FrogBlog Hits the Podcast Spot with this Great Article
This is a great article. If you like it, definately check out
FrogBlog!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
20 Ideas for a Great Podcast
February 2, 2006 at 12:00 PM
So I got a shiny new iPod for Christmas, and my previously held contempt for podcasts (who has the time?!) has melted away and been replaced by complete and total love. I'm actually quite amazed at how much I like them. Video podcasts when done well are probably my favorite, but audio ones are excellent too and are the topic of this post. Someday I may venture into podcast land myself, probably over on WorkHappy.net. So, while I'm still a relative podcast newbie and thinking about this, I want to jot down some notes about what I think works. Feel free (both of my readers) to add to the mix.
Stuff every podcaster should keep in mind:
Podcasts should be short. 30min is actually too long. Unless it's just jam packed with goodness, life is too short and it requires too much attention. Keep it short. I'm thinking 15 min. I may fudge on that one, but honestly, unless you're interviewing Osama Bin Laden or Steve Jobs, 30min max.
Don't take yourself seriously. Bless his heart, I love his blog, but our Duct Tape Marketing friend has this cheesy third party lead in to his podcasts where he calls himself (with a straight face) "America's most practical small business marketing expert." Love you John, but honestly, do I need to be prompted to think that?
Be whimsical. Maybe this is the same as #2, but I've noticed something about the best podcasts... they're having fun, and it shows.
Be Chunky. Make segments short, diverse and put an audio bumper between your segments. It can be music, a sound effect, some whimsical voice trick, whatever. This keeps it interesting. A single droning line of ramble can really make the eyes glaze over. You need variety, we're an MTV generation, like it or not. We like it fast, varied, pithy and fun.
Don't Ramble, Be organized. This should seem obvious, but some podcasters just flip on the mic and ramble for 45 min. Horror! If you are interviewing, prepare the questions ahead of time. Send them to your guest so they can be coherent. Don't stick to it slavishly, but let it keep you from ad-hoc preparation on my time during the podcast. If you aren't interviewing, take the time to prepare exactly what you'll be talking about. Write down an agenda with talking point notes. Move quickly and coherently through them.
Cram, cram, cram as much good stuff as you can into the time. Our minds move quicker than your mouth, so do you best to pack your podcast full of goodness and move quickly.
Be regular, but only if you've got quality. I'd rather listen to an excellent quarterly podcast, than a mediocre one every week. Again: this isn't so much the case with something like a blog post where I can skim and move on, but with a podcast, you have my trust and full attention, use it wisely.
Get decent audio! Seriously, the tin-can-and-string / Houston-to-Apollo-11 sound really kills things. A little effort and investment in a decent mic not only makes you sound better, but it's not as hard on the listener. When I listen very long to a poor audio quality podcast it gives me a headache, hurts my ears and wears me out. Make a pop screen, that helps too.
Get a buddy. If you can, get someone with whom you can riff, someone who brings another layer of experience and expertise. It helps you be chunky. Two have an easier time that one keeping things moving, plus it's just usually more interesting.
Make that buddy a member of the opposite sex. Not required of course, but there's something about the dynamic between a man and a woman. The best podcasts I listen to have a man and a woman.
Have show notes on your blog. If you mention something, make a list of links to explore your topics in more depth.
If you're doing interviews, don't be Charlie Rose. In other words, shut your stupid face and let your guest talk. That doesn't mean sit there and let them ramble. Provide regular engaging questions and keep things moving, but don't spend time trying to be smart yourself, be a master facilitator in helping your guest share great stuff.
Don't interview Jason Fried. And I don't mean Jason specifically of course. I'm saying come up with someone fresh to interview. Jason has been interviewed by at least 5 podcasts I've listened to in the last couple months. I love Jason and I love listening to him riff as much as the next guy, but at some point we need to be more creative. There are many topics, interview subjects and approaches that have been done to death. I want something fresh.
Try to be natural. I guess this is kind of a recurring theme, but don't try too hard to be stodgy and official. Don't be lazy and inane, but don't be stuffy either.
Don't be scared to throw a show away. It happens. You get a crappy guest, you do a crappy job, your audio blows, whatever. My advice is to use podcasts to put your best foot forward. Because podcasts demand so much attention, they really need to be high caliber. If you write a mediocre blog post (for example: this one) your readers can skim, skip and move on. With a podcast, they're trusting you with very precious attention for that period of time. Treat it with the utmost respect. If in doubt, toss it.
Do some editing. Take a note from NPR or other audio documentary style programs. You don't necessarily need to give us every single utterance made during a period of time. Just like you might prune a copy from a rambling blog post to tighten it up, tighten up your podcast. A little production work goes a long way toward making an excellent podcast.
Use music. Music really softens a podcast up. I don't want an MP3 of your favorite songs, don't waste my time. But as an intro, a little background and as transition material, music can really polish things up.
Verbally identify your podcast at the start of your podcast. Date, issue number, topic/guest, etc. We need this meta data to give it context. Someone may listen out of sequence or even years or decades later. Take a couple seconds to lay it out at the start.
Put an iTunes (at least) and Odeo chicklet with appropriate linkage on your blog to make super easy for me to subscribe.
Well, I've just set the bar impossibly high for when/if I ever do this myself. Ok, let me say this: doing a good podcast is hard. It takes equipment, production, planning, and good editing. These things take time, effort and money. So let me add one final one to the mix.
If you have something important/valuable to say, get something out there. It may not be perfect, but if you've got great content, some omissions from the above list are tolerable.
There, I'm covered.
A couple podcasts that get it:
Delta Park Project (pop culture that isn't vulgar)
Church of the Customer (from the Creating Customer Evangelists geniuses)
Brought to you by The Podcast News Crew at http://www.PodcastEmpire.com
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Podcast Search Evolves
Basic article, but she does mention Podscope which has a good system. Check out Podscope for sure!
Michael Valiant
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The new podcasting tools
By Eliot Van Buskirk
17/2/2006
Podcasting--this growing podcasting phenomenon gives anyone with a computer, a microphone, and an Internet connection his or her own radio show. Think of podcasts as blogs but with audio instead of text
If you've already tuned in to podcasts, you already know it can be hard to find good ones, especially if you're looking for shows that deal with a specific topic or area of music. Even podcasting originator Adam Curry's show can get a little dull, occasionally veering into such murky areas as his girlfriend's progress with the dishwashing (yawn).
A new way to search for podcasts
In the short history of podcasting, the most popular way to find shows has been to browse through a directory, such as the ones available on iPodder, PodcastAlley, Podcast.net, or any of the other podcasting portals that have sprung up--seemingly in an instant--as entrepreneurs have struggled to make podcasting pay.
These podcasting portals are helpful, but they resemble the early mode of Internet searching, back when people still browsed Yahoo subcategories that were maintained by humans, rather than searching Google. If podcasting's growth is as explosive as most experts think it will become, these portals won't be able to keep up with the available content any better than Yahoo's directories were able to with the Internet.
Bob and AJ mentioned baseball three times in this podcast. Podscope lets me play each mention, hear or download the entire show, and/or subscribe to future shows--all from one simple interface.Enter
Podscope: The first search engine built specifically for podcasts. It was developed by a company called TVEyes, which specializes in audio and video files that are text-searchable (ironically, the company recently licensed its technology to Yahoo for video searching).
How does it work? According to TVEyes CEO David Ives, the core of the system involves a spider that plays each of the podcasts the company tracks (1,000 and growing), then runs a speech-to-text algorithm on it. When you search Podscope, you're searching that database of transcribed text. If you find something you like, you can play the entire show, subscribe, or hear only the snippet that includes the word or phrase you entered.
The system is scalable since it relies on automated transcription. Ives also told us that the current success rate for transcription is roughly 75 to 80 percent, which is by no means perfect but is accurate enough to let you find several needles in the growing haystack of the podcastosphere or whatever silly thing we're going to end up calling the podcasting community.
What can you expect from this community? Right now, it's a mix of music and talk shows, as well as hybrids that play a song, then comment on it. Ives said, "What's happening is, people are clearly buying and giving iPods initially for music. But it has now become so easy to download nonmusic types of audio that [the talk format] seems to be exploding." And it's not just Adam Curry. The BBC, NPR, Clear Channel stations, and several other commercial radio stations are making their content available as podcasts. Right now, Podscope is the best way to search them all.
This is all well and good for people who are looking for podcasts, but what about those brave souls out there who want to podcast their own thoughts and music to the world?
Brought to you by The Podcast News Crew at http://www.PodcastEmpire.com
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Milliken's speech on podcast
Keeping up with technology, University of Nebraska President James B. Milliken's State of the University address is available via podcast for the first time this year.
Milliken's recorded speech was made available to listeners at midnight Feb. 9. The speech was also available in a downloadable PDF document.
Milliken did not formally deliver the speech, but held a telephone conference with a small press contingency to discuss the address.
Milliken read from a short prepared speech and fielded questions, including some regarding the switch in format.
In the past, the address was given at one of the four campuses in the system. With the switch to podcasting, Milliken is hoping to reach more students and create a wider audience. However, he is realistic.
"I don't expect this to be on any student's top 10," he said.
Milliken pointed out the importance of recruiting quality faculty for NU classrooms and further defined his commitment to the seven planks of the university's Strategic Framework.
He stressed the importance of reaching out to the increasing numbers of Latino students in Nebraska.
Milliken also discussed the three legislative bills going to the Unicameral this year that will directly affect day-to-day operations on all four campuses.
The three bills discuss everything from environmental clean up to rising energy costs.
Milliken lauded state efforts to increase student aid and to continue research funding, citing a 200 percent increase in research dollars in the last 10 years.
"One of the great positives of this stronger level of state support is that we were able to keep tuition increases to the lowest point in almost a decade," he said. "The highest priority of the university is to provide affordable access to Nebraskans to get a higher education."
Legislative bill 603 has been drafted to fund building renovations across all four campuses. Another bill would provide $6 million in assistance to offset rising energy costs. Each of these bills would be designed to allow for future increases.
The third piece of legislation would be for a one-time allotment to clean up the facilities at Mead. The waste at the Mead site was disposed of properly at the time of its disposal, but no longer meets Environmental Protection Agency standards
Milliken said that efforts to maintain and strengthen existing ties with the private sector, as well as establishing new arrangements, will be vital to the economic development of the state of Nebraska.
Milliken also laid out plans for the next year. Citing a desire to increase enrollment throughout the NU system, he said that the university will strive to increase the numbers of under represented minority enrollment.
There will also be efforts to promote entrepreneurial growth through education, Milliken said.
"That's a strategy for the growth of Nebraska."
The podcast can be downloaded at nebraska.edu/sotu2006.aspx
Brought to you by The Podcast News Crew at http://www.PodcastEmpire.com
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Mac Podcast Creation: Easy but Not Cheap
One Journalists account of making a podcast.
Really though, you don't have to buy all this expensive stuff. I don't use a Mac, but I am sure you can got this cheaper. On my PC I have a Logitech webcam that I bought about 5 years ago. Now, I bought a good one at the time... but it is well used.
That is all I use to record sound, the little pinhole of a microphone in my Logitech. I record into Audacity and run the whole thing through the 'Normalize' effect when I am done to take out variations in the sound quality.
Doesn't cost me a penny! (okay, okay, so I had to buy
the webcam originally... but it was way cheaper than a good mic would have been!)
If you are putting out your 25th episode, then maybe it is time to upgrade your equipment. But when you are starting out, I recommend going for the bargin basement stuff!
Michael V
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During various periods from the early 1980s through the early 1990s, I spent time around musical recording equipment. First it was high-end reel-to-reel machines. At the end, it was rack-mounted digital devices.
It was the geek in me, since normal folks had few reasons to play with that kind of stuff then.
Now, of course, we have Web pages with audio, at-home DVD authoring software and, most significantly, podcasting that give all sorts of people reasons to record audio at reasonably high quality.
Great Sound From SnowballSo I seized the chance this week to experiment with a new Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iMac hooked up to a microphone called "The Snowball" from Blue Microphones of California. This week's column is a basic account of creating a podcast for easy distribution.
Podcasts are audio files -- diaries or news reports or just about anything you can record that listeners download to their computers and/or MP3 players.
Not surprisingly, Apple's iTunes is the easiest way to listen to them.
Recording one, however, is a little more complicated.
For this test, I used Apple's GarageBand software -- part of the iLife suite of programs that comes standard with Macs.
To begin, one creates a new project in GarageBand. This entails all of launching the application and clicking on the button labeled Create New Podcast.
The sound quality from the Snowball, which is connected to a computer via a USB port, is fabulous. (I have a face for radio and a voice for print, so don't look here for the URL to find the sample.)
.Mac Account Makes Web Publishing Easier
Once the podcast has been recorded, you need to publish it to the Web. The easiest way -- sorry, but that word keeps applying -- is to use a .Mac account from Apple. You also have the option of publishing it to iTunes.
Again, it's just a matter of a few clicks. The whole process took me about 30 minutes, and that included learning how to do it. However, Apple's online directions for this are not quite as good as they should be.
If you publish it to the Web, would-be listeners have to check your Web site from any machine with a browser to hear your podcast and view any pictures you've put up.
If you want to publish it via iTunes, which will make frequent listeners' lives much easier, they will also have to download iTunes. It's free in Mac and Windows versions.
Bargain Compared to Yesteryear
The cost of the whole venture is not cheap -- at least if you want to do it in a way that sounds good and is simple.
The Snowball microphone retails for US$149.
The 20-inch iMac costs $1,699, although the $1,299 17-inch version would work just as well in this case.
A one-year .Mac subscription, which includes first-rate e-mail and backup services and a bunch of other goodies, costs $99. A family pack of five accounts is $179 per year, but keep in mind, a half-decent microphone 20 years ago cost $2,000.
Brought to you by The Podcast News Crew at http://www.PodcastEmpire.com
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