MWGblog

I just posted an interesting interview with Tim Bourquin on our Behind The Mic Series. If you are curious about the story behind the Podcast and Portable Media Expo, you may find it interesting. I have to admit though, my favorite part is our discussion of “advanced” field research techniques for measuring the spread of podcasting. [link]

Over the last few weeks I have been playing with the Garmin Edge 305 on my mountain bike. This thing is incredible. It measures and monitors everything: pace, speed, elevation, heart rate, % of max heart rate, cadence, grade and maps everything via GPS. All of this downloads to your (Windows) computer. There are also a few additional mapping and training programs that interact with the desktop software Garmin provides. My favorite feature is the ability to race against yourself. You choose a course you have completed and set it as your training course. As you head out and ride, the Garmin Edge 305 shows you how far ahead of or behind you are of your last ride. It is a great way to give you the incentive to push yourself each time. It also can make solo rides a bit more interesting. If you are a mountain biker and and a tech geek - check it out.

Craig Syverson from gruntmedia put together a great promo video for our upcoming Podcast Academy. We have worked hard to make this the best Academy yet with instructors including including Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay, Denise Howell, Craig Syverson and others. There is still some space left if you want to learn all about corporate uses, podcast consulting and video podcasting. See you there. [link]

I posted an interview with Larry Gerbrandt, Senior Vice President of Nielsen Analytics on the Behind The Mic series on the Podcast Academy channel. If you follow podcasting you might find his explanation and analysis of the data they gathered interesting. The study attracted some attention when it was first released regarding the numbers published in the press release.

I decided to experiment with some video. If it works, the post should display a movie poster you can click to play as well as a download option for an iPod version of the video. The movie segment above was created by Noah Bonnett from 88SLIDE for a series of episodes he produced at Disneyland. (BTW Noah is an Instructor at the upcoming Podcast Academy.)

I saw a press release on Podcasting News about the upcoming International Podcasting Expo held “virtually” in late October. I don’t know anything about this event, but I found it strange that with early registration you receive “a free 2-CD set of the Expo recordings”? Huh? A conference about podcasting that burns the audio or video to CD and mails it to you? Just struck me as odd. I’m surprised that the presenters don’t insist that their presentations are podcast.

Found this by way of Steve Garfield. What is your speed?

I am in Minneapolis to speak to a group of radio executives at the Marketing Technology Summit. Over the last two years, when asked, I have gone on record that podcasting will not kill radio. However, something interesting just happened on the bleeding edge. I am in a cab heading to my hotel and the driver asked if I’d like to listen to the radio. I have never been to this city before and don’t really care to spend my time trying to find the local stations I like. Instead, I just flipped open my laptop and using my EVDO card “tuned” to the most recent episode we posted on the GigaVox Media Network. So here I am in the back of this cab listening to “my” radio station that travels with me everywhere I can find the Internet. If the cab had a line in, like my car does, we could all hear it. Next year 70% of US manufactured cars sold will be iPod compatible. What happens when iPods and similar mobile devices are WiFi or EVDO enabled? Where does radio stand then? I can pick from content produced worldwide rather then my local broadcast area. This is not far off. Makes the upkeep on those huge transmitters and the required licenses a big disadvantage. Don’t get me wrong, if you love the wacky morning crew from Minneapolis, they have the same ability to compete (assuming they can work out their music issues with the RIAA.) Meanwhile, we are set to compete on an even playing field with little to no overhead. Content will win the day. Pretty exciting.

I am pleased to announce that GigaVox Media launched this week with our three initial channels. My partner, Doug Kaye, and I decided that an appropriate launch would be one with little fanfare - why talk about it, when we could just do it. Doing it, however, was a lot of work and is the main reason things have been quiet here recently. (It is also the reason I haven’t done a Reel Review in a while - though I plan to rectify that.)

For the last few months, Doug and I have been hard at work shaping the vision for GigaVox and handling all the details it takes to role an established brand like IT Conversations (with over 1200 episodes) into our new company as well as to begin the initial expansion of the network. Every startup tells you they have great plans - I’ll just tell you what we can confirm publicly.

IT Conversations has so much content we split off a channel devoted to open source and open standards called Open Source Conversations. We are pleased to have Zend as a sponsor at launch. We have also created an entire channel devoted to podcasting with BSW as an initial sponsor. The Podcast Academy Channel will have content from the Podcast Academy events - coming up now on #4 - as well as conference content. We will begin releasing the audio from the Corporate Podcasting Summit next week as well as our own Podcast Academy #2 which was a sold out event held at Boston University in April of this year. We will debut a hosted show, by yours truly, called Behind the Mic which will focus on the timely and topical events in podcasting. We are also pleased to announce that we are the exclusive audio content partner of the upcoming Podcast & Portable Media Expo.

Speaking of the Expo, we are producing a blockbuster Podcast Academy on Thursday, September 28th, the day before the Expo. It is a schedule chocked full of luminaries in the podcast and videocast fields. This Academy is aimed at Corporate users as well as Podcast Experts and Consultants. We have included an entire afternoon on the cutting edge in video podcasting. Confirmed Instructors include, Leo Laporte from TWiT, Alex Lindsay from MacBreak, Craig Syverson from gruntmedia, Tim Street from French Maid TV, Noah Bonnett and Rachel Rhodes from 88Slide, Denise Howell from Bag and Baggage, Greg Cangialosi from Blue Sky Factory and Kris Smith from Croncast. We worked hard on this line-up and we are extremely pleased with the instructors. This is a not t be missed event. You can register now at a reduced rate at the Podcast Academy.

For ITC fans, IT Conversations will continue to bring you great conference content - in fact we have just completed deals with a number of exciting events as well as informative hosted shows. ITC is our flagship channel and we intend to keep it that way.

While the real work is still ahead of us, I’d like to offer a thank you to my partner Doug Kaye, who has worked tirelessly, as well as Tim McNerney, Paul Figgiani and Darusha Wehm who, among many others, have made this possible. Thank you.