BBC Bullish on Podcasting
From
PodcastingNews.comThe BBC is bullish on podcasting, reporting that "podcasting has broken through to a new level."
The BBC's first published podcast chart reveals that the Radio Four Today programme's main interview was downloaded more than 400,000 times last month, second only, among BBC programmes, to Radio One's Chris Moyles Show.
The BBC notes that other media groups are using podcasts to challenge broadcasters such as the BBC.
The Guardian newspaper recently announced that the Ricky Gervais Show had been downloaded over two million times, having already topped the Apple iTunes download charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Now other media owners are racing to get into the audio business.
Source: BBC
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Stern Off His Leash
With the launch of Howard Stern's show two weeks ago on satellite radio, New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio is already performing new tricks.
The six-year-old company has bankrolled the single most expensive contract in radio history. Stern's show (and his half-billion-dollar price tag) is getting a lot of attention because he now has the freedom to say whatever he wants without fear of hefty radio fines.
Some say this is a revolution in radio or in the media. For now, satellite radio is free from the censorship of terrestrial radio because it is a paid service and is not free for public consumption. The FCC cannot censor the medium ... at this point.
With Stern's sidekick Robin Quivers, sound effects man and impressionist Fred Norris and Gary Dell'Abate (referred to as "Baba Booey" by Stern regulars), the show has been a runaway success, garnering much media attention, praise, and heat among fans and critics. One bonus kept secret until the show's premiere: actor George Takei from the original Star Trek television series has become Howard Stern's official announcer.
According to analysts, over 180,000 subscribers joined on the day of his radio debut. Some experts also believe the company will pay off its Stern debt in less than two years and Sirius will finally pull ahead of market leader XM Satellite Radio, which has almost twice as many subscribers.
Yes, this is podcast related...
The Podshow gang (adam curry, dawn and drew et all) are also signed with Sirius...
That is all :)
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Rednecks with iPods? Somethings Wrong with this Picture!
Who was the Marketing Genius behind this one?
"Hey Billy-Bob! I just had the greatest idea..."
I mean hey... they have syndicated TV shows, so naturally Podcasting was the next logical step... because every Redneck has a TV and an iPod right?!
From TruckSeries.com
Texas Motor Speedway will become the first major motorsports facility to provide audio podcasts to its fans as the free service is available today through multiple websites.
The podcasts, which will feature interviews with some of racing's top stars as well as the latest speedway news, are available through Texas Motor Speedway's website (www.texasmotorspeedway.com), podcasting giant iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes) and Yahoo.com (my.yahoo.com).
"The addition of Texas Motor Speedway podcasts on all three sites is a way to utilize some of the most popular technology to reach millions of racing fans across the country," Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage said. "Texas Motor Speedway already has its own weekly syndicated television show in 10 markets across the Southwest and our own weekly radio show on 28 stations ranging from Memphis to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We will add the podcasts to these resources to give fans the latest racing news about NASCAR, the Indy Racing League and all the happenings here at 'The Great American Speedway!'" There is a reason why we draw these Texas-sized crowds."
The podcasts - titled Texas Motor Speedway's Total Access Today - will be available twice a week during the racing season and each is hosted by Brad Gillie of Texas Motor Speedway's Total Access Radio Network.
The inaugural podcast currently available features rapidly rising NASCAR NEXTEL Cup star Carl Edwards, who finished third in the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup championship last season. The podcast is approximately 3½ minutes in length and also features comments from veteran star Mark Martin about his Roush Racing teammate.
Texas Motor Speedway also is in the process of creating video podcasts for its fan base in the near future.
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Daddy. What's a Record?
Ever stop to think about the questions that your kids and your grandkids may be asking your in 30, 40, 50 years from now? A recent article that I came across on
The Tartan Online really made me think about this.
Recently, a radio station in Pittsburgh (WQED) decided to dispose of their extensive vinyl collection. No, not the lot of pleather couches in their lounge, their record collection, silly.
Anyway, it just got me to thinking that my kids probably won't have a clue what a record is. Heck, they probably won't even remember what CDs are, with iPods and other digital music players gaining popularity. Next, the music store will turn into a vestibule where you can load your favorite tunes, just like you were walking up to an ATM (that's my idea. Don't even think about it. Copyright 2005).
Never mind that, what ever happened to the "cool" names for things. I mean "vinyl" was a cool name. I don't consider CD as a "cool" name and I also don't think that "polycarbonate" would be a "cool" name for it. Come to think of it I can't think of any cool names for things these days. It's kind of depressing..... Especially when the coolest name I've got for something is "hizzouse", and I just don't feel hip enough to even use this word.
Anyway, maybe the next innovation can be to inject some "cool" back into society. Let's stop abbreviating everything and give it a name that is actually cool. I swear, if someone just invented the elevator today it would probably be called PED (Personal Elevating Device) or something uncool like that.
That's just how it is...
Brent Paine
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Listening to Podcasts on Your TV
It was bound to happen... Putting Podcasts on TV will explode the medium into the mainstream!
by Shankar Gupta, Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006 6:00 AM EST
TIVO THIS WEEK IS WRAPPING up the rollout of a host of broadband services that include access to podcasts, games, music, and online movie ticketing, through the user's living room TV.
The program, which began in November, gives TiVo users who also have broadband connections the ability to access any podcast on the Web, and play the audio on their TV sets.
Jim Denney, TiVo's vice president of product marketing, said the offerings were a "good fit" for the company. "These are things that are media-oriented," he said, adding that podcasts are the type of product "that you might take with you, but you also might want to have access to these in the living room."
The podcasts are read through an RSS application designed in-house by TiVo. The podcasts are played, not recorded, so they don't use any storage space on the device hard drive, and any ads placed in the bit stream are left intact.
The other Web services include several games, as well as online movie ticketing through Fandango, and access to Live365's hundreds of Internet radio stations. All the services are available to any broadband-connected TiVo user at no additional charge.
The service was offered to TiVo users along with a set of services from Yahoo!, including access to Yahoo! Photos through the TV, and weather and traffic reports. The Yahoo! services are currently not monetized through ads, but according to Denney, the portal may choose to place ads on them in the future.
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Podcasting into the Future
This is a really well written article on the power of podcasting and the uses of it in the classroom!
By Robb Murray
Free Press Staff Writer
Take a stroll around any college campus and you won’t get far without seeing those familiar white wires connecting a student’s ears to a little rectangular device.
iPods are everywhere. We take them to the gym, to the grocery store, to work. But nowhere are they more prevalent, it seems, than on college campuses. A quick stroll through any part of Minnesota State University or Gustavus Adolphus College reveals the true reach of Apple Computer’s music device.
So it only seems natural that iPods — and dozens of other comparable mp3 players — would eventually make their way into the classroom (and not just as a way to avoid a droning history professor).
Podcasting — the phenomenon where individuals create their own program and make it widely available for downloading — is quickly becoming a trendy way for faculty to deliver lectures.
Think about it. Recording lectures is easy. So, too, is the process of putting that recording online for student access. Students download the file to their desktop or laptop computer, then load it onto their mp3 player. In addition to their own lectures, instructors also could post unlimited supplemental material.
It’s happening on campuses all over the country, including the University of Hawaii, where an instructor actually encourages students to eschew the traditional go-to-class method of higher education.
Sounds great, right?
Well, it could be great. Embracing new technologies historically has been terrain owned by colleges and universities. But the idea of podcasting isn’t without its danger zones.
Inching closer
Jim Grabowska, a professor in Minnesota State University’s modern languages department, has been toying with the idea of infusing podcasting into his curriculum.
About a year, he said, he was given several different ipods by Wayne Sharp, director of MSU’s Academic Computer Center. Sharp had heard about a successful program at Duke where language students were downloading lab manual sound files so they could practice their languages on their own time.
So he thought about replicating that.
“I began investigating costs,” Grabowska said. “And there were a couple of problems. Could we oblige students’ investment? Would it be worth the return?”
Also, there wasn’t much content at the time Grabowska did his research. Since that time, however, podcasting has exploded.
“Anybody and their dog who has a microphone and an interest can create their own podcast,” he said. Wading through it all takes time.
As for recording a podcast of his own lectures, Grabowska says that for many of the courses he teaches the interactive nature of how he runs a classroom doesn’t lend itself to podcasting. You just sort of have to be there.
Other schools are way ahead of the podcasting game. Purdue University offers something called BoilerCast, a service that records and uploads lectures at an instructor’s request. At the University of Michigan, students in the dentistry program can have their lectures delivered to their computers or portable devices. The California Institute of Technology’s admissions office has released an 11-minute podcast for prospective students. Instructors at Stanford and Berkeley are podcasting lectures.
Even Gustavus Adolphus is getting on board. While the St. Peter college isn’t podcasting lectures yet, it is podcasting daily chapel services.
For the past six weeks, anyone anywhere in the world has had audio access to the spiritual musings of the Gustavus chapel crew. Rachel Larson, one of the campus chaplains, said the idea came from one of the college’s technology people, who said they were toying with the idea of podcasting various parts of the campus experience.
“While we would prefer everyone to come,” Larson said, “it seemed like a good outreach mechanism.”
Chapel services are very well attended. Some Wednesdays, traditionally the biggest day for chapel crowds, they may have 500-600 students, faculty and staff inside Christ Chapel at 10 a.m.
Larson says they discussed whether it would discourage people from attending, but in the end decided the good far outweighed the bad. For example, podcasting chapel services is a way to reach out to people in the community who aren’t physically able to make it to services, or to alums who live in different parts of the country or world but still yearn to hear the spiritual lessons available each day at chapel.
“We had a religion professor who, when he was still here, he was at chapel every day,” Larson says. “Now he can’t drive anymore. But (podcasted chapel services) will be available to him every day, and he can still be a part of it that way.”
We can, but
should we?
The podcasting horse is out of the barn. It’s going to be done. But is there a downside?
Grabowska says he’s been teaching an interactive course for several years. In this class, his booming voice goes out to the students sitting in front of him, as well as to a collection of students sitting in a classroom at St. Cloud State University via closed-circuit television.
It’s not podcasting, but an observation he’s made could apply to what might happen with a podcasted lecture.
“Students at remote sites suffered a loss because of a lack of contact,” he said. “They didn’t have the instructor in the room with them. They lacked a sense of a cohesive group you try to develop in a classroom.”
There’s also the issue of focus. During class, students presumably are paying attention to what the instructor is saying (wireless-connected laptops and PDAs notwithstanding). If they download a lecture and listen to it when they have time, the time they choose to listen may not be dedicated solely to learning.
“Not only are they not in a classroom, they’re on an elliptical machine at the YMCA and you say, ‘Is this an appropriate learning environment?’ Frequently for me the answer is no because they’re not paying attention to the material with the same type of intensity as when their focus is on learning.”
Larson has also thought about the drawbacks and whether embracing the latest technology is always a good thing.
“They’re plugged in so many ways,” she said. “Could it be kind of a capitulation to a culture that can be isolating for people? But, if people aren’t coming to chapel anyway,” podcasting could be a way to get the messages from chapel out to them.
Students, of course, love the idea of podcasting.
James Dye, a junior from Mankato studying business management, said the number of students who have iPods or some other mp3-playing device is growing all the time.
Dye says he’s already a podcast user. He subscribes to one from Relevant Magazine and another called Tiki Bar among others.
He thinks podcasting lectures has potential.
“It’d be nice to be able to go back to the lecture and review, go over it a few times instead of the one time you hear it in class,” Dye said.
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UNL prof puts the 'p' in podcasting
I would have killed to have my classes available in MP3, Podcast, format when I was in University...
By MATTHEW HANSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
It’s called podcasting, class, and it may mean you never, ever have to take notes again. Psychology Professor Calvin Garbin is one of the first instructors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to take the college student’s latest favorite gadget, the iPod, and harness its power as an educational tool.
UNL professor Calvin Garbin records his Psychology 350 course and puts the audio files on the web for podcasts and MP3 downloads. (Jill Peitzmeier)
After he wrapped up his Wednesday Intro to Psychology lecture — a lecture in which he spoke for 50 minutes about such things as “causal research hypothesis” — Garbin returned to his office on the second floor of Burnett Hall and began the process of making the 20th-century lecture available with 21st-century technology.
He had recorded the class using a wireless microphone hooked to his shirt. That sound morphed into an audio file on Garbin’s computer after being captured by a receiver in his office.
Now all the long-time psychology professor needed to do was cut the audio into short chunks and place it on his Web site.
A student confused about the definition of causal research hypothesis could then choose the proper audio sound byte, load it onto his or her Ipod and hear Garbin’s explanation all over again on the commute home.
“For 30 years I’ve said if I could just touch my forehead to theirs and pass on the information ...” Garbin said. “This technology, to me, is an approximation of that.”
Garbin’s freshman-level psych class is a testament to technology, with podcasting being the latest addition.
The professor uses Powerpoint for all lectures. Students follow along in class after printing off these same lectures, which the professor has made available on the Internet.
All 85 (yes, class, 85) of the course’s homework assignments are taken online. They allow the student to get feedback after he or she answers each question. They force the student to answer so many questions correctly before moving to the next assignment.
And Garbin already was loading audio from his lectures onto the Internet. But this semester, students don’t have to sit at a computer to listen. They can now take the audio wherever an iPod can go, which is pretty much anywhere.
And, to think: Just eight years ago, Garbin was using an overhead projector, not the Internet, a technological leap forward that has mirrored similar advances by students, he says.
“Eight years ago we were still teaching kids how to use Microsoft Word.
“Now, in upper-level courses, we’re teaching kids to design interactive Web pages.
“And these are psychology majors, not computer science kids.”
Making the technology leap hasn’t always been easy, Garbin said.
He and David DeWester, the computer specialist from the College of Arts and Sciences, have spent countless hours designing the homework assignments and ironing out the kinks in software.
Every new piece of technology seems to cost more, have more parts and requires more time to learn, Garbin said.
But, he said, the university, particularly David Hansen, chairman of the Psychology Department has been supportive of all attempts to integrate Web-based teaching and podcasting into the classroom.
That doesn’t mean you’ll see podcasting used in every UNL class any time soon, although Garbin has heard a chemistry lecturer, Bill McLaughlin, and some others are starting to podcast as well.
“It’s a wonderful idea, but it’s not practical for everybody,” he says.
The payoff of podcasting is that it allows students who are auditory learners to hear the lecture material again and again in the days before a test.
They also can study while doing things like driving a car or jogging.
Garbin hasn’t noticed lower class attendance in the years he has posted lectures on the Internet, or in the weeks since he started podcasting.
And, he said, the technology actually allows him to teach about 30 percent more material a semester.
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Why podcasting could turn into a cash cow
This article by the British newspaper - Telegraph - is actually pretty rotten, written by an older lady (Gillian Reynolds) who obviously doesn't know what she is talking about (as far as podcating is concerned)
She makes the claim that podcasting is little more than a means to promote traditional broadcasting shows. I was mad by the time I finished the article...
It's probably a good thing there was nowhere to leave comments or send an email to the author...
And here title, which was actually pretty good and made me read the whole article, was unsubstantiated throughout. (and so I guess is mine, since I am using the same title for this post!)
Anyway, she did drop some interesting information regarding the BBC, so here you go:
The BBC has been experimenting with podcasting since 2004 and says demand has grown. In May 2005 it made 20 programmes available for download and is extending the trial into this year "in order to gain a better understanding of listeners' preferences". These, remember, are specific listeners, not a general audience. Yet the fact that they are making defined choices is significant.
At the top of the BBC's chart is Moyles (446,809 downloads in December). Second comes the Today programme interview at 8.10am (413,492). Third is Documentary Archive on the BBC World Service (211,593).
Further down the list (with downloads in mere four-figure numbers) come offerings from BBC7, the Persian Service, Radio Northampton and the Scots Highlands service Radio nan Gaidheal. All of them come free, for now. But this might be an early indicator of what sort of market exists for subscription, should the BBC be forced to consider that possibility.
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Save Your Marriage... Pump Up The Volume
Since the dawn of the ghetto-blaster, it has been a parental obligation to hassle teens about the stereo volume and that, "You're going to go deaf!" With the advent of the iPod and of MP3 players entering the market, this may be more relevant than ever.
The ear pieces which are distributed with the iPod, and which are quite common these days at any electronic store, are actually inserted directly into the ear, putting more stress on the ear than ever before, doctors say. Some are even estimating that this could make youths candidates for hearing aids by the time they reach their late 30s or early 40s.
Out Take:What we really need to do is figure out how to bring that age down another 10 years or more. Let me explain. Any married man, or woman, can attest to how many fights have started merely by the male of the relationship NOT LISTENING. My research, mostly consisting of close friends, tells me that men simply do not hear them. Maybe there is a genetic flaw in the male which causes hearing abnormalities or maybe there is too much testosterone powering their nether region to effectively operate all of their senses at once.
Whatever the case, it has occurred to me that, at least by being clinically deaf, this gives a medical excuse for not hearing your significant other 100% of the time. Hence, they cannot be mad at you and should even consider giving you some sympathy. Sounds good right?
That's just how it is,
Brent Paine
Writer -
PodcastEmpire.comNote: The views expressed above are not necessarily supported by PodcastEmpire.com.... Unless you agree or find it funny in some way. If you hate these views then they are the product of the contributing writer and PodcastEmpire.com takes no responsibility for their stupid article. Simply send hate mail to
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