In September, Yahoo! closed down their Podcasting search service. Odeo is still languishing in my opinion. Podcast Alley is well designed and easy to use, but is full of horrible horrible content leaving me to question the voting system they have as being seriously gamed. Google’s stayed pretty much out of the game, but there is a Google custom search that’s pretty good.

So what is going on?

• Has iTunes declawed podcasting with it’s search tool and lack of features?
• Is it too hard to get current podcasts onto listening devices?
• Are we seeing a “normal” hype-cool-settle cycle?
• What about the new in-car technologies?
• Will the iPhone and wireless iPod help?
• Are podcasts inherently non-viral?

What’s even more perplexing is that our on-demand society craves time-shifted, portable entertainment. Podcatchers are the ultimate web audio “Tivo” equivalent. You can isolate items of interest and let it fill up unaided…then listen to a stream of custom audio.

The Google Trends chart to the right could be slightly misleading when it comes to the “Christmas Spikes.” Since more people have MP3 players already, the height of the spike, and thus the novelty of podcasts, will probably be shorter, but the overall trend is compelling and consistent with the premise of this post.

Wizzard.tv claims 1 billion downloads in 2007. That’s big.

My suggestions to improve podcasting include:

• Podcasters must create content people want. Please quit spewing poorly-tagged, over-hyped garbage.
• Connect podcasts to GPS and stream local content (especially for the tourism industry)
• Podcasts should STOP when there is nothing else to talk about. They are too long! Get to the point already.
• Make it easy to find podcasts based on your interests? Hasn’t behavioral targeting come far enough for this yet?
• Podcasters should prepare for their shows. I’m so sick of “I didn’t have time to get ready” type shows. If that happens. Don’t do it!
• Podcasters need an easy way to translate their shows to non-English.
• Stop with the fancy, 3-minute long intros. I don’t want to hear the tractor-pull-style hype buildup.
• We need to improve tagging and chapter marks. Podcast producers must take the time to tag their work as well as isolate sections when the subjects change drastically.
• Itunes must improve podcast search. Top-ten podcasts within a genre would be a good start. Editor’s Picks and better identification of video podcasts would help too. Someone should raise the barrier to entry into iTunes podcasting. If the podcast doesn’t get subscribers, kill it.
• Make it simpler to subscribe, right from the device. More explanation to the newbie of what’s going to happen when they click subscribe would help. Why must I surf the web for 30 minutes to find a good show? Why not let me set up my interests (ala Tivo) and just let the system fill up my podcast-allocated area on my player?
• “New Podcast Suggestion” tools need to be developed based on meta search.
• Auto-transcription systems or Human-transcribed systems will help with indexing content (though they may not be terribly useful to users as readable text) and, if well-engineered, allow “fast forwarding” to a certain point in the podcast as well as enabling translation to other languages.

Postscript:  Complete post that PodShow Podcasting Network Grew 29144% in 2007.

I have been noticing lately that many News broadcasts, podcasts, and magazine articles are referring to guests as “bloggers” as if this has somehow become a credibility indicator on its own.� It is not. �

Now, if this is followed by “and a professor at x university” or “a best selling author” or “zoologist who grafted a chicken to a poodle”… I’m fine with it.� But just saying “blogger” is not enough.

Just a pet peeve here.

If being in the field and recording interviews, thoughts, music, or other digital content for podcasting is your life, then this little beauty is going to get you excited.� � While the Edirol R-09 has been around for a while, it’s getting new attention as podcasting begins to really grow and people are looking for convenient mechanisms to allow spontanious capture of life events.� Trade shows, lectures, and other gathering spots are often great places to find and talk with people - making great content for your podcast and, transcribed, your blog.� � � Churches, class lectures, and� recorded histories� are more amazing applications for this little machine.

� This gets curiously close to my tounge-in-cheek� Podcast Buddy� concept from a couple of years ago… and I’m glad to see it develop into a real product.�

What I would adore for this product would be a dock that has a XLR port, USB connection to the computer and built-in charger.� From this we could not only do our editing right from the device, but we could use it for telephone call recording in combination with the JK Audio broadcast host.

The Public Radio Talent Quest, a search for the Next Great Host. It’s open to all comers; it has cash awards, more than $70,000 courtesy of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and offers the chance, if you have what it takes, to be a public radio star.� � Also, learn about it on Youtube.“To enter the first round of the Talent Quest, which starts on Monday April 16th, 2007, upload two minutes or less of audio that reflects your personality and uses your voice. That’s it. We want to hear who you are. Show the judges and the public the elements of your personality that make people look forward to spending time with you. It’s what we’re calling “hostiness,” and it includes people who are:Engaging, smart, curious, surprising, honest, intriguing, have sense of humor, clever, authentic, human, real, trustworthy, knowledgeable, maybe even someone you’d have dinner with.

In short – it’s a lot like dating. You gotta make a great first impression to get past Round 1.

We don’t want to say much more than that because we want to hear where you’re going to take this. We will suggest that you focus on you and your own voice when you enter. We’re looking for great hosts more than someone with classy audio editing chops.”

I’d do it if I weren’t so busy� lame as a radio star.

Good luck!

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has has published a decision on Internet radio royalties, adopting the “per play” rate that SoundExchange had promoted. The rates that the Board has decided on, effective retroactively through the beginning of 2006. I’ve created a spreadsheet to calculate the reality of all of this.

Excel Worksheet: Internet Radio Profits/Loss Calculator Under New Rules

IMPROVE THIS WORKSHEET, and SEND ME the new one.� I’ll keep posting improvements.

This assumes the advertiser can’t ask for more than $3 CPM, but who knows where radio ad costs will go.

A performance is one song streamed to one listener, and so if a station has 2000 listeners who listen to one song, that’s 2000 performances. Noncommercial webcasters get 159,140 Aggregate Tuning Hours (where the hell did they get that number?) per month, and pay the regular commercial rate after that. Oh, there’s a $500/year minimum (hat tip to Chachi� for the correction.) � Uh, oh. Time for a begathon.

I just question how they’ll account for listeners, performances delivered,etc. and it will be interesting to see the MANY creative ways internet broadcasters will Torrent and Mirror their way around this one!

Random Follow Up Thoughts�

Update: ASCAP recently asked the courts to count all transmissions of musical works to the public be considered public performances.

What about podcasts?

SoundExchange was designated by the U.S. Copyright Office to administer the collection and distribution of the statutory or compulsory license available to digital music service providers. SoundExchange collects royalties from “noninteractive digital” performances reported by cable music services, including residential Muzak, DMX, and Music Choice, webcasters, and satellite radio primarily XM and Sirius. The term “noninteractive” means that the subscriber chooses a channel rather than a particular song, and the songs that our licensees transmit cannot be manipulated by the listener, as in fast forwarding, rewinding, or downloading. Downloads are reproductions and are considered a different right not covered by statutory license and thus not part of SoundExchange’s responsibilities. Such rights must be licensed directly from the SRCO.”

So are podcasts the same as compilations?� Well, not under current law if I read it right.� But reading it right is not easy!� I think that we need to extend copyright law to consider podcasting-like activities as new sort of activity so it can be addressed in the courts on its own merit.

After a walk to Starbucks, I got to thinking about Steve Jobs’ recent article “Thoughts On Music.” It leads me to wonder where things are going with music online.� It makes me appreciate Woodsongs even more as a great ipod-filler.� But that music doesn’t appeal to everyone.� � I think that Internet Radio, free from fees, seems like an ideal way for artists to give away a selection of songs for use on streams or podcasts, and then refer to full albums/other merchandise they want to sell RIGHT on their websites.� We’d have a rich selection of music flowing every day, and a great collection to share everywhere, especially if you believe Steve Jobs manifesto.

Oh, yeah… if you’re in Austin on March 15th, attending the SXSW Music Panels where David Byrne will be exploring the state of the music business from an artists perspective in a panel called “Record Companies: Who Needs Them?“� That should be very good.� � It would be great if someone would send me his response to the whole Internet Radio fee question, if asked.

Pro Quality for under $1000 - Now, about that content.

Well, my audio editing guru Jerome has helped put together a selection of equipment to record telephone interviews for podcasts using standard telephones. We want to make it easyto interview someone without having to worry about the technology, letting them concentrate on the content.

The challenge with any phone recording is separating the audio between the two people, but this setup allows that. While I have set up a pretty servicable telephone interview recording setup using Skype and Pamela in the past, it was always subject to the idiosynchratic nature of Skype - and made for embarassing problems at times.� � The audio stream from our setup uses the left-and right audio channel for the two people. The caller is on one channel and the callee on the other. Of course you don’t broadcast it this way, it’s strictly for the audio editor. By separating the channels, you can do a controlled mix - equalizing the levels and tonal quality. You won’t get the harsh difference between voices that make some phone interviews so hard to listen to.

Telephone interview podcast equipment

• $469 JK Broadcast Host —� separates the audio between the caller and the callee
• $60 Audio-Technica ATH-M30 headphones
  $100 Shure SM58SLC dynamic microphone
• 1/8” stereo mini to L/R 1/4″ phono cable –found at
  Atlas desktop mic stand
• $15-20 XLR mic Cable�
• Zoom H4 recorder .� � it operates on 2 AA batteries or an included power supply.� It uses SD memory cards (comes with a 128MB but I use a 1GB)

The Zoom H4 could be replaced with a laptop, but we found that it� was very hard to remove “buzz” from the system with laptops.� The H4 suffered no such buzz and made really clean recordings.� If you want to use a laptop, you’ll need a high quality sound card - probably an external system and appropriate USB cables.

Another alternative now is a hosted solution called FreeConferencing� - We have not tried their calling solution, but since it will record everyone on the same channel, it will suffer the same weaknesses as Skype.

I’m checking out a new software called castblaster shortly, it looks promising - but a little bit pricy given Audacity is out there.� I’ll report back and link to them� if it works out.� I was disappointed in RecordForAll.

Idea 1: Imagine if you will a podcast widget.
This little box looks like a tape recorder. It has a play, record, rewind, ff, and pause button, all large and friendly. It has a small (gasp) speaker. When you want to record, you treat it just like an old fashioned tape recorder.

But there’s a twist. It has a USB plug. When you plug it into the computer, it asks you for a title and a date. You enter it, and the recording becomes a podcast on the web automatically and a copy is saved on the computer. Once the podcast upload is done, the device clears itself and is ready for the next recording. The podcast MP3 file is then available on iTunes via a normal Podcast feed…. automatically!

A device like this would make podcasting as easy as tape recording … churches, schools, and workplaces would be able to keep current versions of lectures and presentations on the web with the same work it would take to put it on cassette.

It should be durable and easy to hold..a familiar form that doesn’t intimidate. It should have a built-in stereo mic (like the awesome ones found on good camcorders.) Long periods of silence would be automatically removed, and the volume level of the recording would be automatically maintained. Software inside does this transparently.

It should be cheap and so simple that there are no special skills required. The technology should be good enough to hide all the neuances of recording and publishing. Let’s call it the podcast buddy.

Idea 2: The Podcast phone - or … podcasting from your cell phone.
Imagine a phone number that you call to podcast. A teacher could call this number to record the homework notes for the day, for example. Conference calls could be recorded and automatically podcasted to private audience at a company. Personal podcasts could be done from a cell phone… like blogging from the car.