New organisation formed for podcasters

[SiliconRepublic.com] 28.11.2005 - A new representative body has been established to guide the ever-increasing community of Irish podcasters through the labyrinthine maze of issues ranging from libel and music licensing to sponsorship and product placement, siliconrepublic.com has learned Because the organisation is so new it has only been tentatively titled the Podcasting Representative Body (PodRepBod), explains founder Brian Greene of Doop Design, and like Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) is part of a growing movement focusing on the rights of individuals in the online world. “Effectively it is a forum for people who podcast,” says Greene.

Unlike DRI, which champions and fights various issues, PodRepBod will focus on informing podcasters of topics such as libel law and music licensing regulations so hopefully they won’t run into trouble. Greene is establishing the group because he believes the need exists to safeguard the activity of podcasters with regards to licensing, the law and a range of other issues such as standards, training, hosting, product placement and sponsorship.
8< more

10:10 good buddy

it takes me all night, to do what I used to do all night (im the oldest swinger in town)

in 10 months I have recorded 10 personal podcasts, and in ten weeks I have recorded 10 Irish emigrant podcasts.

some observations on 10. the emigrant cast is 15 mins plus and production time is down from 2.5 hours to 1.5 hours. the personal cast is 40mins plus and the production time is static at twice the length of the show, but pre production on it has increased as the months have expanded.

the growth of a weekly versus a monthly is greater than a factor of 4, thus the more often you cast the wider a net you have. frequency converts into numbers. Can I do this without diluting the content, im sure I can. A daily 5 minute has more pull than a fortnightly 50 min cast.

I am seriously considering a daily, mon-fri 5-10 minute podcast which will most probably be experimenting over the long Christmas break. This will entail a max 100 minute production per week with 60 - 120 minutes (a week) pre production added. So if 3.5 hrs a week can be found, in Jan 2006 a daily episode with advance recording of 3-6 shows is in the offing.

10-10 is CB'ers code for "Transmission completed, standing by"

IIA Podcast

The IIA podcast has been launched. You can hear the full proceedings of the Irish Internet Association & CheetahMail Net Visionary Awards Winners 2005 on the podcast. The feed for the podcast is at http://www.netvisionary.ie/rss.xml or you can listen to the MP3 here.

The podcast was recorded and built by doop.ie and will also feature future conferences and talks given by the IIA from various locations around the country.

Podcasting Research

snipped from http://peterchen.members.grokthis.net/research

a number of interesting relationships between audience size and show characteristics are examined. Some key findings include:

* Episode frequency exerts a strong influence on audience size, with the release of daily episodes demonstrating the highest average audience size. Presently, most shows are produced on a weekly basis,
* There are few specific production-side determinants on popularity (including production time per episode), with the exception of collaborative shows, where there is a significant positive correlation between the number of staff or collaborators and show popularity, and
* There appears to be an emerging negative relationship within the podcasting production community between the prevalence of shows in some genres and lower average audience sizes. While this relationship is not significant, it may indicate that the market in some genres is saturating and further efforts need to be undertaken to expand the overall size of the market.

In the final discussion, some additional comments are provided on issues of copyright and other legal concerns, policy considerations to address gender inequality, and questions associated with definitional inspecificity.

Hollywood embraces BitTorrent

BitTorrent has shaken hands with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). BitTorrent has a lot to teach to the internet industry, and Podcasting has a lot to learn from BitTorrent.
pcpro.co.uk reports

Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent software, hopes to sign deals with the major studios to allow BitTorrent to offer legal movies for download. The studios themselves are reportedly sufficiently interested to want to extend the use of BitTorrent technology to create a market of downloadable movies similar to the current growth in downloadable music. BitTorrent has already raised $8.75 million in venture capital to build a legitimate online media distribution business.

'BitTorrent is an extremely efficient publishing tool and search engine that allows creators and rights holders to make their content available on the Internet securely,' said Cohen in a statement. 'BitTorrent discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a licence to do so. As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from BitTorrent.com's search engine'.

Near 101.6 FM interview Brian Greene

UPDATE: archive link of the interview

I was interviewed live on Near FM today re podcasting and the representative body we are setting up. The show is called 'Majority World' and is repeated at 9am Friday. the stream is at http://www.nearfm.ie/livestream.htm Its weird been on Near 20 years after I started by broadcasting on itfore runner NDCR in '85 an event I will play out in my next show (to be recorded tonight) so if you want to hear 15 year old me on the radio,,, tune in and sync it.

comments welcome
is it just me or do all podcasters/bloggers crave feedback?

Give up yer auld day job - inside podshow

A. Jacob Metz writes

MIKE BUTLER JUST got a new job, and he can't shut up about it, on or off the air. Butler, a house painter and local musician (Exodus, American Heartbreak), was understandably nervous about closing down his business, Michael Butler Painting, which he founded in the late 1970s, and starting work at PodShow (www.podshow.com). In early November he began his first-ever office job as one of the newest employees of the company, which is owned by former MTV VJ Adam Curry and longtime business partner Ron
Bloom.

Quantum Leap backwards

UPDATE: feed updated 25/11/05 the 17/11/05 was skipped (has anyone got a copy of that show?)

6 days after its most recent broadcast and 1 day before its next; The Quantum Leap podcast rss feed has yet to be updated, whats up? the MP3 has not shown up either.

Way back in May 2005 RTE Lyric FM claimed via press releases that it was the first station in Ireland to podcast, it had in fact only put up an MP3 for download without an RSS feed.

RTÉ if you are reading this, please please me and all the fans of the show and update the feed. Comment welcome.

DTT ina shui: Irish DDT trial moves to phase 2

John Kennedy of Silicon Republic Reports:-

Having completed the first stage in the development of a digital terrestrial television (DTT) pilot, Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey TD, is seeking tenders for the transmission equipment elements of the pilot. Deals for the network component have already been signed with BT Ireland, Chorus and Siemens.

So mid 2006 DTT will test again from 3 Rock and Clermont Carn, and Minister Dempsey said "he will be looking to explore possibilities for citizen-focused digital television services that can be delivered across all platforms during the course of the pilot"

What the heck does that mean? but slagging aside, Noel uses the 'C' word, and its not customer, its Citizen, a word dropped and replaced with customer by the current Govt. Perhaps a shift of focus, or was he off script?
[disclaimer: silicon republic is powered by NewsVendor a doopdesign CMS product]
[disclaimer#2: my next podcast (show#10) will feature a clip of an interview with John Kennedy after he won the Tech Journalist Award at this years IIA Net Visionary Awards]

Do you want 10,000 listeners?

hypothetical podcast about the collection of fuses. A fuse collector wants to share his passion with like minded people. We know fuse collecting isn't big or popular like soccer, we crave an audience a feedback for the service, listeners.

So how to get 10,000 listeners. organically, build it up slowly, but this is niche radio there are not 10,000 fuse collectors in your City... but there are less much less in many other cities. OK get 1 listener in 100 cities world wide (english speaking?).

Most effort is the first 20, then community kicks in. Its not easy (did I say it was) It might not even work for you, but the numbers do add up. With 100 cities x 1 listener, you passed your milestone, and on to the next, 10 listeners in 100 cities. This involves the first listener and you! starting to sound like a pyramid sales talk, not far off. Finding fuse collectors ain't easy, but should pyramid sales be the exclusive territory of heroin dealers? 1 becomes 10 x 100 slowly we have 1000.

now broaden your horizons from city to regional, aim now is 50 listeners in 200 centres, 100 cities 100 regional, for this your 10 base would need a incentive. You supply your own secret ingredient here. Add that to your unique selling point and work the 1,000 into 10,000 over time.

To reach this base you will require channels, ezine, postal, website, rss push & tie in with traditional media where you can blag your gig.

Now remove the fuse from the scenario, its your gig, do you want 10,000 to sell to or to just reach? if there are only 800 fuse collectors world wide and this number is declining with the advent of ELCB and only 10% of these have net access and half of those have no sound card, would you not be happy with 40. Its a lot easier to make the 40 people happy than the 10,000. Would the 10,000 make you rich or famous? heck no, 10,000 listeners might sell ads on local radio in a metro area, but online to a niche it wont pay bills. This is why a sponsor to the 40 is more valuable than to the 10,000 if there are only 40. The sponsor to the 40 will exceed the cost of delivery to the 40, at least it should; GET THE MESSAGE :)

ps: up late putting Irish Emigrant Podcast to bed

two iPods and a packet of crisp

Sales of Guinness was down six percent in Ireland and the company’s CEO knows exactly what’s to blame: gadgets. Rather than while away their hours in pubs, he says that young men have developed another perverse addiction, and are spending their money on "electronic stuff such as iPods".

Now if Guinness wifi enabled the pub world we could warm our socks by the fire on rainy days in Ireland, as we surf the information bóthar mor. Sounds like don't blame the smoking ban blame iPods to me. Guinness Podcast any day soon, ah go on.
[picture taken on xdaII; more electronic stuff in pubs; 20/07/2005 by BHG]

BCI announces interim satellite uplinking for irish radio services

On Thursday The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) introduced interim policy paving the way for Satellite uplinking by Irish local radio stations. The Commission has awarded contracts in principle to County Media Limited (Cork’s 96FM/103 County Sound), Treaty Radio Limited (Limerick’s Live 95), Independent Broadcasting Corporation Limited (LMFM), and City Broadcasting Limited (Q102). Once finalised, the contracts will allow for the retransmission of these services via satellite.

with ITV FTA these UTV radio's might be heading for Astra2D.
full details Interim Radio Licensing policy (PDF)

more podcasts than radio stations by Paddy's day '06

[BHG's prediction addiction]
as of today's date (19/11/2005)
25,000 Podcasts and counting on iTunes
19,921 are be tracked by PodNova.com
10,276 submitted to podcastalley.com

numbers numbers, Im looking at a magic number 36,000, the number of radio stations worldwide (according to 'I am an oil tanker' by Fi Glover). 5000 of these stations broadcast / stream on the web according to brsradio.com.

OK a podcast is akin to a show not a station, but as these podcasts are independently (of each other) distributed, subscribed & listened to, I will hold the comparison for now.

Now to do this correctly I would need historic benchmarks from the 4 sources above which I only have anecdotally but PodNova was tracking 13,000 6 weeks ago. That's 1000 new podcasts a week. This week iTunes(>4.8) (with podcasts) is 5 months old and it started with about 8,000 now 25,000+ that’s a growth of 810 a week for iTunes and I wont compare figures for podcastalley.com as there have slowed so much since podshow stepped in.

So with these growth rates in 14 weeks time say February 28th 2006 or St. Patricks Day (17/03), iTunes should be listing more podcasts than the world has radio stations.

This will make podcasts more numerous than radio, but it wont make is bigger than radio. Radio has a 100 year head start. It wont either allow podcasting take radio's 'STAR' any time soon, nor will it eat much of its ad revenue.

Now take 36,000 podcasts as choice. See how trends in radio listening is falling hour by day by week by commute. Add iPod Xmas, and a dollop of press hype and podcasts will eat the socks off banal radio wallpaper.

You see it is not podcasting versus radio, its passion over dominance.
LONG LIVE RADIO (wherever you may be)

"So don't become some background noise
A backdrop for the girls and boys
Who just don't know or just don't care
And just complain when you're not there
You had your time you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour
Radio" (queen).

representative body for Irish podcasters

I have set up a list at webnet.ie called opencast@webnet.ie

The function of the list is to discuss the setting up of a representative body for Podcasters in Ireland. The list is open for anyone to join and discuss this topic.

The need exists to safe guard the activity of podcasters regards licencing, legal and a range of other issues like standards, training, hosting, product placement & sponsorship.

The body which will be formed from the list will produce an FAQ via wiki at a new domain to be announced.

If you would like to join the list details are below, if you know of any groups or individuals commercial or grass roots independent, that would benefit from the list please cross post this message in other forums or forward them this email.

to join email majordomo@webnet.ie with
subscribe opencast
in the first and only line in the body of a plain text email

regards Brian Greene.

East Coast to launch ClassicHits.ie Digital Radio

classichits.ie will be launched Nov 30th 2005 using the AAC plus format for streaming. on their site they say

We're launching our new Irish service on November 30th, 2005, with a full service and a brand new web site.

Check back to listen to our test transmissions and get ready for high-quality audio featuring the 80's, 90's and more! We strongly recommend that our listeners use the WINAMP (Vers5.1) player which is fully compatible with our aacPlus audio stream.

Classic Hits .FM plays the best music and the biggest hits from the 80's, 90's and more with some of Ireland's best radio presenters.

Now Ireland or the world could live without another classic hits format radio but at least the tech boat is being pushed beyond WMA or Real Media. Strangely the site shares domains with podcast.ie are they planning to podcast this digital music, we shall try to find out... anyone got a mobile number for Sean Ashmore?

white iPod christmas

according to podcastingnews Santa is podcasting.

also admanaget.nl quotes a Bridge Ratings report that says

By 2010 podcast audience growth is expected to reach a conservative 45 million users who will have ever listened to a podcast. Aggressive estimates place this number closer to 75 million by this date.

and Christopher Breen writes Podcasting: The profit of passion

TechTV/Twit’s Leo Laporte acknowledged that the chances of making a lot of money from podcasting were slim. So why do it? Because you can and because you care. You’ve got something to say and you want to share that something with the world.

podcasts in the car

Do you own an Apple iPod® or a device with a headphone jack? Ever wanted to play it through your car stereo? Easy to use, just like plugging in your headphones. For Clean, Clear, and Dynamic Stereo sound right in your own car.

similar kit to the one pictured are on sale in Tesco priced €9.99 [at least I got one in the Carrick On Shannon store last week]

Other means of listening to podcasts in your car include forgetting the iPOD or any MP3 player, just sync your downloaded podcasted shows to a CD-RW, then using something like Sony's CDX-GT200 car stereo you can playback the shows in MP3 format. Sony's CDX-GT100 also comes with a 3.5mm stereo socket for input of iPods and other MP3 players.

In the future, your RSS feeds will bluetooth 90 feet down your driveway to be automatically sync'ed to your cars on board media hard disk. Unless your drive is longer than 90 feet....

Radio Telefís Éireann, RTE anseo agaibh PODCASTING

According an RTE Radio1 show; The Quantum Leap, its newsletter states, RTE will begin podcasting RSS/MP3 today.... welcome montrose.. o domhnaill abu 32bits Erin, loud n clear, QSL?

Please join us at 8pm if you can. From tomorrow we’ll be podcasting the programme with RSS feeds, as well has providing mp3 downloads from the site www.rte.ie/radio1/quantum

I hope we get compelling new content not a repeat service, and access to 'our' national audio archive on request for the internet age, it would also be good to lay to rest the ghost of DeValera and his hatred of shortwave which crippled our young nations ability to broadcast beyond our own shores. Ireland is a proud nation, stand up be counted and broadcast to the world.