So you want to catch the podcasting craze, eh?  Not sure where to start?  I found this via Nicole’s Useful Sounds blog–Eric Rice — How to build a 10 minute podcast.  Very simple and straight forward.  Here’s the basic plan:

00:10 date/promo/tease/banter/ad

00:20 theme music/intro

00:60 preview

00:30 ad/promo

05:00 small stories/top story

00:30 IDENTIFY

02:00 feedback/secondary stories

00:15 thank sponsor

00:15 outro

Now go out there and kick some ass!

 

QUICK TIP: Stressed about saying ‘um’ and ‘ahh’? Don’t be. You’re human. Relax. Just don’t do it in the intro to your show. You should never, ever, ever, ever have a reason to hesitate when you are saying your name and your show. It’s an absolute! Practice saying, “Hello, my name is ____, and welcome to _____, the show about ______ and _____!”

Cameron and Mick from the Podcast Network have just put up their first vidcast to celebrate six months of podcasting. The video is interesting – they talk about some of the recent developments of their network and the pressures they are facing. Whilst they seem to be enjoying it it’s pretty clear that its not a walk in the park and that they are facing some challenges – especially around scaling their model up to the next level. Interesting watch.

Get the video here (its 134mb).

BitPass have announced a service for helping PodCasters charge for their work via a subscription – enabling a new wave of professional podcasters to hit the airwaves:

‘BitPass Unplugged is a patent-pending, powerful new service that will allow podcasters ranging from hobbyists to mainstream media organizations to introduce à-la-carte and subscription pricing to podcasts. The service leverages the loyalty of a growing number of listeners who prefer to download music, audio blogs, radio shows and other content and have it transferred automatically to portable media devices for listening at the user’s convenience.’

Do you think people will be willing to pay to listen to a podcast? I seem to remember a lot of talk about subscription based blogging a year or two back and the general consensus being that people wouldn’t be willing to pay to read a blog as there were so many other options out there to read.

What do you think?

found via Blog Herald

Jason Calacanis has started Podcasting. Perhaps lay off on the singing next time Jason. He gives an indication that they hit a $1800 record for their Adsense ads.

Then he goes on to talk about ‘Intimacy’ and blogging.

The Podcast Network have just announced their first sponsor – an Aussie organization named LearnDog who work with teenagers to help them to make good life choices. LearnDog’s website might be a little on the light side of information about who they are and what they do – but they do have a blog that reveals a little more.

LearnDog product manager is quoted in the Australian Newspaper as saying:

‘”Our goal is to launch LearnDog on a global stage so millions of kids can showcase their talents using new media. We aim to create a positive learning experience that helps kids deal with the great youth dangers of suicide and depression.”

LearnDog will use radio, TV, press, and new media, including web blogging, PodCasting, chat and SMS, to provide assistance to 14 to 18-year-olds and disadvantaged people. An animated character called LearnDog will interact with these people. The company was founded by Mark Keough, who also set up Archer College, a Registered Training Organisation that delivers professional training using the latest in educational technologies. Seyfang, a windsurfing fanatic, says LearnDog will help kids to learn stuff by finding ways to show their talents and link them to training and/or well-being programs.

“We want to reach them through media channels like TV, radio, print media and new media channels like web blogs, PodCasting, internet generally, chat and SMS,” he says.`’

I like this concept – new media has so much potential to be a life giving force to many and LearnDog seems to be one example of someone taking steps to test this theory.

Darren Barefoot has an interesting take on Podcasting and why he’s ‘Not Smoking the Podcasting Dope‘. He raises some good points which are similar to some of the concerns I’ve written previously. He writes that podcasting has a shorter tail than blogging and that its less accessible to podcasters than blogging is to bloggers (to paraphrase just two of his main points).

I agree (with regret) with a lot of what Darren says but still hope that with time Podcasting will take off – I especially think it does have potential to be a powerful medium in some niches and that it has some fascinating applications especially internally within businesses – but overall I think it going mainstream could be a while off (if ever).

Two of the books that come to mind when I ponder the differences between Podcasting and Blogging are The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and the Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin. Both of these books talk about how some ideas spread like viruses whereas others do not. I wonder if some of the principles in these books might add to what Darren Barefoot has written. I guess the question I am asking today is ‘Is Podcasting Virus Like?‘

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Do you listen to PodCasts? If so how many per week?

This is the question I’m asking in my inaugural ‘Poll of the Week‘ question – see side bar to vote.

You see I’m fascinated by new media like PodCasting and Vlogging – however I have a few reservations about them also which lead me to wonder how many people actually listen to them.

I regularly listen to a handful of podcasts and have done so now for a few months – but I’ve noticed a change in the past few weeks in my listening habits. I’m listening to less of them and am gravitating to the shorter ones. The main reason is that I just don’t have time to dedicate to some of the longer ones that are out there any more.

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Fortune reports that Adam Curry of MTV fame is planning to start up a podcasting network in the months ahead:

‘Later this winter Curry and partners plan to launch a podcasting network, offering an edited selection of the web’s best dispatches and tools for neophytes to create their own casts. Just as blogs have challenged mainstream media, Curry predicts that podcasts will take on radio and satellite. “With podcasting, people can tune out the world and listen to whatever they choose,” says Curry. “In a way we’re really looking at the dismantling of the monoculture,” he says. Guess it’s a good thing he’s not at MTV anymore.’

Read more at Technology – Podcasting: From MTV to MP3 – FORTUNE