The Future of Podcasting: Michael Geoghegan

Day 2 of the Exclusive Feature, The Future of Podcasting!  Today's writing comes from Michael Geoghegan of Reel Reviews.

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I am bullish on podcasting. I tell everyone willing to listen about the power of podcasting. I still cannot get over the fact that you can sit in your home and produce an audio show that has a worldwide audience. That is just mind blowing. Podcasting has experienced explosive growth; but is still in its infancy. There are so many aspects that need to be worked on; it makes one’s head spin. That is also what makes it exciting. We can make a difference in developing and shaping the growth of the medium.  I thought I’d take this opportunity to highlight some of the issues I see on the horizon.

Podcasting is too hard to do.

There, I said it and it is true. Now keep in mind, I am a proponent of getting as many people podcasting as possible. I have an entire series entitled Podcast About The Podcast devoted to help simplify all the steps involved. In fact, on any given day those posts will be the most requested of any on my site. There is a lot to learn and people need help.

The first thing anyone is going to judge a podcast on is the audio quality. Is it pleasant to listen to or for that matter is it at least tolerable? What no one tells a beginning podcaster is that they will also have to become an amateur audio engineer. Welcome to the world of compression, normalization, limiters, gates, de-essers, plosives, dB, kHz and sample rates. What podcasters need are tools.

How about a basic application geared towards voice-over and spoken word. In its default mode, you start it up, plug in a microphone and it runs through some setup steps to set levels and compression for your voice. Next, you record away. When you are done, it allows for basic cut and paste editing, adding in an intro and outro and sound bed, if you like, and then sets a final output level. You assign a profile to the newly recorded show and a window pops up with all your default id3 tag info, name, comments, author, genre, album artwork etc. It allows you to edit any tags for the show you just produced. Next it asks you to confirm if it should encode to mp3 using the default setting. The podcaster makes his choice, hits enter and quickly the newly produced and encoded podcast pops into his production folder. This is a tool designed for the beginner. As more non-technical people get involved in podcasting, they are going to be searching for simple tools that can help them get started. With tools this easy to use we can really open the floodgates for people to express themselves. That is where the power lies.

Subscribing to a podcast is not simple enough.

I recently produced a new podcast about wine called Grape Radio. We were fortunate that Grape Radio quickly became popular among wine enthusiasts. However, these people had no experience with podcasting. What we didn’t realize is how much they would struggle with trying to get our podcasts to work. We received lots of “tech support” questions from folks who couldn’t figure out how to use their podcatching software. We were happy to help, but this points to a bigger challenge. These are the “customers”, the people we are trying to attract to podcasting. We should not be making them work this hard. It needs to be “idiot proof” - point and click simple. Here is what I envision. A listener is at a site and decides they want to subscribe. They click on a podcast subscription button. Their default podcast client pops up a window confirming they want to subscribe. The user clicks yes and they are done.

Monetization

With all the talk about podcast monetization I can guarantee two things:

1. “How are you going to make money,” will continue to be the number one question asked of podcasters for the foreseeable future.

2. New Media Consultants will begin making money talking about how podcasters are planning to make money.

Let me quickly highlight two emerging opportunities. One is to license podcast content for use by commercial ventures. This is particularly appealing in the niche content arena. As podcasting becomes more popular and well known, large commercial sites with forum and discussion groups will feel pressure to add a podcast channel. A partnership can be struck between a well-known high traffic commercial site and a well-produced podcast covering the same topic. This is something we recently did with Reel Reviews and DVDtalk. Another example is licensing podcast content for radio, both terrestrial and Internet. Think I’m crazy? Check out the Public Radio Exchange.

The second opportunity is consulting and production agreements with businesses and organizations that want to begin using podcasting as a tool to communicate with their constituents. There is a lot to learn and experienced podcast producers can certainly add value in these situations. These opportunities are not abundant but are becoming available.

Radio

I know that Mark, one of this week’s guests bloggers, is a radio consultant so I thought I’d address radio briefly. Podcasting has a somewhat uneasy relationship with radio, not unlike blogs and traditional print media. I think each is jealous of the luxuries of the other. Podcasters can do and say what they please free from any regulatory or commercial concerns. Radio has all the tools to produce quality audio, but more importantly, they figured out how to monetize the medium long ago.

Podcasting borrows so much from radio. People who have radio in their background make many of the best-produced podcasts. They certainly had a step up on the learning curve. In a recent interview on podcasting I was asked if I always wanted to be on the radio. That’s an easy one - no, never even thought about it. However, if a radio station were to ask me to start doing movie segments, I’d just want to know where to park and what time to be there. Not because I’m dying to be on the radio, but because I am having so much fun sharing my passion for film with others, and any time you get excited about sharing you want to include as many people as possible. I think you’ll see some people move from podcasting to traditional radio. Radio can leverage podcasting as an effective farm system. Go looking on the Internet to see whom people are responding to, what are they choosing to listen to given almost unlimited choice. If someone can hold your attention talking into a microphone in their bedroom, imagine what they can do with studio production behind them.

Many broadcasters will dismiss podcasting as having no value and being composed exclusively of wannabe rank amateurs. They should be cautious, I know that since I found podcasting my time listening to radio is less than 10% of what it used to be. I haven’t heard in weeks shows I used to listen on a daily basis. I’m not trying to imply podcasting is going to take over radio, just that a trend is emerging, because of portable media devices, whether it is music or podcasts, people are spending less time listening to radio.

I think a second group, frankly a smaller group, will embrace podcasting as a way to increase the strength of the relationship with their radio audience. Offering special segments from favorite hosts, exclusive content and show archives. They will also be able to tap into their existing advertising relationships to make it profitable. Essentially radio needs to figure out how to get on those portable mobile devices We are already seeing some radio stations and personalities releasing shows as podcasts. Frankly, with all the talk about how to make money with podcasting, radio is positioned to do it first.

I am excited to see the growth of podcasting over the next year. It will be interesting to look back and see the changes that have occurred. Podcasting is moving so quickly it almost takes your breath away. Whether it is someone that wants to share personal thoughts and experiences with close friends and family or someone trying to build a worldwide audience, podcasting offers an amazing opportunity for people to express themselves. Ultimately, that is what it is all about.

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tags:  podcasting | reel reviews

 

Comments

[Dave]

"If you wanna find the truth in life don't pass the music by and you know I would not lie...

Thanks to Todd, I am learing about Podcasting! My immediate reaction was, "cool, there is a chance to hear music again." Well, music combined with a little commentary about the artists anyhow. None of that Howard Stin pyscho-babble!!!!!!!!!!

I think Podcasting is evolving partly because an industry is not listening to its constituents. Sort of like the whole railroad is not in the railroad business, its in the transportation business from the middle of the last century.

My heartfelt thanks to those of you who are donating your time to teach us about an instrument of change.

....No, I would not lie..No, I would not lie, Down in Monterey"...

[Steve Holden]

I agree with a lot of what Michael is saying. He is right that the "amateurs" label is dangerous, because it is not always quality that is a major pull for me to listen to a podcast. It is the "content that interests me" and it is on my time schedule using the device that I want.

Another interesting thing is that if you go back through Google's USENET archives and search on TidBITS (Macintosh newsletter) and NewtNews (Newton newsletter that I produced). Advertising became a natural progression to these mediums but it didn't happen overnight. It was a natural progression and people should get caught up in monetization hurdles in the early days. I think they will all get sorted out. - Steve

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