American University's Center for Social Media recently released a tremendously helpful resource that helps to clear some misconceptions about the concept of fair use of copyrighted materials. There are a lot of people out there that think fair use is any use where they aren't paid... not true! There are a lot of ways a video producer can rely on fair use, and this Code of Best Practices soes a great job of spelling it out. Check it out here.

Talk about a great resource for the mobile traveler... I've been surprised to find that sometimes nicer hotels have worse amenities in the WiFi space than cheaper hotels. Now my suspicions and anecdotal experiences have been confirmed by the folks over at Hotel Chatter. Take a look at their 2008 Best WiFi Hotels for more...

Great stuff from Chris Penn... an eight step guide to marketing your podcast.

A sidebar regarding the title... it's funny how some people are staying away from using the term "podcast" while others are doggedly sticking by it. There's no question the technology will be around well into the future as we get more and more adopters, but what might happen is that the name gets subtly changed because of this (silly, in my opinion) fear that the term podcast connotes an amateurish production.

Ok, sidebar over... check out the audio or e-book version of Penn's guide.

The Times of London reports a study regarding the amount of illegal tracks on the typical iPod:

Teenagers and students have an average of more than 800 illegally copied songs each on their digital music players, the largest academic survey of young people's music ownership has found.

* * *

The average digital music player carries 1,770 songs, meaning that 48 per cent of the collection is copied illegally. The proportion of illegally downloaded tracks rises to 61 per cent among 14 to 17-year-olds. In addition, 14 per cent of CDs (one in seven) in a young person's collection are copied.

So, how does your iPod stack up? A quick poll here is definitively "under" but we're a squeaky clean kind of operation...

Kudos to commoncraft.com:

Continued growth in the podcasting sphere... the latest technology poll from Jacobs Media reports an 87% jump in numbers year to year. The survey covered 27,000 respondents, across 69 Rock-formatted stations, so it's not exactly a broad demographic, but a pretty important one. Of those surveyed, nearly one in three people had listened to a podcast before. Lots of room for more growth...

The Association for Downloadable Media announced an industry-wide proposal for advertising standards in podcasting and video podcasts. The highlights, as reported in Podcasting News:

• Insertions - Pre-recorded file provided by sponsor
• Time :10, :15, :30, :1:00
• Location: pre roll, mid roll, post roll
• Frequency: variable by episode or time period
• Audio: 128k stereo/64k mono mp3
• Video: H.264 mp4 Aspect: 4×3 or 16×9 – sd and hd
• Content Participation - sponsors message included in show
• Time: variable from :1 second to full episode
• Location: pre roll mid roll post roll or integrated w/in episode(s)
• Frequency: variable by episode or time period

Check out the ADM website for more. I like the concept of standards here, but as I've been posting lately, podcasters that are in it to make some dineros should probably seek to diversify beyond just ad revenues.

Podcasting News has a great story that goes hand in hand with my post from the other day about using podcasting and new media as a way to promote other things you are selling... like your book.

One of Nineball Media's clients has found success in creating an ongoing community that is tied into a book. It's a great way to expand on the concepts and create a launching point for other ideas... different products? a second book? The best part is that the podcast is free content that listeners are excited to receive - not merely a series of advertisements wrapped around some minimal content.

If you're a budding author, think about how you can use new media before, during and after you publish as a companion to what you're writing! With the news that podcasting continues to grow and reach mainstream acceptance, the time to integrate new media into your plans is now.

Podcasting News has a terrific article on the Will It Blend phenomenon... using new media as an advertising substitute (although that might not be the right way to look at it).

If you haven't seen the videos, the Blendtec blender company has found a huge earnings jump by showing their product demolish things like soda cans and iPhones. Do yourself a favor and check out what happens when an iPhone is blended. Wow.

Moral of this stor: Think of your podcast or video podcast not as a revenue generator in and of itself... it might be a better awareness raiser for some other business interest: a service you provide or a product you sell. Sure, some podcasters are doing a good job monetizing their shows through ads, but for others this may be your better path if you want to leverage new media into profits.

I've long been a proponent of LibSyn as a host for podcast files, and I've generally been happy recommending them to clients. One of these days, they just might get stats right. Here's their latest on the latest in the years-long battle they've been fighting against the lack of scalability of their original system:

We have repaired this mishap as best we can and are moving forward with the work on the next generation stats system which will handle these types of issues in a much better manner. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

This next-gen system apparently will fix the stats issue from the ground up... here's hoping it will succeed (I'm a fan of the LibSyn folks and hope for continued success). One solution in the near term is to store files on LibSyn, but run your RSS feed through Feedburner. Use the Feedburner feed as the one listeners and viewers use to subscribe to your show. Of course, Feedburner isn't immune from issues, but from a stats standpoint, it seems to be a lot more stable than the built in Libsyn option for now.