CitizenSpin

Portable Media Expo - final thoughts

Its 5am here in California and I’m awake. It’s either the excitement around the Portable Media Expo or the fact that my body still hasn’t adjusted to the time difference. It’s a good job I’ve been waking early because there was  lot to see and do, and the pace has been relentless at what’s been dubbed the Woodstock of Podcasting.

What was striking about the expo is the level of enthusiasm and energy around podcasting. There are lots of people out there who are excited about the prospect of making podcasts. There are also a hell of a lot of people who are keen to make money out of podcasts – I can’t remember the number of times I heard ‘monetization’. The message back from the speakers was – just make great content. I hope the creativity isn’t lost in the dash for cash, and that podcasting doesn’t mirror the way that broadcast radio seems to have gone here in the USA.
The challenge to existing big-media is to raise it’s game – it was great to hear “podcasting will make radio better” from a delegate in one session. I hope it does. What would be great from my perspective is if established media manages to harness the energy enthusiasm and passion expressed here. 
Some other thoughts:

■ It’s not all about iPods – more people listen to podcasts on PCs and mobile phones are more ubiquitous, have the capability and will provide mass-market access
■ People don’t know what podcasting is – the majority of people in USA never heard of podcasting or don’t understand what it means
■ Finally, it’s a great way to connect with audiences

Oh and a final thought, this was billed as the first podcasting conference, but I’m sure I remember attending the Britcaster PodCastCon in the UK in September – surely us Brits weren’t there first?
But hey, the Yanks were bigger.

I found a selection of photos here, and there were a whole bunch of podcasts from the Expo: PodcastPickle.com, Podcasting Underground,  New Media Musings,  Radio Leo (KFI Radio podcast),  Accident Hash,  Podcrawl,  TechPodcasts.com,  Learn Out Loud,  Dr. Floyd

Matt

Keep podcasting simple - KPSS

Keynote address 7 – Don Katz CEO Audible Inc

The main message to the Portable Media Expo from Don Datz, was that for podcasting to take off, it needs to be easy, really easy. Here are the key points:

1) Don’t underestimate how easy podcasting needs to become. It has to be easy to fit into the non-early adopters’ lifestyle – people are intolerant of technological complexity. Future optimisation will come forward and make it simpler – the experience and content needs to become more important than the technology.
2) Make your costs as variable as you can make them – podcasting could be very expensive non-profit making effort. Plenty of big media have made mistakes sinking a lot of money into technology where there is not enough uptake.
3) Move your efforts by some degree into the direction of a sustainable business model. It will change and emerge and evolve, but have some kind of model to start with. 
4) There will be new environments and markets for content – there has to be an economy that matches the creativity that will emerge.
5) Be tenacious, tough and protect your ego – take pleasure in doing what you do and saying what you’re going to say. Just stick to it and believe in yourself.
6) Make great audio! The barriers to creating audio and being in this game are lower than they have ever been.

Podcasting will soar because of the quality of the creativity – and the content which is available.

Matt

If there is a spark there, you can fan it into flames

Session 6 The human touch – using podcasts for interaction and to create new relationships

Dave Slusher – Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast

This session focused on the relationship it is possible to build with an audience on a small scale, which is difficult in other forms of broadcasting. Slusher argued that the smaller, and tighter the audience size, the stronger that relationship can be.
He suggested that in terms of podcasting a smaller audience can actually be desirable, because the model is actually different to that of broadcast media. Whereas broadcasters have fixed costs, which fall per-listener as more people tune in, podcasters use more bandwidth as more people download and therefore costs rise.
The ideal is an engaged audience, who are interested in what you’re doing, and no larger than that. 
Slusher argued that radio (in the US) has squandered its relationship with the audience. Radio was once the intimate medium, the friend who was always there; now its big business, no personality, and formats. The spoken word has great power for emotional engagement with the audience – TV is a sit back media where everything is presented to you on a plate, where as audio connects more directly and uses the listeners’ imagination. You are whispering in their ear.
He quoted the example of a Bruce Springsteen podcast. Where Springsteen talked directly to his fans, talks about concerns over his recording contract, and his new album. Because of the podcast Slusher now listens to that album differently, and has an insight into what was in Springsteen's mind when he produced it.
A very powerful way of connecting with the audience.

Matt

Podcasting is good for radio – new research

Session 5 – Audience metrics for portable devices: Answering the ‘who’ and ‘how many’ questions

This session at the Portable Media Expo looked at what kind of measurement of the audience was taking place. This was of particular interest to existing broadcasters (my perspective) and there were a number of established companies on the (rather large) panel:

Speakers: Dave Van Dyke - Bridge Ratings, Diane Williams - Arbitron, Mark Donovan - M:Metrics, John Federico, Audible.com, Peggy Miles - Intervox, Mark McCrery - Podtrac

Dave van Dyke kicked-off the session with news that research he’s carried out for Bridge ratings has concluded that radio stations can actually benefit from podcasting.   
The study of used a sample of 4000 people, including 2000 listeners to non-commercial radio stations such as NPR. It was conducted between January and October 2005 in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC, St. Louis and Miami.
To quote from the press release: “Listeners to NPR and other non-commercial stations reflected a 5 percent increase in cume listening and generated 10% more time spent listening after regularly (2 or more times per week) downloading station podcasts.”
Bridge Ratings President Dave Van Dyke explains: "We had hoped that this technology would empower radio and this first-look study confirms that podcasting will impact listening and ratings."
Further research is expected, and more detail is yet to come out of this study – but it appears that the podcasts are helping build a stronger relationship with the audience: increasing the time spent listening live and improving recall of the station. Van Dyke has identified that a listeners need to be listening to two podcasts per week over a month for the relationship to develop.
Bridge Ratings is measuring podcasting through traditional interview techniques, this is because it is difficult to track down new media listeners. They ask about demographics, cumulative time listening, how people listen, do they forward files to friends or share them. Other techniques employed include the embedding of email questionnaires and they’re developing tracer cookies for PCs – which can directly track specific behaviour without having to interview respondents.
David van Dyke also showed a series of slides predicting that critical mass in podcasting will be reached by 2010. Currently there are about 5m people who’ve downloaded and listened to a podcast – optimistic estimates think this will be 75m by 2010 (the low end estimate is 40m). Existing broadcasters will play a large roll in driving this uptake – see the BBC podcast trial which is doing just this.
The other interesting statistic was that more people are listening on PCs than on portable devices – again the iPod is seen as key, but mobile phones and PCs could actually be more important.

The other interesting speaker from my perspective was Diane Williams of Arbitron. They’re currently using a diary system of measuring listening, as used by RAJAR in the UK. They’ve developed the personal people meter (PPM). It clips on and it picks up inaudible signal encoded into signal of whatever it is that you can hear and it knows what you’re listening to and when.
The interesting point is that in their trial which was carried out in Houston, the PPM has resulted in higher listening figures for radio, because it automatically recalls everything that people are listening-to, rather than relying on memory. We’re much more promiscuous listeners than we realise. Full findings of the trial, in PDF, are here.

Matt

National Public Radio – Groove Salad with podcasting

Keynote address 4 – Robert Spier, NPR online

Robert Spier told the Portable Media Expo that NPR has moved quickly to add podcasting to their online offering and it’s providing them with some interesting opportunities to connect with new audiences. NPR adds 56 hours of audio to the podcast library each week.
The next challenge is to streamline the back end of the system – so that they can place even more content online. 
Spier suggested that podcasting allows them to develop a new approach to developing talent and content. Using podcasts to incubate talent, where the barriers are low, and build from there.
The most exciting aspect of NPR podcasting from my perspective is the opportunity to connect with new audiences – especially with alt.npr allowing young people to create their own content, and for programmes that you wouldn’t normally expect to hear. A great example of how a mainstream broadcaster can use the new distribution platform to widen it’s audience. Groove Salad is an example of a new chilled music programme that NPR can put out … groovy …

Matt

Content is king, but portability of content is King Kong

Keynote address 5 – Angel Gambino, VP Commercial Strategy & Digital Media, MTV

The session started by acknowledging the many opportunities and challenges. The technology still provides the challenges, but the possibilities with content are what’s most exciting.
Technology was an interesting point, it’s easy to get hung up on it all – the basic message was that it’s all just a new way of getting great content out there. Some interesting facts came out about the UK market with regards to technology though:
In the UK 90% percent of respondents, do not know what podcasting is. However, 90% of the population in the UK have a mobile phone, and the majority of those phones are rich-media enabled. Therefore, the exciting are is looking at delivering content to these kind of devices rather than MP3 players. Mobile phones are the platform it seems.
Talk should be about portable media – not just podcasting – portable and not just on-demand.
People want content on the move nowadays, and not just young early adopters, everyone does – the demographic and lifestyle boundaries are breaking down – everyone is at it.
The challenges that this brings are – discovery of content, measurability of audiences, commercial viability of services, and searchability of content.
In November MTV in the UK launched on mobile phones with Vodafone and Sky TV. They will shortly launch more services like Paramount Comedy. MTV is the most requested mobile channel in the UK. What’s really interesting is that in some markets MTV gets more income from mobile phone channels than they get from the traditional advertising model on the existing TV channel.
Gambino also returned to content saying that traditional ideas about broadcasting and productions processes need to change – what works on radio and TV won’t necessarily work as a podcast or online and vice versa. The mantra that content is king returned too – adding that content creators have a huge opportunity now to generate content – all the big operators are on the lookout for great new content.

Matt

Big media bad, podcasters good?

Session 2 - How citizen media is changing the face of traditional media

The session at the Portable Media Expo was billed as addressing: Blogs and podcasts are becoming increasingly "news-breakers" rather than thoughts on breaking news. Traditional media has been critical of bloggers and podcasters who consider themselves true journalists, yet they have been taking steps to start their own blogs and podcasts in response.
The speakers were: JD Lasica - OurMedia.org, Mike Dunn - Hearst Interactive and nomadic_audio blog, Eric Rice - EricRice.com

The basic thesis of the delegates in this session was that big media is obstructing citizen journalists and becoming intimidated of user generated content. JD Lasica written book Darknet, which details Hollywood’s attempt to block / ignore what’s happening.

Lasica asserted that:
■       We’re all users, rather than passive consumers
■       Consumer Journalism is a bottom-up experience, with user generated content
■       This encourages media as a social experience – it’s all about building community and relationships
■       Distrust and scepticism of the mainstream media is on the rise

Against this background, the number of podcasts and vlogs is growing rapidly.
One interesting concept that was introduced and reoccurred throughout the conference was that of The Long Tail programming – long tail content provides high value programming to a highly targeted niche audience. And all the long tail content can add up to more users and more revenue than the big market stuff – see wikkipedia – which will probably explain it better than me.
We also got into an interesting discussion about credibility of sources. The panel felt that credibility is borne of a community voice, from having a genuine voice. It was asserted that the bloggshpere and the podcasting universe are very self-correcting – mistakes and inaccuracies will be corrected.
However, I did suggest it was a little naive to believe that people who are blogging or podcassting will not have a particular axe to grind, be receiving funding that they’re not being transparent about or be a PR or corporate blog / podcast which may not be obvious.
This was taken on board but, the feeling was that people will build a circle of trust – voices and commentators who are valued and trusted. Just as journalists have valued contacts …

Matt

Podcasting – makes radio better

Session 1 - How podcasting is changing traditional radio

This session at the Portable Media Expo examined radio, and what is happening right now connected to podcasting. The question was “Is podcasting the biggest thing in talk radio or is talk radio the biggest thing in podcasting?”

The panel consisted of: Mark Ramsey Radio Marketing Nexus, Sam Levin Inside Mac Radio, Dan Mansergh KQED, J. Mikel Ellcessor WNYC

The initial warning was that podcasting will not necessarily feed directly into the bottom line. As far as stations are concerned, it should be regarded as a tool to help build relationships and connect with the audience. The NPR guys added that podcasting is providing the tools to meet the audience on their terms - it is about providing the content when they want to use it – wherever they are.
Focusing further on content there are a number of different approaches developing:
Re-versioning: Initial podcast offerings have focused on ‘best of’ programmes and weekly highlights of popular shows. I know in the UK this has been somewhat driven by music rights issues – so that highlights of speech content were the best workaround.
Unique content: There are also plans afoot to put original content out there – if an interview only has 10 minutes on air, but ran to 50 minutes when recorded, then why not podcast or stream the unedited version? The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 has done this to some extent with some extended interviews.
It also occurs to me, that if you’re trying to build a relationship with a presenter then some unique content which gives an insight into their life, a personal weekly column or some such, would be a good idea.
Inside Mac Radio also provided a great example, which continues the relationship with the audience throughout the week, for what is a weekly programme. They’ve introduced daily podcast news updates throughout the week, for people who listen to the programme on a weekly basis. It gives the Mac users a daily fix of what they’re after while the programme is off-air.
Not-for-air: The NPR delegates also talked about plans to generate content specifically for their online operations. This content may never make it onto air, but would help connect with a new audience and broaden the appeal of the NPR stations. This provides them with an opportunity to connect with new audiences. It may even be a pool of new broadcasting talent.
One delegate suggested that podcasting could only make existing radio better, with added competition forcing broadcasters to raise the bar.
This BBC Online article says there are mixed messages for radio.
From the perspective of a programme maker, that sounds a fantastic challenge to rise-to ...

Matt

Forget making money, make good podcasts

Keynote address 2: Leo Laporte, author, G4TechTV host and the presenter of the Tech Guy

The first keynote address flowed logically into the second at the Portable Media Expo. Leo Laporte forwarded the argument that talent would win-out. His initial advice is to forget about the business model – good programmes and podcasts will find a model that works for them.
He introduced the model of Maslow's hierarchy of needs – a psychological theory in which he argues that as humans meet basic needs (at the base of the pyramid), they seek to satisfy successively higher needs further up the hierarchy – see wikipedia.
Self actualisation is the state of nirvana at the top of the pyramid – and Laporte argues that an analysis of the 14 traits shared by people who reach this point are shared by good programming. These are: truth, goodness, beauty, unity, aliveness, uniqueness, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, playfulness, meaningfulness. And most of all - passion.
He argues that if you’re passionate about what you do then you will win out.

Matt

Podcasting business opportunities & the role of talent

Keynote address 1: Jason Calacanis, CEO Weblogs Inc.

The first keynote addresses of the Portable Media Expo had contrasting approaches to the future of podcasting. Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs Inc., gave a speech examining possible business models for new start-ups. He seems pretty well qualified to do this, having reportedly just sold his company to AOL for $12m. (Jason disputes this figure - see his comment. Also look at this Business Week article.)
Providing a search engine for podcasts and directories of content will not get you anywhere according to Jason. Yahoo!, Google etc have quickly jumped on the bandwagon, and are providing good search engines and tools for finding podcasts.
He thinks that podcasting software and hosting provided better business opportunities. He argues that good businesses take the pain out of a process for the consumer. Creating a podcast and hosting it is currently a technical process, using a number of different pieces of software etc. Anyone who manages to streamline this could be onto a winner.
His other big opportunity is podcast advertising. At the moment Google makes money out of adsense ads. If someone can beat Google to building a version for podcasts then there may be a big business there. An interesting challenge that he mentions is placing fresh advertising in old podcasts – if your content has a long tail, you need to place fresh ads in whenever anyone listens.
Jason ultimately sees the best model as the podcasters. Be the next Howard Stern and you do not have to worry about the business model.
To summarise:

■ Look at where the pain is for the consumer – that’s an opportunity
■ Introduce ads for podcasts
■ Make podcast advertising work
■ Talent will win out – they create content and content will be king

For more coverage of Jason's opening address read the iPodObserver article.

Matt