Out-Smarts Marketing Services

A recent Information Week article asks the question - Is podcasting dead?. The article cites that “there is no easy way to sample podcasts without an excessive and irretrievable investment of time” as the reason that podcasting hasn’t taken off.

Lets look at the numbers to see if podcasting is indeed dying a death. eMarketer estimates that the total US audience for podcasts reached 18.5 million in 2007 and is expected to grow by 251% by 2012. These statistics hardly reflect the death throes of a dying medium but the growth rate isn’t exactly stellar if you compare it to other web 2.0 technologies.

The reason for its slow adoption rate is indeed, as Alexander Wolfe of Information Week suggests, a result of podcast complexity. And this doesn’t only apply to users.

Creating and publishing a podcast is not as seamless or as simple as it should be either. If you’ve read any of my new experiences in podcasting posts you will know of my own frustrations with the technology and I am relatively tech savvy. It seems to me that if you want to podcast you have to be a true propeller head. At this point that is podcasting’s main barrier to entry.

iTunes has tried to streamline the podcast publishing process but even using Garageband to create a podcast on a Mac doesn’t guarantee simple podcast submission.

On the bright side for podcasting, more and more traditional media outlets are using the technology to disseminate audio so that users can listen on the run and users are recognizing the benefits of being able to listen on their terms (coincidentally, one of my first ever blog posts back in 2005 touched on this). Global TV in Vancouver offers video and audio podcasts of its news content.

Podcasting is not dead but its not exactly burgeoning either. As podcasting is promoted more to the mainstream it will become more prevalent (it is slowly gaining popularity, especially in the 35-54 age group) but until producers can create and publish podcasts efficiently and users can access them as easily as turning on the radio, podcasting growth with remain slow.

I bet you’ve been dying to find out how I finally managed to get the podcast up last week. It was no easy feat let me tell you….

I got several responses to my request for tips. One very intuitive one was to use iTunes to reduce the size of the file. Choose Preferences and Advanced and Importing (click on custom to set the rate) in iTunes should get you there then Advanced and save as to complete the process. Too simple perhaps - alas the file was too gargantuan.

The final resolution? I ended up using ftp to post the podcast directly on to the website server and then link to it from there. And I claim to not be a propeller head…

Along the way I also learnt that iChat can be very useful for supporting podcasts over the Internet. And received some great tips on how to make the podcast experience better for the user: more juicy stuff for you to look forward to in future New Experiences in Podcasting as I put these suggestions into action (or try to at least).

This week the buzz in the social networking arena has surrounded Google’s OpenSocial announcement on Friday and the upcoming announcement expected from Facebook tomorrow. It seems that right now it pays to be social.

Google’s entry into the social networking arena with OpenSocial was fanfared on Friday. OpenSocial is a collaboration between Google and major SN players like LinkedIn, MySpace and Ning to facilitate building social networking apps and to encourage third party participation. The idea is that through application standardisation the development of social networking applications and add-ins will be easier and a shared API will lead to ease of deployment across different SN applications.

Facebook in turn is taking a run at Google on the Internet advertising front. With a big announcement expected from Facebook today rumours are circulating that the company intends to use data collected from user profiles to offer ads highly specific to interests and needs a la AdSense. Considering the personal data that Facebook has collected and the fact that Facebook is considered to be more authentic (profiles in Facebook are more true to real life than say MySpace), its really no surprise that the company is looking to harness this.

From a user perspective these developments can only be positive. The easier it is for companies to implement social networking technology, both on their web sites and Intranets, the better for enhanced communication, community and customer service. The integration of social networks will mean less time in the login and learning process for people like myself who use these networks as valuable business development tools. These, together with the ability to advertise to a highly targeted audience are all positive steps in the evolution of the social networking space.

At a time when technologists can barely agree on the definition of Web 2.0, when many members of the public are simply unaware of it’s existince, it seems too soon to be talking about Web 3.0 but I am going to anyway because its always good to know what’s coming.

Web 1.0 was a one way street: websites posted information and visitors would come along to read - that was about it. Web 2.0 saw the advent of the two way relationship where visitors could read, collaborate and interact on the web on their own terms. Web 3.0 is described as the semantic web and is associated with the ability to integrate all of the information available to us on-line using machines to read, sort and act and thus make it easier for us to cope with the daily chaos.

You may have heard the example of your “wired” fridge automatically notifying you by e-mail, text or other device to alert you that the milk has been finished you need to buy some on the way home or even notifying your supplier automatically to send it on. Well that’s a great example of how Web 3.0 will work.

However, considering how long it’s taking for many to catch on to Web 2.0, and the fact that the technology just isn’t quite there yet, I don’t believe we should be worrying Web 3.0 business strategies quite yet but it is important to realize that technology is improving at an amazing rate and that Web 3.0 will be a reality one day in the not too distant future. In the meantime, the continued convergence of existing Web 2.0 technologies further enhances collaboration and is streamline both communications and work flow so you really should be considering how your company can harness these.

I was asked in follow up to my article on blog search engine tips to explain what a ping is so here you go.

In its simplest form, a “ping” is a means to ensure that one computer server can talk to another across a network (Internet) A small “packet” of data is sent from one computer to another to establish a connection between the two. Once the connection is established, any updates on the site are then sent back to the initiating computer.

For blog writers who want to make sure that their articles appear in real time on blog engines, pings are important as they allow the search engines to communication with the blog writers server to check for updates to the blog and to post tha latest information when people search.

Most of the blog search engines allow you to “ping” them. Do this each time you update your blog by going to the blog search engines (these include Technorati and IceRocket) and clicking on the “ping” link (usually on the home page). Once you’re there you will be prompted you to enter your blog URL. Do so carefully so as to avoid spelling errors. When done, click on the button to complete and the process starts. You’ll know that the search engine has been in touch with your blog server once the message comes back “thanks for the ping!”.

Still confused? I like to use the table tennis analogy one computer pings the other and the other pings (pongs?) back!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNW0Ysoauqg