1. Show promos - This will make it easier for listeners to get a quick introduction to a show and allow podcasters in the network to more easily promote each other.
2. Audio embed - this feature gives members added exposure beyond Blubrry and their own websites.
3. Surveys -  this is designed to help members get accurate listener demographics.
4. Newsletter service - podcasters can encourage their audience members to sign up for their newsletters  at Blubrry or on their own websites. When you publish a podcast you can opt to send all subscribers a copy of your show notes with links to your downloadable media.

PodCamp Pittsburgh started out as a podcasting unconference, but has grown to cover a variety of new media/social media topics.

“We have seen a surge of interest in social media this year — not just blogs and podcasts but Twitter, Facebook, and other forms,” said Cynthia Closkey, one of the main organizers of the event. “We’re making sure that PodCamp reflects this growing interest and the social media needs of the Pittsburgh community.”

What: Podcamp Pittsburgh 4
When: Saturday October 10th and Sunday October 11th, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Where: The Art Institute of Pittsburgh
How: Register online at www.podcamppittsburgh.com

Social Media Links:

• Twitter, @PCPGH
• Facebook

Here’s another music video shot entirely on an iPhone 3GS. (We featured the first iPhone 3GS music video earlier this week.).

The song is Play by BJSR.

The Making of Raul’s World of Synths is a short documentary, created as a school project, that outlines Raul Pena’s process for creating his synthesizer podcast, Raul’s World Of Synths.

This video demonstrates how The 88 used Sonoma Wire Works FourTrack (App Store link) to record their latest single, Love Is The Thing, on an iPhone.

FourTrack is $9.99, which is amazing, considering it transforms your iPhone into a functional recording studio that can be used for recording music, podcast production and other mobile new media projects.

Impressive? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

via Synthtopia

Steve Ellington’s Technologic Overkill claims to be the first music video shot on an iPhone 3GS.

The song by XFYA accompanies a video about the plight of a little blue robot and his attempt to be relevant in an increasingly technological world.

It’s not destined to be a classic - but it’s an impressive reminder that cell phones are transforming from being a horseless carriage technology (reproducing the traditional functions of a phone) into something new.

A UK neighborhood group is commemorating the “litter louts” that are trashing up their neighborhood by  videotaping them and publishing the videos on the Internet.

According to the group:

One of the biggest issues here in terms of its impact on the community here is litter. And it has been so for quite some time.

It is so endemic and part of the day to day life of the neighbourhood that people, even those responsible for managing the neighbourhood no longer notice it to such an extent that they are motivated to take realistic action over it.

Do you think using new media to shame “louts” will help neighborhoods fight litter and other problems?

via boingboing

The list includes some heavy hitters:

1. Alpha Media Group: Blender—March (Online only)—Down 30.6
2. Hearst: CosmoGirl—December-January (Online only)—Down 10.9 percent
3. Condé Nast: Domino—January (Shuttered)—Down 4.1 percent
4. Hallmark Cards: Hallmark Magazine—February-March (Shuttered)—Up 11 percent
5. Condé Nast: Portfolio—May (Online only)—Up 2 percent
6. Hearst: Oprah At Home—January (Shuttered)—Ad page numbers not available
7. Ziff Davis: PC Magazine—January (Online only)—0
8. Billboard: Radio & Records—June (Shuttered)—Ad page numbers not available
9. American Express: Travel + Leisure Golf—March-April (Website still live, but inactive)—Down 13.9 percent
10. Wicks Media Group: Vibe—June —Down 17.7 percent

While many attribute this magazine parade of death to the global recession, it’s more likely that this is just the coup de grâce, and that the real culprit is the fact that people’s attention is moving to new media.

If you’re involved in traditional publishing, at least you can sing about the situation:

Morbid Major Magazine Song

A musical list of the names of defunct magazines.

(To the tune of I Am a Very Model of A Modern Major General by Gilbert & Sullivan)

By Bill Dyszel

The many paper publications writers once were writing for
Have mostly disappeared and left a handful all are fighting for
They went by names like Mirabella, Cosmo Girl, and Living Well
Amazing Stories, Omni, and Organic Style and Mademoiselle
And Spirit of Aloha, which you may perchance have read in flight
And also Windows Sources, HomePC, Musician, Cue and Byte
And 7 Days and Audio, and Quick and Simple and Cachet
And, PC Magazine, but no understood that anyway.
When Budget Living says they’re broke, you know conditions aren’t so nice.
And don’t forget Success, whose claim to fame is that they failed twice.
McCalls, Industry Standard, House & Garden all have gone away
And Rosie sank as fast and deep as Underwater USA.

When Country Journal, Harper’s, Jewish Woman, Coronet and Mode
Have followed New Age Journal as they all were flushed down some commode
When Blueprints future plans have all been relegated to the past
And National Lampoon will surely not be who is laughing last.
When Women’s Sports and Fitness, Golf for Women, Gusto, Sync and Spy
Are only sold along with Lifetime at that newsstand in the sky
All writers start to fear that their careers are headed for the drain
A lot like Talk and Child and Life and Look and Lear’s and George and Jane.
The experts all are telling us that in our brave new century
There’ll be new opportunities exciting and adventur-y
But to a freelance writer none of this may seem too funny,
Cause you know the next to go will close up shop and owe you money.

In this BigThink video, Steve Rubel discusses his thoughts on why Twitter matters:

Question: How significant is Twitter as a marketing vehicle?

Steve Rubel: It’s huge right now and I stress the words “right now.” What’s interesting about Twitter is as a marketing vehicle is that, one, it has a huge community and growing. Years ago when I did media relations, I don’t do media relations anymore but what I did, the best tip I ever got was to go where the media are. It’s just much easier to get results if you do something where the media are already gathered than to try and get the media to come to you for whatever it is you’re trying to do. This day that’s a tactic, a lot of PR professionals make heavy use of.

It’s the same exact thing in social media. You want to go where there’s already people and there’s a lot of people on Twitter and the numbers show that they’re growing. And I know that at some point they will plateau and somebody else will come along and it will be kind of interesting to see how things shake out but I think the way you, the reason it’s taken a lot from marketers is that one, the community is there.

Two, it’s lightweight, you know, I can’t even tell you how many clients over the years I’ve talked about blogging and they were all interested about it and they all had interest in it but the problem was that they were just afraid of the time to manage their comments, the time to create the content. Creating content is a lot of work. You know it. I know it. It’s a lot of work to create good content.

But on Twitter it’s actually easier and it’s lightweight in a 140-character nature that makes it actually pretty easy for one person or two people to participate in a credible and meaningful way over a period of time. So, I think the way marketers are using it now is some are using it as a pure just information-delivery mechanism.

That’s fine. I don’t think it’s going to get you very far, but it’s fine. The more savvy brands are using it as a customer service tool and a feedback mechanism where they can actually listen and respond to customers in real time and that’s been very effective.

Others are doing promotions in Twitter and, or contests so I think that there’s fun things that are happening there as opposed. It’s working because the community is there they’re receptive to brands if they are respectful of the space and contribute and I think there’s a lot of, and the platform is very flexible in what you could do with it. But you know again, we’ll see where this all goes.

There are already thousands of people using Twitter for traditional intrusive marketing, but Rubel’s discussion focuses on more interesting uses of Twitter, ideas that apply not just to marketers but to anyone using the microblogging platform.

Wizzard Ad Impression History

• 2008 – Q2 – 3.9M
• 2008 – Q3 - 5.5M
• 2008 – Q4 – 8.8M
• 2009 – Q1 – 9.4M
• 2009 – Q2 – 13.7M

“The ease of downloading podcasts directly to your phone or mp3 player through iTunes, is making our market one that has tremendous growth potential,” says Chris Spencer, Wizzard Media CEO.

While the growth is good news for Wizzard, the numbers represent a small fraction of the 1.2 billion podcasts served on the network in 2008.