strategies on how to stick those messages into people’s heads. Control of message and timing is essential — like a drill sergeant calling cadence. The team keeps in step or everyone pays a price.

By contrast, conversational marketing just advises anyone who wants to know — employees, customers, prospects, lurkers and even competitors — about what is going on, often in no particular order. It is more like the San Francisco Bay to Breakers Race. Conversational marketing is decentralized dialogue. The company flourishes by listening and responding to customers.

While traditional marketers prop up official spokespeople and unindicted celebrities to sell stuff they are paid to sell, conversational marketers understand that most people are influenced by their peers and they just join or start conversations in the market with social media tools.

The reason you need two teams is underscored by the lame attempts of traditional marketers who take their former best practices and attempt to apply them to social media. They create cute videos, for example. Those might work for a while, but it’s hard to maintain a trusted relationship when you discover that one of its participants is a contrivance.

OK, it’s clear from my tone which marketing approach I prefer. I could write a book on why conversational marketing is superior. In fact, with Robert Scoble’s help, I did.

But my sympathy goes out to marketing people today. They want traditional and conversational to merge. They thought it was only as difficult as getting sheep and cattle to graze on the same land when in fact it is more like trying to mate them. Even if you succeed, you end up with something pretty ugly.

Strategically, this problem works itself out. Young people practicing conversational marketing in the workplace are going to outlast traditionalists by 40 to 50 years. Examples of old-school marketing will be shown in history classes, where students will chortle that back in the early part of the century, weed killer was marketed as a way to display greater testosterone.

If I were in marketing today, I would slowly close the economic faucet on investment in traditional marketing areas. There are concurrently two roads, but one looks like an entire high-speed highway network while the other tapers into a dead end.

Archiving and storage of media, particularly for video podcasting, has been an oft-covered topic on tech shows; and while internal drives grow in size like kudzu over the Washington DC skyline in Logan’s Run, podcasters still search for nexpensive storage solutions. One answer is to simply delete the original files, keeping only the final MP3s. I’m finding out first-hand while preplanning my next podcast novel, MOREVI: Remastered, that having access to the original recording sessions is not always a “waste of space.”

Fortunately, with the Billibub Baddings podcast, I considered this issue beforehand and invested in a 250GB FireWire/USB 2.0 MyBook from Western Digital (westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=221&language=en). For less than $150, this external drive made a terrific first impression, providing ample space for Billi’s media, with room to spare for my other podcasting projects such as The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy, Give Us a Minute and the podcast version of Blogger and Podcaster’s “Behind the Mic.” (I hear the guy who reads for that article has a great voice!) This particular MyBook proved itself time and again a workhorse, mounting via FireWire without incident or issue on any computer I plugged it into.

Upon reading this, you might think that I’m going to end this review with a barbaric yawlp from the rooftops proclaiming that the MyBook is your answer to all digital audio and video storage needs.

Instead, I will warn you not to judge a MyBook by its cover.

MyBooks offer both FireWire and USB 2.0, a big selling point for me as I wanted the FireWire option. When the time came to back up my PowerMac G4, I went to my local Best Buy and picked up an identical 250GB MyBook. The remainder of my day consisted of repeat trips and exchanges because the new drive would not mount using FireWire. The drive did mount using USB, however. After stumping the Geek Squad, I decided to give Western Digital’s tech support a try. On the third call in, I was finally given a reason for the problem: “Apparently, a batch of MyBooks went out with faulty FireWire. We can send you a new cable. That will fix the problem.”

So WD knew about this issue? Funny. Nowhere on its (less than user-friendly) web site did the company come out and say, “If you are experiencing problems with the MyBook FireWire connection, click here.” So I lost a day of productivity making trips back and forth to Best Buy (where the Geek Squad now know me and my daughter by first name). The replacement FireWire cable that WD sent also failed to mount the new MyBook. At this point, I concluded that Best Buy must have received one of the bummer batches of WD drives. That was until, a few weeks later at Office Depot, I decided to pick up a 320GB MyBook for MOREVI: Remastered.

Different store. Different MyBook. Same issue, only this time when I attempted to daisy chain via FireWire the new MyBook with the MyBook I knew was OK, both drives would dismount. I’m still waiting to hear back from Western Digital concerning this new wrinkle in my production time.

Western Digital’s blatant “So what if the FireWire doesn’t work? They got USB 2.0.” attitude is completely and utterly inexcusable. If your drive offers FireWire, you should be able to use it. I purchased the MyBook specifically for that feature. Instead of getting what I was promised, I got from WD a noncommittal shrug reminiscent of a few high school girlfriends.

A podcaster’s ability to access original recordings can be compared to having access to a Photoshop original. Approach an artist with a flattened, compressed JPEG, and a layered Photoshop file. For both images, ask for a cleanup of the background image, changes to text and the addition of new elements. You will note a faster turnaround time and superior end-results with the layered Photoshop file. Podcasters should regard their audio masters in the same vein. Without the original sessions, improving audio quality becomes an effort of Herculean standards. This is why storage and proper archiving of your media is so important.

If you’re a podcaster in search of storage solutions, and you want a product that delivers what it promises, avoid Western Digital. Instead, go with LaCie www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10059). The modest LaCie 120GB I use, even after four years of service, continues to perform like a champ. Its FireWire worked in 2004, and it works now. And, priced at less than $160, the LaCie 320GB offers FireWire 400 and 800 connections. While I have not purchased one (yet), based on LaCie’s reputation and reliability, I have no doubt these drives deliver what they promise.

In the beginning God created Adam and then Adam (with the help of Dave) created a new medium called podcasting. Well, maybe that is stretching it a little. Originally podcasting was known as audio blogging. But within weeks of its creation a new name appeared and that name was “podcast,” and the small group of audio bloggers said, “This name is good,” and they accepted the new name. The name podcast was also quickly accepted by bloggers and the mainstream media. This new medium, armed with a catchy name, was then able to ride the coattails of the iPod media frenzy in the fall of 2004.

However, all was not perfect in the garden of podcasting. Even from the beginning there were some who wanted to hold on to the name audio blog, or others that felt the name podcast was misleading. They argued the name made people think they needed an iPod to listen. But these few dissenters were small in numbers, not organized and offered no better alternatives.

Then in the Spring of 2005 a new group of people (let’s call them for the sake of this article “the forces of evil”) arrived on the scene and they declared that the name podcast was not good and we needed to change the name. The first name the forces of evil suggested was “nanocast.” They quickly formed the nanocasting alliance; they were organized and they were focused. They pushed forth their combined wisdom, of which they, as experienced media and marketing professionals, clearly had an overabundance. However, they overlooked one small detail: podcasting had become more than a name, it had become a community. And so the name nanocast quickly died along with the names picocast, femtocast and attocast.

Then the forces of evil, this time a group from Redmond, decreed that the name should be “blogcast,” and a collective yawn was heard throughout the land. The final nails were driven into the coffins of the names blogcast and nanocast when Apple released iTunes v4.9 with “podcast” support in late June of 2005. In one move Apple put the name podcast on to millions of computers and put the most effective marketing machine in the world behind the name.

For a while it seemed there would be no more real issues with the name podcast, however, the forces of evil were not through. They waited in the wings for an opportunity and in late September 2006 Wired.com offered that opportunity by misreporting on a story and making it look like Apple was trying to take over the name podcast. Within days of that story the blogosphere had twisted the Wired.com story into a feeding frenzy of fear and anger. Sadly, a white knight in the community and his trusty steed were both tricked by the forces of evil to support the name “netcast.” Fortunately the truth about Apple’s intentions was quickly revealed and people learned that Apple had “no issues with the term podcast.” Not only that: the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected the trademark application that a company, not Apple nor related to Apple in any way, had submitted for the term “podcast.” The USPTO even added “podcasting” into the list of generic terms. So what at first looked like it might become a civil war in the community over the name in the end turned out to be just another name that did not measure up to podcast.

While Apple did not introduce the term podcast as a replacement for audio blogs, Apple did throw both audio and video together in the podcast directory in iTunes. Which is not a bad thing for video bloggers, uhm, I mean vidcasters or is it vloggers or… Seems that community could never decide on a name for itself. I think one of my guests on podCast411 said it best: “I don’t care what a reporter calls my medium when they are interviewing me — just as long as they get my URL spelled right.”

Granted, the name podcast is not perfect, but it has proven to be clearly the best name. It’s supported by most of the major technology and new media companies including Amazon, AOL, AT&T, CNN, Nokia, Sprint and Yahoo. Even Microsoft’s site for the Zune references podcasts. Game over. “Podcast” wins.

If you’re a podcaster in search of storage solutions, and you want a product that delivers what it promises, avoid Western Digital. Instead, go with LaCie (www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10059). The modest LaCie 120GB I use, even after four years of service, continues to perform like a champ. Its FireWire worked in 2004, and it works now. And, priced at less than $160, the LaCie 320GB offers FireWire 400 and 800 connections. While I have not purchased one (yet), based on LaCie’s reputation and reliability, I have no doubt these drives deliver what they promise.

By Eric Goldman

Beginning a blog seems tantalizingly easy. Google’s Blogger service invites users to “Create a blog in three easy steps.” This solicitation suggests that the decision to blog can be made casually, but it is hardly a trivial decision. The adverse consequences of blogging can be severe, ranging from being fired to being sued, and bloggers — and the service providers catering to them — rarely discuss these risks. Add some cobloggers to the mix, and your liability and risk increase, even as you share the workload.

Many bloggers form coblogging relationships casually, without considering the legal implications. The law inevitably will blindside some of these cobloggers. Bloggers may find unexpected liability for their cobloggers’ posts or actions, or cobloggers who decide to separate may find that default legal agreements allocate the bloggers’ rights and responsibilities in counterintuitive ways. This article analyzes the law of coblogging as well as some of those counterintuitive and unexpected consequences.

Bloggers can work together in a variety of ways. A “guest blogger” typically is given the right to publish content via the blog for a limited/definite period of time. Guest bloggers typically do not get administrative power over the blog’s operation. In joint blogs or group blogs, two or more bloggers publish content via the blog on an ongoing basis. Sometimes, a subset of bloggers has principal responsibility for the blog’s administration; in other cases, all bloggers share administrative rights. Collectively, I refer to guest blogging and joint/group blogging as “coblogging.” Because bloggers working together in an ongoing relationship have more exposure to the legal consequences of coblogging, this article focuses mostly on those kinds of blogging.

Most blog collaborations probably start informally, and little if any money changes hands. A single blogger might begin the project to achieve a personal or business goal, then invite a coblogger to share the work and offer his or her own perspective. If the blog grows, the pair (or group) might find itself earning money, or at least attracting enough attention that issues of liability for what cobloggers say could become important.

Coblogging Relationships

Just as in business, the law can characterize cobloggers in a variety of ways, including as general partners, employers and employees, joint copyright authors and independent contractors.

A general partnership is “an association of two or more persons to carry on as coowners of a “business for profit” and can be formed expressly or impliedly. General partners may be personally liable for partnership obligations, including the acts of other partners in furtherance of the partnership. Upon the partnership’s dissolution, partnership assets and liabilities are divided among all partners.

Many blogs do not generate revenues of any kind and therefore may not qualify as businesses for profit. In these situations, it is unlikely that cobloggers would be characterized as partners in an implied general partnership. In contrast, if a blog generates revenues (such as through advertising), it is very possible that joint or group bloggers (in the absence of some other agreement or arrangement) will be deemed to be in an implied general partnership. However, guest bloggers may not be deemed members of that partnership because they may lack the requisite intent/permanence to be “carrying on” together. Generally, a partnership will own the work prepared by its partners.

In general, an employment relationship exists when the hiring party has the “right to control the manner and means by which the product is accomplished.” An employment relationship might exist when a coblogger (or a group of cobloggers) has principal responsibility for the blog’s operations and other cobloggers are asked to perform specific tasks. Depending on the situation, guest bloggers also could be employees.

In an employment relationship, the employer is vicariously liable for his or her employees’ acts within the scope of employment. Employers also can be liable for employees’ acts under other doctrines as well, such as the doctrine of negligent supervision. The employer would automatically own all copyrights created by the employee within the scope of employment. Additionally, a blogger-employer could be required to pay minimum wages to the blogger-employees, withhold taxes, issue W-2s and pay unemployment insurance (among other duties). With respect to ownership, employers automatically own their employees’ copyrighted works prepared within the scope of employment, so any blogger-employer would automatically own the blog posts prepared by blogger-employees.

Copyright law defines a joint work as “a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” In rare cases, each individual blog post is an interdependent component of the whole blog. In that case, the blog and all individual posts may be a joint work, and the bloggers would be coauthors of the joint work. In that case, the bloggers will coown the work and have a duty to account to their coowners for any proceeds from the work. However, more typically, blog posts are neither inseparable nor interdependent, which means that blogs are more likely to be characterized as collective works, in which case a coblogger could continue to publish a departing coblogger’s content as part of the blog or a revision to that blog.

If the bloggers do not fit into the prior three categories, they are probably independent contractors. In that case, the bloggers will retain ownership of any assets they create, and ordinarily they (subject to many exclusions) will not be liable for each other’s acts.

Legal Liabilities

Now that you understand who is liable in coblogging relationships, let’s take a look at the kinds of liability a coblogger — or any blogger, for that matter — faces. Cobloggers may be liable for copyright infringement, trade-secret misappropriation and a variety of other claims.

A blogger who publishes copyrightinfringing content to the blog may be directly liable for the infringement under standard copyright law. The fact that the publication venue is a blog should not affect the copyright-infringement analysis. In addition to the blogger’s direct liability, any cobloggers who are deemed partners or employers of the infringing blogger also should be automatically liable for the direct infringement. However, even if cobloggers are independent contractors (or a blogger is an employee), the other cobloggers may be contributorily or vicariously liable for a blogger’s infringement.

The precise contours of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement for online activities are subtle and dynamically changing, so they are beyond this brief article’s scope. However, I think bloggers face a nontrivial threat of copyright infringement for their cobloggers’ activities. Bloggers often work closely together and share administrative responsibilities, which may translate (when legally scrutinized) into the requisite level of knowledge of or control over their cobloggers’ posts.

In theory, Section 512 of the US Copyright Law (often simply called “512”) might mitigate some of this risk. Congress enacted 512 to give online service providers some relief from liability due to copyright infringement committed by third parties. 512 could apply when the blog operator acts as a service provider for other contributors’ content, such as comments posted by blog readers or even guest-blogger contributions. If 512 applies, the safe harbor limits damages (and, in some cases, injunctions) against the online service provider. Thus, 512 could be the cornerstone of a blogger’s defense against copyright-infringement claims for third-party posts.

However, 512 is unlikely to be helpful in most coblogger infringement lawsuits. First, it is unclear when a blogger will be a “service provider” for other cobloggers. For one thing, cobloggers collectively may be deemed the “service providers” against third parties, but not against each other. Second, the case law interpreting the 512 safe harbors is mixed. Some cases interpret the safe harbor fairly narrowly. As a result, the safe harbors have proven less useful than defendants initially hoped. Finally, very few blogs will complete the list of technical prerequisites for 512 eligibility.

For example, one prerequisite is that defendants must register their web sites with the Copyright Office. However, based on my survey of Copyright Office records, very few blogs appear to have fulfilled this requirement. Without the ability to claim the 512 safe harbor and courts’ sometimes-expansive applications of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, I think bloggers face significant copyright-infringement liability from coblogging.

A blogger who publishes a misappropriated third-party trade secret via the blog may be liable for the misappropriation. Partners or employers of the misappropriating blogger could be vicariously liable if the misappropriation occurred in the scope of the partnership/employment. To my knowledge, no published cases have addressed a web-site operator’s liability when a third party posts misappropriated trade secrets to the site. However, I think a coblogger’s risk of liability is comparatively bounded. At minimum, a blogger should not be liable unless he or she knew about the misappropriation. Further, a recent Ninth Circuit court case suggests that third-party liability for trade secret misappropriation may be covered by 47 USC 230 (discussed below).

Beyond copyright and trade secret, all other liability arising from cobloggers’ blog posts falls under a provision in the US Legal Code, 47 USC 230 (sometimes called “230”). Under 230, a party generally is not liable for wrongful content posted by someone else. For example, if a guest blogger publishes a defamatory blog post, 230 should absolutely insulate all cobloggers from defamation liability — regardless of the cobloggers’ knowledge, editorial role or financial benefit from the publication. Further, 230 typically ends the lawsuit on a motion to dismiss, making the lawsuits comparatively cheap and quick to defend. Clearly, bloggers will want 230 immunization for their cobloggers’ activities.

However, there are several situations where a coblogger might not be able to claim 230 protection. The provision applies only when “another information content provider” provides the content in question. Even if a blogger edits or obtains ownership of a third party’s content, the content still should be considered to have been provided by another information content provider so long as the third party had any responsibility for developing the content. However, if a blogger employs the coblogger who publishes such content, then the bloggeremployer may be deemed to be the information content provider him/herself.

The same result probably occurs with publications by those engaged in a blogging partnership; in that case, the blogging partnership may be deemed the information content provider. Thus, 230 may not provide any insulation for tortious publications by employees and partners. I expect plaintiffs will allege partnership and employment relationships among cobloggers as a way around the otherwise-terminal effect of 230 on their lawsuits. As a result, depending on the nature of the coblogging relationship, the potential loss of the 230 defense exposes bloggers to significant unexpected liability.

Solutions and Recommendations

We’ve discussed the law as it applies to coblogging and identified a number of areas where default rules are unclear or will lead to unexpected results. Now we take a look at some possible ways to address these problems.

Many bloggers will enter into coblogging arrangements without doing any preparation, naively assuming that they can always work out any difficulties with their coblogger friends — failing to consider that friendships change, friends die, and third parties may seek to impose an unwanted characterization on all cobloggers. A better approach would be to structure a private arrangement between cobloggers using either limited-liability entities or coblogging agreements. Each has its own pros and cons.

Cobloggers can operate the blog via a limited-liability entity, such as a corporation, limited liability company or limited partnership. In this case, the entity would own all of the blog’s copyrights and trademarks unless the parties agreed otherwise. Also, the limited liability provided by the entity may protect the bloggers from personal liability for cobloggers’ blog-related activities. However, these benefits come at some cost, including upfront costs to form the entity and ongoing costs to comply with tax and reporting obligations. The entity also must comply with certain formalities to maintain its limited-liability status, and these formalities can be a hassle and potentially costly as well. It may be hard to justify these costs when they exceed the revenue generated by the blog (likely the case with respect to many/most blogs). Also, to the extent that the entity’s equity is tied to blog participation, additional complications can arise with the arrival of new bloggers or the departure of existing bloggers. These situations may trigger a reallocation of equity, which may lead to thorny and emotional discussions about the fairness of existing equity or governance allocations, and there may be outof- pocket costs to document any ownership changes. In addition, these transactions may require real cash to move among the bloggers (for example, payments from incoming bloggers to buy equity; payments to departing bloggers to buy their equity), even though there may not be any clear exit strategy or other way to recoup these cash payments.

An alternative to forming a limited liability entity is for bloggers to enter into a coblogger agreement. From a legal standpoint, this agreement will act as a partnership agreement if the bloggers intend (or are deemed) to be in a partnership. Otherwise, the agreement will be between independent contractors. A coblogger agreement offers several benefits over formation of a limited-liability entity. First, the agreement can easily be customized (within broad public-policy limits) to fit the bloggers’ particular situation and preferences. Second, a private agreement has low transaction costs: the parties will incur few (if any) upfront out-of pocket costs to create the agreement. The agreement may not require the parties to maintain any formalities, and the parties can easily modify the agreement at low/no cost to reflect changed circumstances. However, private agreements may not completely address bloggers’ needs. Most obviously, the agreement can allocate or eliminate liability among its signatories, but it cannot limit liability to third-party nonsignatories. Also, though the agreement may expressly state that there is no partnership or employment arrangement, such contractual disclaimers are not dispositive, and the arrangement could be characterized as a partnership or employment arrangement despite the parties’ preferences.

Whether a limited-liability entity or a private agreement is the better choice depends on the bloggers’ specific circumstances and goals. However, either choice is preferable to cobloggers doing nothing proactive to override the default rules.

With the nonchoice, bloggers potentially bet their houses with every blog post they and their cobloggers make, and bloggers remain at risk of being blindsided by unexpected legal rules. Here are some other basic precautions potential cobloggers should consider before beginning a collaborative project:

» Bloggers should consider registering their blogs with the Copyright Office under 512, which may give bloggers some protection from copyright liability for the content of cobloggers and readers who post comments.

» Bloggers should deliberate carefully before generating revenues from the blog. The decision to make money from blogging is significant — it may lead to the formation of an implied general partnership (with numerous unexpected consequences) and may negate any coverage from the bloggers’ homeowner’s insurance policy.

» Bloggers must trust their cobloggers. No amount of legal prophylactics will cure a mistaken alignment with an untrustworthy coblogger.

The emergence of blogging has sparked an exciting new era of Internet communications. Bloggers contribute to important First Amendment ideals by expanding the marketplace of ideas and performing the watchdog function normally associated with the fourth estate. There is a lot of good activity taking place in the blogosphere. However, the news is not all good. Existing legal doctrines do not cleanly apply to blogging, raising the specter that socially beneficial and well-intentioned decisions by bloggers will produce unexpected and adverse legal consequences. Bloggers will need to get smarter about these consequences, but judges can mitigate the harshest by using their discretion to produce sensible and nonpunitive results.

ERIC GOLDMAN is an assistant professor of law and director of the High Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, Calif. This article consists of excerpts from his research paper, “Coblogging Law,” available at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=898048. He blogs on technology and marketing law issues at blog.ericgoldman.org.

The following are edited excerpts from a roundtable discussion with three people who bring different perspectives to the topic of music podcasting, but who all want to see it thrive, even as the US government, and the music industry enforcer, the RIAA, seek to tame the world of Internet Radio. We began by discussing the Copyright Royalty Board’s decision to substantially raise royalty rates paid by webcasters, generally understood to be those streaming music via the Internet. We also discussed a bill in Congress that could overturn the rate increase. Blogger & Podcaster editor-in-chief Shelly Brisbin conducted the interview. Editor’s Note: As we went to press, a deal to delay implementation of increased royalty rates for some webcasters had been struck. The deal is only a temporary reprieve, however.

Jason Evangelho runs Insomnia Radio (www.insomniaradio.net), a network of music podcasts. In addition to the long-running flagship show, Insomnia Radio, the network has expanded to more than 12 regional and international music podcasts based in San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New Zealand and Turkey. Insomnia Radio also produced reggae legend Mikey Dread’s Dread At The Controls podcast for the IR Network.

Colette Vogele practices intellectual property law, specializing in technology, new media and the arts. She heads Vogele & Associates (www.vogelelaw.com) where she represents numerous bloggers, podcasters, and businesses building Web 2.0 social networks. Vogele also holds a nonresidential fellowship at Stanford’s Center for Internet & Society (cyberlaw.stanford.edu) where she coauthored the Podcasting Legal Guide (2006). Her podcast, Rules for the Revolution, offers commentary on the legal questions faced by podcasters, video bloggers and others engaged in new-media innovations.

Chance (www.mynameischance.com) is a Los Angeles-based performer and songwriter who made his music available for use by podcasters early in the development of the medium, and receives significant play on a number of music podcasts. He has released three CDs and 16 singles since he began performing as a solo act in 2004. He performs with a backing band as Chance & the Choir.

With the recent decision to increase royalty rates very substantially on Internet radio stations, and the noises that the big-time music industry has made in terms of shutting down Internet-based distribution, I’m just wondering if all of you could discuss what this bodes for podcasters and people who like to consume music through the Internet?

Colette Vogele: There are a couple things going on right now with respect to the rates paid for streamed music. After a lengthy proceeding, the Copyright Royalty Board issued a ruling that increased the rates dramatically, especially for all webcasters. And the rate increase is anywhere from three times to 12 times what has been paid in the past. So that was sort of the shocker that came out a couple months ago.

After that, people on the side of the rate payers — the independent radio, Internet radio stations and then larger entities like Pandora and others that are part of the Digital Media Association had gotten together and started lobbying Congress to change [the ruling] because a legislative solution is one of the things that can change what the board has done. The legislative proposal would bring the rates into a more reasonable realm for this industry so that the industry can actually survive. At least that’s the position that parties on the rate-paying side are taking.

Chance: I hear radio stations complaining about the rates and I understand that, especially considering the fact that a lot of smaller stations like all the Live365’s would be knocked out of business. But are independent artists being taken care of when these rates get tripled or is it just the larger artists that are really the only ones being taken care of, which makes it a ruthless act in my opinion.

Colette Vogele: I think the people who are arguing in favor of the lower rates and having this bill be passed or some other resolution be achieved are not opposed to paying a royalty. They see that it makes sense and that artists need to be compensated and all of that. It’s very dramatic how this new rate affects whether they can be in business at all. And if they’re not in business, the new and independent artists are harmed.

Chance: And I completely agree with that.

Colette Vogele: There’s no place that they’re going to be played. I should say for disclosure I represent a college radio association and so I’m very familiar with it at that very early stage of people
getting their music played on college radio. It’s one of the best places where independent music gets introduced.

What is the status of the bill that is intended to remedy the situation?

Colette Vogele: House Bill (H.R.) 2060 proposes to lower the rates to a rate that’s slightly higher [than the current one]. The first part of the resolution is to throw out what the judges did in the Copyright Royalty Board. And the second part is setting an appropriate rate, both for commercial and for noncommercial. And then within noncommercial, they treat educational stations slightly differently. The proposed rates are higher than what satellite pays but it’s actually a very reasonable rate that they all agree they can do. That’s what’s going on on the House side. On the Senate side, another bill was introduced [that used] very similar, slightly tweaked [language]. And then the small webcasters were offered something from the RIAA or Sound Exchange that basically said “We will abide by the past situation.”

So up until recently, on the small webcasters’ side they were operating under a special settlement agreement because the same problem happened five or six years ago when the rates were first set. And basically I think the RIAA has offered to go forward under a similar regime as in the past for small webcasters. But to qualify as a small webcaster you have to be quite small.

Chance: How do they define what a small webcaster is?

Colette Vogele: Entities like Pandora are big webcasters under that definition. But the small webcasters would certainly include the Live365 people. It would include all of college radio. It may include the NPRs and religious broadcasters. I’m not sure, but I feel like it probably does.

Jason, let me get your sense of both the decision made by the Copyright Royalty Board and then the subsequent legislation, which may or may not fix it. What’s your take?

Jason Evangelho: Well, I’m a little bit hazy on the subsequent legislation to be honest. But I’m reading all kinds of different reports, like they consider a small webcaster to make under $1.25 million per year. Again, I don’t know the details on that. As far as the original [increase in rates], I’m confident that would put not only small webcasters but also [possibly] some podcasters out of business. What is the definition of a webcast? If I have a podcast that’s downloaded 30,000 times but 15,000 of those are streamed online, is that a webcast?

Colette Vogele: I don’t know the answer to that, honestly. There was a question about whether the download of a song or any kind of media is considered a reproduction or a performance of a song.

A court in New York recently opined quite definitively, although it’s a trial-level court so it would be nice to get that same opinion from an appellate court. But the opinion basically said it’s a reproduction, it’s not a performance. So if that download does not count as a performance, downloads are not at all affected by the webcasting act. The webcasting stuff has to do with streams. Now, it depends how you’re distributing the content in the podcast. If it’s streamed from your web site, it may fall within the requirements of paying the royalties for those streams, because a stream is basically a performance royalty for a “digital audio performance.”

Jason Evangelho: But the interesting thing is that about half of my audience streams the shows online.

Sounds as if you could be changing what you do.

Chance: Right. It’d be changing what you do. And if this were to affect that side of podcasting, then, wow, say goodbye to half your audience.

Well, as far as music itself, whether it be downloaded or streamed, Jason, obviously podcasters have to decide how they’re going to get the music, whether they use what is commonly called podsafe music or whether they acquire licenses. Can you talk about what you decided to do with Insomnia Radio and why?

Jason Evangelho: Well, we decided to essentially go with a formal license agreement where if an artist wants to get played on any of our shows, then they simply go to our little submission portal, fill out their basic information, agree to the terms and at that point then we can play them. And it’s loosely based around the Creative Commons license. We obviously don’t retain any rights to their music and we don’t have the right to sell their music, things like that. But we went through a long process banging out this license agreement and even though it was cumbersome we realized we just couldn’t legally accept an artist sending us an email saying, “Hey, it’s cool to play our stuff.”

But on the other side, that means that the artist has to read, understand and agree to your licensing agreement. Has that been a problem for them?

Jason Evangelho: I think we’ve had about 4,000 submissions since we introduced that and I’ve had about maybe five or six artists just flat out refuse to sign it. And honestly I think that’s a pretty low ratio. And that was probably just due to the fact that they didn’t understand it.

We thought long and hard about the terms because we wanted to enable artist submissions to be played on our podcasts or used in promotional-only compilation CDs or streamed on the Internet or released within a show in BitTorrent. So we get a lot of questions like, “Well it seems like you can just do anything you want with my music,” and that’s not the case. But honestly I’ve found that artists are receiving it pretty well so far. I think it gives the artist a lot more promotional room within our network.

Colette Vogele: And is it a nonexclusive?

Jason Evangelho: Oh, absolutely.

And you’re in the fortunate position of having people know your network and be eager to be submitted as opposed to a smaller podcaster who might be looking around for music and who might have fewer choices.

Jason Evangelho: I think in that case there’s still a lot of resources for them. There’s the Podsafe Music Network. There’s iodaPROMONET. I don’t think there’s any shortage of music to be played on podcasts

I want to ask Chance about his point of view as an artist in terms of making music available in a podsafe format. I assume you’ve signed Jason’s agreement because you get played on Insomnia Radio. But you’re also played on lots of other podcasts. So how do you approach which music you let podcasters play?

Chance: Well, it really depends. A lot of times I just send it. I mean some of the relationships I’ve forged with podcasters, believe it or not, have been very one-onone organic where they just find me somehow or another and say, “Can I please play your song?” And I go, “Sure.” And I give them a link. There is the Podsafe Music Network. I don’t put all of my stuff on there. And then there’s just the relationship that I have with Jason in particular where he and I go so far back that we’re sort of growing together with this whole Internet.

To follow up on that, does having all the exposure on podcasts lead directly or indirectly to either selling more tickets to shows or selling more music?

Chance: Oh, absolutely. Although we’ve been discussing a lot of legal [issues], I really enjoy the organic side of this. Podcasters came into being because they either (a) became disgusted with the current music scene — industry and the radio and everything else — or (b) they’re just music fans. I mean they just love music. And so what I’ve found is that it’s really gotten back to the dialogue of what makes music so wonderful.

A lot of people put quotes around the word “podsafe.” So I’m wondering just from any of you what your reaction to that term is; whether it’s one that you’re comfortable with and what it means to you in practice?

Jason Evangelho: Well, loaded question. I think that both podcast and podsafe are terrible words, honestly. After almost three years, I’m still fighting the battle that podcasts aren’t just for iPods. And as far as podsafe, I don’t know that anyone’s really defined what podsafe is. I mean the Podsafe Music Network would have you believe that all of the music that they have licensed for other podcasters is podsafe. But what does podsafe mean? Is podsafe just simply Chance gives me permission to play his music? Or is podsafe anybody in the world can play my music? I don’t like either term. Are musicians podsafe or are podcasters podsafe?

Colette Vogele: I think you’re totally right. But I would be very cautious. I think of podsafe as things that are precleared for various uses. I know that could still mean a lot of things. But it means that the artist has released a work to be used in certain ways and you have to get down on the Creative Commons licenses, you just have to get in and see what their restrictions are, if it’s commercial or noncommercial and if you can make mashups with it. But generally speaking I think that term only means that things have been precleared for certain uses.

Now, I wouldn’t associate podsafe with the artist. I would associate it with the work — with the actual song. Because [for] an artist I think it’s smart to test waters in different ways. Some of your stuff you can release in certain formats. Some things you do exclusively and other things you reserve all rights and you parcel out the rights differently. And I think that’s a really strategic way of seeing what value you can get for your work. So I think that we always need to consider whether something’s cleared or not on a workby- work basis, not by the artist.

What, other than these big dust-ups regarding copyright and royalty rates, may have some affect on podcasting? Is there anything going on in either the music industry or the podcasting world that music podcasters and artists need to be thinking about or watching for?

Jason Evangelho: I think that the biggest problem that podcasters are having is that they are giving themselves the title of being a podcaster and not a content producer.

Chance: Content producer is just not very romantic.

Jason Evangelho: Point taken. Can you imagine if Colette goes, “Oh my God. Chance is one of my favorite content owners of all time.” All right, I’ll give you that. It’s not very romantic. It doesn’t sound that exciting but the problem is podcasters have a hard time finding an audience for various reasons. Music podcasts, there’s thousands of them. Makes it even tougher to find your audience. But I think the podcasters need to get out of this box that they’re in, start putting out your shows on BitTorrent. I put out a few of our shows on BitTorrent six days ago and they’ve collectively had 6,000 downloads, which is staggering to me. No fanfare, no announcement. It’s just too limiting to call yourself a podcaster, I think. And I think that the majority of the world still just wants to go to a web site and listen to your content. I think that’s the bottom line.

Colette Vogele: Jason, do you think that Apple is hurting or helping on that front?

Jason Evangelho: I think they’re hurting podcasting for the noncommercial podcasters. When Apple endorsed and adopted the term podcast, it made it even harder to fight that battle that you don’t need an iPod or that you can just listen to it on your computer or you can burn it to a CD and then give it to a friend to listen to. And afterwards they slowly started shaping the podcast area of iTunes Music Store into something like your ESPN and your Showtime and your CBS. And what you see up there is about 90 percent commercial professional podcasts. And that’s not really helping the cause.

Chance: I don’t necessarily believe that the phrase podcasters is a bad thing. As a matter of fact, when I first discovered podcasting I found you guys to be very rebellious. So in a lot of ways it was very appealing to me because it was fighting the norm. It was fighting. What I believe is the problem with podcasting right now, believe it or not, is technology. I don’t think the technology is there to make it really simple for my mother to download a podcast just as easily as she can turn on the radio in the car. It’s funny that technology from 75 years ago still just reigns supreme here. But it’s a fact.

You guys are kind of saying the same thing. Jason’s saying he’s fighting the terminology war of “do I have to have an iPod” and you’re saying “I just want to hear the music and I want to get the content I want.”

Colette Vogele: From day one if we were good marketers we would have all found a better word.

Chance: Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any going back. I just think that podcasting is the word and it’s not going to be changed.

Jason Evangelho: I don’t agree with that because the next great thing could be the thing that fixes all of this. You’re just waiting for the time when everything loads up really nicely and everything is clean and accessible.

In order to be successful do you have to be accessed by millions and millions of people or do you simply have to make the technology such that millions of people can get it if they want it?

Jason Evangelho: Here’s how I’d measure success and I’ll use an analogy. Chris Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast actually blogged about this a month or two ago. He said suppose that you’re a Gulf Stream jet salesman, you sell these huge Gulf Stream jets. And to make a great living you only have to sell one of these suckers every two years. And you do a podcast about it and you’ve got 10,000 listeners but none of them is interested in buying a Gulf Stream jet. Now if you flip it around and you’ve got only five listeners but all five are interested, then that’s the measure of success. You have a dedicated audience that’s there for one reason. I don’t have a million listeners but every single one loves the music and they’re there for the music. It’s absolutely thrilling to be able to say that I was the first podcaster to play Chance and now two years later he’s on hundreds of shows.

Chance or Colette, do you have any general thoughts on that subject?

Colette Vogele: Well, I’m not a music-industry executive. I’m not an artist. I just have my little podcast. But I would like to just say from the legal standpoint in music licensing, something’s going to have to change. I mean the system is totally broken when it comes to Internet distribution of music. In terms of ability to share content and to make creative work and to do it while attributing the right people, paying the right artists and accomplishing all of the things that our copyright laws are hoping to accomplish, what we have now is a very broken system. And I, with all due respect to the major content owners, I think they’re doing what’s in their best business interest right now to try and control how this change occurs. And they’re really struggling because the Internet is a system that doesn’t necessarily want to be controlled.

Chance: I just read somewhere that the RIAA is actually trying to get these licensing fees out of terrestrial radio now, too.

Colette Vogele: Yeah, they are. They have tried that a number of times. [The justification] for terrestrial radio not having to pay the performance royalties is that they are a promotional avenue for music. The same argument could be made for [satellite and Internet radio]. So I think one of the interesting things — and I’d like to at some point, some day go back and research this — is that I think the reason we have the system we have with terrestrial radio not having to pay the royalty is because at the time radio was invented in the ’20s and over the many years leading up the early ’70s, radio became a very strong and powerful force. And in 1972 was the first time there was a federal right to protect a sound recording. Before that, you didn’t have copyright for sound recordings. You only had it for the underlying musical work. And so at that time, when they added sound recordings as a protected work, radio had a very strong lobby and was like, “Well, we can’t — we need an exemption.” And they got the exemption. And that exemption has lasted until today.

And the owners of those works have tried in the past to get that exemption repealed and have always lost. But now it’s a different landscape than it was ten years ago and I don’t know how that’s going to come out. But you can’t blame them for trying. They have a business interest and they — first of all, the record labels have a business interest. Their artists, if we want to think of the artists, are getting fair compensation from what the labels are doing and the deals they’ve struck, then the artists would be getting compensated as well. But I think it’s that radio is still a very strong lobby and I don’t think that’s going to [change] without a big fight.

It forces them to make this weird argument whether they make it directly or not that radio being less of a promotional medium than it was or less important as a promotional medium implies that there are other things that are more important. And so out of one side of their mouth they want to gain more money by eliminating the exemption for terrestrial radio. On the other side of their mouth they want to increase fees on Internet broadcasters or podcasters, or potentially podcasters, let’s just say broadcasters. So it’s…

Chance: Don’t you feel that there’s just a sense that there’s a third way, there’s another way to do this that’s probably just around the corner, we just haven’t quite figured it out yet? And maybe all this time that’s being spent getting the square peg of podcasting, [to fit the way people want to listen] maybe isn’t the right way to spend all of our time? That’s a question.

Colette Vogele: Yes.

Chance: Yeah, I think we’re almost there.

Colette Vogele: I think it’s fair to say that podcasting is a bridge technology to something that’s coming that hasn’t yet fully developed. And we’ll see. That’s what’s so exciting about this area.

The following is an edited excerpt from the book The Business Podcasting Bible (2007, Heritage House). Here, the authors specifically address how to attract and keep an audience for your podcast, by first recognizing the different stages of consumption, then understanding who is in control. An exclusive interview with one of the authors begins on the facing page.

By Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian

Understanding the who of the podcast process is absolutely critical. The audience for podcasts is not the same audience we have seen for traditional media. As a group, they are more technically adept and ready to assume a high level of control in the media process. This audience is in charge — and once we accept that, we can use this knowledge for our business benefit.

Podcast consumers don’t all start out as 60GB iPod video owners who have made the conscious decision to consume all of their media on their own terms. They all go through three phases of podcast consumption: interested consumption, regular consumption, and habitual consumption.

Interested Consumption

This group has heard about the opportunity to consume your digital content and is intrigued with the opportunity. They might have discovered the click-to-play option at your podcast, or perhaps found you at Yahoo! and picked up a $30 player to tote their downloaded content. Maybe they purchased a $300 video iPod. Perhaps they think these items cost too much. Whatever the story, they know about your content and are interested in taking it for a trial run.

This is a great place to be with consumers. If you can persuade them to subscribe to your content and take it with them rather than engaging in the click-to-play option, you can start delivering fresh content on a regular basis to their computers or portable media players (PMPs), and they’ll appreciate you for providing the service. Consumers who are interested can become subscribers if you can bring them to the next phase.

The logical tip for this interested consumption level is to discuss the concept (and benefits) of subscription on every episode. This does not apply to a locked-premium podcast that carries a price tag, because that audience has already passed through the interested consumption phase. However, it does apply to general and open podcasts that are available through iTunes, or at Yahoo! and similar web sites. Keep the concept of a subscription at the forefront. Tell your audience about the benefits of subscription and provide a few compelling reasons to subscribe.

Regular Consumption

The jump from interested to regular consumption is simply defined as “They listened to a second show at a second time.” Consuming two or three shows in a row still falls into the category of interested consumption. Maybe the person was just bored, sitting in front of the computer with nothing else to do and a lot of time to kill. That same person might move into regular consumption the next week when he or she sees that a new show is available and responds by downloading and listening.

Of course, regular consumption dictates that they realize there is content to consume on a regular basis and that you provide said content on a regular basis. Nothing will get them to regular consumption faster than encouragement (and ethical bribes) from you to do just that.

Habitual Consumption

In this ultimate stage, consumption becomes a part of the listener’s daily routine. Your goal is to bring the other two groups of consumers into phase three, where they schedule a regular time for consumption — hopefully with an element of anticipation. This is accomplished on the most basic of levels through content quality. Develop and present content that will draw interest and attract subscribers.

Some of your listeners will consume your podcast on the commuter train or in the car. Others will take you along on their workouts. Perhaps your employees will be listening to your morning update at their desks while they’re preparing for the day. The consumption scenario isn’t important; the habit is.

Habitual consumption is the golden hen of podcasting that allows you to start gathering golden eggs. It’s the key to monetization. Once you have a consumer on the level of habitual consumption, the connection is actually quite difficult to break. After hearing a fellow complain loudly about the NBC Nightly News, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you watch a broadcast you dislike?” He had been watching NBC Nightly News for the last 30 years and he wasn’t going to stop now. That is the definition of habitual consumption. Successful podcasters don’t have to wait 30 years to see that brand of unflinching loyalty.

Howard Stern’s listeners are great examples of habitual listeners. Some people have always complained about his content. In fact, he has thousands of listeners who were warned not to listen to him but decided to listen anyway. Stern himself just keeps repeating the message that would seem to be counter to his own interests: “Don’t listen to me if you don’t like what you hear.” For some strange reason, these people are in the habit of being insulted by Howard on a daily basis.

One of my personal truisms for teleseminars is the need to polarize the audience, and this is also true for podcasting. The undecided listener is the biggest pain of all, particularly within the marketing and business arenas. “Do I like this or not? I’m not sure.” If you can polarize your listening audience into those who love you and those who love to hate you, at least they have decided. They have cut off a set of circumstances. That’s really the meaning behind making a decision: Cutting off or narrowing down. The best part is – those who hate you can simply unsubscribe and find a show of their own liking. Make sure your audience knows this.

The ongoing dialogue that podcasting introduces between the content provider and the listener is fascinating. Your audience can be listening and complaining at the same time, just like that fellow who hates the news show he hasn’t missed in 30 years. Podcasting is an ideal vehicle for achieving habitual consumption and a rare depth of polarized loyalty. Your loyal audience heads for a certain place at a certain time of the day, perhaps moved by nothing more than a sense of curiosity, wondering, “What am I going to hear today?”

Today’s rapid adoption of podcasting and the near hysteria surrounding this new and sexy communication tool only serves to elevate the importance of these consumption phases. Many new podcasters would be overjoyed to see 1,000 downloads of an episode. They translate that figure directly into a listening audience. From our perspective, they may have attracted 1,000 new listeners who decided, “This show is not for me.” Download statistics say nothing about consumption. We would rather know that 50 of those 1,000 people also listened to the previous episode. That figure may not be as impressive but its value is exponentially higher.

Most podcasters – like the majority of entertainers, educators, and business professionals – are not driven by a need to create shock waves and controversy. That is only the extreme edge of the concept of polarization. Serious business podcasters want to provide valuable, worthwhile content that draws a loyal, habitual audience. And some of them want to explore and develop the outstanding monetization opportunities that powerful position makes possible.

The who in the podcast process is very willing to learn and listen – particularly in the fiercely competitive world of business. The very psychological makeup of this audience is competitive. Listeners want to consume information and are comfortable with the process, but they don’t want boundaries. They want to consume on their own terms.

These listeners are not likely to flop down on the couch and watch the news at a certain time each day. They would rather TiVo the news and listen a couple of hours later when it fits into their own schedule. Much like an email that sits in the inbox for a couple of hours (or days, or weeks), the show can wait. Nothing is going to change in the world if they listen to the broadcast 120 minutes later.

Once the listeners are habitual, very little can go wrong. Before they are habitual, everything can go wrong.

Today’s podcast listeners are the most willing of any audience to communicate, at least on their own terms. They want to control consumption but they are extremely willing to learn and reasonably willing to forgive.

Your (initial) podcast audience will be technically savvy and often very busy. Podcast listeners are active and productive people. This medium allows them to shift some tasks from very busy times to dead time (a benefit only the busy find attractive). Consuming content via podcast makes it possible for them to control when and where they listen, to take control of their busy lives (many times, a bigger benefit than the actual content you are offering them). The action of consumption becomes the habit, not the action of tuning in Thursday nights at 10pm.

Habitual podcast consumers are mobile and use that mobility to their advantage. Aggressive and high-performing people are always on the go—the crème de la crème of an audience from the standpoint of monetization. These people are seldom going to be listening from the same place at the same time. They have a sizable disposable income, and most have invested in quality mobile equipment that allows them to time-shift and control their schedule. If they can spend $500 on a tool that enables consumption, they can spend money on valuable content, or as a result of it.

Notice that we highlighted a number of “big names” in our discussion of habitual consumption? This was on purpose. Habitual consumption produces big names – and vice versa.

Who Is in Control?

In a very real sense, the consumer is in control of the podcast. The audience decides if, when, and how to listen. Someone can decide to listen to only selected sections. With a few MP3 players, podcast consumers can even speed up the feed. They could conceivably listen to a 30-minute podcast in 20 minutes by selecting the right percentage of acceleration.

Once you grasp how fully the consumer controls podcast consumption, you begin to understand that each element of the podcast needs to stand alone. Any episodic series, such as reality TV or soap operas, begins with a recap of “what happened last week” for those who missed the program. Podcasting moves beyond this episode mentality into a realm where each episode or show must have stand-alone value. Each segment of that episode should ideally also have stand-alone value, since consumers will be jumping back and forth at will. You can’t assume that your listeners heard the first ten minutes of your podcast and base the rest of your development process on that assumption.

Each podcast episode must encourage additional consumption. Your audience does not view you in the same way they see Howard Stern or Jay Leno or the NBC Nightly News. Nor does your audience associate your podcast with a single event like the latest movie or a new CD release. Encouraging consumption can be as simple as telling your audience what they can expect from the next episode. You might want to reiterate what they heard in the last episode. Mentioning valuable content from the past encourages your audience to peruse your back catalog for topics of interest. Offer an ethical bribe for visiting your podcast’s web site.

If you develop your podcast with the reality that the consumer is in control, consumers will sense and assume that control. They are going to know that you know they’re in control. Until now, consumers have never experienced this level of respect and appreciation. As a result, they’ll return the favor and, many times, give you back the control. If your podcast becomes a part of their daily lives, you’ve won.

With podcasting, control is something your audience will always have and hold. However, habitual consumers aren’t likely to fast-forward through much. These people are going to listen to your podcast from the very first word. They’re going to consume the whole enchilada on a regular basis because you gave them the opportunity and the ability to do so.

There are only two kinds of podcast consumers: those who understand the power of the medium and embrace it completely and those waiting for you to teach them how to do just that. The first audience is ripe for business communication and the second is ready to learn how to join the ranks of the first. Listeners in charge understand that they are different and, in fact, resent any communication methodology that tells them otherwise. Communicate with them that you understand their position and you’ll have a hungry audience. If your audience isn’t yet plugged in, teach them how to be in charge of their media consumption and you’ll have an audience for life. A customer in charge expects dialogue with you. Your podcast can only be made better with this kind of dialogue. Make it a regular part of your podcast and you’ll quickly rise to the top.

This month we launch Blogger & Podcaster Reviews. Our goal is to bring you the best possible buying advice for podcast gear and software, and blogging tools. In this monthly section, you’ll find thorough, opinionated reviews, written by people who use the kinds of products they’re writing about to produce their blogs and podcasts. Each review provides information about how a tool works (or doesn’t), what the reviewers liked and didn’t like, and how the product stacks up against similar ones, especially in terms of value.

We don’t play favorites. No product is chosen for review based on advertising relationships (or lack of them) with Blogger & Podcaster. Our reviewers have no financial or other relationships with the companies whose products they review, or with those vendors’ competitors. On the other hand, we strive to be fair, and to ask the right questions, especially if a review is extremely positive or extremely negative. Our strong opinions are backed up by facts and experience.

Our five-star rating system gives you a quick look at our reviewers’ bottom line for each product. You can translate stars into a cut-to-the-chase evaluation using the legend on this page.

We want to review the latest, and most important products in the industry. If you would like to suggest a product for review please drop us a line at feedback@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

— SHELLY BRISBIN

B&P RATINGS:
* * * * * Flawless
* * * * Excellent
* * * Usable
* * Weak
* Dreadful

Half stars indicate that a product’s rating falls between the higher and lower star rating.

Rode Podcaster USB Microphone

If you record your podcast in a spare bedroom or other “flexible” living area, the idea of a portable microphone becomes appealing. USB mics bypass a lot of the expense and space requirements of a professional audio setup. And they’re very portable, too. The Podcaster is Rode Microphones’ entry into the USB mic market, and it strikes an effective compromise between ease of use and setup, and high-quality sound.

Rode is an Australian company well known for its professional recording and broadcast microphones. The Podcaster has a heavy-duty feel to it, thanks to the thick, white-finish die cast body. The sturdy Podcaster uses a hefty fiber-type mount that can be threaded into a standard professional microphone boom or stand. Rode offers an optional “spider” shock mount, which will help keep vibrations from transferring to the microphone element. There’s a small white knob and a 1/8-inch headphone jack on the top of the mic. Rode built an audio amplifier in to the Podcaster, along with the volume control. This feature lets you listen to your recording in real time. The Podcaster is among the first USB microphones to allow audio monitoring before your audio hits the computer. Most USB mics cannot be monitored directly because of the latency caused by analog-to-digital conversion.

The Podcaster sports a nice sounding dynamic element that holds its own when compared to higher-priced broadcast microphones. Setting up the mic is as simple as plugging it in to your Windows PC or Mac USB port, selecting it as your audio input device and pressing the Record button in your preferred audio application.

While the Podcaster offers excellent audio quality, it is important to “close talk” this mic. If you stray to the side while speaking, your audio levels will drop off very quickly. This “on-axis” characteristic can be a feature or a problem depending on your mic technique. The volume control for the built-in amplifier felt a little too small and a bit cheap for a microphone of this caliber. I would have liked a larger, tighter feeling knob. Since the Podcaster is a dynamic mic, requiring no power from the computer, USB power goes to the built-in headphone amplifier. The Podcaster could use a little more audio output gain, but low gain is a typical USB mic failing.

Several vendors, including Samson and Blue Microphones, offer USB mics for podcasters, most of which are less expensive than the Podcaster. Alone among USB mics, Rode’s entry strives to be a USB replacement for broadcast studio mics. The Podcaster has a flat sound and the dynamic element trains you to talk directly into the capsule, while keeping ambient room noise to a minimum. It’s not the best choice for new podcasters, or the budget-conscious, but if you need a high-quality mic with the convenience of a USB connection, the Podcaster is a good choice.

—MARK JENSEN hosts PodSqod
(www.podsqod.com)

Podcaster USB Microphone * * * *
Rode Microphones
(www.rodemic.com)
$269 (list price), $189 (street price)

Übercaster Podcast-Creator

Übercaster’s console allows you to control recording, and stage prerecorded audio sources for a live podcast.

Until recently, Mac-based podcasters looking for an alternative to Apple’s GarageBand have needed a combination of tools to produce their podcast from start to finish. Übercaster from German developer Pleasant Software for the People is a new tool for the Mac that provides an all-in-one solution for producing, editing, and distributing shows. Version 1 isn’t perfect, but it is a start down the road toward truly integrated podcast production.

Übercaster provides the user with a graphical control panel and a single process flow for taking a show from concept to RSS feed. It includes the most common features a podcaster needs: the ability to control audio sources and sound clips (including drop-ins, music, and the ability to integrate recorded Skype and iChat sessions), edit the audio tracks once recording is complete, write ID3 tags, and create enhanced podcasts with chapters and artwork.

Show preparation is easy: simply drag audio sources (prerecorded or live) into Übercaster’s console, move the program’s onscreen control knob to Record, and start the show. Each audio source can be adjusted (on/off/volume) while you’re recording, allowing you to manage music beds live, or fade audio in and out as you record.

Post-production work (called Cut mode) is also handled nicely. Übercaster provides a multitrack editing screen that works similarly to that of Audacity. Unfortunately, its controls are awkward and not intuitive. Cut mode includes several filters for equalization and reverb effects, and its built-in compression effect seems to eliminate the need for external tools like Levelator, though it’s likely that your mileage will vary, depending upon your source recording. Übercaster supports Apple Unit (AU) plugins, allowing you to further customize your postproduction toolbox.

You can save Übercaster podcasts in either MP3 or AAC format with predefined or custom bit rates. And once the podcast is complete, you can upload your show with Übercaster’s built-in FTP client.

While it’s great to have all these features in one package, there are areas within Übercaster that could use improvement. The interface is laid out adequately, but the product’s colors — various shades of gray and black, mostly on the darker end of the spectrum — might prove difficult for users with vision challenges. And some of the help screens’ German to English translations aren’t quite as understandable as they should be.

—JOSEPH LYNN co-hosts Cheap Date
(www.cheapdateshow.com)

Übercaster 1.1 for Mac OS * * *
Pleasant Software for the People
(www.ubercaster.com)
$79 (list price), $95 when bundled with Reinvented Software’s Feeder RSS generator

Belkin TuneTalk Stereo

One of the quickest and least expensive ways to begin recording audio in the field is to plug a tiny accessory in to your iPod’s dock connector. Belkin’s TuneTalk Stereo is a full-featured, but imperfect device.

An iPod can record 44.1kHz WAV files. Only the fifth-generation iPod and second-generation iPod nano can record 16-bit audio. So the choice of an iPod recorder rests largely on the device’s connectivity features and price, not on its audio quality. Like other iPod recorders, however, the TuneTalk mic is good at capturing interviews but is somewhat susceptible to wind noise.

The TuneTalk includes a USB connector, allowing you to charge the iPod as you record. There’s also an auto gain control option though it’s unclear how to adjust gain manually, when the auto feature is not invoked. These features aren’t found on other iPod recorders. You can also connect an external mic via the 1/8-inch jack, which is useful when conducting interviews, where a lapel mic would work best.

The TuneTalk is black, and about the same width as a 5G iPod. Though Belkin says the TuneTalk fits most cases, we had difficulty keeping it connected to a 5G iPod, while using several silicone and fabric cases. The fit is much better when connecting the TuneTalk to an iPod nano.

—Shely Brisbin

TuneTalk Stereo * * *
Belkin
(www.belkin.com)
$70 (list price), $58 (street price)

I have two purposes for pointing out this word to you. First, I truly want to thank those of you who have responded to the formation of the International Blogging and New Media Association. Second, I want to point out the launch of www.mahalo.com. Jason Calacanis, formerly of Weblogs, Inc., recently launched the alpha of this new search engine that pays for accepted search results suggested by participants who sign up as guides. Documentation about the web site indicates that bloggers and new-media experts will have an edge on getting qualified as search-result creators. A human-guided search engine for those of us who use the Internet daily is a great way to get to better content. And giving such a tool to bloggers, who already do an excellent job of highlighting quality content, seems to make a great deal of sense. I know they’re just getting started with this search engine, but it’s an interesting concept and one that I think has a lot of potential.

Mahalo doesn’t have a “handwritten search” yet for two topics IBNMA is highlighting: the Free Flow of Information Act and the ban on live blogging at NCAA sporting events. Congressman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) has introduced the Free Flow of Information Act in the House of Representatives. A similar proposal was also introduced in the Senate. The proposal would protect journalists against prosecution for refusing to reveal confidential sources of information. Are bloggers covered?

The answer appears to be yes. While not specifically called out in the legislation, news reports and hearing testimony has the focus falling on the definition of journalism. It is defined as “the gathering, preparing collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.” Confidentiality is not protected in instances where national security might be affected, when death or bodily harm could result, or for someone who disclosed trade secrets. The bill has a long way to go, and faces opposition from many who believe that providing protection to bloggers allows anyone who makes contact with a confidential source to seek protection as a journalist. IBNMA supports the definition of journalism and the inclusion of bloggers as part of the legislation.

I don’t think the NCAA has taken a position on the Free Flow of Information Act yet, nor is it likely to. But I do sense how the association feels about the free flow of information when that information comes from a live blogger: NCAA doesn’t support it, and won’t allow it. At a recent baseball game, the NCAA threw out a reporter who was covering the game with a live blog. Apparently, the association interprets the live coverage as a violation of its broadcasting deal with ESPN and CBS. It appears it is time to update the contract with the broadcasters and start to address the ever-evolving blogging and new-media industry. It’s hard to know if we should be offended by the NCAA’s actions or if we should be proud that the blogging industry has become so mainstream that the association now believes that blogging threatens ESPN and CBS broadcasting stations. It is ironic that the NCAA would ban someone with media credentials who was live-blogging at the event, knowing that many other people could be sitting in a seat in the arena or watching the game on TV at home and blogging live about it. Maybe it’s time to begin negotiating the exclusive live-blogging rights for all NCAA sporting events.

While the eviction of one reporter from one NCAA event may not seem to be a significant action, it poses many questions that will certainly become topics of conversation in the future. These issues are of great importance and could have a dramatic impact on the future of paid blogging, sports blogging, media blogging and the blogging and new-media industry in general.

Our redesigned web site at ibnma.org has added blogs with the specific purpose of consolidating information on blogging and new-media issues. We seek your opinion on these issues, and we share our advocacy priorities with elected officials and other organizations that either regulate or influence the development of the paid and nonpaid members of the industry.

Aloha and mahalo. Farewell and thank you.

Miles Durfee is president of the International Blogging & New Media Association. Send email to miles@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

Blogger & Podcaster: You have been podcasting since 2004. Are you surprised to still be producing The MacCast?
Adam Christianson: Yes and no. I absolutely love it and I don’t think I could stop. But I didn’t know how much effort it was going to take. My wife said recently, “It used to take you a lot less time. Shouldn’t you be getting more efficient at this?” I’m a perfectionist and I get more concerned about audio quality as I get into it. I’m doing things to raise the level of the show and now it’s actually taking more time than when I just recorded my voice and threw it out there.

B&P: What keeps you going?
AC: The community of Mac owners and Apple fans. It’s always been a community I’ve been involved with in local Mac user groups, and the MacCast was really born to extend the reach of that. I had had some frustrations with the Mac user groups dwindling in terms of younger members. I absolutely love them, and I’m still involved in my local one all I can be. It’s the great people who listen to my show and participate in it.

B&P: As a podcaster, have you been accepted as a member of the press in the Mac community?
AC: That’s that whole question of [whether] bloggers [are] journalists and where are those lines drawn. I never really thought about them. I did have a press pass at Macworld [Expo], so I went in the capacity of press. I do also recognize that I don’t have the formal training that a lot of other journalists do and I try to be careful to make sure my audience knows that.

B&P: Have vendors in the Mac market been accepting of you?
AC: Actually very much so. But I think that’s because of how much exposure podcasting has received. The other thing is that because my show has been around so long, more people know about it. I think they hear a lot from my audience. My show’s just a little bit different from a lot of other podcasts in terms of where its roots come from in this Mac community.

B&P: You’ve been able to acquire sponsors for The MacCast. What was the most important factor in making that happen?
AC: There are a lot of companies you can partner up with, but I was very concerned about finding a partner who could represent The MacCast to potential advertisers and would be able to connect me with the types of companies that would directly benefit from my audience as well as bring my audience products that are relevant to what they’re into. Some of the advertisers that were coming on board had, for instance, PC-only versions of their products…it didn’t make sense for my audience. Luckily I found a small boutique agency called Backbeat Media.

B&P: A lot of ad networks and ad agencies emphasize large brands. But the Mac market includes many small companies. Do you think they are fertile ground for podcasters?
AC: I was really looking for the smaller guy, the person who was in the Mac market or the iPod accessory market. I almost went on my own. So I was really glad when I found [Backbeat Media].

B&P: What advice can you offer to podcasters looking for sponsors?
AC: To anybody who’s thinking about advertising and hitting that wall, I would say don’t give up. The power of podcasting is to be able to target this advertising, and if we start moving away from that, I think a lot of people are going to be turned off.

B&P: Do you think the iPhone has any particular significance for podcasting?
AC: Not any more than the iPod. I really felt the Apple TV was going to benefit video podcasters. I know I’m watching a lot more [podcasts] now that I have the Apple TV. The problem I have with video on the iPhone is the small storage size.

B&P: Many criticize Apple for featuring mainstream-media podcasts rather than indies. What’s your reaction?
AC: Early on that was a complaint. But they just redid the iTunes podcast section. With the recent changes, they are putting more emphasis on the independent guys, or at least mixing the independents with the traditional media. At some point in the very near future, I don’t think people are going to make a distinction between traditional and new media.

B&P: What are your plans for the future of The MacCast?
AC: I’m just happy to keep dong the MacCast. The audience has been great. As long as people keep listening and subscribing, I’m going to keep doing the show.

Well before we officially launched Blogger & Podcaster this spring, it was not uncommon for someone to ask about my dual roles. How, everyone wanted to know, did I handle being both fulltime editorial director for Larstan Publishing and editor-in-chief of its new magazine? The answer became apparent once we moved into an accelerated, monthly production schedule: not well.

The time bind, even for this master of multitasking, was too great, given the number of tasks at hand. We all suspected that would be the case once we launched, so in the past couple of months we’ve done some short-term shuffling and made a few permanent modifications, including bringing in new leadership to handle the tactical and operational side of this publication.

The obvious choice for the top editorial slot was none other than our managing editor, Shelly Brisbin. Not only does she have an impressive resume that includes authoring a dozen technology books, stints at a dotcom company or two and producing popular podcasts such as the aptly named Shelly’s Podcast and Hollywood on the Radio, but Shelly knows who’s who in new media and, importantly, understands the various platforms. She’s a gadget geek and has been featured on numerous programs, including XM Radio’s David Lawrence Show. That mild Texas twang lets everyone know this girl grew up and remains firmly planted in Austin.

We then filled the managing editor post with Elisa M Welch, a San Francisco acoustic singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has 21 years of magazine-publishing experience. She has worked on print and online magazines, at large and small companies, covering music and computer technologies for such titles as Frets, Drums & Drumming, Mac-User, PC Computing, Web Techniques, and Strings. Now she’s finally ready for the blogosphere and the world of podcasting. Elisa is intensely curious about new media, and her organized, unflappable approach to the rigors of getting a monthly magazine out the door will be crucial in moving us out of the startup phase.

Together with Creative Director Rob Hudgins and Publisher Larry Genkin, this new team will develop future issues covering the fast-growing worlds of blogging and podcasting. Our goal is to be a comprehensive source of news, opinion, technical know-how, business-building information and more. All of us are excited about what the ongoing shift from mainstream media to new media like blogging and podcasting will mean for people who want to practice these crafts. And because our team uses the tools of blogging and podcasting to produce each of our multiformat issues, we’re not just commentators: we’re invested in the success of all kinds of new media.

For this issue, we’ve devoted our cover story to women podcasters who’ve managed to make motherhood profitable (not that parenting isn’t rewarding in itself, I say as a mother of two college-age daughters). Whether you’re changing diapers daily or just curious about how podcasting moms have achieved success, there’s something for everyone in the piece.

This month’s book excerpt looks at how to identify and handle critical bloggers who individually and collective can harm you or your business’ reputation. I had a nice conversation with the coauthors that I think everyone will want to hear in its entirety in our podcast edition of this month’s issue.

In addition, we’re introducing our first contributed case study, this one on a wedding-oriented podcast that managed to score a sponsorship with a major television network. The show’s executive producer provides tips on how you can do something similar when opportunity knocks.

Finally, in addition to our columns and fact-packed news section, we feature a short interview with Matt Mullenweg, the 23-year-old developer behind the ultra popular WordPress blogging platform. Be sure to listen to the expanded interview on our web site, too, to find out what’s new with the open-source blogging software and this wunderkind who now runs his own company.

I came across a popular proverb, most recently illustrated by a poster of a stunning butterfly emerging from its cocoon. “Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” That goes for this magazine as well. Having a staff now fully focused on the issues at hand is a beautiful thing.

Page 5

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

Podcast Awards Nominations Open

Nominations for the 2007 People’s Choice Podcast Awards opened July 1. As in past years, nominations come from the podcast community, followed by voting for the top nominees in a variety of categories ranging from Best Produced to Political and Sports. Awards will be presented at the New Media Expo in Ontario, Calif.

The nomination process has changed this year: a listener can nominate a podcast only once. In previous years, multiple votes were encouraged to boost site traffic. At press time, awards’organizer Podcast Connect had not posted complete rules, and indicated that last year’s 22 categories might be changed a bit. The Podcast Awards can be found at www.podcastawards.com.

Boom Go the Sponsors

Following on the heels of last year’s unusual eBay advertising auction, Andrew Michael Baron’s pioneering video show Rocketboom (www.rocketboom.com) launched a sponsorship system beginning in early June, with YouTube, blip.tv and TVTonic among the first participants.

Sponsorships will be sold for $3,000 per episode until September 1, 2007, and for $5,000 thereafter. (Discounts are offered for startups.) Sponsorships include a static postroll ad (think back to those “brought to you by” messages at the conclusion of TV shows of yore) in addition to various promotions, including a web site link and a blog entry from the sponsor.

Lawsuit Raises Privacy Issues

Bloggers are keeping tabs on a $20-million lawsuit an ex-boyfriend has filed against former Senate aide Jessica Cutler, who included their sexual relationship in her Washingtonienne blog. The site got Cutler a book deal and Playboy spread, but she also lost her job as an aide to then-Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, once her sex-filled online diary was discovered.

Among the six men Cutler wrote about was attorney Robert Steinbuch, who worked in DeWine’s office and who later sued the blogger for publicly humiliating him. Cutler has since moved to New York and filed for bankruptcy, which has put the lawsuit on hold, according to the Associated Press.

Privacy advocates say the outcome of the lawsuit could have broad ramifications for bloggers, establishing to what extent they must protect the privacy of identifiable people they write about.

Yet Another Podcasting Study?

Every couple of months, a new study of media adoption offers findings related to podcasting. Many studies contradict one another, and picking them apart is good fodder for bloggers who also happen to be podcasters. The latest entry comes from UK radio company Chrysalis, and the study focused on podcast listener behavior: the kinds of information advertisers look to when making media buys.

According to the Chrysalis study, 80% of respondents said they were more likely to seek out products they had heard about on a podcast. The study also said one-third of those surveyed do not listen to the audio they download.

Podcast Training Before the expo

Planning to attend September’s Podcast and New Media Expo in Southern California? You can get a head start on the weekend, two ways: Registration is now open for Podcast Academy 6 (www.podcastacademy.com), taking place Thursday, September 27, 8am to 5pm, at the Airport Marriott in Ontario, Calif. According to the organizers, this is your opportunity to learn from leaders in audio and video podcast production, marketing and implementation. Early registration for the one-day training conference costs $199 through July 31; standard registration is $249. Find out more at pa.gigavox.com

Those looking for a lessstructured experience may enjoy PodCamp SoCal, a free “unconference.” Launched in 2006 in Boston, the PodCamp series is a freeform forum for people who create, enjoy or are interested in learning more about blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks, new and social media. Attendees can sign up to speak on any topic during Pod-Camp, and can follow the roster of participants and speakers via a wiki.

PodCamp SoCal activities commence on Thursday September 27 at the Ontario Convention Center, beginning with registration at 8am. For more information, go to pod camp.pbwiki.com/PodcampSoCal.

The Podcast and New Media Expo takes place at the Ontario Convention Center Friday through Sunday, September 28 through 30, 2007.

Firefox 3: The Alpha Browser

At press time, we were hearing about Firefox 3, which had just been posted in alpha form by Mozilla (www.mozilla.org). We would be willing to bet our bookmarks that updates will be available by the time you read this. For RSS users, the new browser version promises a more integrated and consistent configuration interface for content handling, including RSS, protocols and MIME type mapping.

If waiting around for Firefox 3 gets dull, check out Lifehack’s roundup of Firefox extensions for bloggers (www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/17-firefox-extensionsthat-make-blogging-easy.html).

WinJournal Arrives

Mariner Software, maker of Mac-Journal, has unveiled WinJournal, integrated journaling, blogging and podcasting software for Windows. MacJournal is the Mac OS version of the software, and has been available for some time.

Touted as an all-in-one blog client, WinJournal aims to help Windows users easily organize and record their thoughts and daily events, publish entries to blog sites or in secure locations on their PCs or create podcasts. Bloggers using WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal and Windows Live can post to their sites with WinJournal.

Pricing has been set at $34.95 for the download version. The shipping version will initially be offered in English; more languages will be added in the near future. Win Journal works on Vista, XP Pro or Home, NT Workstation, 2000 or 2000 Server. WinJournal offers two levels of security: password protection and AES-256 encryption. Contact Mariner Software (www.marinersoftware.com).

Odeo Flipped Again

With the ink barely dry on papers transferring the Odeo podcast directory to Sonic Mountain, the site once again has a new owner. Amergence Group announced the acquisition of Sonic Mountain in June. Sonic Mountain becomes a whollyowned Amergence Group subsidiary under terms of the agreement.

New Name for PodZinger

Audio search engine company PodZinger changed its name to EveryZing, signaling uses of its technology beyond podcasting.

PodZinger’s text-to-speech engine makes it possible to search podcasts by entering a text string. You can search both audio and video podcasts. Responses arrive with links to the source podcast, queued to the spot where the search string appears. EveryZing, whose tagline is “To find the media you want, don’t just search for it, Zing it,” currently operates the same way, but the company intends to expand its search capabilities to all types of multimedia files. EveryZing is at www.everyzing.com.

Pages 8-13

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

The RSS-feed-management startup enjoys a big payday. But what will it mean for FeedBurner users?

By Shelly Brisbin

After months of rumors, Google and FeedBurner confirmed June 1 that the search engine super-company had acquired the Chicago-based startup whose RSS “burning” tool manages (hang on, let’s check the blog…) 736,494 feeds for 431,171 publishers. Of those, 112,998 are podcasts, and many of the rest are blogs.

FeedBurner (www.feedburner.com) was founded in 2003, and raised $10 million in venture funding. Terms of the Google deal were not announced, and couldn’t be confirmed. Rumors in the tech blogosphere have consistently put the figure at $100 million.

For FeedBurner employees and investors, it’s a little like winning the lottery, and a lot of bloggers and podcasters have led their coverage of the acquisition with hearty congratulations for “the FeedBurner guys” who enjoy widespread recognition and good reputations among the blogging and podcasting community.

It’s likely that in Google’s books, the expenditure of a reported 100 mil is a good investment in technology that works and has been making it possible for people to distribute and enhance their RSS feeds for four years. There’s certainly a lot of potential synergy between Google’s “put advertising everywhere ”business strategy and FeedBurner’s software, which already lets publishers customize a variety of items related to the appearance and content of their feeds, as well as supporting advertising and robust statistics for publishers.

In a conference call announcing the deal, Google Vice President of Product Management Susan Wojcicki made it clear that the acquisition was all about advertising. “The acquisition will enable us to bring hundreds of thousands of new sites into the AdSense content network, give FeedBurner publishers access to the Google advertising network, and also provide additional inventory and distribution software for advertisers to reach the users,” she said.

Wojcicki also pointed out something every stat-crazed feed owner must surely know already: that FeedBurner’s statistics features are complementary to Google’s own Analytics, which provides traffic data for web-site owners.

Blogger & Podcaster columnist Paul Colligan listed several advantages the acquisition offers for Google on his blog (www.paulcolligan.com). First and foremost is the ability to incorporate AdSense and AdWords into RSS feeds. The practice of placing ads in feeds is controversial among some bloggers, but is likely to appeal to many who see the ads as an easy way to earn money from podcasts and blogs. Colligan also sees podcast content (audio) search as an exciting potential benefit of the deal. For podcasters, Colligan predicts that bringing Google’s adtargeting technology to bear will benefit niche producers. “The future of new media is the revenue opportunities that come from not having to broadcast to the masses. To see those opportunities, we’ll need the tools. Google/FeedBurner (Feedoogle? GooBurner?) just might be the ones to provide them,” he wrote.

Plenty of bloggers have been having fun with the naming possibilities the combination brings: FeedBurner employee Justin Ward set FeedBurner’s flame icon atop the O’s in the Google logo. But Wojcicki told reporters that no decision has been made about whether FeedBurner would retain its name, or whether, like Google’s Urchin acquisition, it would simply become an undifferentiated part of the larger company.

FeedBurner CEO Dick Costolo emphasized functional integration of the two companies’ offerings in his “It’s Tru-gle!” blog post. “Publishers want a single dashboard and single source for the metrics that give them feedback about the value of their content and its impact on their business.”

Costolo said that FeedBurner’s initial customers were bloggers. (The company offers free feed distribution, a paid stats service, and tools for commercial entities that use RSS.) In 2005, business customers began to come on board, offering information like news distribution, retail coupons or sale alerts and time-specific travel information via the service. Clients include Reuters, NewsWeek, and AOL. Podcasters discovered FeedBurner in 2005, too. Early on, FeedBurner provided podcast-specific services including enclosure download tracking, and has continued to enhance podcast tools to date.

FeedBurner will continue to be headquartered in Chicago, according to Costolo. The new Google subsidiary currently has 30 employees. ::

PodShow Tech Taps Dvorak

By Elisa M Welch

John C. Dvorak, the popular and controversial columnist, author and broadcaster, is ready to don another hat: he has been named VP & Managing Editor of PodShow Tech, a new channel scheduled to launch at PodShow (www.podshow.com) in the second quarter of 2007.

When asked about his new role, Dvorak waxed philosophical. “As most people know I am promotional by design and by nature. I’ll be coordinating new promotional efforts and acquiring new shows as needed. Some new distribution changes will be made to hopefully make the user experience more efficient. But there will be nothing done here that is drastic.”

PodShow Tech will feature video and audio podcasts and blogs and supporting graphics for each show. Users will be able to download or play any episode or subscribe to any show. PodShow will also provide various methods for audiences to contribute via audio, video and text.

Dvorak will produce and host at least one new show, tentatively titled Tech5. “I’m experimenting with a five-minute daily news briefing and possibly some long-format experimental shows,” he said. I’ll probably have the listeners tell me what they’d like from me before I finalize anything.”

The new channel will include programming from GeekBrief.TV and TeXtra, as well as Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code.

Said Dvorak of the existing shows, “I will personally have little to do with changing or directing them. They’ll remain totally independent, but easier to find. The PodShow Network has never had a consolidated tech site. It’s mostly been about music and entertainment. People who wanted tech news and podcasts would find them scattered around, rather than in one place.

“Since I want to make sure people get tech news from everyone worth listening to, there will be a kind of uber-directory that includes other publishers of note. Some see this as a kind of aggregator, but it is different: everything will be ranked and rated by me as a trusted source.”

Dvorak will continue his appearances in print and on television and radio, and as the host of Cranky Geeks (www.crankygeeks.com). He is also a columnist for Dow Jones Marketwatch and PC Magazine, a regular panelist on This Week in Tech (TWiT), a contributor on CNBC and author of more than a dozen books. ::

’Strip Tease

CBS buys a videoblogger’s Wallstreet spoof for undisclosed price

By Anne Saita

When Phoenix-based hedge-fund operator Howard Lindzon began Wallstrip (www.wallstrip.com), a daily video blog that spoofs more seriousminded stock programs, he invested the bulk of his $600,000 angel funding in a team of technologists to not only build the site but also to attract as many influential eyeballs as possible.

Turns out among those impressed viewers was CBS, the old-media conglomerate that last month bought the web site for an as-yet undisclosed price.

“It’s like a Jon Stewart for the financial world. It’s something smart and edgy and funny,” Lindzon described his blog during a recent interview with Blogger & Podcaster.

So why didn’t CBS just do as networks always do and come up with its own version of the same show? Because it apparently had little interest in the content, as clever as it might be.

After news of the sale was announced, a venture capitalist close to the project said CBS wanted Wallstrip’s technology, particularly its own brand of tagging, tracking and indexing that made the show a search-engine darling. For instance, traffic jumped considerably after the site was included in daily stock links found on Yahoo.

A news release says the Wallstrip team will still create the daily Web shows, and they will still feature actress Lindsay Campbell, but their technology will not be folded into CBS’s Internet strategy and Lindzon will be a consultant for CBS Interactive. ::

On the Move

Six releases Movable Type 4 beta and open source

By Elisa M Welch

Six Apart announced the release of the Movable Type 4 beta in early June. The company also announced the Movable Type Open Source Project, which will release an open-source version of the blogging software in the third quarter of 2007. Movable Type Open Source attempts to attract users who have switched their blogs to WordPress.

MT4 beta is a much-anticipated upgrade to Movable Type 3.35, offering a redesigned user interface, improvements in fighting blog spam and technical enhancements including database caching through Memcached, authenticating of users with OpenID and a new component-based architecture.

Six Apart touts MT4 as “a social media platform,” designed to let users turn their audiences into communities. Blog readers can become members of a web site, with the ability to post alongside authors. There is also a new ratings framework, and more community features are promised later in the beta period.

MT4’s core authoring functions include a WYSIWYG Web editor to allow insertion of text, audio, photos, and enclosures. There’s also a built-in asset management system. You can track your blog’s stats and see which content and
contributors are driving conversations with the MT4 dashboard’s single-screen graphic display.

Content management is covered as well, with a templating system that lets you output content without programming or scripting. Create standalone pages that inherit the design and layout of your blog, and publish content with the new posting interface, including rich media.

MT4 offers a built-in registration system, so you can use your own authentication for commenters and users. You can integrate authentication with other platforms and services through Six Apart’s OpenID single sign-on system.

Having established itself as an early favorite in the blog platform wars, Movable Type steadily lost ground to the open-source WordPres, since changes in Six Apart’s licensing upset many bloggers in 2004. The free and continually evolving WordPress platform lured many publishers away from MT, and third-party developers have turned their attention to writing extensions for WordPress. Six Apart has responded by beefing up blogging tools for “power bloggers”and the corporate world, launching Movable Type Enterprise.

The enterprise version supports blogging by large numbers of users, includes LDAP management, enterprise database integration user roles, blog cloning and automated blog provisioning.

Six Apart also maintains three other blog publishing systems, TypePad, Live-Journal and Vox. To download the MT4 beta, visit www.movabletype.org. The open-source version will be available at www.movabletype.org/opensource. ::

Podio Meets Sci-Fi

Podcasters descend on Balticon

By Shelly Brisbin

The solitary art of podcasting has always been practiced, ironically enough, by people who love to connect with one another in person. The nexus of podcasting’s considerable sci-fi and literary community assembled in Baltimore during Memorial Day weekend to share tech knowledge, discuss new fiction, and promote their work to the 3,000 attendees at Balticon 41, an annual literary and fantasy convention.

Headed up for the second year by Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway, who produce BaltiCast, a compilation of recordings made at the annual event, the Balticon podcasting track featured three days of sessions on topics ranging from “Live-to-Tape Recording” to “Earning a Living by Giving It Away,” with presenters including Blogger & Podcaster columnist Tee Morris, Evo Terra, Michael R. Mennenga and Mur Lafferty. The program also offered a slew of live podcasts, and a healthy dose of music and partying. Fischer estimated that 36 podcasters attended, most of them participating in multiple podcast-track events.

For authors who distribute fiction in podiobook form, via independent publishers like LuLu, and via podcast magazines like Steve Eley’s Escape Pod, the convention provided ample opportunities to promote their work and interact with readers at close range. “One of the great aspects I noticed about the weekend is that nobody drew lines between podcast producers and podcast fans,” said Eley.

Balticon also confirmed that podcasters are reaching audiences. When asked how podcasting has evolved, Eley cited his own experience. “Well, there’s a lot more of it, and it’s achieving more recognition in the wider literary field…my primary evidence is that people outside the podcasting track knew who I was.

Sci-fi/fantasy podcasting also has a major presence at the mammoth Dragon*Con event, held each September, but Eley says that Balticon’s high profile this year won’t detract from the larger show. “I don’t think it’s at the expense of Dragon*Con — many of the folks who were there were talking about seeing each other again at D*C. And the podcast programming at D*C is generalizing now, it’s less strictly genre-based.” ::

Page 7-10

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

Can you feel it? I’m referring to the incredible speed at which you, sitting somewhere on Earth, are experiencing motion as you read this column.

If you happen to be on the Equator, experts say you are rotating at a rate of 1,000 miles per hour. But that’s a mere snail’s pace, relatively speaking. Step back further and you’ll notice we are orbiting the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. There’s also some wobble, but that’s a sidebar. The real screaming is being done in unison with our entire solar system, which is hurtling across the ever-expanding galaxy at a speed not yet calculable by us slow-moving humans.

That’s what the blogosphere is doing.

Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening. To see the incredible speed, it is sometimes necessary to step back and look. That’s what I was able to do in April, when I attended the third annual New Communications Forum, produced by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), where I serve on the advisory board.

During each of the past three years, the conference has expended fairly remarkably. The progress in corporate blogging seems to be moving at a glacial speed, until you step back and take the long view without any need for a Hubble Telescope.

I missed the 2005 NewComm Forum. I’m told about 100 people attended. Blog evangelists spewed fire and inspiration from the podium. The attending corporate communications folk explained why none of that could happen where they worked and consulted.

The corporate types talked about four human barriers in the enterprise:
» Lawyers who warned of risks
» IT people who talked about the perils of firewall incursions
» CFOs who wanted some way to measure ROI
» Senior communications officers who were in command and used that authority to exercise control

Fewer than 10 of these enterprise representatives said there were any blogs, wikis, podcasts or video blogs in their organizations. Another 10 said their company might play around with some new media experiment, but probably as a skunk works project.

The picture had changed by 2006. The number of attendees doubled to over 200. The number of blogs in the world had more than tripled to about 24 million. The number of Fortune 500 companies with employee bloggers had tripled from a miniscule two to a still microscopic six. Other social media projects had also advanced.

The corporate attendee message had changed from the “It can’t happen here” of 2005 to, “How do I make it happen here” in 2006.

A great deal had simultaneously occurred in the universe beyond New- Comm Forum. Blogs broke major stories in business, politics, terrorism, corporate malfeasance and much more. Many companies that allowed or encouraged blogging seemed to gain credibility, while many of those who disdained lost it, sometimes severely. Simultaneously, corporate marketing was noticing a loss in the effectiveness of a great many expensive campaigns. PR folk were discovering the traditional press was not as effective as it had been.

But there remained one constant. The same four corporate departments were voicing the same objections, perhaps a bit more weakly than before.

NewComm Forum 2007, attended by more than 400, showed once again a dramatic evolution from the prior year. Bloggers had tripled to over 60 million. Now the attendees were urging: “Help me make this work.” They heard answers from some of blogging’s brightest and most accomplished players. The key message: Do it in little spoonfuls.

The experts advised attendees to make their first blogging program one that presents the least disruption or risk. Perhaps make it an internal program; keep it inside the firewall. This way your corporate culture gets more comfortable with new media before expanding into the programs they will need in order to reach the next generation of customers.

Blogs were just one new media form discussed. J.D. Lasica described the rising tide of digital video. He talked about “screen casts” embedded in press releases where a company representative spoke directly to audiences. Corporate communications guru Shel Holtz talked about the safety of interactive podcasts.

The large number of corporate people at the conference made it clear that new media is the strategy they are using and it is working. Helping the enterprise get ankle deep in the blogosphere positions that enterprise to take the plunge.

From where they sit, corporate executives may feel very little motion, but things are changing at the speed of the universe.

Page 15

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

Microphones are to podcasters as shoes are to Sex in the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. However, my opinion about $1,000 microphones differs from Carrie’s predilection for Prada. If I pay $1,000 for a microphone, I’d better sound like James Earl Jones when I speak into it, and it had better edit in real time any mistakes I make!

Oh yeah, and it should cook me breakfast, give me foot massages, and pay my web-hosting bills, too.

The more I think about this analogy, the more I find that microphones have in common with shoes. Shure is the industry standard but there are many other mic vendors. Not everyone is a Nike runner, and some people find that a less-mainstream brand of sneaker, like Saucony, provides better lap times. And should you go with the best and most expensive, or should you take baby steps into a brave new world and make your first microphone a cheap one?

If you’re at the beginning of your podcasting career, there’s nothing wrong with going cheap. Just remember: you get what you pay for. When I first started recording segments for The Dragon Page (before it was known as Cover to Cover), I was using a $20 Logitech USB microphone, and it performed as I would expect a $20 microphone to perform. My voice dropped out completely when I hit P or T sounds too hard, and I often had to rerecord segments due to a sudden drop in volume. When I did manage to get audio, my voice sounded brighter than it does in real life. The Logitech was cheap, but it served its purpose. I eventually recorded with it, after a lot of trial and error.

When I decided to host my own podcast, I wanted higher-quality sound. Farpoint Media’s Mike Mennenga recommended many different components for a starter podcast studio, including the MXL 990, a condenser microphone. The MXL produced a far cleaner, more realistic reproduction of my voice; and it traveled well, so I had no problems taking it with me on the road. The MXL was (and remains) reliable, sturdy, and a terrific investment at $60.

Another way to shop for a microphone, whether it’s making the jump from an inexpensive USB mic or upgrading to something better, is to try it on. (Again, the shoe analogy serves us well.) Record something with the microphone recommended to you, and then compare the results to recordings made with your current mic.

When I was ready to upgrade, I contacted Mike again, and asked which mic he thought would be best for my voice. Without hesitation, he recommended the AKG Perception line. “I use a couple of AKGs in my studio and you sound great in them,” he told me.

I took a listen to my last in-studio appearance on Mike’s Wingin’ It, compared it to my own recordings, and soon after picked up an AKG Perception 200. I have been thrilled with its performance.

Other podcasters are invaluable resources when you’re mic shopping. Podcasters love to talk about their equipment. (Insert your own randy innuendo here.) They will not hold back their opinions — be they positive or negative. So when a podcaster blasts a particular microphone, take it with a grain of salt. Ask your favorite shows’ hosts why a certain mic works for them; and then, after collecting a few suggestions, check out peer reviews on retail sites like Zzounds.com, BSWUSA.com, and Musician’s Friend (musiciansfriend.com).

If you’re looking for more on mics, how to shop for them, and what to listen for in performance, I’ve got good news: there are plenty of podcasts about microphones (and other audio equipment), and all of their hosts would love to hear from you, asking for recommendations. (Instant show content, baby!) Mike Mennenga and Escape Pod’s Steve Eley host Podholes (podholes.com), a podcast about the engineering that goes into a podcast. Their topics cover everything from mics to mixers to MP3 compression. Inside Home Recording (insidehomerecording.com), hosted by Paul Garay and Derek K. Miller, also offers insight for home studio recording and how to keep your sound up to professional standards. GearCast (gearcast.blogspot.com) is a weekly audio magazine for audio and video enthusiasts. GearCast provides product reviews, and hosts roundtable discussions covering various issues and topics in digital audio and video production.

Your options, much like your selection in shoes — er, microphones — are many. With just a bit of research, you can find that mic that makes you sound like gold. But if you’re searching for a microphone that will make you sound like James Earl Jones, sorry. Audio technology only goes so far.

Page 17

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

While appearing on Today in Podcasitng earlier this year, I commented that I do not like pre-roll ads in podcasts, especially when the ads are done by someone other than the show’s host. I went on to say that I find prepackaged pre-roll ads more grating than fingernails on a chalkboard. I also said that I did not want to subscribe to any new shows containing pre-roll ads. Apparently “them are fighting words”. Sadly, some people took my comments as an attack on podcast networks or, in some cases, on a specific network. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think podcast networks are a good thing in general and that they help provide smaller shows with a chance to make some money.

For those not in the know, a pre-roll ad is an advertisement that is inserted into a show before the content, so that the first thing a listener hears is a commercial. In most ad insertion networks, these are advertisements that are produced by someone other than the host, and are heard on most shows in that network. Rather than providing specific ads to a podcaster for inclusion in the show, most podcast networks automate ad insertion at the time the show is downloaded. If you listen to lots of podcasts, you may wind up hearing the same pre-roll ad 10, 20 or even 30 times in a week. Come to think of it, maybe Chinese water torture would have been a better analogy than fingerhnails on a chalkboard.

Hearing an ad at the start of a show is not just annoying, it is also not very effective, in my humble opinion. Why place an ad at a point where the listener already has his or her finger on the controls? It’s much too easy to skip forward. So if listeners are skipping the ads because it is easy to do, sponsots are not going to see the results they had hoped for from podcast advertising. They will get the idea that podcasting is a bad medium to be in, and will move on. This is bad for all podcasters.

On the subject of advertising credibility, I agree with Leo Laporte from This Week in Tech. I believe the most effective ads are the ones read during a show by the host, not ads produced by others and inserted into the podcast.

I know there are good reasons to auto insert dynamic ads. It’s an easy way to target location-based, or time-sensitive messages. That’s not possible with an ad recorded by the host when the podast was produced. These static ads will be present and unchanged many months after the show’s release, when it is still being downloaded, regardless of whether the ad is still relevant or even generating revenue for the host.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Do you really want that first impression of your show to be an overplayed, poorly executed cookie cutter ad? After I criticized pre-rolls, many listeners to my own show sent emails and voicemails telling me about shows they stopped listening to because of them. Even podcasters with pre-rolls in their shows sent emails saying they did not like them. Ponder this: if listeners do not like pre-rolls, and podcasters do not like pre-rolls and pre-rolls are not very effective for advertisers, why are podcasters and networks using them? Sadly the answer is that inserting preroll ads is easy for networks to do. And it’s also what advertisers are asking for.

Ad networks need to work on educating the advertisers. It’s not an easy task to tell a potential customer they are clueless and at the same time ask for business. But you are not creating a long-term relationship with advertisers or listeners by accepting advertising that is doomed to failure. To counter the argument that pre-rolls are easy, I think it is time we come up with an RSS tag for the item element of a podcast feed that will tell an ad network at what time point to insert a commercial. That way, the ad could be placed precisely where it fits in the show, and the podcaster would remain in control of the insertion process. One thing I learned early in life is that it is always best to pick your insertion point rather than let someone else pick it for you.

Page 19

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

It’s Wednesday night in a Boston suburb. Two friends sit across from one another, sipping cosmos and talking about their day, the season finales of their favorite TV shows and how Erin’s kids keep locking her out of the car. There’s a laptop, a mixer and a pair of microphones on the coffee table, with a blanket beneath to absorb sound. Somehow, the house is quiet, despite the fact that toddlers live there. It’s recording night for The Manic Mommies, a two-year-old podcast for moms “trying to do it all…and do it well.”

In a Virginia living room, Paige Heninger and Gretchen Vogelzang are also recording. MommyCast, one of the earliest parent-focused podcasts, has passed its 200th episode. Here, the subject matter sticks a bit closer to parenting, and to topics like adoption and preterm birth. But with seven kids between them, and a podcast that’s been in the spotlight for most of its run, it’s safe to say that Heninger and Vogelzang know a little something about being manic, too.

For podcast trend-spotters eager to see the medium attract commercial sponsors, MommyCast has been a beacon. The show landed one of the first major sponsorship deals in podcasting when Dixie Paper Products inked a one-year deal to sponsor the show for a reported $100,000. The Mommy- Casters have also been visible at industry conferences and tradeshows, telling the MommyCast story, and attracting the attention of major new media players.

The tone and subject matter are a bit different, but Manic Mommies and MommyCast have both defied podcasting stereotypes, not only because they are produced by women, but also by being enjoyed by a largely female, non-tech-savvy audience. Each show has also attracted sponsors, another podcasting rarity, along with mainstream media attention that has arguably been good for podcasting in general, as well as for the moms.

But podcasting is not a static medium, and as mainstream awareness grows, it’s clear that there’s room for more than two momhosted podcasts. Mighty Mommy, hosted by Cherylyn Feierabend, is only five months old, and already sits in the Top 10 of the Kids & Family rankings of the iTunes podcast directory — a ranking that measures new subscribers, rather than overall listenership. The five-minute weekly show, which Feierabend writes and produces from her Mesa, Ariz., home, is a member of the Quick and Dirty Tips (formerly QDNow) network, whose flagship show, Grammar Girl, is podcasting’s latest ground-up success story.

It seems that moms have a lot to say, and podcast listeners want to hear it.

MommyCast: The Original

When marketing and advertising executive Paul Vogelzang decided in January 2005 that he needed to learn about the new podcasting medium, he mentioned it to his wife, Gretchen, who almost immediately had a light-bulb moment: what about a show for moms called MommyCast, hosted by Gretchen and her friend Paige? By March, the northern Virginia moms had a show going — the first episode appeared a week after Heninger gave birth to her fifth child — and by June, when Apple’s iTunes 4.9 introduced podcasting to a much wider audience, MommyCast (www.mommycast.com) had already been approached by PodShow founder Adam Curry to join the new podcast network. When iTunes launched on June 29, MommyCast was a featured show, with episodes hosted on Apple’s servers. Traffic soared, and PodShow could point to a network member whose demographic diverged from the network’s entertainment, tech and music shows aimed at younger, and more often male, audiences.

The show’s success took Gretchen Vogelzang by surprise. “Really in the back of my mind I’m thinking, ‘I’m just going to help my husband learn about this medium. We’re going to do a few shows and it’s really going to be a lot of fun and then I’m sure that’ll be the end of it.’ I really didn’t have any long-term intentions in mind when we started it. But it was very quick the way the show kind of took off.” Even before iTunes and PodShow, Mommy- Cast had early and unexpected success, when a chance decision to review the movie March of the Penguins on the show led to interviews with actor Morgan Freeman, who narrated the film, and Alex Wurman, who wrote the score. On the 200th episode of MommyCast, Heninger and Vogelzang told the story of calling Warner Independent to get permission to use music and images from the film, which the pair loved. The studio agreed, made Freeman and Wurman available, and partnered with MommyCast, which promoted the film. A quote in the MommyCast media kit from Warner Independent’s executive vice president of marketing and publicity credits the promotion with “25 percent of our March of the Penguins walk up attendance.”

The move to PodShow, a company that emphasizes sponsorship by national brands, and an appeal to the largest possible audience, seemed like a good one for both parties, especially when MommyCast announced that it had inked an advertising deal with Dixie in November 2005 for a reported $100,000. Many in the podcasting community assumed that PodShow had brokered the deal, though Vogelzang says that wasn’t the case. She says Dixie approached the show, and that the deal was outside of the PodShow relationship.

In the fall of 2006, MommyCast quietly split from PodShow. When asked about the relationship, Vogelzang was cryptic and diplomatic. “I really am not permitted to talk about what happened. It was just a mutual kind of decision. They were going in a direction that just didn’t work for us, and so we just decided that it was time for us to finish the relationship and end it.”

The Dixie sponsorship, which began in March 2006, was recently renewed for a second year. Other MommyCast sponsors include Nesquik, Cytyc (which produces a kit to test for potential preterm labor) and Oral B. Vogelzang says she increased production from two to three shows per week to accommodate the larger number of sponsors.

Moms Workin’ It

Like the MommyCasters, Erin Kane and Kristin Brandt’s decision to begin podcasting was a quick one. Manic Mommies (www.manicmommies.com), a podcast for working mothers, began in July 2005 as an experiment: “a way to figure out podcasting” says Brandt. She and Kane, who work in public relations and marketing, wanted to understand the medium. Brandt, the self-confessed geek of the pair, was eager to learn how to produce a show technically.

Manic Mommies started as a monthly show and is now produced weekly. Kane and Brandt have released 71 episodes. With topics ranging from relationships to primetime TV and favorite magazine articles, many of the show’s episodes sound like a conversation you might overhear at lunch during a “mom’s day out.” And there are a lot of laughs.

“[We’re] focused on what life is like for working moms. We try to be very honest about our failures and our successes. We try to inject a lot of humor into what could be a mind-numbing schedule,” Brandt says.

Though it began as a chat session between the two hosts, the show now mostly features interviews with experts who discuss relationships, using flextime at work, life coaching, time management and other “grown-up” issues.

“We really don’t want to be a kid show. We want to be a show for working parents,” Brandt says, noting that she and Kane have almost always been able to snag the guests they want to hear from. “I think the quality has remained high as our show has gained popularity.” And with longevity has come recognition in the rest of the media world. “We are definitely on lists…for publicists now.” An early coup was having Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity on the show. She was eager to appear on a podcast, Brandt says, as a way to learn about new media. Leading from the Front author Courtney Lynch, and Tori Johnson, workplace contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America, are also among past guests. And despite being a generally adult-focused show, Brandt has also invited her children’s pediatrician on the show to answer listeners’ questions, as well as children’s book authors.

ITunes smiled on Manic Mommies as it had on MommyCast. When Apple rearranged its podcast categories to create the Kids & Family genre, Manic Mommies got a featured spot on the page, and despite competing with mainstream media shows from Disney and HBO, among others, has kept up a consistent Top-25 ranking. Brandt also points to Manic Mommies’ 120 plus reviews on iTunes as both a sign of listener loyalty and validation for potential new listeners.

Brandt says Manic Mommies averages 125,000 downloads per month, and 3,500 downloads for each show.

Though Manic Mommies has not achieved the notoriety of MommyCast, nor the marquee sponsorship, the show has attracted its share of attention from media, including The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal, and has had intermittent sponsorship deals. A shortterm sponsorship with organic fruit snack maker FruitaBu began in June.

Earlier this year, they entered into a one-time arrangement with Yes to Carrots that sent Brandt and Kane to Los Angeles for a visit to the set of the CBS series The New Adventures of Old Christine. Sponsorship was needed, Brandt says, because the network did not pick up the tab for the trip.

Five Minutes of Parenting

At an Arizona Podcasters’ group meetup earlier this year, Cherylyn Feierabend and Mignon Fogarty began talking about expanding Fogarty’s podcast network to include short shows on a variety of topics. Feierabend mentioned that she might like to do one about parenting, and Fogarty eagerly agreed. In February, Feierabend, who also hosts a “couplecast” called Love Long and Prosper with her husband Dan, launched Mighty Mommy (mightymommy.qdnow.com) on the Quick and Dirty Tips Network. True to the network’s format, the weekly show is usually under five minutes, carefully scripted, and features “quick and dirty tips for better parenting.”

Partly because of the broad appeal of the subject matter, and partly because of its association with Fogarty’s network, Mighty Mommy quickly reached the top spot in iTunes Kids & Family category — a position it held for several weeks — and remains in the Top 15. Feierabend says the show receives approximately 5,000 downloads per episode.

“I know that the numbers drive a lot of forces, but I don’t see it as a driving force for me. I just like getting information out there and interacting with people,” Feierabend says.

She develops the content, and produces the show with a post-production assist from her husband. Feierabend also works for Fogarty, collecting and managing statistics for the network.

With children ages one and three, Feierabend is active in local parenting groups, and teaches music classes to children in her home. Because she had been podcasting for awhile before launching Mighty Mommy, she felt comfortable with the medium. She says she saw Mighty Mommy as an extension of what she was already doing as a parent and teacher. She has produced 16 Mighty Mommy episodes so far.

Her goals for the show revolve around content: tips for parents of teens and preteens, and multi-episode discussions of big topics like potty training.

Feierabend says her show has not yet acquired sponsors, but she would be happy if it did. It’s likely that sponsorship opportunities would come through her association with the Quick and Dirty Tips Network, which has made short-term sponsorship deals in the past, initially for Grammar Girl. The network’s consistent format, branding and visuals — from Web sites to logos — are reminiscent of what book publishers like Wiley have done to create easily identifiable series of titles including the successful Dummies books.

Crossing Moms’ Geek Barrier

While it’s too simplistic to say that moms, and women in general, are not predisposed to embrace technology, podcasting moms have struggled with the fact that many of their peers either lack the interest or the time to learn how to find and subscribe to podcasts, or to sync an MP3 player.

The MommyCast web site features a page that defines podcast-related terms like “subscribe” and “RSS” and walks listeners through the process of subscribing or listening within their browser. Vogelzang says many moms learn about the show from their husbands.

“Most of the women who listen to our show listen because their husbands have fixed it up for them; have found it, or gotten them an iPod and uploaded MommyCast for them and gotten them started that way,” she says.

Feierabend agrees that dads are generally more comfortable with podcasting than moms, especially moms she meets in person through her parenting activities.

“When I start talking about what I do — I do this podcast — they just kind of look at me with these blank stares,” she offers.

Moms also often find themselves a few steps behind technologically, which limits the flexibility of podcasters who want to reach them, says Vogelzang. “What we’re finding also is that they’re several iPod generations behind what’s out there now, because they get the hand-me-downs from their kids or their husbands.”

For MommyCast, that means continuing to produce both MP3 and m4a (enhanced podcast) versions of each show. Apple’s enhanced podcast format, which is compatible only with fourth and fifth-generation iPods, allows producers to include bookmarks and photographs in their episodes.

According to Brandt, the Manic Mommies audience may be ahead of the technology curve because working moms are using technology more during the day. “Working moms have more opportunities to use technology because they are commuting or are listening on their computer. We have quite a few graphic designers and they say they listen while the arty side of their brain is doing their work and they need something to keep the other side of their brain going.”

“If you’re a stay-at-home mom, you don’t have the opportunity to be sitting at a computer or loading up an iPod,” she speculates.

Feierabend, who says she’s very comfortable with computers herself, is a bit frustrated when trying to intro-duce new moms to her show. “I hear more often than anything else ‘I use my computer for email’.” To overcome the disconnect between owning a PC and finding podcasts, she has burned CDs for potential listeners to play in their cars or home computers.

“I think the only other way to get people to try things like that would be to give them a CD…and then have it be in a location where somebody can pick one up and put it in their car or in their CD player at home, and have a couple of shows so they get hooked. And then have instructions with it…here’s what to do if you want to hear more.”

Vogelzang also believes that busy moms, regardless of their tech savvy, don’t find podcasts because they simply don’t have time to look for them. But she also says that media trends that have eroded broadcast ratings work to the advantage of podcasting, and require producers to work to get and keep an audience.

“If I’m going to sit down and listen to a show, it really needs to be worth my time. I think what we do see is kind of a movement away from traditional media in a lot of different directions. I think more moms now are getting information from the Internet than ever before. More moms now are forming an opinion that they want to listen to or see what they want to see, and not what networks are willing to dish out to them.”

Activating Listeners

Most podcasters spend some time wondering how to move listeners from content consumer to participant, if only by sending email or perhaps a voicemail. All of the podcasting moms we spoke to say both methods have been important sources of feedback about show content, as well as an indication of who is listening, and how attentively.

Controversial topics tend to bring out emails, the podcasters say, and many listeners ask questions that become content for the show. Vogelzang says a listener’s email about a child’s peanut allergy led MommyCast to find an expert on the topic, and build a show around the question.

Feierabend, whose show is still relatively new, says most of her feedback comes from dads, and that she is trying to build a more interactive relationship with her audience. Like the others, she offers a voicemail line and an email address for contacting the show.

Kane and Brandt say their listeners’ involvement has been crucial to their success. Brandt sounds almost maternal when she talks about “our moms” and how they interact with the show. “That’s the thing that really astounds me: the engagement level of the audience. They’re so engaged, which I love, but it means that if you say something they don’t like, you’re going to hear about it.”

Each Manic Mommies episode gets four or five voicemails, and Kane, who’s in charge of listener interaction, fields five or six emails from listeners each day, plus contacts from publicists and others looking to use the show as a PR vehicle. In addition to direct communication with the show, Manic Mommies offers listeners a forum on gather.com, a social-networking site. Brandt feels it’s important to give listeners a chance to talk to one another.

The pair is currently planning a Manic Mommies Escape, a weekend getaway for listeners, to be held in Newport, R.I., in November. They are seeking sponsors who will help subsidize events during the weekend. “Our goal is to help our moms,” says Brandt. “And we really feel like in many ways moms (and working moms maybe a little more) don’t take time out for themselves. They’ll take time off because it’s school vacation…or because someone’s sick, but they very rarely take a couple of days for themselves to meet other working mothers,” says Brandt.

Parenting Payday

To varying degrees, sponsorship is on the agenda at Mighty Mommy, Manic Mommies and MommyCast. But as they seek sponsors, or mull offers, all say they want to be sure the company or product is a good fit for their audience, not simply a windfall for the show.

“We’re very careful to choose sponsors…of products we know we can stand behind. Moms…are very discriminating, and they know when you’re not being sincere about a particular product.” Vogelzang says MommyCast has turned down sponsors for that reason.

Brand and Kane have used podcast networks and advertising brokers to identify potential sponsors: they maintain a Podtrac listener survey on their site, and have refused some offers from sponsors they felt didn’t speak to their demographic. And survey results confirmed the mismatch between sponsors Brands says “just were not appropriate based on what we knew about our listener base.”

According to Brandt, “We’re very careful that whoever we talk to really adds value to our listeners. It has to match the demographic. It can’t be so far off the charts that it looks like we’re trying to cash in.”

Podcasting hasn’t yet lived up to its potential, says Brandt, partly because advertisers and their agencies still don’t know how to work with podcasters to promote their brands, and podcasters are stuck using networks and advertising brokers that don’t provide enough money to justify incorporating ads.

“I feel like at some level, podcasts are still undervalued. When I see what a Podtrac is willing to pay, to me it’s not worth it. I’d rather wait and really establish a solid partnership with a good corporate sponsor that’s going to bring some value and also understand the value of reaching out to our audience,” she says.

For every podcaster looking to get rich, or simply quit a dull day job, MommyCast offered an early example of how to turn a desirable demographic into a corporate-sponsorship deal. And for podcast enthusiasts and promoters looking to extend the reach of the medium outward from the geeky, male province where it’s been stuck, shows produced by moms have been a further sign of podcasting’s potential to gain much wider acceptance. It remains to be seen whether other mom-produced shows will duplicate the financial success of MommyCast, but for now, their producers are enjoying the ride and talking about the things that matter most. And they don’t seem to be worried about the content well running dry. “I think we’ll run out of content maybe when all the kids are out of the house,” says Vogelzang.

Pages 20-27

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

By Ralph Mucci

It is possible to get yourself and your podcast not only noticed, but sponsored by major broadcast networks. I know because I did it.

But before I tell you how I came to partner with a Fox Network television show, let me stress that there are some prerequisites to have in place — things you might either take for granted or never consider.

Some are obvious, such as having decent audio quality and “owning” your niche market. Others are less tangible, such as conducting yourself properly for the situation.

First and foremost you must believe in yourself, and you must convey confidence at all times. Television network executives and even their junior staff don’t want to deal with someone who isn’t even sure they can execute a project. Modesty has no place in the kind of negotiations that take place in show business. Remember that.

In addition, you must be tactful and somewhat persistent and, most importantly, never let anyone intimidate you. This goes for any line of business, of course, where busy people often whittle down the list of talented prospects by making it appear impossible for someone to make a pitch and then diligently follow up on it. Again, having an air of self-assurance will help you.

We began The Wedding Planning Audiocast in November 2006, offering an expanded focus and concentration on an array of wedding-planning programming. Our guests have been some of the biggest names in the wedding-industry world and most of them, if not all, have worked with countless numbers of celebrities. We have a unique marketing niche and we play up our offerings as the best possible advice, secrets and tips to our future brides and grooms because of those guests.

When seeking sponsorships, it’s important that a show host be upbeat and that the podcast producers capture the listener’s attention within the first 12 seconds of the show. To that end, we’ve incorporated a unique show opener for our niche. We chose not to use conventional wedding music, but rather a sound that is totally different. Unlike traditional pieces that are heavy on organs and pianos, our opening music has an electronic edge. It signals to listeners this is a thoroughly modern show — as is our approach to wedding planning.

The subject and content should be as interesting as possible and you should try to obtain the best possible guests based on the topic of discussion. Be different and unique — and I can’t stress this enough — if you have competition. Periodically check on your competition to see what others have been doing, but never obsess over it. Your goal should be to let it be the other way around and have the competition constantly thinking about your business.

Call it luck if you will, but one day I received an Associated Press wire alert that Fox5 a TV station in the metropolitan New York area would be debuting a new comedy about wedding planners. The Wedding Bells was to be written by David E. Kelly, the man behind such television hits as The Practice, Picket Fences and Boston Legal and would air immediately following ratings darling American Idol.

I read the AP wire and realized that if I’m doing a show about wedding planning with top industry leaders as guests, then why not approach Fox5 and ask them to sponsor our weddingplanning show?

That inspiration was immediately followed by a lot of perseverance and determination. After several voice messages and emails to Fox5’s publicrelations department in New York, I finally received a call back a week later. The PR rep, in turn, directed me to Fox’s network headquarters in Los Angeles.

I then called Fox in LA and after several more calls to different individuals, hit on the person who handled public relations for this particular show. By first trying the local affiliate, I was able to get and give specific names to help open doors.

Finally, after several more email correspondences back and forth, I received a call from Fox5 headquarters in Southern California. I introduced myself as the executive producer and proceeded with confidence speaking about the type of show we produce and the guests that have appeared on prior shows. Then I suggested — I did not ask — that this would be a good fit for sponsorship.

I had their attention.

The show folks asked me to provide them with a web link so they could review some of our shows. Let me mention that Fox, like most major businesses, has certain company and industry standards and unless you meet those standards they will decline.

One item they were sure to evaluate was the quality of our guests. It’s worth mentioning that A-list guests aren’t always easy to come by. Don’t be fooled by the notion that you can obtain any guest you desire to appear on your show because it’s free publicity for them. People don’t want to risk their hard-earned reputations to appear on a show that doesn’t have its finger on “the pulse.” As harsh as it may sound, it’s reality.

After waiting two long weeks while the network evaluated our shows and weighed our request to do business together, I finally got a call from Fox with an approval of sponsorship and we worked out all the details to make it happen.

A word of caution: get everything in writing right down to the smallest detail. It may seem obvious, or it may be that you gained verbal approval already, but get in writing the conditions for using any pictures, quotations and audio files. For example, we received audio clippings from the show and our contract expressly permitted our using them for as long as the TV show aired. Even if you obtain verbal permission, it needs to be included in the contract to avoid someone later accusing you of copyright violations.

The Wedding Bells ended its run earlier this year, but the experience helped provide our podcast team with the confidence to pursue other big sponsors. Some have expressed sincere interest in working with us. If all goes well, this could be, as the expression goes, a marriage made in heaven.

Pages 28-30

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

By Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos

The following is an edited excerpt from the book Blogging for Business (2006, Kaplan) about how businesses can best use new media. Here, the authors specifically address monitoring the blogosphere to find, read and appropriately react to what people are saying about you or your company. A recent interview with the authors begins on page 36.

Honesty is a wonderful thing, and on the Internet and especially blogs, it is essential. It’s hard to lie or exaggerate when just about anyone in the entire world can stop by at any time and read what you’re saying. The whole world can correct you if you’re lying—someone will know.

Even if comments are not enabled on your blog, people will comment on their own blogs. Other people will link and comment on other people’s posts, and soon the whole world will know you’re lying. If you’re really stupid and dishonest about it, heads will probably roll.

You certainly don’t need a blog for a blogger to attack you. If the attack resonates, it takes only a day or two for word to spread. An intense negative blog swarm, as it is sometimes called, can do immense damage. A blog swarm occurs when many blogs, perhaps even thousands, start posting negative material on a subject and feed off each other’s energy, commenting on each other’s opinions and facts that are discovered.

Negative blog storms have been responsible for damage to ex-Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, CBS News’ ex-anchorman Dan Rather, CNN’s exnews director Eason Jordan and New York Times ex-editor Howell Raines. In particular, they are responsible for the “ex” part of those men’s titles.

There is a growing number of cautionary tales of the consequences of a blog swarm. CBS News’ “Rathergate”fiasco is one. CBS had obtained some potentially damaging yet fake documents pertaining to President George W. Bush. It continued to defend the documents blindly despite increasingly overwhelming evidence from the blogosphere that the documents were false. The damage to its brand was significant and its viewership significantly shrank in the aftermath.

On the business side, consider the story of Kryptonite, a company that makes high-end bicycle locks. A bicyclist figured out how to pick the locks with the back end of a Bic pen and posted his discovery to a bicycling message board. It was read by a blogger who posted the lock hack to his blog. Other bloggers read the item and posted their own items linking back to the original blogger’s post. Soon, another blogger shot a video of himself picking the lock.

This was picked up by Engadget, one of the A-list blogs read by hundreds of thousands of people. The story found its way into the mainstream press within a day of Engadget’s post.

If intense negative comments start to surface, they need to be dealt with swiftly and honestly. The luxury of at least a little time to which organizations are accustomed does not exist in the blogosphere. Denying accusations categorically and insulting bloggers is exactly what CBS did, and it obviously didn’t work. Kryptonite continued to assess the situation and strategize a response, while the situation got more and more out of hand every day they waited. Transparency and honesty will minimize damage. Admit mistakes—you will not be able to hide them.

This does not mean, however, that you need to respond to each and every item that swarms through the blogosphere. Each instance warrants its own analysis in order for you to arrive at the best judgment. For example, consider the case of retailer Target, the focus of some blog swarming. The company never responded, and in this instance, not responding was the right approach to take.

Amazon.com provides the infrastructure for Target’s online store via its Web Services offering. The store sold many books online, but they didn’t display in the Target design the same way they did on Amazon’s site. A search for the word “marijuana” on Target’s site revealed text that read:

Marijuana
$25.25

Of course, Target wasn’t selling pot. It was the title of a book, but the way the information — all pulled from a database — appeared on the page did not make this clear. A screenshot of the page quickly made its way through the blogosphere, and Steve Rubel — an Alist PR blogger — called it a PR crisis.

But the mainstream media never picked up on the story and it just as quickly vanished from the radar screen. The reason: absolutely nobody thought Target was actually selling marijuana. The authorities didn’t raid the place and stoners didn’t place their orders. Something else was clearly the cause of this error, so nobody got too worked up. Ultimately, a few bloggers figured out what the truth was by finding the book on Amazon.com, and they posted their findings.

Target, for its part, remained silent. Not a word about the issue was uttered by its PR staff or other representatives. Their judgment appears to have been right; there was no need to respond.

When you do respond, you also have to figure out which form that response will take. In most instances when you are under assault, there is nothing to be gained by engaging in the discussion and subjecting yourself to immediate attacks. It is best to use more traditional channels. The recent case of the Apple iPod Nano illustrates the wisdom of this approach.

In September 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs stunned the marketplace with the introduction of the Nano, an ultrasmall, ultrathin version of Apple’s wildly successful digital media player. The Nano instantly began flying off store shelves. It didn’t take long, though, before reports started circulating through the blogosphere that the Nano screen was easily scratched and the damage so severe that it was impossible to view information or artwork displayed on the screen.

One dissatisfied customer created a web site, www.flawedmusicplayer.com. He received more than 30 emails per hour at one point, many with photos of people’s damaged iPods. Blogs of all kinds reported on the issue; a search on Feedster using the keywords “Nano” and “scratches” produced over 3,100 posts.

Apple took about four days before responding, which it did through normal media contact. A press release generated interviews between reporters and Apple spokespersons. The mainstream media covered the announcement that Apple believed only about one-tenth of 1 percent of all the Nanos made were affected, and that those who had bought a defective Nano would get a replacement.

Matthew Peterson, who created the complaint site, removed all the content, replacing it with the headline “Apple does the right thing.”In his introduction to the replacement narrative, Peterson wrote, “For me personally this issue is over. I took down the web site of my own accord. I started the site to get Apple’s attention. Mission accomplished.”

The issue, then, had spread through the blogosphere, but Apple never had to use the blogosphere to address it.

Of course, if the attack is malicious and unjustified, you have the option of turning to your lawyers. The case would have to be particularly egregious to warrant this extreme, no matter how much you might want to sue somebody who attacks you or posts inaccurate information about you. Let’s look at the reactions to the way two companies handled a similar situation.

When two blogs dedicated to Apple’s Macintosh computer posted leaked information about products in development, Apple responded by suing the bloggers — one of them a 19-year-old college student — to reveal the names of the Apple employees who had leaked the information. Apple is a popular company among bloggers but was nevertheless vilified for its action, which was condemned by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided pro bono counsel to the bloggers.

Sun Microsystems also experienced leaks by employees. At Sun, the problem was handled entirely differently. Its chief executive officer, Jonathan Schwartz — also the company’s highest-ranked blogger — posted an appeal to employees on his blog. “For the sake of your colleagues around Sun, please do not share Sun’s confidential information.

There have been a few instances in recent weeks where crucial data and photos were leaked from Sun. It probably sounds counterintuitive, but this actually harms Sun’s business,” Schwartz wrote. He added (in addition to other commentary), “As you know, I’m a huge believer in ‘opening’ Sun to the world — that’s what this blogs.sun.com infrastructure is all about — transparency is one our best competitive weapons. But the unauthorized sharing of Sun confidential information is illegal, and against company policy.”

This was a remarkable approach to the issue. In a display of complete transparency, Schwartz posted the note to his public blog, knowing it was widely read by employees. Schwartz and Sun came off looking enlightened and employees got the message to knock off the leaks. This was a far better approach than Apple’s.

Others Will Monitor Your Blogs

It is also important to realize that competitors, customers and others can monitor anything you or your company say. Although it is possible to have a “private” blog, one behind a firewall or with other limited access, most blogs are extremely public. When the public nature of blogs is combined with their informal writing style, occasionally “slips” are made. These can be broken down into two types of mistakes: ones where inappropriate company information is released; and ones where inappropriate personal topics are discussed or inappropriate personal information is publicized.

A company-specific mistake is made when a blogger releases information that is not supposed to be public information. This might be upcoming product plans, internal financial numbers, customer-specific information or just about anything else. Bloggers need guidelines about which company information is appropriate to blog about, and more companies are releasing blogging policies that encompass appropriate company-specific guidelines.

An equally or maybe even more common problem occurs when bloggers write about inappropriate topics or release inappropriate personal information. This can be either in a personal blog or on company blogs. There need to be guidelines (i.e., a blogging policy) as well as an application of common sense.

Bloggers have been fired for what companies considered inappropriate blogging, including some very highprofile cases. Employees have been fired for divulging information in their own personal blogs, including a flight attendant for a major airline who wore her uniform in some photos the airline deemed inappropriate, and a new employee for a search-engine company who blogged about a company event at which apparently an excess of alcohol was consumed.

People often are nastier and meaner in email than in person. Many a mild-mannered person occasionally releases surprisingly vitriolic emails, often entirely out of character. Blogs sometimes seem to raise this to an even higher and more inappropriate level.

Bloggers regularly release details of their personal lives they wouldn’t tell their closest friends, refer to their bosses by entirely inappropriate names, and say things they would never say in public. There needs to be a comprehensive and understandable blogging policy, an application of common sense, a realization that blogs are public and a distinction between public and private lives.

Even if a blogger has an anonymous blog, releasing too many personal details can render that blog no longer anonymous. Spouses and bosses can realize they are being described (usually in less-than-flattering terms) and respond in undesired ways. More than one “anonymous” blogger has been fired for totally inappropriate and selfidentifying comments.

Search Engines

Search engines are extremely useful in monitoring what is being said in blogs. Several types exist, including generalpurpose search engines, blog-specific search engines and RSS search engines. It is important to realize that no search engine is perfect and it’s necessary to use more than one. A search on Google versus one on Yahoo! will differ dramatically both in what they return and in the order of what they return. The first page results on the major search engines show surprisingly little overlap. A search using Daypop, a current-events search engine, will typically return more timely information but will search significantly fewer sources. A search with Technorati, which searches only blogs, will return yet another different set of results.

Don’t expect any of these searches to be exhaustive, even for the types of sources in which they specialize. They can and will miss information at times, which necessitates using multiple search engines.

The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Together they comprise the large majority of Web searches. They index billions of pages each. Yahoo! is currently claiming 19.2 billion pages. Searching for your company name, executives’ names, and trademarks can reveal surprising information at times and is something you should do regularly.

Google Alerts will periodically email you when new occurrences of any search terms you specify are found.

Google Alerts can search news, the Web, both, or groups. News Alerts are generated when a search term is found in the top ten results of a Google News search, Web Alerts are generated when a search term is found in the top 20 results of a Google Web search, and Group Alerts are generated when a search term is found in the top 50 results of a Google Group search.

Search engines are continually changing and improving the ways they search and return results. There is an entire industry devoted to searchengine optimization, or SEO, which attempts to get high rankings for specific Web pages and Web sites in the search engines. Techniques continue to evolve as search-engine algorithms evolve. Getting a high ranking for popular search terms and products, which usually results in high visibility and traffic, is extremely difficult. Because search engines do not publicize their algorithms, SEO is seemingly partly magic. It’s important to distinguish between “natural” or “organic” search results and paid placements. Paid placements can be bought, while organic results cannot. Paid placements are essentially a form of advertising.

Most general search engines have paid placements, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN, as well as some specialized search engines, such as Technorati.

Technorati describes itself as the authority on what’s going on in the world of Web logs. It is a blog-specific search engine and currently tracks over 75 million blogs.

A Technorati Tag allows application of simple category or subject descriptions to blog posts, as well as links and photos. For example, I could decide to tag my posts on business blogging with the tag “bizblogging,” and my humorous posts as “humor” or “haha” or “funny” or anything I choose. Tags are not predefined but can be chosen on the fiy. Blogging software that supports categories will automatically include tag information in the RSS or Atom feed. Users of blog software that doesn’t support categories and RSS/ Atom feeds can still use tags by adding a small piece of code that defines a link to the HTML of a blog post. The general format is:

<a rel=””tag”” href=”http: //www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/magazine/wp-admin/”http://technorati.com/tag/[tagname]””>[tagname]</a>

For example the following code snippet added to a blog post tags it as “shave me,” a tag name made up as an example.

<a rel=””tag”” href=”http://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/magazine/wp-admin/”http://technorati.com/tag/shave” mce_href=”http://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/magazine/wp-admin/”http://technorati.com/tag/shave”>shave me</a>

The post will now display a link named “shave me” and clicking on it will display recent posts with the tag “shave me.”

Two additional features Technorati offers are a watchlist and a blog finder. Technorati Watchlist is a list of Technorati searches. As new matches for the search are found in the future, they are added to the watchlist. Watchlists can currently monitor URLs, which can represent a blog, as well as keywords. Watchlists can be accessed from a feedreader via an RSS feed or directly from Technorati.com.

In additional to Technorati search, Technorati also has a blog finder. Technorati Blog Finder returns entire blogs, instead of posts. Technorati Blog Finder is useful for finding blogs in areas in which you are interested, for example pharmacology, marketing and technology. This can be useful for finding blogs that focus on your industry or interests.

One is Nielsen BuzzMetrics’ Blog-Pulse (www.blogpulse.com). BlogPulse describes itself as an automated trenddiscovery system for blogs. It includes some fascinating tools such as Trend Search, Conversation Tracker and Blog-Pulse Profiles.

BlogPulse’s Trend Search lets you visually track “buzz” over time for certain key words, phrases or links. For example, we see that approximately 3.5 percent of all blog posts mentioned Hurricane Katrina in early September 2005, and approximately 0.5 percent by the end of September.

BlogPulse Conversation Tracker lets you track blogosphere conversations, which includes an original blog post, posts that have linked to it, posts that have linked to those posts, and so on. BlogPulse Profiles lets you get more information about a blog. A BlogPulse rank is based on incoming links from other blogs’ posts that are less than six months old. Links from blogrolls are not considered in a BlogPulse rank.

RSS search engines search only information in RSS feeds, and sometimes Atom feeds. Because most blogs implement feeds, these search engines can be very useful. It is important to realize however that not all blogs have their entire posts in their RSS feeds. Some may have only post titles or partial text, which will limit what is found.

Feedster (www.feedster.com), perhaps not surprisingly, also lets you subscribe to searches so you are notified about new matches as they are found. The new matches can be sent via email or RSS. This is similar to Technorati Watchlists.

Google Blog Search also lets you subscribe to searches so you are notified when new matches are found. The new matches can be accessed via RSS or Atom.

Monitoring Specific Blogs

Search engines are great for searching for specific words and phrases, including names of companies and people. However, sometimes we don’t want to search. We want to read specific periodicals, newspapers and books. Important blogs are now also on the “must read” list. For example, just as many investors read the Wall Street Journal, many software professionals read Scobleizer, Joel on Software and Slashdot. Many political pundits read Instapundit, Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, and many gadget lovers and those in the gadget industry read Engadget and Gizmodo.

There are a couple of major differences between traditional print media and blogs that affect your ability to monitor them: there are a lot more blogs, and they don’t publish on a regular schedule. Important bloggers may post several times a day, or only when they have something important to say. Both these differences make blogs potentially more difficult to keep up with. As many have said before, “So much information, so little time.” Information overload is a serious problem for most of us.

That’s where feedreaders, newsreaders or sometimes news aggregators come in handy.

They “read” RSS feeds you have expressed interest in by subscribing, and show you what’s new in those feeds. Because subscribing to an RSS feed merely means that your feedreader is reading an RSS feed for that site, there is no chance that subscribing will result in any kind of spam.

There are many popular feedreaders, including SharpReader (www.sharpreader.net), FeedDemon (http://www.bradsoft.com), and Feedreader (www.feedreader.com), which are standalone applications, and Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), Pluck (www.pluck.com), and My Yahoo!, which are web-based. The importance of blogs is rapidly increasing in business, and has reached the point that intelligent organizations need to be monitoring what is being said in the blogosphere. Your competitors probably are and so should you.

Pages 32-39

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

I was syncing my Blackberry with my laptop the other day and I kept getting an error that would not allow the operation to complete. Although I searched Blackberry’s help information, I found no solution. In the past, the problem would have stumped me for days. But thanks to the easy availability of blogs and wikis, I found a number of other people who had experienced the same problem. I got some ideas for a solution. I followed the easiest advice first and presto; my Blackberry was back up and running. Finding the solution was so seamless and fast that I unfortunately didn’t even note the blog link to pass along and praise here.

When my father and I tinkered with the family’s first computer, an Apple IIe, questions or problems would remain unresolved for days or weeks until we could either attend the local Apple user group meeting or travel to the store where we bought the computer for help.

During my college years at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I never could have imagined that the methods of conducting research would shift so dramatically; from going to the library and hoping that the books available would provide enough information to complete a research paper, to searching Google, or watching live video conferences with experts who are the actual sources of information on a topic. I can still remember writing my papers on a Radio Shack TRS-80 and trying to make sure that I selected download versus upload when I was transferring material to a computer for printing. There were no thumb drives in this world, in fact my 2 gigabyte USB thumb drive today seems unbelievable when I think of the 20 MB internal hard drive that came with one of the first laptops we owned.

Thinking back on these memories makes me aware how much improvements in technology have changed my life for the better. Some argue that technology isolates people from one another, but I see it differently. I see a world where people are becoming more closely connected because communication and information is increasingly available in real time, regardless of where someone might be in the world. I see blogs, podcasts, vlogs, wikis and other social media services as uniting the world around common beliefs rather than promoting isolation.

In addition to unification, the Internet is fostering an environment where anyone with a small investment in technology, whether it is a cell phone, PDA, laptop, or desktop PC can share their point of view and their experience with the world in a matter of seconds. No longer does it take massive financial resources to publish or broadly share an idea. This promotes diversity of opinion and true dialog on issues. It combats other media that use sound bites or talking points to shape people’s views.

Membership in the International Blogging and New Media Association (IBNMA) gives you a voice in the collective that we believe will shape the future for the better. Our beta website at www.IBNMA.org is online now. It provides blog space for open dialog and debate about current issues related to our industry.

For instance: do the free speech rights of military bloggers outweigh the need for secrecy in a time of war? Does the development of a bloggers’ code of ethics limit the freedom of expression that is central to our culture? Or, should bloggers enjoy the same kind of freedom-of-the-press protections that mainstream media expects? There is no one answer, but open dialog at www.IBNMA.org is a step toward finding common ground.

You’ll also find, tips, templates and action steps at the Web site to provide you with the resources necessary to communicate with government officials about the organization’s legislative positions, or take action to share your personal opinions with your elected representatives.

Breeding unity not isolation, stimulating intellectual dialog on many different viewpoints and supporting the development of the blogging and new media industry is crucial to the mission of the IBNMA. Only when we work together, are we able to promote the tools and technology that protect these newest forms of freedom of speech.

Page 45

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

Blogger & Podcaster: What one thing excites you most about the recent launch of WordPress 2.2?
Matt Mullenweg: The obvious big feature is widgets, which have been out for a while as a plugin. Some of that’s [now] in the core. I think that we’ll start to see the widget platform really accelerate.

B&P: How much of this version was influenced by the WordPress community and how much by your competitors?
MM: Basically, we don’t drive development by competitors too much. We have what’s called the ideas forum, (wordpress.org/extend/ideas), where people can suggest and vote on ideas in a Digg-like fashion. And it’s pretty interesting in terms of what bubbles to the top. That’s actually where we choose to focus the development. So it’s now entirely user-driven.

B&P: I understand you also refer to this as the Getz version, named after the jazz musician, Stan Getz?
MM: Yeah. We name every single major release after a jazz musician.

B&P: Which technologies, if any, can someone use to cut down on trolls and still keep blogging from being a oneway conversation?
MM: The best way to deal with sort of unsavory elements in any online community is to try and use just regular social methods first. Talk to the person, email them. I’m actually a big believer in moderation, so WordPress has an option where you can moderate comments from first-time commenters. I feel like that’s a pretty good balance of not impeding the flow of conversation, but still making sure those drive-by commenters don’t break a window on your blog or something.

I’ve seen some pretty cool techniques around something called “disenvowelment,”where you can leave the comment but remove all the vowels to indicate to the community that this is not acceptable behavior, but you’re not actually censoring or removing the comment.

B&P: You’ve said before that traffic isn’t as important as quality readership for blogs. Do you still believe that?
MM: Yeah. I do still agree with that.

B&P: How diligent have users been in bringing vulnerabilities to the Word-Press team’s attention versus how many have been able to exploit the flaws before they’ve been fixed?
MM: We put a release out as soon as humanly possible. It might seem like there [are] frequent updates, but that’s simply because we don’t try to batch or hide any issues. Most of the security community is pretty responsible and they contact us first before releasing something to the public. They’ll often release it the same day that we do a public release, but they’re not out to get anyone. We also pick up a fair amount of problems in our proactive security audits.

B&P: What makes you most happy about the bloggers who use your software?
MM: I’m always overjoyed when I see people using WordPress to do something that I would have never expected. At first, a couple of years ago, that was the pioneers who were using Word-Press as a content-management system. Now I might see people using it to spread knowledge about making your house green or to advance some social cause that I admire. It feels good that my software is being used for that.

B&P: How do you support yourself?
MM: I now have a company called Automattic (www.automattic.com). We offer a hosted version of the [WordPress] service and make money off upgrades to that, as well as off commercial licenses of our antispam technology, which is Akismet.

B&P: You’ve been pretty up front about getting the lion’s share of press attention because of your youth. Are you and the other developers still OK with that well-worn story line?
MM: People I talk to are very much aware of the wider community around WordPress, and that’s where the real magic is happening, so I wouldn’t say it’s really an issue at all.

B&P: You attend a lot of conferences and trade shows. Which question do you most fear being asked at a speaking engagement?
MM: I don’t know. I actually enjoy tough questions simply because they make you think a little more. I was at South By Southwest this year. I did a solo presentation, and someone remarked on the fact that I was wearing a blazer as opposed to just a t-shirt. They were, like, “Have you changed? Have you sold out?” That was a pretty tough question.

Page 46

Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007

We knew this project of ours would be greeted with cheers and jeers, and it’s the cheers coming from some influential people in the industry that have helped us get through some of those darker post-launch moments. They sincerely want us to succeed because they recognize the need for a publication to not only chronicle this “Web 2.0” movement but maybe help unite a fragmented community. We want to tap into that enormous space to highlight both current and rising stars, bring forth the best expert advice and track the latest trends to help make blogs and podcasts a viable, perhaps lucrative, line of business. It’s a tall order for a monthly whose readership prefers immediacy.

One thing that comes as no surprise is that people into self-publishing like to hear themselves talk. I mean that literally as well as figuratively, which is why this issue focuses mainly on the spoken word. Both bloggers and podcasters are gravitating to Internet-based talk shows to boost site traffic and build their own communities.
We picked two of the market leaders to show how best to incorporate this mode of outreach into strategic plans. We also asked experts how to enhance on-air presentations. Finally, once again we’ve managed to bring together some industry heavyweights to discuss ways of attracting a mass audience. You may discover you don’t have what it takes — nor want it.

There’s also much to be learned from our well-connected columnists, whose professionalism is much appreciated. Through their consistently good work, as well as that of our small staff, we hope to improve this magazine each and every month. Someday — perhaps soon — we’ll be seen as a much bigger player in new media, the one that succeeded in the face of so many obstacles if only because there were enough people who believed in it, and in us, and offered to help us produce more swan dives, not our swan song.

Page 5 

Blogger & Podcaster :: June 2007

Technorati’s New Rank and File

Technorati’s changed up the way it denotes who’s boss of the blogosphere.

In May the company began ordering the most popular sites based on unique linking of blogs in the last six months, rather than the number of total inbound links during that same time span. So, basically the Top 100 and beyond now are based on the number of blogs linking rather than blog links.

The company’s referring to this new ranking system as the “Technorati Authority.”

Even with the changeup, blogs atop the Technorati 100 at least initially remained the same: Engadget, Boing Boing, Gizmodo, Techcrunch and The Huffington Post. Where things might get more interesting is further down in the rankings — er, authority — list.

“The best way to increase your Technorati Authority is to write things that are interesting to other bloggers so they’ll link to you,” wrote Dorion Carroll, the company’s director of product development, on the company’s blog. “Linking to source material when you blog is also a great way to engage in conversation and help others find what you find interesting.”

There’s also a new widget you can include on your site to show folks just how popular — or not — you are at any moment.

Podcasters Link Up with Amazon

EPOIA Interactive Studios this spring launched a new Web-based podcast software and hosting service that lets podcasters make money by showcasing content-relevant Amazon products on their site.

Each purchase made using PodshowCreator ContentPay (www.podshowcreator.com/) earns the podcaster some of the revenue from that sale. Podcasters also can earn up to 10 percent in referral fees from revenue generated through their ContentPay-based storefronts.

The company said in a news release that “podcasts are increasingly being used by firms and individuals, including radio stations, consultants, educators, training personnel, bloggers, religious organizations
and travel companies, to achieve strategic business goals.”

Jaiku is Now “Official”

Microblogging site Jaiku (www.jaiku.com) opened its doors to the public officially on May 1. The Helsinki, Finland-based company was founded in 2006, and the Jaiku service (pronounced (jy-koo) has been up and running for several months. Jaiku has found itself in the shadow of Twitter, as the latter site gained both celebrity and popular buzz. But Jaiku has well-known fans, too, including This Week in Tech (TWIT) host Leo Laporte, who recently switched his microblogging activities from Twitter to Jaiku.

Like Twitter, Jaiku joins blogging and social networking by allowing users to make short posts that appear on their friend’s pages within the service. In Jaiku, friends are called Contacts. Comments on Jaiku posts are threaded, so people can keep up with a specific conversation. Jaiku users can also add RSS feeds, blogs, Flickr pages and even Twitter feeds to a Jaiku stream.

Here’s a tip for podcasters and bloggers: add your RSS feed to Jaiku. Your contacts will be notified, complete with link, when you post a new episode or blog entry.

Jaiku supports mobile phones via SMS, but the service doesn’t yet provide instant messaging access. The company says AOL and Yahoo Messenger support is “coming in the future.”

PodCorps Seeks to Build Community

The Conversations Network, a coalition of producers that records and podcasts technology conferences and other events, has launched PodCorps (www.podcorps.org).

The goal, according to Conversations founder Doug Kaye, is to build a community of volunteer podcasters who can record a variety of spoken-word events and make them available via podcast. In announcing PodCorps, Kaye was ambitious. “I urge every podcaster and videocaster to register at PodCorps.org. Tell us where you live and how you can help capture, preserve and publish those important spoken word events that would otherwise evaporate forever,” he wrote.

PodCorps is looking for 1,000 stringers to record audio and video. The site also offers event planners a place to advertise for stringers.

Stats Plugin Works with WordPress-hosted Blogs

Stats junkies who host blogs at wordpress.com now have a way to get their fix. Automatic Stats (wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats) installs when you enter your API key, and doesn’t impose a load on blog servers. Automatic Stats requires WordPress 2.1 or higher, and it’s free.

Podcast Gear Roundup

Podcasters who have had to bootstrap audio equipment to meet their needs now have a few more products designed specifically for what they do. Alesis’ (www.alesis.com) iMulti-Mix 8 USB mixer, expected to ship this fall, will feature eight input channels and an iPod dock, allowing you to record the mixer’s output to iPods that support recording, including the so-called “video iPod” and the second-generation iPod nano. You can also add iPod audio to a podcast mix. Belkin (www.belkin. com) announced a four-channel mixer with an iPod dock earlier this year. That one’s expected to ship this summer.

Nady Systems’ (www.nady.com) USB-24M is a dynamic USB mic with a street price under $30 (it retails for $70). Marshall Electronics (www.mxl.com), whose MXL 990 condenser mic has become a de facto standard for beginning podcasters, now offers a USB condenser. The MXL USB 006 ($129, street) is Mac- and Windows-compatible, provides a volume adjustment and has a 20 to 20,000 KHz dynamic range.

ÜberCaster from Pleasant Software for the People (www.ubercaster.com, $80) is a recording and show management application for the Mac. You can record, order clips, cue music and effects, and add album art and ID3 tags to create a finished podcast. ÜberCaster is shipping now.

 Pages 7-10

 Blogger & Podcaster :: June 2007

Can an ‘editor-less Web world’ truly bring about cultural enlightenment?

By Anne Saita

Blogs may be good for moving books, but do they actually move the people who write them? That was one of the questions that surfaced at several sessions during this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Basically, audiences — many full of bloggers — wanted to know if blogs were bad for business.

“I think everybody has a story to tell, but I’m not sure everybody has to tell it,”Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl, a National Public Radio contributor and author of Book Lust (Sasquatch, 2005), said diplomatically during one panel.

Pearl and others explained that stories told through blogs don’t undergo the same vetting process to shape and massage content and, as a result, messages sometimes get muddled or story threads unravel. Reader expectations differ too.

“Blogs lend themselves to increasingly short attention spans,” commented Debra Ginsberg, a San Diego-based memoirist who recently published Blind Submission: A Novel (Shaye Areheart Books, 2006) about the publishing industry.

One especially outspoken critic was Andrew Keen, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who founded Audio Cafe in the 1990s. He’s now a skeptic of the “democratization of new media”and what he describes as a culture of “digital narcissism”where people are obsessed with their own ideas.

In his new book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture (Currency, 2007), Keen warns of the consequences of a “flattened media” where both amateur and professional writers are given equal footing. “An editor-less media is, in my opinion, extremely dangerous,” he said during a panel on litblogs.

During a subsequent On-Hollywood conference debate with marketing executive Bill Cleary of Cleary & Partners and Justin Kan of Justin.tv, Keen explained that “blogs, because they’re unedited, are generally rather amateurish.”Then he added: “The reason I wouldn’t publish my book on a free site is because I needed editors — I needed editors to force me to write sort of a more muscular, coherent argument.

“To me, the biggest debate of all in the Web 2.0 conversation is: Do you want a media without editors? And that’s the blogosphere. I want editors because editors turn my amateurish work into something vaguely professional, and if we do away with editors, then we’re all amateurs.”

At the book festival, Keen had stressed that good content shouldn’t be given away. “If there really isn’t a coherent business model for this new class of blog or podcast, and you’re not a hobbyist, then someone ought to pay you.”

The central topic of that discussion was litblogs, those blogs focused on reviewing or promoting books — an online genre that is growing as book review sections in traditional newspapers are shrinking. And not everyone shared Keen’s dismissive attitude toward the blogosphere.

Ron Hogan founded the web site Beatrice.com as a platform for the interesting items and authors he came upon working at independent bookstores. Beatrice morphed into a blog that eventually led to two years as a staff-paid book reviewer at Amazon. He then parlayed his passion for books into Mediabistro’s GalleyCat (www.mediabistro.com/galleycat) blog, for pay.

Hogan is glad to see book lovers taking up literary blogs to fill the void left by print newspapers’ downsizing. But, he acknowledged of this populist approach: “The platform is not the problem; competence is an issue.”

Carolyn Kellogg, who blogs at Pinky’s Paperhaus (www.pinkyspaperhaus.com), said there is a shift occurring when it comes to financial compensation. It’s “kind of a business model jungle and we’re starting to build paid content.”

Author Tod Goldberg, whose works include Simplify (Other Voices, 2005), noted one big benefit of all these literature-oriented sites; exposure for smaller works that rarely get much marketing from their publisher. “Blogs have given me the opportunity to find books and authors I’d never have found otherwise.”

But, he cautioned, popular tastes — lacking a filter like traditional media — tend to gravitate toward base humor and slickly marketed stars, not necessarily the best of breed. “The low-brow is winning,” he said. ::

Milbloggers Face Restrictions

Blog World Tries to Sort it Out

By Shelly Brisbin

New U.S. Army regulations seem to limit the ability of military bloggers to publish, and would, if read literally, also curb soldiers’ ability to send unapproved email or participate on social networking sites.

Reaction ranged from outrage on the part of bloggers and free speech advocates to concern that without clear rules, operational security of military units could be compromised. In the wake of widespread controversy, the Army has moved to clarify that the regulations are not to be interpreted as a blanket blogging ban, though the regs themselves remain intact.

But just as interesting as the breadth of response to the Army’s crackdown is the way the story’s coverage reinforces the concept of “blog authority” and how the military has dealt with unanticipated publicity. As if to add to the story’s overall symmetry, news of the new regulations broke just as milbloggers were preparing to convene the 2007 Milblog Conference in Arlington, Va. Amendments to Army Regulation 530-1, Operational Security (OPSEC) require Army personnel to consult with their immediate supervisor and the officer responsible for OPSEC in their unit before making any postings in a public forum. The broadest interpre-tation of these regulations would allow military commanders to prevent blogging, and also restrict other online communication, including email messages, forum posts, MySpace updates, Flickr or YouTube uploads.

The author of the new regs, Maj. Ray Ceralde, has told several media outlets that this is not the intention of the new regulations. Ceralde told National Public Radio’s “On the Media” that the intent was not oversight of individual posts, but to require that soldiers gain approval for blogs or other Internet activities they intend to start. That approval, he said, should be granted unless operational security for the soldier’s unit would be placed at risk. The regulations also cover civilian military employees, contractors and soldiers’ family members.

Milbloggers, naturally, fear that the regulation’s broad wording will kill blogging in the Army, because commanders and OPSEC officers will not be motivated to take the time to evaluate blogging requests in detail. Some speculate that rather than spend time reviewing large numbers of blogs, commanders would simply deny all requests for permission to blog, citing OPSEC grounds. Almost all follow up their concern by noting attention to OPSEC remains essential to responsible blogging by soldiers and those who work with them.

New media outlets were a major source of information about the new regs, which bear the security designation For Official Use Only, meaning that while they are unclassified, they are not to be disclosed publicly. The OPSEC regulation changes were issued April 19 and were described in an Army News Service article the following day.

But the regulations themselves had found their way online by May 2, when Noah Shachtman wrote a story for Wired. Shachtman’s article linked to a PDF of Regulation 530-1, and included reporting based on the reactions of milbloggers. He also linked to a paper on military blogging, written by Maj. Elizabeth L. Robbins, which argues that OPSEC violations caused by milboggers in the field have been few.

Even a week after the story broke, Shachtman’s account was still winning praise and links from bloggers who wrote about the new regs. The Wired story was seen as the most complete source of information about the controversy, a clear case of an online account acquiring and maintaining a high level of link authority.

It didn’t take long for mainstream media outlets to pick up the story, and they sought out the same top milbloggers including Dadmanly and Matthew Burden, aka Black Five — both of whom offer extensive analysis of the regulations on their own sites.

In a somewhat unusual twist, Ceralde, who wrote the regulations, gave a number of interviews. In addition to “On the Media,” a second Wired story features a Q&A with Ceralde. It’s common for military public affairs staff to offer bland explanations of stories that have leaked to the media, but not so common for mid-level officers directly involved in the story to be quoted repeatedly, or even to acknowledge the fact that a regulation intended for Army eyes only had been widely circulated by bloggers. ::

A Style Guide for Microbloggers

By Shelly Brisbin

How do you say what’s on your mind in 140 characters? Mignon Fogarty, a.k.a. Grammar Girl, has some ideas. On microblogging sites like Twitter (www.twitter.com) and Jaiku (www.jaiku.com), where message length is limited, posters need to get to the point. Strunk and Twite (grammar. qdnow.com/2007/04/26/twitter-style-guide.aspx) is a style guide for those having trouble keeping their comments succinct and meaningful.

The guide gets its name from Strunk & White, the common name for The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. That popular manual of language usage has graced the bookshelves of journalists and writers for decades. The new guide features do’s and don’ts for abbreviating words, using contractions, eliminating unnecessary phrases from microblog posts. A few examples: “Use numerals, not words, for all numbers.” “Don’t use abbreviations such as 4U and L8. They make you sound like a 12-year-old (which is bad, unless you actually are a 12-year-old).” “If you can’t say it in 140 characters, reevaluate whether you should be posting it at Twitter.” Should you doubt Grammar Girl’s rules, click the guide’s handy “rationale”links next to most items for an explanation. ::

SonicMountain Buys Odeo

ANew York-based startup is buying Odeo, one of the first and most prominent podcast aggregation web sites. SonicMountain announced May 9 it had acquired Odeo’s assets for an undisclosed price. Other sites, notably TechCrunch, immediately speculated the sale was in excess of $1 million.

The privately held SonicMountain provides digital media hosting and a search marketplace.

“A critical aspect of the transaction was the commitment by SonicMountain to retain the integrity and spirit of the Odeo community,” Odeo creator Evan Williams said in a prepared statement. Williams also co-created Blogger. com, now owned by Google, and is CEO of the web development company Obvious, LLC. ::

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Blogger & Podcaster :: June 2007