The eSession Experience: Online Recording for All

Hear a song evolve from MIDI sketch to Grammy-quality mixdown as Spencer Critchley test-drives eSession, the online studio that lets you hire top musicians to record your tunes. He offers an inside view of a start to finish online musical collaboration.

Apple and Fox to Offer Movie Rentals

Apple Inc and News Corps Twentieth Century Fox are set to announce a deal that will allow consumers to rent movies through Apples digital iTunes Store, media reports said on Thursday. The agreement will allow rentals of Foxs latest DVD releases by downloading a copy from the online iTunes store for a limited time, the Financial Times said, quoting a source. The Wall Street Journal also reported the deal in its online edition.

TPU #30 | How I Make the Most Money from Podcasting (and how you can do it, too)

In this episode of The Podcasting Underground, I talk about how I make the most money from podcasting and blogging. It’s probably not what you’re thinking. In Q3 of this year I used an often overlooked strategy to generate over $70,000 from my podcasts and blog. You might be thinking that I’m referring to advertising or sponsorships. But if you listen to my podcasts you know that I’ve never run a single ad (at the time of writing this post). Yes, advertising is the most talked about monetization method (and quite lucrative for many podcasters), but it is the one I use the least.

Listen to the episode to get all the details on my favorite monetization method.

In the next episode we’ll be learning from an online content creator with valuable tips to share from the trenches—YOU! Here’s your chance to shine. Send me your #1 tip or lesson learned from 2007 that has helped you:

1. Grow your podcast audience
2. Make more money from podcasting
3. Streamline your podcast production process and save you time

I’ll share your tip in episode #31 of The Podcasting Underground. Email me at jason [at] podcastingunderground [dot] com or, better yet, call and share your tip on the voicemail line at 206-222-1585.

Items mentioned in this episode:

• Professional Podcasting Course
• My recommended email list manager
• TubeMogul
• My blog post on making money with premium content

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XM Exploring Podcasting

XM Satellite Radio is now offering Bob Edwards Weekend, XM Artist Confidential: Green Room, highlights from the Unmasked comedy series, and other programs in free podcast form through the XM website and the iTunes Music Store. The podcast offerings also include a new animated video series from Opie & Anthony.

iCrap Guide

This  iCrap Guide  is a comprehensive guide to all the unusual and abundant iPod accessories you can buy (or that someone can purchase for you!).  The guide includes socks, dog clothes and much more.

How to Produce Quality Content for Your Podcast

Podcasting is generally more difficult than blogging (or writing, if you are not familiar with blogging). Apart from the technical issues, the listeners have to stream or download audio files and listen to them to get your information. This is quite different with what we are accustomed to be doing online.

Image Credit: zoned.dk.

The problem when creating podcast content

Somehow when I listen to a podcast, I expect more than just a commentary or a spin of what other people are saying — unless, of course, the podcaster’s opinion is so provoking, inspiring and generally interesting. Adapting the blogging style by merely giving one or two lines of comments will not work.

Creating content for a podcast requires more work and thoughts than it is for blogging. Some readers may not agree, as for them, talking is much easier and writing. Writing is not without its own problem though.

But, we should all agree that a podcast needs more work to do from start to publishing (read podcast tutorial for thorough steps to start a podcast), not only the process but also the nature of the content.

What is good podcast content?

Trying to define what is good podcast content is subjective, especially in the era of “long tail,” when people could find or create just about anything they want and like.

Almost surely, this topic will cause endless debate because people have different interests, needs, personality and ethics.

Nevertheless, there are some elements that every quality content should possess, namely usefulness, original, uniqueness and engaging.

It has been said and taught in marketing that if you listen to your audience and provide exactly what they want, you can succeed in your business. How do you do this and how does it apply to podcasting?

The most important factor in quality podcast content

Usefulness, in my opinion, is the most important factor in any good podcast content. Even if it is just a dull rehash of existing content, as long as it provides value to the listeners, then people are more than happy to tune in.

Perhaps podcaster could put it in a way that is concise, helping the listeners to get the point quickly.

Of course, usefulness is relative across different topics. In an entertainment blog, listeners are looking for something fun, cool, or interesting just to kill time.

Others would see the fresh and quick elements of a podcast as being useful, such as for news. Yet many listeners like to stimulate thoughts for self development, or to get involved with a community.

Stand out from the crowd

Being useful and resourceful are important, but being original is also something necessary, if not compulsory, to stand out from the crowd.

What makes them choose your podcast over others? Once consumers are aware of the myriad of choices they have at their hand, and how easy for them to switch channels, they begin to demand more.

Producing original content virtually forces the listeners to come back because they can only get the content from you.

Image Credit: Henning Leweke

… and differentiate even more

Everyone is talking about being unique. In business, especially in sales and marketing, we know there are Unique Selling Proposition (USP). This is the thing that distinguishes your business or product and service from your competitors.

Original content makes audience want more from you, but uniqueness lets you stand head and shoulder over the crowd. It is also about targeting a segment of a market that really want to listen to you, build community, and establish yourself as an authority or expert in your industry.

The keyword is narrowcasting.

The value of entertainment in a podcast

There are always people who choose to listen to a podcast in front of their computer, not through any portable media.

Why should they listen to a podcast instead of reading an article?

As much as how a good copywriter engages their readers to draw in further to their content, a good podcaster should provide entertainment value into their podcast so people keep listen.

The latest thing you want to do is being boring.

How to find great content ideas

A podcaster should research listenership to find out what the audience really want. If you already have audience through your site or blog, you can simply ask them about what they want and simply echo back to them.

Blog comments are gold when it comes to cultivating information. It often reveals demands, which a good podcaster should use as a feedback mechanism to satisfy the audience.

Open forums are also great for research. There are people who ask for questions. Not only do this create ideas for content, but often lead to unsolved problems specific to an industry.

Finding a problem to solve is the easiest way to ensure that your content will serve a purpose and get listeners.

It is true that creating good podcast content is more difficult because people usually demand more out of a podcast compare to textual content. But, the efforts should be worthy, considering the higher level of interaction and bond a podcaster have with their listeners.

Following these some basic advices should get you on the right track to producing quality content, especially if you are passionate and knowledgeable (or are willing to do a lot of research) on a particular area.

Also read: Podcast Tutorial.

Create Professional Podcast Feeds

More and more companies are using podcasts as a means to communicate, so having an podcast feed that is professional and well polished will help differentiate your company from your competition. What makes an podcast feed professional? Follow these simple steps to polish your podcast feed and take it to the next level...

Create Professional Podcast Feeds

Amazing Podcast Pricing

The NY Times reported:

At least two companies now sell software to universities and other institutions that captures the words of classroom lectures and syncs them with the digital images used during the talk — usually PowerPoint slides and animations. The illustrated lectures are stored on a server so that students can retrieve them and replay the content on the bus ride home, clicking along to the exact section they need to review.

The concept is not new, the amazing part is that these companies charge annual fees north of $25,000 to more than $100,000! These Universities could do it for far less!

Ski Conditions Podcast

Lake Tahoe Snow Report Offers Ski Conditions Podcast. Skiers and snowboarders looking for regular and convenient updates on conditions, events, and operations at Lake Tahoe’s ski resorts have an easy and high-tech option this winter. The Lake Tahoe Snow Report offers a daily audio and weekly video podcast, plus a daily radio and web report covering conditions and operations at resorts around Lake Tahoe.

How To Create Your Podcast Feed

Let’s face it. There are more than one ways to create your podcast feed.

There is an easy and hard — of for some of us, fun — way to do it.

Podcast feed comprises of elements, each with its own attributes. There are also specifications for all elements that is well defined in RSS 2.0 specification.

For some people, writing their own podcast RSS feed in a Notepad or any text editor is fun, although they have to spend hours to edit and re-edit.

I recommend against that though. If you are using podcast as a tool to reach your audience, either for marketing purpose or any other way, you will agree with me here.

Without touching the “hard and fun” part, let’s go with some ways to create podcast feed:

1. Using desktop or web RSS software - This is the program that will generate proper feed from the input you give. By far, using such program is the most primitive way I should expect you do in the era where Internet makes it possible to automate things even further.
2. Using a blog - Not all blog software support enclosures, but with a plug-in, they should handle it well. Podcast feed generation with this method is more or less automatic. You just specify the link to the podcast file you want to enclose, and all is automatically done for you. For iTunes compatible feed, you need to enter many other parameters.
3. Hosted podcast service - If you use any podcast hosting service that provides easy way to publish podcast, feed generation should be taken care of for you.

iTunes is the greatest podcast directory out there, so by all means you want to be in. Feed generation that is compatible with iTunes is very common with all above methods.

Creating podcast RSS feed can take a lot of time and bring headaches if you do it manually. For business and marketing purpose, let the computer do it. It gets rid of human error from the process.

What’s next? Read the comprehensive podcast tutorial.

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