Archive for the 'Video Podcasts' Category

The official Blade Runner podcast may be a promo tie-in for the 25th Anniversary DVD of the classic sci-fi film, but it’s also the official Blade Runner podcast.

Queue the Love Theme.

To subscribe, add this podcast URL to your podcast software:

http://wired.uk.com/BladeRunnerDVDUKPodcast.xml

Todd Cochrane is the CEO of Raw Voice, a longtime podcaster at Geek News Central and helps connect podcasters with advertisers via his Blubrry podcast network.

He’s also known for having strong opinions, on topics ranging from the PodShow/Mevio name change to the quality of podcasters’ RSS feeds.

I asked Todd about his perspective on user-generated content and the state of podcasting:

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: PodShow changed its name to Mevio recently, in part to distance itself from “podcasting” and user-generated media. Does user-generated media, in your estimation, mean amateur or poorly-produced media?

Todd Cochrane: I think many people have lost focus on the fact that we live in a period of time when anyone can create content. The barrier to entry is nearly non-existent. With the barrier to entry being low, the quality of the content is going to vary.

The beauty of the space remains that anyone can create content. But when it comes to judging content this is a very subjective subject. There are millions of people in the United States alone, and what I may consider to be poorly-produced content may in fact be content that my neighbor connects with.

Podcast content is not about the production quality, it’s about message and the ability to connect with others that have a similar interest.

For example - When we started my mom’s show, the goal was to reach a single person. She does not care if the show reaches thousands. She wants to reach people that can take what is said and use to their benefit. The content is produced by me.

While it may not be the highly-produced content (Mevio CEO) Ron Bloom is referring to, the important thing is that she is connecting with a lot of people worldwide that she would not otherwise. Thus, the payoff has been reaching and affecting people worldwide.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Does the term “podcast” carry a stigma? If so, is there something that podcasters should be doing to correct this?

Todd Cochrane: I do not hear this from media buyers or people that consume the content.

Those creating podcast in the mainstream media and Mevio would like people to think the user generated content carries a stigma. The failure of a company to meet their financial numbers is not because of the content.

I think the comments by Mevio leadership is part of a bigger strategy…. What I think is being attempted by the folks at Mevio is to establish a “podcast class system.”

It appears on the surface that they are in trouble as a company, and they need to make the appearance that somehow the produced content on their site, much of which they have no rights to, is superior to all others in order to demand higher advertising rates. Ron (Bloom) took the first step in establishing a class system, by slamming user-generated content, and spitting on those that allowed them to get two big rounds of funding.

I cannot even imagine what we [Blubrry and Raw Voice] would have been able to accomplish with that kind of money. I can guarantee we would not be spitting on those that have supported us and [would] have a lot more to show for it.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: You wrote recently on your blog about your frustration with incomplete shows - podcasts that are missing important information, descriptions, artwork, categorization, etc. Where do these incomplete shows come from?

Todd Cochrane: Many are being auto-added by new people in the podcast space who are just desperately trying to get exposure, but do not take the time to complete their profiles. Part of it is because many simply do not know the benefits of good show listings and rich meta data.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Do these half-baked podcasts perpetuate the (mis)perception that podcasts are amateurish or poorly produced?

Todd Cochrane: I think what happens is, people have great intentions, but then figure out creating content over a long period is hard work. This is why more than 50% of shows never make it past show #7.

It may add to the “amateurish” perception, but from a business model, it impacts nothing. Generally, those new shows have not yet decided to monetize their content.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: In another post on the Blubrry blog, you set a deadline and threatened to get rid of those shows with incomplete feed information. What has happened with that?

Todd Cochrane: So far, as house cleaning goes, we suspended about 400 shows.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: What do you see happening with podcasting, both on your podcast network and with podcasting in general?

Todd Cochrane: This does not directly answer your question, but I asked a podcaster recently, that was making a very significant amount of money with his show, if we could use his show as a case study. The podcaster declined — because he was making full-time wages on a part-time basis. He did not want his employer to find out he was making more money with his podcast then he was on his 9-5. The podcaster is loving life as he can double dip and have the best of both worlds.

On the other hand, we have shows to which we pay very small checks. They are happy because they understand that their “micro audience,” based on their content, is not in a position to make big money.

This is why podcasters need to pick the ad[vertising] deal they are in carefully. For instance, we have a show with 3000 listeners, which is out-performing a show with 50,000 listeners, simply because the show producer of the 3k show has amazing engagement with his audience. That show with 3000 listeners is making more than $8k a month on one of our media buys.

The subject of money is a tough one for sure.

So far as what is fair, my only hope is that companies will be transparent.

For the record:

• CPM-based buys that I have dealt with range in the $20.00 to $45.00 level.
• Flat sponsorships for specific buys have had CPM comparables much higher than the $45.00 level.
• Flat sponsorships can pay very well.
• We also have a variety of CPA buys.
• To date the most we have paid a single podcaster on a “monthly” basis on a CPM buy is well over $10k monthly.
• The most we have paid a podcaster on a CPA buy has been between $6500 - $8300 on a monthly basis, for over a year.

But I have to caution your readers, the focus should not be on the big payment numbers. The focus should be on the thousands of content creators. They have the simple ability to make something, and get what they have to say out there. If they so choose to monetize, we are here to help them with no strings attached, along with providing the audience-building tools we are known for on our communities.

That philosophy, focusing first on the content, not on the money-making, as applied to our business model: we treat each and every content creator exactly the same. But we temper that with some realities. Some shows have the ability to generate significant revenue, other shows may only be capable of generating enough revenue to pay for hosting and or take the wife out to dinner.

Beet.tv’s Andy Plesser reports that the co-producers of lonelygirl15, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, have raised $5 million in venture funding for their new company, EQAL.

They’re building a digital media studio and working on product placement and licensing deals.

“We’re going to teach Hollywood how to do it right,” said Beckett.

Storybids today announced the launch of a product placement marketplace, where online video content creators can get paid to feature physical products in their user-generated videos, serial mini-dramas, videoblogs and webisodes.

Yep - now you can do a product placement sell-out like the big guys.

Advertisers can use Storybids’ searching capabilities to find video creators that meet their demographic criterion, such as viewership, subscriptions, and ratings or by genre or age demographic. Video creators can use the site to seek out product placement advertising opportunities by targeting specific advertisers that complement the storyline of future content.

Storybids also works as a social media marketplace for filmmakers by allowing them to connect with other filmmakers for advice and collaboration on film projects

Details are available at the Storybids site.

Former Rocketboomer and ABC onliner Amanda Congdon‘ has a new gig - SometimesDaily:

The teaser proves Congdon’s still got a pair of fans - but will more tune in after her long  absence from podcasting? And is Jason Calacanis still ready to fight for her like a rabid dog?

We’ll see when SometimesDaily kicks off May 5th.

PodShow, the heavily-hyped podcasting startup from podfather Adam Curry, is dead; it’s changing its name to Mevio.

NewTeeVee attributes the name change to a so-called “curse of the ‘Pod”" - the idea that any company with “pod” in the name is cursed. They note that PodZinger has changed its name to EveryZing & PodBridge has changed its name to VoloMedia.

When podcasting is growing 40% year to year, though, with some surveys pegging podcasting’s growth as high as 87% year to year, it’s a mistake to pin the troubles of PodTech and PodShow on their “pod” names.

PodShow has raised and spent close to $24 million over the last couple of years, but its business case appears to be stalled with its stars pimping GoDaddy codes. That’s a problem they aren’t going to fix with a name change.

Mevio expects to be profitable by the end of the year - but I’ll be surprised if we don’t see some very high-profile defections from the “Mevio” camp before then.

Okay, a confession here: I spent much of Earth Day today, a beautiful sunny day, outdoors. Away from my laptop computer. Away from wi-fi. It seemed a fitting way to celebrate the thirty-ninth annual Earth Day, riding my bike and enjoying cold beverages at a succession of locally-owned establishments.

One thought that kept coming back to my mind, though, as it does with so many “official” observances and holidays (Valentines’ Day, Mothers’ Day, Women’s History Month, Black History Month, and so on), is that we diminish the importance of the thing we honor and celebrate by limiting its observance to a single day or month. We ought to honor our loved ones and our moms every day. We should remember and celebrate the contributions of women and African Americans and other brave and trail-blazing people year ’round.

Or maybe I’m feeling guilty that I had this good story idea but spent the day doing other more frivolous things.

So, even though there’s only one hour left of the “official” Earth Day, here (after the break) is a crop of podcast offerings that may spark some practical lifestyle changes for greener living.

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The Association for Downloadable Media, a recently-formed industry association “focused on creating standards and guidelines to support the continued and increasing monetization of downloadable media,” last week unveiled proposed guidelines for audience measurement at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco. The draft proposal is open for public discussion and comment for the coming thirty days (through May 16).

Explaining the audience measurement guidelines and discussing the rationale behind their creation were three panelists who were among the several dozen committee members involved in the drafting process: Stephen Smyk, Performance Bridge; Angelo Mandato, CIO, Raw Voice (and Chairman of the ADM Measurement Committee); and Daniel Rioux, SVP, Media Director, Campbell-Ewald.

Here is a brief synopsis of their presentation:

Need for download measurement:
Throughout the downloadable media/podcast industry there is a need for download measurement. This need impacts us all, from veteran podcasters, to “amateur content producers,” to what we consider more traditional media.

Need for measurement standards:
Coming up with some standards for how we count/measure downloads would provide confidence for ad buyers (”so we’re all measuring apples–to-apples”). Committee members agreed to utilize existing measurement methods where possible, while also proposing and adapting standards for future measurement methods. For all of these, analysis of data is required.

Sources of measurement data:
“native server” (where the downloadable media is hosted) measurement, and
“third party” measurement (measurement by an intermediary server between the content creator and another third-party server). This third-party can uniformly measure across multiple native servers (from own server, from Libsyn, etc.).

Much of the data used for gauging audience size can be gleaned from server log files. Some things that can be measured include

From Third party and native servers
IP address
Time stamp
HTTP: status code
referrer
user agent (tells where download occurred: browser, podcatcher, web bot)
byte range

From Native servers only
Bytes served

Some Analysis Factors to Consider:
IP address (proper filtering based on IP address – so 1 person doesn’t download multiple times)
Time Stamp – when time frame of download occurred
HTTP: status code
Bytes Served
Referrer
Byte Range

Analysis Methodologies
Methodologies Available to Buyers
ADM Compliant Publishers
Minimum Recommendations
IP Address Analysis
Advantage
Methods that best fit the publishers’ situation

ADM Measurement Committee chair Mandato explained that the ADM Ad Council, comprised of seasoned veterans in the digital/online advertising industry, also reviewed the measurement guidelines document, “to make sure that we have a complete document. In weeks to come,” he said, “we are going to create a standards/terminology document, to further explain the terms.”

The draft audience measurement guidelines are open for public review and comment for the coming month.

More of the panel presentation, on case studies and the ad agency’s perspective on audience measurement, after the break –

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Odeo, an early podcasting startup that has long struggled with its direction, is back, in beta and looking for feedback.

While the original site focused on podcast creation, the focus of Odeo’s latest incarnation focuses on viewing and listening to Internet media.

Give it a look and let me know what you think of the makeover!

The Association for Downloadable Media, an industry group focusing on podcasting and new media, today unveiled proposed advertising standards for use with downloadable media. The proposed ad units are offered with an eye toward making negotiations smoother between content creators and advertisers.

The proposed standards were presented Wednesday morning in an ADM forum at the ad:tech convention in San Francisco, by a panel of people who helped develop the standards.

Presenters included:

• David Hamilton, the President and CEO of Backbeat Media, and member of the ADM Advertising Standards Committee;
• David Herscott, President of MEA Digital and the appointed Chair of the ADM Ad Council; and
• Sean Cheyney, CMO of AccuQuote.
• The talk was moderated by Bryan Moffett (pictured), Director of Ad Operations, Natl Public Media, and ADM Membership Committee Chairman.

The draft ad units cover a range of standard advertisement sizes and types and formats, and also include a “collaterals” category, for other podcast advertising “real estate” not necessarily covered in the other unit definitions.

Why Do We Need Standards For Downloadable Media?

Dave Hamilton tackled the question, “Why come up with standards?”

He explained that he has bought ads in podcasts, sold ads in podcasts, and so on, but across the many podcasts, among many different sponsors, there were lots of different advertising options – and the potential for lots of confusion.

The Ad Standards Committee and the Ad Council sought to come up with some podcast ad-unit guidelines like those of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) for its display ad units. Their “rules” in developing these standards were to keep options alive, exclude nothing, knowing that different people will use different methods and so forth.

The group strove to make any standards they developed simple (easy to understand), and inclusive (exclude nothing).

Here’s what they came up with…. (more…)