MWGblog

I’ve learned over the last few years to simply turn off the RSS reader on the 1st of April. As I posted last year…

I was playing catch with my sons today and it struck me that some of my best memories from college involve tossing the ball around. My roommate for 3+ years, Michael Sullivan, and I would often go out to throw the ball around late in the afternoon. Neither of us were “pro” ball players, just two guys with mitts and a ball. Closing in on 40, it is interesting that some of my best memories from college are playing catch with Michael. Two guys on the grass throwing a ball. Talking, joking and having a good time. Funny how that stuff sticks, but it does…

I’ve agreed again this year to speak at NAB. I’ll be doing two sessions for the Podcasting Summit:

• Setting Up an Audio Podcasting Studio on Any Budget
• Encoding Tools and Techniques for Audio Podcasting

From the look of the schedule it promises to be a comprehensive event. Should be fun.

Gizmodo, of all sites, catches up with my favorite frame manufacturer, (mountain bikes) Ellsworth. They feature the ultimate beach cruiser that Tony (Ellsworth) and his team have made, The Ride. Me? Proud owner of an Id, Epiphany and a new 2007 Moment on the way!

I listened to 10 “Podcasts” today. Not a single one via RSS. Does that mean podcasting is stagnating? Who knows, but audio on the web has blossomed! How many companies (and individuals) got off the pot and started posting audio because of the explosive growth of podcasting? Give me a break! Look at the big picture. Without podcasting, these initiatives would not be in place. I’m feeling good about where we are. It is time to get away from pinning the success of the medium on the success of the term.

Want to have a shot at being NPR’s next great host? Here are the details.

I just got word that one of my podcasts, Grape Radio, has been nominated for a 2007 James Beard Award. I have often heard of these awards referred to as the Oscars of Food and Wine. The James Beard Foundation Awards are the nation’s preeminent honors for culinary professionals. Congratulations to my partners at Grape Radio, and thank you to all who have supported us.

This video gives me goose-bumps! 253 miles an hour. Why can’t we get car coverage like this in the US?

Amazon has posted a case study about GigaVox’s use of the Amazon Web Services (S3, EC2 and SQS.) I figured it was worth upgrading our process graphic. Thanks to my partner, Doug Kaye, who took the lead on this.

Boy those Feedburner stats move! A few weeks back I was on the Podcast Brothers and the topic of Feedburner stats came up. We discussed the fact that I had seen an overnight reduction of 80% in the “supposed” subscriber count on my blog. Apparently a few listeners were curious, so here is the screenshot of the “Feed Stats” for MWGblog. As I posted back in October, Feedburner was reporting a subscriber count north of 5000 for this humble little blog.

That number continued to increase to 6200 and then in early January, bam… overnight it went to 1100. Now frankly, I never trusted the 6000+ number. It looked great, but something in my gut just said that was way too high. Conversely, I now wonder if I should trust the new number. It has continued to increase to just over 2200 as I write this. This brings up a few interesting points. First I’d be ecstatic if the number was 20, but I would like to have a number that was at least in the realm of “accurate”. (Lets say at least in the ballpark.) I realize that feed subscriber count is not a science, but when you see swings this dramatic it does nothing but undermine all credibility. When I do see those Feedburner buttons on other sites with subscriber counts I now tend to think “yeah, right…”

That is the problem - loss of credibility. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on Feedburner, heck it is free. Since using their service, other than the stats hiccup mentioned here, it has been fantastic. Also I did email them, and while no specific cause was given they did point to this post abut Rojo. But still, 80%?

The reason this is important to me is that we are starting to pay attention to statistics for podcasts at GigaVox. In that context, my experience offers some lessons I’d like to apply moving forward. Accurate stats are a requirement. Podcasters and advertisers need them: clear, accurate and reliable stats. I have never been a fan of the CPM approach, but “I don’t know” will never cut it as an answer about your audience size. Also, podcasters will need to be careful. Could you imagine relying on a third party stats provider for a CPM based ad campaign and you get back a graph like the one above? Hope you didn’t already cash the check, someone will want some money back. (I also would not expect any return business.) Everyone ends up loosing in that scenario. So no answers here today, but I must confess, in a round about way I am glad this happened. It has given me some good food for thought moving forward on stats for podcasting.