MWGblog

I have often referred people to the Common Craft video explaining Twitter. Now they have published an episode for podcasting:

I have upgraded the blog to Wordpress 2.5.1 and deployed a new Theme. Yes, it looks the same but it is a complete rebuild and now sports a new wider main content area. Some stuff will be broken for a few days as I sort through it all. Feel free to send along any problems you notice. Thanks!

For those who attended my presentation at PodCamp NYC here are the slides from my presentation: PodCamp NYC 2008.

As I mentioned earlier, I am heading off to PodCamp NY this week. I’m looking forward to it. The only change to my plans is that I have agreed to do a presentation along with Tim Bourquin on Friday at 3PM. We’ll be talking about growing your audience and monetization. My part is a condensed version of the presentation I gave last week at NAB. This one just tuned for the PodCamp audience.)

Best of all I was able to score some last minute reservations at Gordon Ramsay’s at The London (Thank you Amex). As a long time Gordon Ramsay fan it should be a good way to kick off a great event.

After much anticipation the ADM (Association for Downloadable Media) has released two proposed guidelines and standards: Advertisement Unit Standards and Downloadable Measurement Guidelines. Both documents (available here) weigh in at just 3 pages and are open for public comment. If the new media advertising space is important to you I suggest you pay attention, the ADM presumes to speak for you. That said, I have to tell you, I read them both and wondered where was the rest - the important part? Looking at the “Downloadable Measurement Guidelines” I can sum it up in three words “use Apache logs.” We’ve always know that, what a let down.

What the ADM completely avoided (and it appears this is intentional) is the huge elephant standing in the corner of the room: what counts as a listen/view? Does 33% file delivery count for delivery of a pre-roll? 60% for a mid-roll? Is 100% file delivery required to count as a “complete” view/listen? How are automated downloads counted, i.e. what discount metric is used for iTunes subscriptions to determine a consumption metric over delivery? How are multiple requests from a single IP address counted? All of that, the important part, is left up to the company or producer you are dealing with. Put simply, we are exactly in the same spot as before: use your Apache logs.

When I see “standard” and “guidelines” I expect just that but these documents completely miss the mark. I don’t know if they expect the producer community to provide the important part via the comment period or if they will just completely avoid it.

This is a simple leadership issue. There are some smart folks at the helm of the ADM, but I was surprised that they allowed these documents to be released as their first “official” step into the arena. The ADM has been terrific at PR, but that is not their core responsibility, this stuff is. Bottom line, the ADM needs to take a stand, put up with the flack and develop a complete standard. It won’t be friendly, people will have cross words and it might upset some of the “Board of Advisors” and “Committee Chairs” who have proprietary approaches but that is the real work that needs to be done. When it comes time for the heavy lifting - the ADM can’t drop the ball like this.

Now granted, I’m not a member and I didn’t run for the board. When asked, I chose not to, only so many projects I can do at one time. I take this stuff seriously and only agree to participate when I know that I can give something the attention it deserves. Believe me, this stuff is important. I know in some sense I’m being critical when I could have contributed. But to be plain, these documents are open for public comment - I hope they’ll consider mine.

This web comic from xkcd caught my attention. We’ve all been there.

I’ll be at the Podcasting Summit this weekend. If you are there stop by for one of my sessions:

• Growing Your Audience
• Making It: Lessons Learned on the Path to Podcasting Success

I plan to drop by both the Disney & the Content Creator parties on Sunday night and I’ll be on the show floor Monday. Look me up or follow on Twitter.

It has certainly been a busy week for award related announcements at GrapeRadio. This morning it was revealed that GrapeRadio is a recipient of the 2008 American Wine Blog Award in the best podcast or videoblog category.

Just as with last week’s announcement of nomination for the James Beard Foundation Award, my congratulations once again go out to my hard working partners at GrapeRadio. Great work guys!

Amazing presentation from TED 2008 by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. How often does a neuroanatomist get a chance to study their own stroke from the inside out? A touching story, great education on how the two halves of the brain function and an example of someone who knows how to give a captivating presentation. A standing ovation is always a good thing. Take the time to watch this one.

Todd Cochrane and RawVoice posted a “white paper” regarding their statistics model today. I’ll save you the time. Skip it.

While I hoped it would shed some light on the statistics model they have repeatedly lauded over the last few years, truth be told it reads more as a “we know best” sales letter. Perhaps I am reading more into it than it deserves, but it appears Todd & Co are positioning themselves for a showdown with the ADM and others over metrics models. My guess is that with the recent updates to the Libsyn statistics engine the team at RawVoice would like to get out in front of the statistics issue, perhaps this was part of that strategy.

The folks at RawVoice can do better. They have some smart people on the team and I have no doubt that they have collected some interesting data and metrics. If their goal was to release a “white paper” then do a real one with the corresponding algorithms, detailed methodology, historic data, etc. Sure they have a paragraph or two with some examples, but a “white paper” it is not.

As a general observation I have always been a bit wary of the secretive aspects of RawVoice and their various media properties. The numbers are always generic - lots of fanfare but never any specifics. If they are doing what they claim why the secrecy? Mainstream media doesn’t even protect this info. It is easy to find out what a SuperBowl, TV series or radio ad costs. Why are RawVoice campaigns so different? Obviously it is their prerogative to keep it all buttoned up if they wish, I just find it interesting that in the open world of new media, CPM and CPA campaign numbers are so guarded.

Of course this is from the guy who has been doing public presentations for the last three years telling you exactly what we charge for sponsorships and how we sell them. I see no advantage to being secretive about it, no more so than hiding the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Things cost what they cost, no big deal.

As for the RawVoice white paper, I hope they’ll take another look at it and put out a proper one. In the long run I think it will do RawVoice and podcasting some good.

If you’d like to keep up to date with everything going on please follow me on Twitter. When I first set up my blogs I spent a bunch of time setting up “Asides,” basically short quips and interesting facts I could easily post to the sites. In recent months Twitter has emerged as the superior vehicle for micro-blogging and replaced my need for Asides here on the sites. So what should you do? Follow me.

I accepted an invitation to speak again this year at NAB. I’ll be doing a session and a panel for the Podcasting Summit:

• Growing Your Audience
• Making It: Lessons Learned on the Path to Podcasting Success

You can see the entire schedule here. I’ve participated as a speaker at this event for the last three years. It has always proven to be a good learning event and one to check out if you’ll be at NAB.

Is there a consensus on the proper etiquette for following/followers on Twitter? Are there multiple proper approaches?

Over the last few weeks I have debated whether I should follow anyone who follows me. I’m trying to figure out if Twitter is a “conversation” medium or a “broadcast” medium similar to RSS where there is no expectation of reciprocation. I noticed a few weeks back that Sarah Meyers took the step of following anyone who was following her. I found this to be an interesting move and one that got me to thinking about what other Twitter users were doing. Guy Kawasaki takes a reciprocal approach for his 4300+ followers. I chose to follow him and like-wise he now follows me. Jason Calacanis seems to have done the same following roughly 2/3rds of his 6700+ followers. Conversely, Leo Laporte uses Twitter much more like a traditional broadcast medium following only 212 of his 65,535 followers. Given Leo’s successful background in broadcasting his approach makes sense. Dave Winer also falls into this camp, following slightly less than 10% of his 4800+ followers. Admittedly, many of the people I have mentioned are folks I have become friendly with through podcasting and everyone is someone I follow - they have all added value to my Twitter experience. So for me, all these approaches work and I don’t know that there is a right or wrong answer, but I am curious if there is some consensus on the proper Twitter etiquette? What do you think?

BTW, you can follow me here.

Libsyn sold to Wizzard for $15 Million? Well at least $15 Million in stock according to a new article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The Libsyn sale last March made headlines in the podcasting world, but I never saw any indication of the size/scope of the deal. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Wizzard Software, Inc., a technology company based in Bloomfield, snapped up Libsyn last year for $15 million in stock.

Interesting number given that Wizzard’s total market cap is roughly $109 Million. Wizzard (WZE) started trading on the American Stock Exchange last week and toyed with $3.00 a share but has since settled down roughly 17% to the $2.50 range. I never would have thought to dig, but the $15 Million number caught my attention. SEC filings reveal that there are a number of milestones and it would appear that the $15M number is a best case scenario. But if you are curious about the sale, stock, milestones, cash payments and some employment contract info etc., here are the relevant SEC filings. [PLAN OF MERGER & FORM 8-K] (The joys of selling to a publicly traded company.) The Libsyn team are great guys, I hope that everything works out as best as possible for them.

The question is what will Wizzard do with Libsyn over the long haul? Last week some controversy erupted around the 1 Billion download claim that Wizzard/Libsyn made. Scott Bourne pointed out that a press release from Wizzard last month stating that 1 Billion podcasts downloads had been achieved in 2007 was followed up just last week by a statement that Libsyn was “fixing” issues with its stats engine. Frankly the total number is irrelevant, whatever it is, it’s big, but once again the stats issue raises its ugly head. For true advertiser support/adoption of podcasting, stats need to be quantified and agreed upon.

The bigger issue as I see it for Wizzard is their podcast publisher base. The article details, “Wizzard’s growing roster of 8,500 shows…” While we know that these shows are not Wizzard’s, Wizzard certainly has an opportunity to assist in the monetization of these productions due to their position in the distribution chain. However, of those 1 Billion downloads / 8,500 shows how many really matter to advertisers? (As a side note, the 1 Billion / 8,500 number is suspect. It would mean that the average publisher has 117,647 downloads a year or 9,803 downloads a month. This contradicts their own VP of Podcaster Relations, Rob Walsh, who arrived at the optimistic number of “73.5 subscribers per podcast feed.” But I digress…)

Libsyn is a great service that enables any podcaster to handle their media distribution for $5 dollars a month as a base package. That also means that they often attract those willing to pay the least amount. Those of us who have been around from the start have witnessed publishers using the Libsyn system having to endure numerous outages and slow delivery at times from a system clearly experiencing growing pains. Libsyn’s users have been amazingly supportive and understanding during these service issues - true fans of the service. For hobbyists this makes sense. But for mission critical delivery: businesses, large scale podcasts etc., Libsyn Basic has not been the choice of professional podcasters, they have tended to go with larger CDN delivery networks.

As a result, Wizzard ends up with amazing volume but is it really the kind of content advertisers are looking to associate their brands with? Further, with such a disparate pool of producers what is the internal cost to deal with all of them on a single ad campaign? Except for their large publishers, Wizzard does not get to enjoy the benefit of economies of scale, it might actually work against them. Contrast that with a company like Federated Media: few publishers, but they all have incredible reach/size. FM’s publisher count is finite enough that advertisers know what they are buying and who they are associating with, plus internally dealing with 20 large publishers on a campaign is much easier than trying to coral hundreds of smaller ones. This is probably why you have seen the WIzzard/Libsyn team putting so much time and attention into the Libsyn Pro product, a media publishing platform built and priced much closer to a traditional CDN.

All this said, I am curious to see how the team and product(s) evolve. They have some smart folks working with them and I hope that Libsyn/Wizzard can pull it off.

Professional Podcasting #2: Mic Flags. Before we move on from microphones I want to cover an easy way to distinguish yourself from the pack: mic flags. I have often described the “magical” power of mic flags in presentations I have given. It constantly amazes me the power these small plastic cubes have. Once you properly outfit your microphone with a professionally produced mic flag, doors open. The reasons for investing in mic flags are overwhelming:

Branding: This is a great opportunity to get your branding image and logo out there. Think back to photos of just a microphone versus those with large easy to recognize logos or wording on their mic flags. Each photo is one more brand impression for you. This is especially important for video podcasts. This is an easy way to get your branding in every frame!

Recognition: If you do large roundtable, red carpet or media events, interview subjects want to know who they are talking to. Your mic flag identifies your affiliation and makes it easy for the interview subject(s) to remember. I’ve found that interview subjects seem more at ease when I approach them with the sort of clear identification that a mic flag provides.

Professionalism: Mic flags are used by all “professional” media. Again we can take a lesson from their decades of experience - trust them on this one. Once you have a mic flag, people assume that you are a member of that same “professional” media. After all, who has a mic flag that is not serious about what they are doing? If you do in-studio interviews, mic flags offer that extra touch that sends the message: this is serious. At GrapeRadio.com we have outfitted all four shock mounts for our RE-20 mics with mic flags similar to the style I have in the picture above. We have successfully placed our MD-46’s with mic flags on the dais at a number of large wine events. They look great in the press coverage of these events.

X Factor: I’m not quite sure how to explain this, but mic flags seem to hypnotize people. It is as if folks assume you need a license to get one. I can’t tell you how many times I have talked my way into interviewing someone based in large part on the fact that I have that big plastic cube on my mic. You can see them looking down at the flag and asking, “you’re with the media?” Of course…

I always recommend Impact PBS for mic flags. They have no minimum order size or set up fees. In fact, you can order flags one at a time if need be. They have a wide assortment of styles to choose from and will certainly have one that fits your needs. The graphics are sharp and clearly visible. All sides of the flags are finished and use a nice foam center to accommodate most any microphone. (I have no affiliation with Impact PBS other than I like and use their products.) Last year I asked Glenn Love, who runs Impact PBS, to be on Behind The Mic. You can listen to the interview here.

Podcast Consultant “Trick of the Trade”: Impress you next client by having custom mic flags made. Don’t tell them ahead of time or include it as a line item in your bid, just do it. It costs next to nothing and they’ll be impressed and appreciative. Sometimes it is the little things.

Bottom line, a professional mic flag will set you back about $60 - that is nothing. Brand yourself appropriately. This is an action step for today. Order one now!

Additional resources: Podcast Solutions and Podcast Academy: The Business Podcasting Book