Nineball Media has been good enough to upgrade equipment to the new iMacs… while the PowerBook was making nice with the new iMac, I realized that I would be without a computer for over an hour during my most productive time of the day. iPhone to the rescue… it’s amazing how technology can at once be the cause and solution of downtime. In any event, we’re all up and running now. For the speed freaks out there, I threw in 4 GB of RAM into the new computer… a podcast that took 7 minutes to crunch into an MP3 on the PowerBook took less than a minute on the new gear. Niiiiice.
Category: podcasting
Wizzard snatches up some talent
Wizzard Media (owner of Libsyn, etc.) has scored a couple of coups this week… first, they hired Podcast 411‘s Rob Walch as VP of Podcaster Relations… a great hire. Rob’s got great instincts on podcasting on the micro and macro level, plus he has a lot of credibility in the community. Check out Podcast 411’s Item 209 for the announcement. Congrats Rob!
Second, Wizzard has scored two exclusive advertising deals with two of the biggest shows out there… Keith and the Girl and Tiki Bar TV. Considering the former is arguably the number one podcast and the latter is among the top two or three video podcasts, this was a big score.
This is great news for the entire podcasting community.
The podcast recipe
While I was waiting for the Apple announcements yesterday I discovered a pretty compelling podcast tutorial on Apple’s website. The Podcast Recipe seminar is a free online tutorial that, while painfully corny in a few spots, actually gives some nice information on microphones, mixers and the scope of Garageband’s podcasting capabilities. If you’re a beginner, it’s not a bad place to start… if you’re a more seasoned podcast creator, but haven’t used Garageband before, it showed some of its basic capabilities.
The limits of podsafe music
I’ve been working on a project for a client who is looking to directly monetize her audio content (that’s fancy talk for selling those mp3s), and we’re running smack into a dilemma that faces anyone who wants to do the same thing… if you just give away your podcasts, there are several very good sources for free, licensed podsafe music. I happen to like the variety of IODA Promonet and Podsafe Music Network (although the latter needs a serious user interface revamp). If you dig into the licenses for both, the second your show has a commercial hook (fancy talk for, you make money off of the podcast), then you are either out of the licensing agreement, or you owe someone some money.
Now, this makes perfect sense… if you are able to capitalize on a product and use these artist’s music, they have a hand in the money you are making. Some artists may see their exposure as enough renumeration… in many cases it could be pretty valuable. However, for the here and now be mindful that selling your podcasts has a consequence… you’re going to have to find truly royalty-free music, get proficient with Garageband, or negotiate a license deal with your favorite artist.
Who knew we’d be getting into intellectual property law when we got into this? Luckily, there’s Collette Vogele’s excellent podcast and guide to help out beginners who aren’t blessed with an IP background…
KATG making waves
Our favorite podcast rebels are at it again… Keith Malley of Keith & The Girl bought thesimpsonsmovie.com in 1999 and was recently forced by the United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization to hand over the domain name for the Simpsons movie opening today. Although his loss was total and complete, Keith has parlayed the story (and his investment) into massive exposure for the podcast in the mainstream media (like this, this, this, and this). Sure, he’s often referred to as a cybersquatter and other less desirable names, but I think Keith can handle it.
In other KATG news, it looks like their brief hosting experiment with TalkShoe is over. In a recent show discussing the split (Show 541), there was an almost Festivus-like airing of grievances. Needless to say, that didn’t end well for TalkShoe. KATG is moving hosting to Wizzard Media… a major upside to the switch is that listeners no longer have to hear the truly annoying pre-roll ads anymore. Coming to Wizzard is a bit like coming home for KATG… the show had been hosted for years by LibSyn, which was acquired by Wizzard in March.
New Apple podcast app
Interesting developments in the podcasting world of Apple… the next operating system – OS 10.5 Leopard – has a new application suite called Podcast Producer. Apple describes it as, “a complete, end-to-end solution for encoding, publishing, and distributing high-quality podcasts.” What is interesting is that this app is being developed for the server version of OS 10.5, not the version that runs on most Macs. The Apple Blog has more here… will Apple be moving this into a new iLife app and out of Garageband eventually? If they keep Podcast Producer with the OS X Server I probably wouldn’t recommend the cost for it, but if it ends up on Leopard for non-server Macs, it looks like it might be a nice upgrade from Garageband. No matter what, unless you’re a developer, nobody can get their hands on this until Leopard is released in October…
New podcaster association
There’s enough podcasters now… we have a union. Or a trade group. Or something. The Association for Downloadable Media has the following mission statement:
To provide leadership in and organization of advertising and audience measurement standards, research, education and advocacy to all those involved in portable media (Podcasts/ATOM/RSS media enclosures) across the Internet, iPods, MP3 players, mobile devices, P2P and other upcoming platforms.
So, now that that’s clear… on to membership. Corporations pay $1000 per year and individuals pay $150 per year. No benefits are mentioned, but that doesn’t mean there are some on the horizon.
I’ve been doing work with nonprofits, including trade associations, for the better part of the last decade. Some are effective, but some are not. I think there are certainly some important heavy hitters involved here (including a few I respect quite a bit), but I think the jury’s still out until we see some substantive work from the group.
Mixer tip
For those of you with a slightly more advanced set-up (i.e. a mixer and a condenser mic, perhaps), sound checks are a must before you record. When I bought my first mixer, I was totally perplexed by the multiple buttons and knobs and what they did… I just played with them until the levels sounded right. It took me a while before I discovered how wrong that was… for you newbies, here’s a tip:
On most mixers, you have two knobs or sliders that control the levels on the channel… the gain, and the fader. In almost all circumstances, you should set the fader to zero or U (depending on the brand of mixer… it’s usually smack in the middle) and adjust the sound levels with the gain. Why? The fader at zero or U is optimized for that channel…in other words, your mic will sound a LOT better if you keep it there. Many new podcasters will treat the gain and the fader to serve the same function. In some ways they do, but if you value a better sounding signal, keep the fader firmly on zero, and use the gain for the leveling… you’ll notice the difference!
iTunes podcast submissions back up?
I got a comment on the blog this morning saying that the iTunes submissions are still down… Apple seems to say that they’re back up according to their high tech system of “if this post is down, then submissions are back up,” because the post has been taken down. Looks like the link to submit within the iTunes Music Store is working… If that’s still a no go, the best advice I can give is make sure your RSS feed is properly validated and keep trying! I’ve got a semi-contact with Cupertino, so I’ll check in and see what he’s got.
Podcasts on the iPhone
Welllll, sorta. It turns out that the iPhone can stream mp3s through its Safari browser just like any other desktop computer. Not really a podcast per se, but it’ a step closer to that dream of wireless podcast access (still hoping that either Apple adds a podcatching to iTunes on the phone).
Rob at Podcast411 has gone a step further by promoting the handy little graphic above that one can use to directly link to an mp3 file. It looks sort of awkward, but it shows up great on the iPhone screen. That makes it easier for your iPhone-enabled listeners to tap and listen with less effort. Now… is it worth it? Maybe… there’s about 1 million iPhones “in the wild” right now, and I suspect there are a disproportionate number of podcast listeners in that early adopting crowd. They need content… and your podcast can provide it.
Feel free to copy the graphic above if you’re interested in using it for your show. The sample mp3 linked above is the most recent edition of the Nonprofit Law Podcast.