Some Podcasters who have had their podcasting accounts shut down, deactivated etc, at Mevio. Rumor is they want all their podcasters to sign some form of a producer contract so that they can run more advertising on their shows. Here is some serious advice from a guy that has been involved in podcasting since the very beginning, and advice I have been advocating for a very long time.

1. Have your own .com as your Primary Point of Presence for your Show.
2. Always control your RSS feed, never let a third party manage or control it.
3. Host your media at a professional podcast hosting company not on the website.
4. Never have your shows “Primary Point of Presence” be on a Third Party Site
5. Never Sign Exclusive Contracts!
6. List your sites only on third party sites as a secondary point of presence

The main advice here is to think ahead a couple of years. Think about the damage that would occur if you build a big audience and your free hosting provider pulls the plug on you. Hopefully the podcasters over at Mevio have already planned for this day and have a way to keep there shows up and running without getting locked out.

Disclaimer: I am the CEO of RawVoice a new media and podcasting company. We really have not considered Mevio a competitor in years as there focus changed long ago. We provide media hosting along with being the gold standard in media statistics to content creators! Our business model is largely based around podcast media campaigns, commercial media portals and serving over 10,000 media creators.

Sadly another Podcast hosting company that was attempting to do Podcast Hosting on the cheap, has figured out that losing money is not a winning solution. Like another podcast company that continue to announce massive losses each quarter, the model of giving away hosting or charging a paltry fee is not a way to run a business.

MyPodcast.com is giving content creators just three days to move their media. This is the second time a podcasting company has done this, in and around the holidays and also with very little advanced notice.

Even more distressing for the media creators is that the site is currently offline and it looks like the domain may be under the ownership of a domain re-seller. Which does not bode well for the content creators at MyPodcast.com.

Content creators that have been shut out, I encourage you to look at the hosting services provided by Blubrry.com and the bevy of other new media creator services we provide.

Geek News Central is expanding, we are looking for “4″ more talented and or passionate individuals to launch new shows here at GNC!

Have a show idea and want to align with one of the top tech shows in the new media space? I want to hear from you and your show idea!

If your thinking about Gadgets to late we already filled that slot. Contact me today with your show idea, launch your show here at Geek News Central and who knows you could be a star!

BTW Ladies we could use a woman’s touch here as well, so do not be afraid to break your geek out.

Contact Todd the Geek here at Geek News Central: geeknews@gmail.com

John Maier from Blue Microphones (www.bluemic.com) introduces the Yeti Pro USB 24-bit 92k microphone, which retails for $249. Maier also introduces a Mikey model that works with current Flip camera models that are equipped with a Flip Port. The new Mikey Flip product should be available by Spring 2011 and will retail for $69 dollars. The Mikey flip brings some needed audio improvement to the flip video camera and I really look forward to it’s availability.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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Ted Aguirre talks about the three models of Lookee TV (www.lookeetv.com), a table-top model, a portable model, and a set-top box model that connects to a TV. Lookee TV devices retail for about $150 and are available right now. Lookee TV receives over 30,000 streaming radio stations and over 1,000 streaming TV channels. The company maintains its own strategically-located international content servers. All the content carried on the Lookee TV devices is free. Lookee TV devices are especially useful for international travelers who want to watch foreign television content or listen to streaming radio from other countries.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

Please Support our CES 2011 Sponsors

Get your 14 day Free Trial of Audible Gold to start Listening to great Books!
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Sponsor: The New Luxor, Las Vegas Deals Start @ $40.00 best rates guaranteed

My new Tricaster TCXD850 was delivered this weekend. Ironically I am on extended travel, so I had it delivered to my Hotel room. The maids already were a bit freaked out with all the extra stuff I brought in for this extended trip not sure what they are gonna think now.

The box contained a keyboard, mouse, some adapters, two power cables, a special tool to help with connector removal. I will follow up with a full system review in the next couple of weeks.

Adam Curry is a clever guy. Back in 2004 he was working on the concept of podcasting. Now he is pioneering smartphone apps.

About 6 months ago, Adam Curry came out with a free iPhone application called “The Big App Show.” Each day, day in and day out, Curry records a new video of himself demonstrating an iPhone app.

The Big App Show is now available for Android. The concept is the same, except with the Android app the apps Curry demonstrates are obviously for Android and are available in the Android Marketplace.

The Big App Show is a very witty app that really takes advantage of the power of Android and iPhones. Curry is adding value by demonstrating the apps right on the screen as he talks rather than giving dry descriptions. He puts out a new app video on both the Android and iPhone platforms every day of the year.

Bravo Adam! I think you are on to something!!!

The most useful computer is the one in your pocket.

What really makes any computer useful is the software that you are able to run on it.

When I was a kid in the early 1960’s, one evening my Dad brought home a battery-operated AM transistor radio. I was immediately transfixed. That simple AM radio and I were inseparable. That was the start of my interest in technology and gadgets.

When podcasts came along, I stopped listening to conventional radio back in late 2004. Podcast listening is a much more efficient experience.

Can conventional radio listening be made into a more effective, efficient experience?

The answer? Yes it can. “Tune In” available for free from the Android Marketplace turns your phone into the most effective, amazing radio tuner/playback device you’ve never had.

Want to “Tune In” to local stations? Tune In knows where you are, thanks to your phone’s built-in GPS chip. You are instantly able to pick from all sorts of local radio station streams.

However, it doesn’t stop there. Want to listen to a particular song? Type a song or artist name into the search box, and Tune In will present you with a variety of stations currently playing that artist or song.

Select stations based on radio genre, music genre, or geographic location. In fact, find stations broadcasting from virtually anywhere in the world.

“Tune In” turns your Android phone into a powerful radio capable of searching and tuning in to thousands of conventional radio stations that are broadcasting from across the world.

“Tune In” certainly isn’t the first app to present streaming radio stations. However, “Tune In” does a great job of presenting streaming stations in a format that can capture one’s imagination on a truly portable pocket playback device that is connected to the world 24/7.

I can only imagine if I were a kid today and had access to a smartphone…

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) July 29, 2010

ProMed Network shows are now available and easily accessible on the over-the-top box Roku, helping consumers and health care professionals find the latest and most comprehensive medical information directly on their televisions.

ProMed is a digital media destination on which medical and health programming producers share their shows with other medical professionals, students in the health care fields and members of the public interested in health-related programming. With Roku, ProMed enables health and wellness audiences to broaden their consumption options and content owners and publishers to reach a large and growing audience of digital media consumers.

“The members of the ProMed Network are very excited to expand our reach to the Roku platform,” said Jamie Davis, ProMed general manager. “We believe the future of web programming is in the living rooms and family entertainment areas of our viewers. ProMed plans to be there to share our knowledge with the world.”

ProMed was launched with 11 programs nearly two years ago and has expanded to 30 programs. Several other shows are expected to be added throughout the next few months. Topics include nursing, emergency medicine, primary care, pediatrics, psychology, neurology and disease and disaster awareness. Each show listed in the community is either produced by a medical professional or has been determined to represent peer reviewed or medically relevant information.

“Our producers are among the most popular shows in their categories in directories such as iTunes and we often have nine or 10 shows in the top 20 medical programs listed,” Davis said. “Clearly our listeners and viewers continue to come back for more. The programs on the network really do represent the best of the best.”

ProMed, powered by the RawVoice Generator platform, joins the Tech Podcasts Network and Blubrry podcast communities in providing content creators the ability to be seen and heard on television. The digital media communities are properties of RawVoice, a base for media sharing, discovery, publishing, hosting, measurement and monetization for a vast group of content creators and networks.

RawVoice delivers mass content through multiple platforms; the RawVoice media statistics system offers unsurpassed insights into user consumption: tracking audiences, listener-base demographics and geographical data with worldwide mapping – all delivered via web-based interfaces, custom reports and daily e-mail summaries.

Contact Davis at press@promednetwork.com.

About RawVoice Inc.:
RawVoice offers new media producers an easy, efficient means to get media online and measure audience behavior. The RawVoice Generator is a configurable, customizable, user-friendly media platform that combines the power of podcasting and new media with social networking. The RawVoice Generator lets you push content to portable and home media devices, such as iPhones, Roku and Boxee. RawVoice’s Integrated New Media Statistics analyzes downloadable and streaming media. It’s easy to use, powerful and flexible.

Brands:
RawVoice Generator, RawVoice Media Statistics, PowerPress Podcast Plugin, TechPodcasts.com, Blubrry.com, TravelCastNetwork.com, ProMedNetwork.com, Podcasternews.com

A few days ago I posted an article here entitled “Waxing Nostalgic” in which I reminisced about the original three Podcast & New Media Expos held at Ontario, California and how special they were.

Upon further examination, it’s suddenly become obvious to me what set these three conferences apart and what made them such a success from a social standpoint.

The thing that made the three Ontario podcast conferences unique was the fact that perfect strangers felt very comfortable striking up spontaneous conversations with each other. As a result of this comfort level, something rather remarkable happened. People talked a lot (these were podcasters, remember) and in many instances formed lasting friendships.

When the podcast conference was moved to Las Vegas, an entirely different mindset took over. In Las Vegas, strangers simply don’t feel comfortable approaching each other and striking up spontaneous conversations, even if they see that the other person is wearing a conference badge. The open, spontaneous conversation mindset generated at the Ontario Convention Center was perceived as perfectly normal in Ontario. However, being open and starting spontaneous conversations in Las Vegas would be perceived as weird and so therefore isn’t done.

This is a simple principle, yet it can have a profound effect on whether or not a given conference will be perceived as successful. I could see how conference planners could get caught up with other ideas surrounding where to hold a conference, but forget that the mindset generated in particular places is going to potentially produce very different behavior from the same people, which may or may not be detrimental. If the wrong behavior is produced by an incompatible mindset, it can spell disaster.

I believe the mindset generated by location also extends to and in part explains the old business axiom, “location, location, location” as being important to the success of a business.

Generate the right mindset in part with geography and surroundings to get people in a buying mood for particular types of products and services, and your business has a chance at being successful. Ignore this all-important mindset generation aspect of specific locations at your business’ peril.

The year was 2005. The month was November. The setting was the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California. The event was the first podcast media expo. The phenomenon of podcasting, brought to life by Adam Curry and Dave Winer, was a bit over a year old. At least a couple of thousand podcasters as well as many podcast listeners showed up from around the world to meet each other face to face for the fist time.

Looking back in my own mind and the minds of many others who attended, it was as if there was a special magic that happened at Ontario. This first event brought a bunch of strangers together, yet it had the happy feel of a family reunion. Soon enough it would be over and time for us all to go our separate ways.

The Ontario Convention Center turned out to work especially well for in-person social networking for people who were heavily involved in this brand new form of social media. It was very easy to identify other attendees because of the convention badges. Most people were staying in the nearby hotels, particularly at the Marriot across the street from the Ontario Convention Center. People ended up milling back and forth between the convention center and the Marriot. Many people ended up meeting each other and striking up conversations at random as they accidentally met each other while walking around or just hanging out.

I was always up front about the reason I attended these podcast expos. I was there to meet people and hang out with podcaster friends. I did not sign up for or pay money to attend any of the expo’s sessions. I was there to socialize. I don’t believe I was the only podcaster who thought this way. From a social standpoint, the podcast expos held in Ontario were a tremendous success. Sadly, from an expo-promoting business standpoint, perhaps they weren’t so successful.

There would be a total of three of these expos held at the Ontario Convention Center before the gathering was moved to the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada starting in 2008. The 2008 expo ended up being sort of lost in the middle of a mega-building probably most well known for housing the annual (and gargantuan) Consumer Electronics Show every January.

With literally thousands of Las Vegas tourists, combined with other conventions going on at the same time, meeting and socializing with the reduced number of podcasters that did make the effort to show up in Las Vegas in 2008 and later in 2009 became difficult. Gone were the happy accidental meetings. Pretty much gone was the accidental social networking aspect that had happened every year at the convention center in Ontario.

Those three magical expos at the Ontario Convention Center will never be repeated. Many of those early podcasters have moved on to other interests, as well as many of the early podcast listeners that also made a point of showing up. The social aspect of podcasting has seemed to wane a bit as larger commercial and educational organizations expanded into the space.

Podcasting is alive and well in 2010, and is taking its place in this new and continually evolving world of Internet-distributed digital media production and distribution. There are more podcasts available for download than ever before. Priorities change, and people move on.

Those first three podcast expos at Ontario, California were exceptional social networking events where many exceptional friendships were formed.

I remember it well. Back around October of 2004, I first heard the word “podcast” used on The David Lawrence Show via my XM Satellite Radio. It sounded interesting, and I wrote it down on my driver logbook cover with the idea of looking it up later. I heard David mention it again once or twice over the next few weeks. Finally, in early December of 2004 I finally got around to looking it up. I found Adam Curry’s podcast, realized what it was, and knew that I felt compelled to not only listen to podcasts but get involved as a podcaster myself. This was exactly what I’d been looking for for many years – a wide variety of content that I could choose, download, and control the playback/consumption of on MY terms.

Podcasting took previously-existing elements and applied them with a new twist. MP3 files had already existed for a number of years. Virtually every computer already came with a sound card and had the basic ability to both play back and record audio. Portable MP3 players had been around for a while. Apart from Adam Curry’s and Dave Winer’s contribution of the podcasting concept and making it work, the one key element that suddenly made podcasting viable and actually inevitable was the fact that Internet bandwidth got good enough to make it practical.

Practical is an important key.

We have now passed another important milestone in terms of mobile bandwidth. Mobile bandwidth, while not yet perfect, has improved dramatically in both terms of data delivery and coverage. About three or more years ago I had experimented with streaming audio via my smartphone while driving my truck, and quickly determined that it wasn’t viable. I couldn’t listen long at all before I would lose the stream. No problem, I had plenty of podcasts to listen to.

I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about Pandora.Com lately, so last week I finally tried the Pandora Android app out on my new Sprint HTC Evo. To my surprise, it worked amazingly well – even in Arizona and the western third of New Mexico along Interstate 40 where Sprint still has 1XRT service. The streaming music sounded great, and the few times it did briefly drop out in a couple of mountainous areas, it automatically reconnected and reestablished the playback stream.

(By the way, a side note – I was surprised to learn that Verizon has NO data card coverage around the Kingman, Arizona area – my Verizon aircard would NOT connect in the Kingman area.)

Streaming radio via the Internet in a moving vehicle is now practical. Smartphones have also reached critical mass to the point where they are really beginning to move into the mainstream. Even though streaming Internet audio has been around for quite a few years at this point, I believe the automotive market for streaming audio is about to open up in a massive way.

Up until this point most people have felt that streaming Internet radio had plateaued or was only going to grow slowly. I believe that improved cell networks along with smartphone proliferation will create a new market for streaming audio services. The automobile has been the traditional stronghold of terrestrial and now satellite radio services. An old kid that’s been around a while suddenly has a big and growing shot at a new lease-on life.

I believe opportunities exist for streaming Internet radio stations that deliver highly specialized content. For us geeks, imagine a 24/7 tech-centric streaming station. The sky really is the limit. The cost of running a streaming station can be very low, so therefore it becomes possible and practical to narrowcast to relatively small audiences.

OTT, short for “over-the-top-television” is an up-and-coming acronym that we are all likely going to become familiar with in the near future, provided someone doesn’t come up with a different marketing name. The concept is simple – it’s TV that comes “over the top” of traditional channels on a cable system via the Internet delivered in digital packets. It can either be live streaming video, on-demand streaming video, or in the form of a pre-recorded on-demand podcast.

There are many aspects of over-the-top TV that have yet to be shaken out. Specifically, here in the early stages there are some still-murky areas when it comes to details of how advertising is going to work.

Things that we know about how OTT works successfully so far:

People are willing to pay for bundled on-demand professionally created OTT content in the form of Netflix on-demand streaming of movies, TV shows, and other content. The bundled Netflix price for all-you-can-eat on-demand streaming OTT offers the consumer a real value. In most cases, a great deal of marketing money and effort has been spent promoting the majority of individual movies and other content that are available on Netflix, so the consumer has a fairly high degree of familiarity with much of the on-demand streaming content they offer. These are essentially repurposed movies that are already on the shelf.

People are willing to watch on-demand streaming OTT of professionally-created content with embedded ads as demonstrated by the ongoing success of Hulu.Com. The consumer is likely already familiar with a portion of the content, but Hulu also allows the consumer to discover and explore previously unknown TV show content in an on-demand stream with embedded ads. These are essentially repurposed TV shows, some movies, and other content.

Live streaming OTT of live content is still catching on. The most successful live OTT content as typified by what Leo Laporte and company are generating still offers an on-demand podcast version that can be downloaded later. Currently, on-demand, after-the-fact podcast versions of live OTT generated content end up with many more downloads than people watching via live streams. Both live streaming OTT and the on-demand podcast versions can contain ads. For the ads to be effective in this format, they need to be relevant to the audience’s needs and desires. The old “shotgun” advertising approach does not work in this format. This specific type of content is closely associated with word-of-mouth promotion.

There are a few questions that remain to be answered. Will consumers pay for on-demand streaming of TV drama-type content they are unfamiliar with — in other words, will consumers pay to watch an on-demand stream of a new TV show drama, documentary or reality show? Using myself as a gage, I wouldn’t pay for individual on-demand episodes of a TV show or movie I wasn’t fairly familiar with. Promotion and word-of-mouth still has to take place.

If consumers will pay-per-view for an unfamiliar on-demand TV show, can the content still contain ads? I think the answer to this depends on the content and its perceived value – i.e., how well it is promoted, and the resulting perceived value that is generated in the potential consumer.

Once “Lost” was a hit TV show, would the fanatic fans have paid for on-demand streams of new episodes? Probably they would have, if they could have gotten them, say a week or so in advance of the actual broadcasts. “Lost” fans would have also put up with ads in the advance on-demand stream. They might have grumbled about it, but if that were the only way it was available in advance, many of them would have opened-up their wallets and paid the price monetarily and with their attention to the embedded ads in order to satisfy their “Lost” habit. Clearly, the producers of “Lost” – ahem – “lost out” on a time-sensitive revenue stream opportunity.

Bottom line, I believe it all revolves around the content and the real and perceived values that the content delivers.

I liked last season’s remake of the old “V” television series. If I could be assured the production values remained just as high, I might pay to subscribe in some manner. If the “V” series is picked up again by ABC next season, I would also pay to subscribe if I could get episodes via on-demand streaming before they were broadcast.

In the meantime, we are still dealing with the death-throws of the old broadcast model with its old appointment based viewing schedule combined with the old shotgun advertising approach. ABC broadcast TV affiliates would have had a cow if “Lost” episodes had been made available as a paid on-demand OTT stream before the episodes were actually broadcast via the network.

The final destination of OTT and when it ends up at that destination depends on what is right for the time. Both delivery infrastructure capabilities and consumer demand will make that determination.

So now that I’ve cut the cord with Dish Network, I’ve started digging deeper into the instant streaming material available on Netflix. It seems that most of the programs I would have watched on Discovery, TLC or History – the three channels I watched 99% of the time — are available as season DVD sets streaming via Netflix.

There are also plenty of season DVD’s of television programs available for streaming that I don’t have any interest in. Now that I’ve cut my Dish Network subscription, I realize that I was paying dearly for their presence even though I had no interest in watching them.

The bottom line is that I can only watch one show at a time. Having 200 plus channels available simultaneously seemed exciting, but the reality is that at least 97% of whatever was on at any given point didn’t appeal to me in any way. It’s crap looking to influence whoever it can reach out and grab.

With audio podcast listening, it allows me to choose my own influences. The IPTV revolution brings that powerful ability to choose my influences to television.

This revelation shouldn’t surprise me, because I’ve been here before. Back in late 2004 when I discovered podcasting, it was exactly what I’d been looking for. I was suddenly able to pick and choose audio content and consume it on my own terms. I could listen to exactly what I wanted, when I wanted to listen to it. Suddenly, instead of being at the mercy of having to listen to what was mostly crap programming on radio stations I happened to be driving by, I was able to turn that huge amount of listening time I had while driving into a tremendous benefit.

Broadcast television has been traditionally viewed as mindless entertainment. Like audio programming, television programming can easily be used in the same beneficial ways. Now that I’m forced to choose what to watch, I realize that what I choose to spend time watching will be much more personally beneficial.

Broadcast television is potentially detrimental and there’s no question in my mind that much of it is hypnotic. If a TV screen is present and turned on most people can’t help but periodically stare at it, even if the sound is turned down.

It has only been a bit over 24 hours since I cancelled my Dish Network subscription, and I’m already over the emotional separation. Who needs all of those less-than-useless channels?

There was a recent article at Arstechnica.Com describing how The Times in the U.K. ended up cutting its web traffic in half by simply requiring registration so that viewers could read their articles. Prior to this, the articles on the site were freely available. The registration requirement is in anticipation of their future paywall plans.

I have to admit that I’m one of the people who left their site more than once when I clicked on a link and was presented with the registration requirement. I’ve done the same thing on other newspaper sites as well. Will people pay for online news?

At its essence, news is often glorified gossip.

There are plenty of successful paywall sites. Here are three sites that incorporate paywalls that I personally find worthwhile enough subscribe to: Netflix.Com,  Rushlimbaugh.Com and FHU.Com.

Netflix began life as a DVD rental service and most recently added a very popular streaming service as value-added subscriber benefit behind a paywall. The Netflix streaming service helped convince me to sign up and become a customer, as well as the availability of Blu-Ray discs. If Netflix had DVD’s only, I wouldn’t be a subscriber. Streaming and Blu-Ray make me willing to open my wallet.

Rushlimbaugh.Com puts the site’s massive and growing archive behind a paywall that includes access to the Rush Limbaugh podcast version of his radio show where they perform the courtesy of cutting out all of the network ads. Being able to receive the ad-free podcast of the daily Rush Limbaugh radio program is why I subscribe. I rarely sign into the site and go behind the paywall. I want the ad-free daily podcast, so I pay, even though I could get the program for free by listening on the radio.

FHU.Com also puts a massive and growing archive of radio programs, books and video behind a paywall. I want access to this material, and since it’s a charitable organization, I am willing to donate to gain access behind the paywall and support them.

I don’t envision myself ever paying for access to a newspaper website. I have never subscribed to a printed newspaper. I used to subscribe to a number of printed computer, stereo and photography magazines, but somehow that lost its appeal a number of years ago and I let the subscriptions run out.

For a paywall site to be successful, it must have something behind that wall that people want access to. They must offer something of value that revolves around the essence of what they do best.

On Tuesday night I fly out to Blog World and New Media Expo. This is one of my most looked forward to trips of the year. It’s more a family reunion than anything. My team from RawVoice is joining me and we have a booth as always.  So while it will be part business it is going to be part play as well.  I have put together a little informational video on what is happening next week in Vegas.

If your going to BlogWorld be sure to come to my two conference sessions.

• Saturday 11:45 How to prep your show to make it Advertiser Friendly
  Todd Cochrane: In this session you will learn exactly how to make your show and website meet the criteria advertisers are looking for. With four years of experience in podcast advertising, Todd will share with you details you will need to take your show from hobby to a revenue generator. Learn the advertising terms, pricing criteria and sensible expectations of what your show is capable of making in revenue.
• Saturday 4:15 Promoting Podcasts through the Directories
  Rob Greenlee, Todd Cochrane, Gary Weland will talk about getting your podcast promoted through sites such as Zune MarketPlace, PodcastPickle, Blubrry.com and others. We will talk about tips and tricks that will make sure your directory listing is effective.

For more info on what we have cooking check out the full details on the Blubrry Blog

Over the past several months my team at RawVoice has been working with a thought leader in the Travel New Media space.  Yesterday we launched a new vertical podcast portal called the Travel Cast Network.

What my team learned very early on, is that there is significant value in vertical new media sites, so long as you have a category leader to run it. So when you get a chance head over to TravelCastNetwork.com and check out what Chris Christensen host of the world famous Amateur Travel Podcast has in store for you.

What you will find is the very best travel information. In the coming weeks as Chris ramps up content on the site I think you will find the best travel podcasts.

Our team is seeking more thought leaders in the podcasting space, to partner with and launch more vertical websites. We have the technology and know how to get your site profitable in a very short period of time.

In just a few weeks the Blogger and Podcaster event of the year gets underway in Las Vegas Nevada. BlogWorld and New Media Expo is now a combined event where Bloggers and Podcasters get to hang out together in a single event.

Not only will I be speaking but my company RawVoice will be exhibiting, we have some great swag to give away that we predict will be the coolest show swag at the event.

I will be speaking on Saturday at 11:30 on the topic “How to prep your show to make it Advertiser Friendly”.  This is a session you will not want to miss, bring your pens because five years of experience in the podcast advertising space allows me to bring real experience and not just theory to the table.

Sadly we will miss talking with the folks from Podtrac and Wizzard Media who are competitors of ours in the space, but have opted to not exhibit this year for unknown reasons.

Make sure you stop by our booth Friday as we will be handing out tickets to a special event we are having Friday evening as well.

We are well prepared to talk to bloggers about the benefits of podcasting and they should stop by and have a chat with us as we have some cool ideas to share. You will want to get one of our custom-made T-Shirts as well that we feel will be a major hit.

See you in Vegas!

So what happens when free or nearly free podcast hosting is no longer available. Most of us in the podcasting / new media space understand the true cost of bandwidth, and while it is cheaper now than it was 5 years ago there will be major challenges for popular podcast that are now paying pennies on the dollar for what their actual hosting is costing are, if the free or nearly free hosting company goes out of business.

Imagine that you wake up tomorrow and your favorite podcast hosting company is going out of business, and you are now forced to pay between .15 and .19 cents a gigabyte to have your content  delivered.  That would make a lot of people sit back and really think about their shows.

Before that happens though my prediction is that podcast media hosting rates for those companies that do charge will be go up in the future, time will tell.

I was shocked tonight when I was looking at some of my podcast consumption data. While the below screen shot is only a small part of our podcast statistic service I am seeing some amazing trends in just how people are downloading and consuming my show.

How my listeners are downloading and listening to my show is a radical change from just one year ago! I will let you digest it yourself, but the most remarkable thing I am seeing in this report is how blackberry downloads has exploded onto the charts who would have thought.

Note: The following data was a snapshot of Geek News Central Podcast consumption for July 2009 percentages are accurate within 0.25% and are compiled with the free Podcast Statistics my company makes available to podcasters worldwide.

Comments?

This morning I kicked off the 1 year podcast project, five listeners of my podcast where picked from a contest I had in June. They get 1 years worth of podcast development consultation, free web and podcast media hosting.

Corporations pay me thousands of dollars each year for the same advice I am going to be giving these individuals, and while my corporate clients are confidential the five shows that I will be conslting will be publicized on this website, in my show and multiple other venues.

I will keep you advised on how it goes, and you can judge for yourself how the shows turn out. While much of the work will be done by the show producers I will be using a modified process I use with my corporate clients.

Todd..

I want to break down just how much time the PowerPress Podcast Plugin and Blubrry Hosting has saved me when I publish my podcast. Most of us are so busy today anytime we can get some time back through new tools and more efficient ways that it is worth sharing.

Disclaimer my company RawVoice  is the company behind Blubrry.com and the PowerPress plugin, everyone’s publishing process will be slightly different but from my perspective this was well worth sharing.

I have had a set routine for publishing my podcast over the past 5 years that I have followed for over 480 shows after with little variation. That routine has changed since we rolled out our new tools let me give you a comparison so you can see where the deltas are. first let’s look at old way I did the show.

• Show Material Preparation 1Hour
• Tricaster, Ustream, Adobe Audition, Show Intro prep 10 Minutes
• Announcing Live Event on Twitter and Facebook 5 Minutes
• Podcast Recording 75 Minutes
• Saving Recorded Audio 5 Minutes
• Filling in ID3 Tags 5 Minutes
• Uploading Podcast to Server and Creating Show Notes 30 Minutes
• Announcing Show on Twitter and FaceBook 5 Minutes
• Sending NewsLetter to Audience Members 5 Minutes

Total Time for Show Production 3:20 Minutes

Here is the comparison using WP, PowerPress, Blubrry Uploader, Blubrry Hosting and our publishing Tools.

• Show Material Preparation 1Hour
• Tricaster, Ustream, Adobe Audition, Show Intro prep 10 Minutes
• Announcing Live Event on Twitter and Facebook 5 Minutes
• Podcast Recording 75 Minutes
• Saving Recorded Audio 5 Minutes
• No longer fill in ID3 Tags Blubrry Hosting Does that for me automatically! 0 Minutes
• Publish Media 3 Step Publishing 20 Minutes
• Announcing new Show available Twitter 0 Minutes (Automatically Done by Blubrry)
• Announcing new Show available on Facebook 2-3 Minutes
• Sending NewsLetter to Audience Members 0 Minutes (Automatically Done by Blubrry)

Total time for new show production 2:58

I would have never thought that I could shave that much off my Podcast Publishing Time. Some people may say what’s the big deal, well when you are recording a show twice a week saving 20 minutes or more is huge when you look at the time savings over a year or more. But honestly here is the bottom line, as I walked out of the Studio over the past couple of weeks my wife has been saying wow your finished already!This was motivation enough to do some in-depth comparisons.

While I highlighted my home studio already I have numerous request to talk about my portable recording rig. As you all know I travel as much as 1-2 weeks a month. I am usually stuck in Hotels with less than desirable bandwidth which requires I bring extra connectivity along more on that later.

I pack for three contingencies, audio only, audio and video combined, video interview only.  A separate pack-out is used for conventions.  Let me talk about the gear and then I will talk about the setup.

Note:  The gear below is the minimum I travel with. I never travel with less equipment

Portable Audio and Video Podcast Studio:
StormCase Water Tight Case
Mixer: Mackie 802-VLZ3
Headset: BeyerDynamic DT-290 (Primary)
Router: Netgear Wireless Router
Sony: Wireless Receivers URX-P1 x2
Sony: Wireless Transmitter UTX-B1 x1
Sony: Microphone Wireless Transmitter UTX-P1
Lavalier Mics x1
Canopus ADVC-300 Analog to Digital Converter
Mic: Electrovoice RE50B (Interviews)
Camera: Sony HDR-SR11
Hard Drive: eSata 1 tb External Drive (HD Video Storage)
Cables: Way to Many!
Connectors: Way To Many
Laptops:  Windows Vista x2

Some will say this is overkill and it actually is. But the reason I travel with so much gear is based on 4 years of travel experience. I have been places where I needed to have wireless microphone capability and others where wired mics are required, sometimes I need to do a video interview so I have to have the ability to go from Audio mode to Video mode from this kit.  If I am planning on doing exclusive Video I will add a Sony HVR-Z1U to the pack out along with supporting tri-pods or mono-pods.

Laptop pack out also depends on what I will be doing.  If I am doing my regular show only 2 Windows Vista based Laptops are needed. One to handle the live video stream and the other to handle separate audio recording and the show work flow. If I am doing any pro-video recording I add a Mac Book Pro to the pack out for editing in Final Cut.

Doing conventions or other big events requires a whole different level of pack out and my Fedex bill goes vertical.

My regular travel kit above weighs in at 38 pounds. I check it as checked luggage. The laptops and any high value items go with me in carry on luggage.

Some will ask why I do not switch to a Firewire device or standalone recording device.  Two answers Quality and Reliability. I did use a Focusrite Saffire 2 channel Firewire mixer for about 6 months. It was the biggest piece of crap I have ever used. I spent more time getting it to work then I did recording on it. I have also used some portable audio recorders and the quality level is not where I need it to be.

For network connectivity.  I travel with 1-2  Sprint EVDO cards, I usually rely on the hotel to provide me enough bandwidth for getting the show material ready but hotel connectivity has been getting worse of late. Usually I have to use the EVDO connection to push the video stream. I average 350 kpbs up stream and my 75 minute show uses 300 megs per show of my 5 gig monthly limit. I have tested with Verizon EVDO and I will be honest they may have a big network but their wireless speeds suck!

If you notice I pack a Netgear Wireless router, this is for the wired hotels that want to charge me $20.00 a day per computer for a wired connection.

The A/D converter is currently used with the Sony Camera, the small HD camera I currently own does not have a Firewire connection.  I convert the analog out of the camera to digital which gets routed into the laptop as a digital video Firewire connection.  I am currently on the hunt for a HD non pro Camera that will connect to a laptop via Firewire.

To be able to achieve a 3 camera shot as I did on the last trip. I use the built in Webcam in the Video processing laptop as camera one, and then use a second USB based Webcam as camera 2, the Sony HD camera is camera 3 which is usually the primary camera.

Software:
Video Feed: VidBlaster Studio (Windows)
Audio Recording: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Windows)

While I am sure I will work on efficiency of the portable studio, my quality level is where I want it and the kit is always packed and ready to go. It gets checked as luggage and so far nothing bad has happened to the gear.

I often get asked what gear do I use to record my Podcast. Well there are two answers to that question. Today I will cover the gear that I use while I am here in Hawaii. As you know I travel a great deal and have a separate rig for when I travel.

Here is the List in the Exact Food Chain from when I speak till it is recorded on the Computer.

Audio
Power Conditioner: Furman PL-8 Series II
Microphone: Mouse from Blue Mic
Mic Boom: OC White
Microphone Tube Amplifier: SOLO 610 Classic Vacuum Tube
Mixer: Mackie ONYX 1220
Equalizer : DBX 215
Compressor / Gate: DBX 266XL
Aural Enhancer: APHEX 204
TelePhone Interviews: Telos Hybrid X2
Recording PC Standard Windows XP PC fed by Analog Audio from Mixer
Audigy Sound Card
Adobe Audition Recording Software

Video
Tricaster Studio
Live Control LC-11
Sony Cameras x 4 (Models Various)
Stream directly from Tricaster to Ustream.TV

Standard Studio Configuration
1 PC Recording Audio
1 Laptop Monitoring Video Stream controlling Ustream
1 PC that I use to Produce show
2 Network Connections

Everything is recorded in one straight shot. I do not stop the show under any circumstances. When I finish I only group waveform normalize the audio and then I save it to MP3. I then use the publishing tools at Blubrry to write the ID3 tags, publish the media, send the newsletter and post the podcast on this blog.

Time Line:
I start show Prep at 7pm HST
1 hour of show prep
75 minutes of recording
30 minutes of post show production.

Note: If your a new podcaster remember I started with a $7.00 headset from Walmart and spent less than $150.00 on gear until I reached show #50. My philosophy is have a high quality recording to start with to eliminate post show editing. But even with this gear a child simply twisting a knob can ruin a evening.

Please join me on Saturday May 30, 2009 – 4pm Eastern – 1pm Pacific

For three presentations

• Federico Viticci -  Adapting and Customizing Firefox with Greasemonkey Scripts
• David Skul – CEO Relativity, Inc.   Managing Your Digital Footprint: SEO, Social Media, and Podcasting
• Todd Cochrane – RawVoice Inc. PowerPress Next Geneation Podcast Publishing

Will be a educational event. I hope that you will join us for the live event. There will be time for live questions after each segment, and an open mic afterwords to combine the topics with listeners.

The event will also be streamed live on uStream.tv, on SDRNews.com, and GeekNewsCentral.com

To participate in the Round Table is very simple, 15 Minutes before we start Simply Click this link! GotoMeeting will load automatically and then you can then choose to either dial in, or participate with a headset via VOIP.

GotoMeeting is the official sponsor of the Tech Podcasts Round Table you can get a free no credit card required trial at www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

The way the emails have been flying with my team at RawVoice you would think we are launching a new website. But that is not the case, what we are releasing is a new version of PowerPress that I am very excited about. For those of you that have been using the PowerPress Podcast plugin for WordPress you may be thinking what’s the big deal.

Our goal at the Blubrry Podcast Community is focused on providing great tools to podcaster and this update of Powerpress will help make the podcast publishing process easier.

The features we are introducing is so simple but yet complex and yet so damn good that I keep pinching myself.  No one else has this level of integration, No One! Maybe I am getting giddy and probably some people will just yawn.

But I feel that we have come up with a winning combination that reduces publishing to three steps  and so straight forward that media creators are going to be able to focus more on the content.

On Thursday when we announce the features I hope your in agreement with my assessment as we reveal whats cooking. If not I am sure you will let me know. Regardless I will have something for you to look at Thursday Morning.

Todd

Check out this Video interview I did with the team at the DV Show. I talk about the Tech Podcast Network along with some of the cool things we are doing at RawVoice. The DV Show

Thanks to the Team over there for the opportunity to talk about the network.

This week a major Australian daily paper put out a story on how podcasting is gaining acceptance there.  What they are seeing is similar to what we have been discussing here on GNC recently.  Their view of podcasting is more of an extension to radio, than a replacement of it.  Not hard to understand why they have this view when mainstream radio dominates the podcast charts on iTunes.

For the few who are yet to catch on, podcasting enables people to listen to their favourite radio programs whenever they like by downloading them, once they have gone to air, onto their computers.

Some interesting information in this article is their access to talk direct to radio as to what their view of the podcast market is.  In Australia the main public broadcaster is seeing in the vicinity of 2 million downloads a month.  The largest commercial station is seeing about 850,000 per month over 4 shows releasing 2–5 podcasts per week.  They are seeing considerable growth of around 50,000 per month.  Some back of the envelope calculations show that they have about 100,000 listeners on podcast, which is about 3% of their on air listeners.  Even given this though they claim to make about 20% of their online revenue from podcast advertising.

Given the ease of creating the podcast from content that has already been recorded during broadcast, this must be some of the easiest money the radio stations make, and no wonder they have been keen to get their popular dj’s onto podcasts.  They are keen to not bleed listener figures due to podcasting though, as this directly effects their advertising revenue.  To cover this they have been campaigning to Nielsen to include podcast in their radio ratings.

Interesting to see some info on what radio is thinking in terms of their podcasting strategy.

Todd made some comments in podcast #321 about audience rates stagnating for some major podcasts like TWiT. In yesterdays post he also discussed podcast advertising ROI being very good, which you would think would be driving more podcasters putting in effort to drive quality which would drive listener numbers. These two things don’t seem to add up. While I have no stats, in my observations within my social groups (both geek and non-geek) I am seeing many more people who understand and listen to podcasts. If the audiences of major podcasts are stagnant in a growing and vibrant market, where are the listeners going?

When I first started listening to podcasts over 2 years ago, I used iTunes as my method to find them as most people did and still do. At that stage the most downloaded casts were mostly tech related and all were specifically produced podcasts. Shows like TWiT, GNC, Diggnation and the like were at the top and gained a lot of audience by being so (including me). Looking at the top 100 podcasts by download by Australian iTunes users shows a different story today. The number of podcasts in this list that are specifically produced podcasts is 29. The rest are made up of radio programs released in a podcast form after broadcast (29); Television programs released the same way, or commentary/synopsis podcasts by the producers of a TV show (40); One motion picture podcast and one print magazine. In the top 25 only 2 are web originated content.

This is obviously a chage in the dynamics of the space, with old media becoming a significant part of podcasting. I can already hear someone composing an email about experienced and techy podcast listeners not using iTunes as much. But iTunes at this time is where the new listeners are going to come from, and while the technical podcasts will have more listeners if non-iTunes stats are counted there are web originated podcasts out there for non technical listeners. iTunes could also be wrong but it would need to be an extreme margin of error to change the message. I also wondered whether it was a local phenomenon. To check I looked at the top 100 of the other English speaking iTunes locations (US, Canada, UK). On a cursory glance they tell the same story with a large ratio of old media. I could not categorise each podcast as easily as I could with the Australian version, but will update with the exact results when I have.

The second interesting thing was the large presence of public broadcasters in the mix with public broadcasters like PBS, BBC, CBC or ABC(Aus not US) having large amounts of podcasts in the top 100′s. For Australia the public broadcasters made up 41 of the top 100 (mosly ABC and BBC) 20 radio and 19 tv (audio casts of tv programs) and 2 web. The difference between these casts and the commercial equivelants is that these were typically complete shows rebroadcast in this form, rather than commentary or highlights. Public broadcasters are obviously finding podcasting a great way to reach the audience they serve. For them each extra person they reach improves their use of the public money they receive.

For the commercial podcasters, there was also a difference between how they derived revenue from the podcast.
-For the television shows (21) 18 podcasts were promotional for the telivision show itself, either offering commentary, synopsis or highlights. 2 had advertisements as well as promoting the show. (1 unknown).
-For the commercial web originated content (27) 22 used the podcast as promotion to either get listeners to the site where they could gain advertising revenue (14), or to get a subscription to extra services or content (8). The other 5 had direct sponsorship. 2 were casts directly produced by a company to promote their product, both revolving around skate boarding. The other 3 had sponsorship from broad based web services like ask.com and audible.
-For the radio programs (9), all were highlights of popular local radio show and all had major sponsors on board. 5 were sponsored by banks, 2 by telco’s and one by a brand of alcohol, all A-list advertisers with very large budgets.

There are some hypotheses that can be derived from this. The first is that passive consumption can drive active consumption. Audiences discover programs because they are pushed to them; Once discovered they then seek out greater interaction with that show. The second is that advertisers are more comfortable dealing with companies they know. Third, old media recognise that they need to embrace new forms and are using their existing audience reach as an advatage. Finally, the sucess seen by the public broadcasters show that podcasts are a very effective way to inform an audience, due in part to the active nature of the consumption and the ability to listen when and where it suits you.

Commercial radio obvously has its act together. It is repurposing its content, that is only ever broadcast once anyway, and using it to turn passive listeners into active ones. It also knows how to sell its value, and is putting out content from people with recognisable names (they do not podcast any music). There is also a localised aspect to the casts, with the major portion of the audience coming from the country of production. Advertising players like banks and telco’s have specific geographies they serve, so this mix is attractive to them.

So some interesting information and some hypotheses. My questions to the podcasting community are, how do we test/prove them? and how can this information be used to make podcasting stronger?