The Podcast Pedant

(Yeah, it’s been a while. But look! Here I am again! Enough said on that.)

(Further note: I’ll stick URLs in later. It’s late, and I’m too tired to do it now.)

So I just got back from the 2006 Podcast and Portable Media Expo.

I made it a priority to go this year because, frankly, all of the talk about it last year made me jealous. It sounded like I’d missed the podcasting event of the year — and in 2005, I probably did. There was no PodcasterCon, no PodCamp, and very little at Dragon*Con. This year? It wasn’t the only game in town, but I think it was very much worth the expense to go from a business perspective, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

I went partly to get some business done, and mostly to meet people. I’d call the business part about a 60% success — I’m not going to talk about everything I’ve been involved with, but I had a few important conversations and missed a few others because everyone was busy. No big deal; that’s what e-mail and Skype are about. The biggest accomplishment was the energy behind the Podcast Guild; we got some new gears turning, and it looks like it’s finally on its way to becoming what it needs to be. ¹ More later on that.

The people, though — that was hugely successful. I met most of the people I was hoping to meet, and many more. And it bears out an observation I’ve made from other events: despite our personas online or behind the mic, in person we’re a big circle of friends. I didn’t shake a single hand that wasn’t warm and welcoming. In some cases this surprised me: as much of a smartass as I am much of the time, I expected at least a few cold shoulders or even harsh words, but there were none the entire weekend. Everyone was cool. It was a great vibe.

Was it a deep learning experience? Not to me, though I confess I’m an unfair judge. I don’t know everything, but I know quite a bit already of what was being presented. However, the few program events I sat in on were more slick, corporate-vanilla, and “on the surface” than deep examinations of the issues. I’d even include Evo’s and my own presentation in that. I actually felt better about the panels at PodcasterCon last year, where there was less speechifying and more intimacy between the moderators and the audience. That’s not to say this was a dud; there were some good messages here. I’m just not sure from my own perspective that a session pass would’ve been worth the money, if I hadn’t had a free pass already as a speaker.

The exhibit hall was much the same: a fun place, but little depth and few surprises. Podcast Ready put on a great face as the primary sponsor,² and the Podango mini-conference³ seems to have been a hit. Most of the rest of it was what you’d expect: here’s Shure and M-Audio, there’s LibSyn, over there’s PopCurrent, yonder are a few podcast producers, etc. There were only two gadgets that threw me for a loop:

• Box Populi’s “Podcast in a Box,” a Linux-based recorder that delivers true, no-kidding, automatic podcasting with zero interface. Aimed right now at the university market under the Meedu brand, you don’t even have to push a button: your tech guy either schedules a start and stop time for your lecture and it begins and ends recording (and publishes to their Web host) with no intervention, or you pop in a USB flash key which triggers the recording, and it publishes when you take it out. I have never seen a podcast process with no grunt work before. I think it’s brilliant.

• The iMorphosis “PodcastLink,” a sort of hardware-based podcatcher that will plug directly into your MP3 player (including iPods) and populate it without a computer. ⁴ This reminds me of those old $100 e-mail and Web appliances — the ones they marketed to your grandparents. Like those, it will fail, because it’s a clever solution lacking a problem. Anyone who has the knowledge and desire to listen to a podcast is going to have a computer sitting around. Under what circumstances is it worth real money to avoid plugging your MP3 player into your computer?

What mattered far more than new gizmos was just listening in for the general tone of the Expo. Leo’s keynote, about getting down to business and protecting what we do as a brand and an industry, pretty much set that tone, and I felt it throughout most of the presentations and a lot of the conversations. You had plenty about podcasting for fun, sure, but underneath it, everyone was really focused on success. There was a drive throughout the whole thing. A hunger. I cannot tell you how many times and in how many ways I heard the word “metrics” used, during the day and late into the drunken night. I can’t really criticize — I was saying the same lines as everyone else.

Is attending the Expo important? That’s a complex question. It’s fun to attend regardless of its importance. I’d say it’s moderately important to attend if you’re treating your podcast as a business; and it’s critical to attend if you intend to stake a claim in podcasting beyond your own podcast. Events like this are, in a very real way, the conversation that podcasting has with itself. The sharpest observation I had was that the conversation was entirely about the people and companies who were there. People talked about Podcast Ready. People talked about SwitchPod. People talked about Blubrry and Podcast Pickle, both of whom had successful and fun party suites.

Apple was discussed very little except in regard to the recent fracas with Podcast Ready. And I barely heard Podshow mentioned at all. Even the Podshow podcasters who attended weren’t talking about Podshow. The ridiculous Hummer limo, running guests to their anti-conference or whatever it was, only got rolled eyes. I’m pretty sure they have no idea how much it’s hurting them to detach themselves from podcasting’s conversation. They weren’t there, so they weren’t on the radar. And a company that survives on the creativity of individuals can’t afford that.

Besides, they’re missing the fun.

I didn’t miss the fun. I had lots of it. All businesses, priorities, and importances aside, I’ll be going again next year.

And I hope to see you there.

1. That “industry consortium” Leo mentioned in his keynote speech? He was talking about the Guild. I’d mentioned it to him the night before. ↩
2. I don’t just say that because I work for them. ↩
3. They called it an “unconference,” but they’re wrong by all usual definitions. ↩
4. Except it’s configured from their Web site. For which you need a computer. ↩

In eight easy steps:

1. Have a great idea for a podcast network. To pick a random example:¹ The Sci-Fi Podcast Network. Start with a major name at the head of it, and recruit some early leaders in your category. Make a cute alien mascot. Get a lot of people excited.
2. Once you’ve got a solid base of resources built up, start screwing around with them a little. Message boards popular? Move them to a third-party provider with an inscrutable URL and inferior aesthetics. Wipe the archives. No sense living in the past!
3. Keep experimenting with the stuff that works. Make every change for the worse. Repaint your site in a horrible Day-Glo green and purple that causes physical eyestrain.² Replace the cute alien mascot with…a cow. Defend every decision with “Market testing shows people love this!” Ignore the opinions of members of your network. If people complain too loudly in the forums, delete their posts.
4. Meanwhile, start to erode the brand identity of your network. People are coming to your site to find science fiction podcasts? How limiting! Start two other “networks” on other subject areas. Cross-linking them would be obvious and banal. Instead, make sure the original “Sci-Fi Podcast Network” URL points to a meta-network page, and make people hunt for a smaller link in the text to click through to the list of SF podcasts.
5. Of course, the trouble with that is that there’s still a page somewhere with a list of science fiction podcasts. There are no synergistic cross-brand relational compatibilities to leverage there! So ax that page, and simplify things to much smaller lists on your front page again.
6. Oh, and the name? Gotta go. Make a new name. Something with zazz. Something redundant. Something like… The Podcast Entertainment Network. Or PodcastPEN for short.³
7. Finally, because you’ve probably got a number of pesky science fiction podcasts still hanging around, boot them all and hide their forums, and make them resubmit to your new network under a more restrictive set of guidelines. The new terms of service will require them to promote your non-brand more regularly and consistently, and maintain a show format according to a strict formula that conforms to your “right way” of doing podcasts. Oh, and it will also contain such gems as:

   Each show host should think in terms of a minute of ads per 15 minutes of show. You will keep (to use or sell) one of the 30 second spots and the network will fill the other (with a network show ad or an ad a sponsor has purchased)… PEN offers a generous revenue sharing program (50%) for each audio ad we secure for your show. If you do not wish to participate in our advertising program, please provide your reason on our submissions form. Exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

8. Voilà! You’ve just driven away everyone who thought it might be fun to be listed in a science fiction podcast directory, but doesn’t want to be told how to podcast or how to advertise.

This might seem mean-spirited. Perhaps it is, although I didn’t start out meaning to be mean. But this really bugs me. A couple of people whom I really liked⁴ had a good, simple, effective idea and implemented it well — and then, over the course of a year, allowed their unfocused business ambition to dissolve a good community into nothingness. It’s a shame. I’m not upset that they wanted to change things. Nor that they wanted to make money. (Although a 50% ad commission is just wrong.) I’m upset because they didn’t realize what they had, and in trying to make it something else they lost something of benefit to everyone.

It’s a shame. And no, I don’t intend to just bitch about it. There are positive steps that can be taken, ways that it could be done right. The obvious response to my complaint here is, “If you think it could be done better, smartass, you try it!” And I think that’s a good answer. But that’s another post.

1. Okay, so it isn’t. You got me. ↩
2. To be fair, they did back off on the colors after some of us raised a rallying cry for listeners to check out the site and send feedback. The green and purple didn’t go away, but it retreated to the edges. ↩
3. The “P” in “PEN” stands for “Podcast.” Again. So it’s really the Podcast Podcast Entertainment Network, or PPEN. Turtles all the way down. ↩
4. And still do like, honestly, although I suspect that after this blog post they’ll never want to speak to me again. ↩

Happy Beltane, everyone!

I hope that everyone celebrated today by listening to the Jonathan Coulton song (MP3). It contains the wisdom of our age. ¹

That’s my hope. Of course I know that most podcasters celebrated, as they celebrate the beginning of every month, by asking/begging/cajoling/bribing/menacing their listeners/colleagues/henchmen/old-ladies-in-the-street to vote for them at Podcast freakin’ Alley.

I know I’m a heretic on this issue. I’m fine with that. I’ll keep bitching because the PA voting system was obsolete, useless, and annoying a year ago, and by this point it’s got all the relevance of an indigenous people dancing and singing around a Coca-Cola bottle praying for cargo. ² It’s not just annoying any more to have people spend five to ten minutes on their podcasts begging for votes. It’s embarrassing.

It embarrasses the whole medium, and it loses listeners because it distracts from content. We want to go up against broadcasting? You don’t see the whole cast of Lost lining up on the beach once every episode to shout, “Don’t forget to vote for us at TVGuide.com!”

Does it work? Hell if I know. I’ve always gotten a few hits from Podcast Alley, albeit not that many, and I’ve always been ranked somewhere around 100 even though I’ve never once asked for a vote. Don’t get me wrong — I don’t begrudge the people who voted for Escape Pod there on their own initiative, or who left comments. The comments especially are valuable. My problem isn’t with the voting, it’s with the asking for votes. It’s bloody annoying, and whatever audience gains your podcast gets from being higher-ranked could surely be dwarfed by spending the same time talking about your podcast in places where people who are interested in your subject matter hang out.

Market yourself outside of podcasting, and spend your listeners’ time on good content, and you’re taken seriously. Podcasting is taken as a serious form with serious ambitions. Everybody wins. Spend your listeners’ time hoping to rope them into status games with other podcasters, games that the listeners don’t care about, and we look like a bunch of kids wrestling over King of the Sandbox.

Either way — enjoy the weather!

The water’s not cold, baby, dip in your big toe…

1. But not at work. Really. ↩
2. Someone’s gonna come after me for inappropriate cultural epithets, I know. Or for inappropriate use of a trademark. I can’t wait to find out which. ↩

Just a moment ago I said:

And when you’re done, consider putting a Creative Commons blurb at the end of your own podcast. It takes all of ten seconds and letting your audience know that they’re allowed to copy your podcast and share it with their friends may inspire them to do it.

I got an e-mail from a listener that said:

“Recently it was bothering me again that I didn’t have all of your episodes in one nice spot in iTunes. However, this time the Creative Commons bit sunk in and I did something about it! Presenting… Escape Archive!“

QED. Which is Latin for, “Rock on.”

You probably already know about this because you read Podcasting News,¹ but in case you haven’t: the Creative Commons foundation has put out the first iteration of a “Podcasting Legal Guide,” summarizing in thirty pages everything you need to know to probably not get sued. It’s intended as an extension of the EFF’s Legal Guide for Bloggers:

When creating your own podcast, it is important to make sure all necessary rights and permissions are secured for the material included in your podcasts. This is relatively easy if you create all of the material that is included in your podcast but can become progressively more complex the more you include material created by other people. If you do not obtain the necessary rights and permissions, you may get into legal trouble for incorporating third party material into your podcast and for also authorizing others to use that material as part of your podcast. The main legal issues that you will likely face that are unique to podcasters are related to copyright, publicity rights and trademark issues.

There’s an online version of the document and a PDF version. I’ve just finished reading it, and disregarding a few typos and grammar flubs, I was impressed. The most complex section is about music, of course. It points in the same general direction everyone else does (to keep things simple, stay podsafe or get permission) but if you do happen to be insane enough to want to play major-label music, it tells you exactly what licenses you need and why.

There’s also a handy section about implied and express licensing, and misconceptions about fair use, and… Well, just read the thing.

And when you’re done, consider putting a Creative Commons blurb at the end of your own podcast. It takes all of ten seconds² and letting your audience know that they’re allowed to copy your podcast and share it with their friends may inspire them to do it.

1. At least twice now I’ve thought seriously about putting together a site or feed specifically to cover news and current events related to podcasting. Then I keep going back to Podcasting News and realizing that I couldn’t do half the job those guys do, so why try? The niche for commentary and sarcasm is far more open. ↩
2. Five if you’re good at tongue twisters. ↩

The following was posted to the Yahoo! list today by Charles Hodgson of Podictionary. I’m reprinting it here with his permission. At two minutes a day, I’ve said many times that Podictionary offers the highest quality-per-minute ratio of any podcast in my subscriptions list.¹ Listen to what the man says about his experiences getting the word out on his show. And then subscribe.

Similar writeups from others, BTW, will be more than welcome here. They’ll be trumpeted.

---

I am offering this up so that other podcasters can evaluate their
own efforts to build audience.

My listenership at www.podictionary.com is in the 3,500 range for each episode. The bulk of these daily (I also have a weekly feed that airs the same material). I just posted episode # 227 and will hit the first anniversary on June 3.

Early on I was lucky enough to get mentioned on several other podcasts. I attribute my biggest early gains to exposure throughwww.thewordnerds.org (thanks guys) and clearly the overlap in subject matter is very important here. I did get some exposure on very large circulation venues but although each of these helped, they never amounted to more than a minor boost (tens to a hundred or so). The exception was a weeklong exposure on iTunes which likely moved me from about 1500 to 2500.

Here is a list of other exposure that has had less impact:

• Several spots on Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code
• Featured on Yahoo beta podcast directory within a few weeks of it going up
• Guest (with podcast mentioned and linked from their website) on the NPR radio program and podcast “A Way With Words” (subject related and major listenership—why didn’t this one work?)
• Two local newspaper articles (Ottawa Citizen)
• Interview on local University Radio & weekly rebroadcast of one of my episodes
• Caller on an Ontario-Canada wide phone in (subject related)
• Small spot in JANE magazine.
• Numerous blogs and other podcast mentions (thanks all).

Other measures I have taken are to attend the local writers festival (my podcast is on words) and hand out cards. I have helped both this festival and some local poets begin their own podcast. I also set up a mailing list, thinking that not everyone is ready for podcasting, but most people understand email. It has attracted only a small following. For my anniversary I have set up a listener drive contest with an ipod nano as a prize and have been fairly surprised at the small number of entries. It’s not over yet, but so far seems like an experiment not worth repeating.

The podcast is a project all on its own, but it dovetails well with a book I have coming out and I have linked the two in my promotion efforts including mentioning the podcast in the Amazon page for my book.

I hope this little story will help others in planning their audience building. The biggest issue is just being there. Keep on pumping out your good quality stuff. Plus, if you have an idea that might work, try it. If it doesn’t work, then try the next one too. Eventually something will work!

1. The runner-up would be Ask a Ninja. Go figure. ↩

…Yeah. So people are starting to ask me why I haven’t blogged about Podshow yet, or the episode of Keith and the Girl where they take apart an anonymous Podshow contract. It’s well known that I have opinions on the subject,¹ and I’ve gone on at some length before on the Yahoo! Podcasters list and on Podcast Alley.

That’s probably why I haven’t brought it up yet. I’ve talked about it so much elsewhere that I’m getting more easily tired. That, and I’m afraid if I get started I’ll keep going ad nauseum. I don’t want this to become the Anti-Podshow Blog. There’s a lot of other stuff to talk about. Like, you know, making podcasts.

But I seem to be expected to say something, so I’ll say this in brief: Long-term exclusivity sucks. I’m not suggesting that it sucks for me, and it might not suck for you. It sucks for everyone.

A man whose last name is synonymous with a popular Indian food dish² has contacted me directly to tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about, and that everything I seem to think about Podshow is wrong. He has been unable to tell me what specifically I’m wrong about, which is a shame because I can’t correct my statements. Being right is a whole lot more fun than being wrong. So to cover my hindquarters: if I’m wrong that Podshow puts its podcasters into long-term exclusive distribution deals with no termination option on the podcaster’s side, then obviously all my complaining is groundless and nobody should worry about what I say.

But if they do, they suck. And you should avoid making such a deal for content that you create and own. With anyone. Ever.

Questions?

1. Many would call that an understatement ↩
2. No, not Eric Rice. The other guy. ↩

Huzzah! It looks like at least one of my goals with this site is already in motion — we’re initiating dialogue and getting responses and ideas back from the people making news in podcasting.

In this case, Gretchen from Mommycast read and commented on my post on their deal with Dixie. First off, thanks very much for coming by and taking the time. My wife and I have both listened to your show before. You’ve got an engaging style, and the topics you hit on are real ones. I can see why your show is popular.

Now. You said:

This is actually going to be a partnership. MommyCast is going to be included in their print and television advertising throughout all of the campaigns this year. Hmmm…millions of dollars of advertising with MommyCast included….millions of potential listeners being introduced to MommyCast….I’ll let you do that math!

Congratulations! That sounds like a terrific opportunity, and I wish you the best with it. However, I think this only reinforces my point that your compensation is undervalued. Millions of dollars invested in messages connected to your show… Exposure to a potential audience of millions… And you guys only get $40,000 at the bottom end of that deal?

What you’re saying is that Dixie recognizes that your show matters. You’re worth a lot to them. And you’re clearly worth a lot to Podshow. You should be worth more to yourselves, too. You deserve a lot more than you’re getting from this. A flat-rate year-long deal means that even if you get those millions of listeners, the payoff to you doesn’t change. It’s too low now, and if you’re superstars in eleven months then it’s really too low.

Perhaps it will pay off for you in secondary advertising, or in new deals after the year is over, and I sincerely hope it does. But as “a standard for others to follow,” I think this dilutes the perceived value of podcast content. Dixie and Podshow are getting far more from your hard work than you are. And as another hardworking podcaster, that bothers me quite a bit, even if it doesn’t bother you.

Finally:

Now, as for the comment that we don’t have day jobs…KaPOW! On behalf of all of the moms around the world…shame on you!

I think you misunderstood me here. My wife and I have an eleven-month-old son. I’d never insult moms — I prefer to keep breathing, thanks. That wasn’t a dig at you, that was a dig at Curry and Podshow’s “Quit Your Day Job” campaign. And the irony in the footnote was meant to be sympathetic irony.

Moms? Big fan. Podshow? Not so much. My mom did get exclusivity from me for a very long time, it’s true — but she never asked me for 60%.

(This rant began life as a post at Podcast Alley.)

So the advertising deal that Mommycast has with the Dixie brand¹ is back in the news again, thanks to an article this week in USA Today. The article, about parenting podcasts in general, is actually decent reading and presents a good list of pointers (even if they get the name of 101 Uses for Baby Wipes wrong.) But of course the “Oh, wow” part, the one that caused excitement at the Alley, is this:

Vogelzang and Paige Heninger combine coffee-klatch banter about their families and interviews with parenting experts. Vogelzang estimates the show attracts more than 300,000 downloads a week. In March, the twice-a-week Mommycast begins a one-year, $100,000 sponsorship deal² with Dixie, making the paper-goods company the first major corporate advertiser of an independently produced podcast that’s not about technology, says radio industry researcher Tom Webster of Edison Research in New Jersey.

Ferg (of the unusually spiffy couplecast Air Ferg) put up the pointer to that news and said “Cha-ching!” And I can understand the reaction. Six figures is a lot of figures. If you write it on a check you have to write the numerals pretty small to fit them in the box. But does the cha really ching?

Let’s do the math…

• Mommycast is with Podshow, and their 60% commission is notorious in the community. It’s always possible Mommycast has a different deal with them, but I’ve never heard of any exceptions to this part of the Podshow contract, and I have heard about major podcasters who were told it was non-negotiable. If you take it as a given, then Mommycast’s cut of the deal is actually $40,000. Hmmm. Okay… Let’s say cha-ching.
• Mommycast has two hosts. $40,000 over the course of a year is $770 per week. Income per host, before taxes, comes to $385 per week. Cha-ching?
• The article says Mommycast does two shows a week. That’s 104 shows a year, but let’s be generous and give them a couple weeks off, simplifying to 100 shows. That’s $400 per episode. The article also says they do 300,000 downloads per week… Splitting that evenly and assuming archive exposures also even out, that comes to 150,000 downloads per episode.³
• Advertising rates are generally quoted as CPM, which means “cost per thousand exposures.” There are no standard rates in the industry yet, but Kiptronic is pitching CPM rates to advertisers of around $50. Podtrac is pushing to raise rates into the vicinity of $100 to $150 for brand awareness campaigns. Even the Tech Podcast Network, who’s been doing ads longer than just about anyone, sets rates around a $10 to $15 CPM, or so I’ve heard anecdotally. And Rocketboom’s recent EBay sale for a single week’s ads at $40,000 comes out to a $40 CPM for them.⁴ Mommycast’s effective CPM rate for their cut of the Dixie deal? $400 / 150 = $2.67. Even if you assume they’re keeping all the money, it still comes out to only 6 bucks and change. And if they grow their show over the course of the year then the per-listener revenue plummets. (That’s why a year is way too long for a contract like this. Your show’s value goes up, but you can’t capitalize on that.)

“Cha-ching” my delicately scented posterior. It sounds good on the surface, but compared to what a show of their audience size should be doing, the hosts are getting royally shafted in this deal. A talk radio host with a couple hundred thousand listeners can make a very good living. This is one of Podshow’s signature shows, and the highest-profile deal Podshow’s been talking about. If any of the numbers here are close to accurate, then these podcast superstars could “quit their day jobs” for salaries equivalent to gas station attendants.⁵

Think carefully about your role models and business models in the podcast community, folks. That’s all I have to say. Do the math, and think carefully.

1. A division of Georgia-Pacific, which is now a division of Koch Industries, which is owned by the richest family you’ve probably never heard of. ↩
2. According to this one article. Other press on the same news has said “North of six figures” and other such vagaries, but you know it can’t be much more than $100K. If it was, they’d have said “More than $120,000″ or “Nearly $200,000″ or whatever sounds more impressive. ↩
3. Although other stories about them as recently as November indicated downloads of half million a month. So either the USA Today story is overshooting or they’ve had incredible growth in three months. Still, it is the most recent source, so let’s take it as correct. ↩
4. People have pointed out that the Rocketboom sale represents a single high-profile incident, and that they’re unlikely to sustain it. Good point. But that’s still the math for that week. And I like Rocketboom. ↩
5. Yeah, I know they don’t have day jobs. Lucky, lucky them. ↩