30 Days Free Podcast Hosting For WildVoice Podcasters

Earlier in the week, we reported that free podcast hosting site WildVoice.com was abruptly shutting down.

blubrry’s Todd Cochrane has announced a special for former WildVoice users:

The team at Blubrry is sad to see another Podcast Hosting and Podcast Media site going off-line. However, the news of WildVoice shutting down July 1 means podcasters hosted at Wildvoice have to move fast.

We are offering 30 days free hosting to all WildVoice podcasters. To make it easy, we have automated tools to help you move your show with the click of a button.

Details at the blubrry site.

Podcast Portable Recording Solutions

Podcasting was originally developed to let people create their own little radio-like broadcasts for distribution over the Internet. Part of the idea was to make it simple for people to download podcasts to devices such as the iPod, but it quickly became much more than that. Now podcasts are also used for everything from distributing university lectures to providing self-guided tours in a museum.

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Podcast Host WildVoice To Shut Down July 1

Users of free podcast host WildVoice.com have been notified that the service will cease operation next month. The latest (and perhaps last?) post on the company blog states:

“We will no longer be supporting the WildVoice.com site as of July 1, 2009. The site will shutdown sometime on or after that date.

We’re sure you’ve noticed that WildVoice has not developed the type of thriving community that a free site on the Internet requires to survive. We’ve finally decided that we will not be continuing. You should take this time to download any of your shows from the site that you may not have copies of.”

When WildVoice debuted in 2006, it offered a free, unique Windows-based podcasting application, WildVoice Studio, and billed itself as an “online community” for creating, hosting, and sharing podcasts along with videos, photos, and blogs.

Not to sound like your mother, this should serve as another opportunity to consider how you archive, host, and broadcast your content. “Free” services are economical, but turn costly and aggravating when the service suspends operations. In the case of podcast host Podango last winter, content creators were given about three days’ notice (over the holidays) to back up and move their shows.

As podcaster Paul Colligan said at that time, “Don’t just BE THE MEDIA … OWN THE MEDIA. Handing your content over to someone with a seriously flawed business model (and you know my feelings about Podcast Networks) with no plan of escape is as lame as launching a business with a seriously flawed business model and promising a world that you can’t deliver.”

Have you had the experience of losing your podcast host? How did you handle the situation?

ESPN Podcasts

It is not a big business, and it may never be a big moneymaker. But ESPN is counting on its growing podcast efforts to help expand the audience for its audio, online and print divisions.

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Multilingual Freelance Audio Jobs

Podcast production company StoryQuest is seeking multilingual freelance audio producers for flexible part-time work.

iPhone Still Unbeatable

With 1 million units sold in the first 3 days of its release, the iPhone 3G S, Apples newest version of the iPhone shows us that it is still the one to beat.

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iPhone Tethering

When Apple unveiled its iPhone 3GS earlier this month, AT&T was noticeably absent from the list of providers that would provide tethering capabilities for the smartphone.

AT&T has since said that the technology, which allows users to connect their iPhones to a laptop and use the phone's network to connect to the Web, will eventually be available. But what if you want it right now?

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7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

This video, via Gideon Shalwick (Become a Blogger) offers a fairly in-depth look at 7 ways to optimize your YouTube videos.

7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

• Create outstanding content
• Optimize your YouTube Channel
• Use keywords cleverly and in the right places
• Add URL’s in the right places
• Link to your videos from where ever you can
• Provide plenty of social proof for your videos
• Ping your YouTube channel as soon as you add new content

Got other tips for making and publishing YouTube videos? Leave a comment below!

Pride48 Podcaster John Ong: Telling Stories, Building Community

This weekend marks the inaugural run of the Pride 48 podcast marathon. The two day event kicked off Friday evening, and showcases several dozen GLBT podcast shows throughout the weekend.

I recently talked with John Ong, a Kansas City podcaster I know from PodCamp Midwest, whose Ongline Podcast will be part of Pride 48.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: How did you come to be involved in the Pride 48 project?

John Ong: I listen to a fellow long-time podcaster Archerr of ArcherRadio.com. He has a group show every week, mostly consist of other podcasters. Daniel (Brewer), along with I think one other podcaster, came up with the idea. They discussed about this project on ArcherRadio, that’s how I learned about it.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: The participants come from all over the world — how did the other people get involved, and how did folks decide which podcast would go when during the two-day period?

John Ong: Essentially, each show talked about it. We have some connections of some Australian podcasters, some from New Zealand. I have some connections with some Malaysian websites and podcasters. That’s how we got everyone involved. It was all through word of mouth.

Just like any other genre of podcasting, we are kinda connected from all over the world because of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community. Within this small group, we spread the word.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: What do you want your audience to get out of listening to the podcast marathon?

John Ong: I think I want a sense of community. Gay or gay-friendly people get together. Not all countries have resources where the GLBT community can listen to open discussions about themselves. There are still many countries who would censor our the word “gay” or “lesbian” during their regular programming. My home country, Malaysia, is one of them.

I want to be able to spread the word to the world that we are really as normal as anyone else they know. Totally unlike how the conventional media or government may want us to appear - oversexed kinky weirdos.

Celebrating gay pride is another goal. Listeners and podcasters coming together for a full 2-day run.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: It may be too early to ask this, but is this the first year of an ongoing Pride Month podcasting tradition?

John Ong: This is the first. But I don’t think it will be the only. Daniel has plans to open up the stream to anyone who wants to do it. And we may actually do it a few times a year rather than just for the month of June. We may do another one later this year.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Tell me about your podcast, and how and when you got into podcasting.

John Ong: My tiny little podcast that started my other podcasts is Ongline Podcast. My last name is Ong, a play on word of “online”… I always feel obliged to explain.

It started off as an audio blog. Just me talking to my family and friends. This is way back in November of 2004. I started to get more listeners whom I don’t know personally than those I know. It [still] retains its personal journal quality, which I personally am drawn to listening as well.

I focus on human stories. Sometimes it’s my story. Sometimes I have guests to talk about their stories. Not always gay-related. But it’s hard to avoid, since I am gay. But I bring other up and coming Malaysian podcasters on the show. Humorous stories of my own. Embarrassing stories, and sometimes sad experiences. Something that you would overhear a couple of good friends talk about at the next dining table.

I am a semi-professional singer. I’ve had a studio in my basement since 2003. When I first read about podcasting in 2004, that spiked my interest. I already have the equipment, I always find excuses to use my toys, and I am a web fan. That brought me into podcasting within a month.

When I listed my podcast at Adam Curry’s directory, there were literally fewer than 300 podcasts! I hand-coded my first enhanced podcast before any software was available (GarageBand etc).

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Is there anything else (at all!) you’d like me to share with the readers of Podcasting News?

John Ong: I found podcasting to be my great creative outlet. I get to document part of my life that I choose to share with the public. It also allows many voices of a minority group to be accessible from all over the world. Being an Asian, and being gay. I wished when I was younger to be able to hear a real voice out there speaking as a gay Asian, as openly and as genuinely as one chooses.

I personally hope and think the future generations may actually benefit from having real people speaking out about their lives that younger GLBT children may otherwise not have the exposure to. The struggles that I went through as an isolated gay kid, not understanding why I’m different from many of my peers, all can be shared now on my podcast. Hopefully my stories would reach children or adults who are going through the same situations I went through.

I also started several other podcasts after my Ongline Podcast. I started Penang Hokkien Podcast, a foreign language podcast, a year later. I also started Ding Da Bell Podcast about a year ago.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Thanks so much for bringing Pride 48 to my attention. It sounds like a really neat project, and I’m looking forward to stopping in to have a listen.

John Ong: Just so you know, streaming can be done on a computer or even iPhone or iPod touch. Chat room, however, is only available on the computer. But we are going to monitoring hash tag #pride48 on Twitter. Anyone who wants to interact (which podcasters sometimes missed) can do so either in the chat room or tweet using #pride48.

We are hoping this won’t just be an annual event, but more than once a year. We’ll find out as we go along.

J&J Case Study Details Rules For Social Media Success

Social media strategist Ron Ploof has published a new case study that is worth a read. “Johnson & Johnson Does New Media” is a concise e-book detailing how the health products giant has established its new media presence.

Many companies, large and small, hesitate to jump into blogging, podcasting, video, and social networks, citing “competitive, legal, or regulatory risks,” Ploof says. But Johnson & Johnson, a 123 year-old, $64 billion holding company (with 250 different operating companies and 118,000 employees), but has bucked the corporate tendency to shy away from new communications media.

Ploof explores how J & J has grown its new media presence from a simple “corporate brouchure” website of the mid-1990s, to today’s range of media offerings: a large corporate website, two blogs, the JNJ Channel on YouTube, and a company presence on Twitter and Facebook. Of particular interest is the special challenge J&J faces as a health-products company under strict government regulation - how do you create content that is good for customers, without crossing regulatory lines?

“Johnson & Johnson Does New Media” does a great job of refuting the arguments against corporate forays into new and social media, and goes one step further, to offer ten lessons companies (of all sizes, in any industry) should consider while developing their social media strategies.

Ron Ploof himself is a veteran of corporate communications and new and social media. An early adopter of podcasting technology, Ploof created the entertaining “Griddlecakes Radio” story podcast in 2005, while also creating the new media presence for the electronics company where he worked. Ploof now offers his new media expertise as a consultant to corporate and nonprofit concerns as OC New Media.

You can also see a couple of his entertaining videos on music and audio technology here.

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