Some links to podcast directories:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/rickygervais
http://podcastnation.co.uk/podblog/
http://www.podcast.net/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/
http://podcasts.yahoo.com/
http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/links.php
http://podfeed.net/
http://www.ipodder.org/directory/4/podcasts
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php
http://www.technorati.com/
Congratulations to the 7:30 Report for this week’s wonderful example of campaigning journalism on behalf of Sydney fishermen and their families.
On Wednesday night Jonathon Harley did an expose on the high levels of dioxin found in the fishermen who had been eating their own catch from Sydney’s waters for years. The NSW government was not offering testing to the families and so the 7:30 Report did.
The result was a complete about face by the government. In less than 24 hours the government agreed to free blood testing for the families. A number of high profile people have now got together to campaign with the fishermen for government compensation for these families who may face years of expensive medical expenses.
See the programme’s transcripts from the archives.
If you’re a news junkie then the place to put your dial is ABC’s News Radio. From a small office in Sydney the station serves up a diet of pure news, devoid of talkback, music or any of those other irritating diversions from the real deal.
They run a lively website which is regularly updated with links to breaking stories and through their agreements with other broadcasters (BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Netherlands) they offer a window to the world of international news from other countries’ perspectives.
Check out their website at http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/ and have a listen to my podcast which I recorded in their studio. Cheers, Colleen Murrell.
In relation to the downloads vs. listeners argument doing the rounds of the blogosphere at the moment, self-styled “blogger, podcaster and Internet Jedi” Jon Watson points out that “content is king, not the bells and whistles”. Well done Jon, the Force is obviously strong in you.
However it’s the audience, or in my line of work target public, that is really king.
The “content is king” axiom is only true in as much as the target public thinks the content is interesting, relevant or worth listening to or watching. Obvious you might say. However if your producing your content (podcast or blog) for a specific goal (and I hope you are, otherwise why waste your time?), you’ll have a specific audience in mind. I doubt it will be the entire 1.08 billion regular users of the Internet, so you need to think about who you want to communicate with to reach your objective. If you’re writing to impress fellow geeks, write about things that geeks will be impressed by, and write about in in a language the geeks will relate to. If you’re producing a blog for relative newcomers to the medium you’d talk about issues in general, and in a language they’d understand, perhaps with a few “sidebars” of added information.
Employers constantly tell me they want three things from my communication graduates - a good general knowledge, good writing skills, and an ability to target information appropriately. They understand that the best prose and information is wasted if it doesn’t go to the right people.
The target public is king. Long live the king!
Oh, and Amanda over at PRblogs.org has a nice blog entry about this very issue.
I really don’t understand “the number of podcasts exceed the number of radio stations” comparison in the Burning Question blog.
Firstly, how can they compare an audio file available for download to a radio station? I’m going to skip over the quality differences, and the number of people listening to each medium (for a moment), to just say that the comparison is largely pointless. Even if it was a good comparison, the DVD Talk Radio podcasts they give as an example are probably each equivalent to one interview, on one program on one radio station on one day! A single podcast is more akin to one webpage than a radio station. Some well-produced podcasts may be equivalent to several pages. In general, lets say that a series of podcasts is equivalent to a website. So I’d argue that a comparison of feeds vs. the number of web sites is more appropriate. I think you’ll find podcasts hardly rate in that comparison.
Secondly, even if we did know the number of unique subscribers, I doubt that this would translate into anywhere near an accurate analysis of people listening to podcasts. I currently subscribe to about 20 podcasts, yet I rarely listen a complete podcast. In fact, looking over my list, I don’t think I’ve listened to ANY of almost half of those I subscribe to. Subscribers do not equal listeners. Using me as an example, halving the number of subscribers would be a more accurate measure of listeners (and remember I rarely listen to a complete podcast! I’d love to hear from other people the number of subscriptions vs. listens).
The Burning Question’s entry concludes with a prediction that with the current phenomenal growth rate, by the end of this year FeedBurner “will likely manage well over 100,000 podcasts representing upwards of 5 millions subscribers”. Lets assume a subscriber does equal a listener; the prediction suggests that each podcasts is listened to by an average of 50 people. With a click through rate of 0.8 percent, that’s four views. For those in sales, how many click throughs translate into sales? For those like myself more interested in communicating information, my time might be better spent handing out flyers on a street corner…or randomly calling four people.
I realise I sound anti-podcasting. I’m not. I believe it’s here to stay, and used effectively it can be a great way to communicate. However, lets not over-hype it and pretend it’s something it’s not. I also firmly believe that we need to start more rigorous analysis of the medium and conduct research in to why people are podcasting, what they want to achieve, and what they are actually achieving.
Thinking about podcasting? Many organisations, including Telstra (see www.nowwearetalking.com.au), are already producing them as part of their communication program. However there are conflicting reports about the popularity of podcasting and its future.
Despite Oxford University Press naming “podcast” as the 2005 “word of the year”, news from Forrester Research suggests 73 percent of North Americans have never heard of podcasting – and apparently they “don’t care to learn more about it”.
Over at Billboard Radio Monitor, the news is all about podcasts “coming of age”:
A year ago podcasting was just a fad with a cool name. In recent weeks, the format has taken several steps toward becoming big business. The audio blog phenomenon that began as free, grass-roots rantings is being commercialized through advertising and subscription fees.
Worldwide, especially in North America, the number of new Internet users has stagnated, but according to ClickZ Network involvement has deepened. Online developments such as podcasts, and RSS feeds are driving Internet usage and setting the pace globally according to the Internet marketing resource site.
My straw poll of corporate communication professionals I’ve met during the past month indicates there is a huge gulf between the technology “haves” and “have nots”. Reactions to questions about use of new technology ranges from “what’s a blog” to “I couldn’t survive without RSS feeds”.
Political parties and politicians are arguably at the cutting edge of community consultation and not surprisingly are generally making use of new technology. In Australia, the Greens, Democrats and the Australian Labor Party have embraced RSS feeds. At least one politician, Senator Andrew Bartlett, writes his own blog. But no podcasts as yet.
In the lead-up to the 2008 US presidential election, the Democrats have fully embraced technology with both a blog, called Kicking Ass, and podcasts featuring on their federal site.
There’s no doubt audio, and video content, on the Internet is here to stay. Convergent technologies will mean that multimedia content will increasingly be easier to access, and with this we’ll see even more people listening to podcasts.
For communication professionals, maybe the lesson is that podcasts could be an effective way to reach a specific target public.
Radio advertising research group Arbitron, for example, suggests:
Podcasting attracts a youthful audience: one out of five who have ever listened to an audio podcast are 12-17 years old, and more than half (53 percent) are under the age of 35.
Other research indicates more males than females are listening.
So whilst it’s not a tactic for every campaign or issue at the moment, it could be a useful channel to reach particular target publics.
Some analysts have predicted that we’re moving out of the “early adopters” stage for podcasts. How quickly they become mainstream is yet to be determined, but when they do they’ll become a regular tactic for communications professionals.
A few months ago I visited the ABC’s ‘AM’ program in Sydney. AM is one of the country’s most important and influential current affairs programs. I watched the program being put together and interviewed the main members of the team: Presenter Tony Eastley (pictured right); Executive Producer David Burgess; Associate Producer Mark Tamhane; Studio Editor Leonie Highfield; and reporter Edmund Roy. They told me about their working lives and I quizzed them about the essential ingredients of a cracking ‘AM’ story.
Have a listen and tell me what you think.
Happy Easter! Colleen Murrell.
AdNews reports that those New Zealand hypnotic groovers Fat Freddy’s Drop, with the help of the marketing agency Dot.Ink, have helped finance a new clip with the help of nine product placements.
Their previous clip for “Wandering Eye” was smattered with six product placements - Becks, Wattie’s, Sealord, Huffer Clothing, Phoenix Organics, and John Deere it was reported. Most of the placements are quite subtle I find. It’s a funky song, and a great clip. The clip is available on You Tube.
…and speaking of Dot.Ink, one of their clients in Ansell, who promote “horizontal folk-dancing” (you can buy the Horizontal Folk-Dancing Champion tee-shirt from their website). So I Googled that phrase and “New Zealand” to find out what else Ansell do to promote that style of, ummm, dancing.
In doing so I found possibly one of the most unfortunate media quotes I’ve come across in a long time. Promoting a study that found New Zealanders are more active than Australians, the NZ Sport Minister Trevor Mallard challenged the Australian High Commissioner, Allen Hawke, to a best-of-three race up the steps of NZ Parliament House.
Apparently Mr Mallard won convincingly. After the three races, Mr Hawke admitted to the media he was “buggered”. Then asked what Australian men are doing instead of being active, stuff.co.nz reports that Mr Hawke said “A bit of horizontal folk dancing I guess”.