Looking to fill your calendar in September, but not sure what to do yet? Going to be in Boston? Then head on over to Podcamp Boston! September 25 & 26, 2010 will host the 5th annual un-conference for the Boston area podcasters, so make sure you get your calendars in order now.
About PodCamp Boston:
Podcamp Boston was co-founded by Christopher Penn and Chris Brogan in 2006. These two guys wanted to learn more and share what they knew about podcasting without traveling over to the west coast to do it, so they came up with the idea to host an unconference in Boston, MA. The first of many Podcamps around the world took place on at Bunker Hill Community College. Since, Podcamp Boston has been hosted at BCEC, Harvard Medical School Conference Center and University of Mass. xx Center. Each year PCB has been different sizes but always full of people ready to share their knowledge to those eager to learn more about this crazy space in podcasting and new media. (read more about PodCamp Boston here).
What is PodCamp?
If you are unfamiliar with what a PodCamp is, you may find this info useful (from Podcamp.org):
A PodCamp is a usually free BarCamp-style community UnConference for new media enthusiasts and professionals including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers, and anyone curious about new media. PodCamp isn’t just about podcasting! If you’re interested in blogging, social media, social networking, podcasting, video on the net, if you’re a podsafe musician (or want to be), or just someone curious about new media, then please join us — and bring a friend or colleague.
Looking for something awesome to do this weekend? Live in or near Nashville… or just love going to Nashville? Head over our way this weekend, March 6, and hang out at PodCamp Nashville!
Details About PodCamp Nash:
If digital content is truly king, then PodCamp Nashville is a royal playpen for digital enthusiasts all unto its own. It’s Nashville’s top event for sharing expertise about new media creation, distribution and promotion—an opportunity to find your digital voice. There are TONS of sessions going on from a lot of smart people, check out the session list here like: WordPress SEO Strategies, Best Practices for e-Newsletters, Screencasting 101, Finding and effectively using music in your podcast and a whole lot more! Register today if you plan to go.
If you are unfamiliar with what a PodCamp is, you may find this info useful (from Podcamp.org):
A PodCamp is a usually free BarCamp-style community UnConference for new media enthusiasts and professionals including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers, and anyone curious about new media. PodCamp isn’t just about podcasting! If you’re interested in blogging, social media, social networking, podcasting, video on the net, if you’re a podsafe musician (or want to be), or just someone curious about new media, then please join us — and bring a friend or colleague.
Encoding.com is a pretty cool company for the pro video podcaster. If you are into the whole “do it yourself” thing and don’t want to rely on hosts such as Blubrry, YouTube or Libsyn (to name a few), AND you don’t want to mess with all of the video encoding settings, you may be interested in Encoding.com who just raised some serious cash to enhance their offering.
What Do They Do?
Encoding.com has a cloud-based encoding infrastructure that will convert your video to and from many, many formats. They have tons of features including stuff like: thumbnail generation, watermarking, real time status updates, presets for many output formats like web, iPhone and mobile and a whole lot more. But most sexy, to me, is the ease of integration! They have a cross-platform desktop AIR application, WordPress and Drupal plugins, and an FTP dropbox option as well. Once the file is converted, the can even upload it back to your server, to your CDN or to Amazon cloud hosting. All of this starting at about $19 a month (see their pricing structure). I did a pricing test and you can upload and convert 6 videos a month that are 50mb each and export them back in two formats (say web and iPhone) for $19. Not a bad deal compared to the $99 starting price tag for Brightcove and others.
From Techcrunch, “Encoding.com, a startup that provides online video encoding services, has raised $1.25 million in Series A funding. The funding was led by Metamorphic Ventures and included angel investors Patrick Condon, Fred Hamilton, Zelkova Ventures, Dave Morgan, and Allen Morgan. The funds will be used to further sales, marketing, and partnership programs.”
Encoding.com is the leading global provider of studio-class video services for websites offering user-generated and premium video, delivering over 4 million encoded videos since 2009. Encoding.com makes transcoding video into all popular formats easy, cost-effective and instantly scalable for global enterprises and SMBs. As the first and only encoding service offering service level agreements, Encoding.com removes the necessity for its customers to make heavy investments in expensive hardware / software solutions and overhead required to manage high-volume video transcoding needs and backs it with a wait-time service level guarantee. In 2008, the start-up was named one of seven finalists for the AWS Start-Up Challenge. This Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business is based in Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California.
Weather you are a Frank Sinatra fanatic or just interested in this legendary performer, the stories Brian Noe (the host) tells about Sinatra in this podcast will be sure to entertain you. With his thorough research, creative writing and a great production value, you will become a fan immediately! Enjoy great music, clips from movies and much more. Read the interview now or Subscribe to the show here!
About the Show
Since Februaryof2005TheFrankTruthhascelebratedthelife,thecareerandthelegacyoftheEntertainerofthe20thCentury,FrancisAlbertSinatra.BroadcasteachweekaspartofthePodshowLineuponSiriusStars102,ourshowcoversnews,music,movies,placesandpeople–everthingrelatingtothislegendaryperformer.
About the 6.5 Questions
Featured on the home page of Podcast Alley, the 6.5 questions give you insight into the life of the podcast producer, and a bit of information about their show as well. This is not just a another featured podcast, its a unique interview created just for Podcast Alley. You can always find the latest featured podcaster interviews on the home page of the Podcast Alley site or if you like, subscribe directly to the Podcast Alley Featured Podcaster Interviews feed. Do you have a show that you think is good enough to be featured on Podcast Alley? Submit the show in the comment, or email me: info at podcastalley.com!
If you follow us on Twitter (@podcastnews) you are probably aware from all of our tweeting yesterday that the Association for Downloadable Media along with Edison Research released their annual study for 2010. One of the most important things I gained from this was the following: Nearly 80% of podcast consumers will buy products the producer mentions because they believe it helps the producer. Additionally, they HATE ads that are pre-recorded from the advertiser…they relate much better to a sponsorship where the host themselves does the endorsement. There is a great opportunity for advertising in podcasting where you can reach an audience that no other medium can do.
According to Edison Research Vice President Tom Webster, “A podcast advertising buy is not a redundant media buy for advertisers and marketers. These are attractive, affluent consumers that mass media is losing.” He also notes, “Ninety percent of these respondents indicated that they had taken some kind of action as a result of podcast advertising or sponsorship, and over 40% reported purchasing behaviors, which indicates that they are receptive to the right message, in the right context.”
There is A TON of interesting information and statistics in there for podcast producers, and you should not miss the opportunity to use this free research. Check out the full post here or download the PDF Presentation.
Video hosting and distribution through Brightcove and Tubemogul
So you have your own popular web site or blog and need a way to get video running on it. Maybe you have a super popular “all about beef jerky” podcast and you know the way to get it in to the minds of hungry carnivores around the globe is to have a video on your site displaying your product in all it’s deliciousness. Welcome Brightcove.com. Brightcove is a top notch video player that not only offers to play crisp video but give you the option to make money through several different options they offer from pre-roll sponsorships and banners to full page takeovers. Unlike most players and ads you see on different sites, Brightcove’s player allows you to brand it to match the aesthetics of your site. Add your logo, change the colors, make it yours! Brightcove also has excellent video anylytics.
Don’t let those big words scare you. All it means is that Brightcove is watching who, when, where and for how long your videos are being watched. That is some great information if you are trying to find out who your audience is or if you even have an audience at all.
Brightcove just teamed up with TubeMogul. TubeMogul not only can distribute your video across many of the biggest video sites on the web, but it powers the analytics behind Bright Cove. These two powerhouses are teaming up to create a monster in the video distribution arena. Worth your time to check them out.
Did this article help you? Do you use Bright Cove? Did we miss something? Leave us a note in the comments and tell us your deepest darkest secrets.
Make money with your podcast without trying… too good to be true is what you are already thinking, but somehow you keep reading. What many people have tried, failed, and then cursed to the darkest corners of oblivion is a little phrase called Affiliate Marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is just a fancy phrase for someone who promotes discount codes or offers and receives a commission if someone uses your offer. Codes are ridiculously easy to get for just about any genre of product from skin care products to specialty sexy time products that you feel ashamed for buying in the first place. What most people fail at is they think they must push every single code they get their hands on down the throats of their listeners. Then they wonder why they lose audience and get no sale. The rule is the same to 1. get listeners and 2. make money. MAKE RELEVANT CONTENT. If your show is about monster trucks don’t try to get everyone in a PETA convention or message board to think you have an amazing show they have to hear. Likewise, if you do happen to have a show about monster trucks maybe you should go out and find affiliate programs that will allow you to give discounts to your audience for car parts, beer cozy’s, or obnoxious t-shirts that have a picture of a monster truck that says, “Hot Moms love Monster Trucks!” All jokes aside, people don’t want to be fooled. Tell them what you are going to give them and then do it. People will stay longer and buy more. I bet my monster truck t-shirt on it.
Make money with your podcast checklist:
Know what your show is about
Google for “Affiliate Programs” related to your content
Hire an accountant to count all your Benjamins
Want to learn more about making money through your podcast? Want Podcast Alley to keep talking about it? Do you like puppies? Leave us a note in the comments.
Steven Spielberg has nothing on me…well except years of training and talent. One thing that you can get away with that he can’t though is editing video on your mobile phone. You may have heard about this fun online app that can easily edit movies, pics, and music together called JayCut. It is definitely not a professional editing suite like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, but if you want to easily cut together some videos of you pieced together with a video of a fat guy belly flopping off the high dive that you found on you tube, this is your ticket to stardom. I wouldn’t expect an Oscar anytime soon, but JayCut can do surprisingly well with simple edits. Did I mention you can use it on your phone? All you need is a phone that supports Flash — sorry iphone users :(
No need for downloads or installs – it just works!
Instant access via any web browser
No specific hardware requirements
Access uploaded content anywhere, anytime
Works on all computers and browsers
Use content on the web in movies, e.g. YouTube videos
Collaborative editing, work together with other users from around the world.
Do you use JayCut for your podcast, or for another reason? Let us know the results, leave a comment! We would love to hear how you used JayCut to create your show and grow your podcast audience.
Top voted Podcast Alley show, and long time podcast producers Keith and the Girl are in the process of releasing their new paperback book titled What Do We Do Now?: Keith and The Girl’s Smart Answers to Your Stupid Relationship Questions! If you have ever listened to their show, you know that this book is guaranteed to be sick and wrong on many levels. You will also know that it will make you laugh while they provide a non-biased, non-censored opinion about relationships around the world.
About Keith and the Girl
Not held back by the FCC or anyone else, Keith and Chemda create hilarious talk shows 5 days a week along with a video podcast. Topics cover celebrity gossip, current news, pop culture and preventing robots from taking over the world. Be sure to subscribe to their show (Podcast Alley Link) if you are interested in a primer for the book, or head over to the Keith and the Girl Amazon page to pre-order your copy of the book now.
About the Book
Finally, a modern relationship book for the modern relationship. Keith and the Girl’s Smart Answers to Your Stupid Relationship Questions is an R-rated, utterly honest Q&A book culled from the best and funniest questions posed by Keith and the Girl devotees, including:
My boyfriend joined the military and is being shipped off for an unknown amount of time. I’m young and I want to move on. Am I a bad person?
Why does my boyfriend always adjust himself in public?
My wife dresses like a slut. How do I make her stop?
My boyfriend’s number one friend on MySpace is his ex. Should I be concerned?
With he-said, she-said advice that is both raw and honest, Keith and the Girl’s Smart Answers to Your Stupid Relationship Questions is sure to appeal to the podcast’s legion of fans, and attract a brand-new audience tired of the tried-and-not-so-true relationship manuals.
These days podcasters of the world all are still struggling for the same thing — audience. By now everyone has their own special sauce to find people and keep people, but there are some easy ways to tell Google that you need to be noticed. Of course we all just want to be found and famous, but anyone in the game for more than one episode knows it just isn’t that easy. One easy way to get higher rankings in search engines is to link to and get linked from a well known high ranked site.
What is Squidoo?
One site that is easy and free is Squidoo.com. Squidoo is a publishing platform and community that lets you create pages (they call them lens’s) that are kinda like overview articles or flyers that gather all the information you know about any one topic and snap it in to focus (hence the “lens”). So yes you do still have to write relevant content that someone might want to search for, but that’s why you started a podcast in the first place right? The important things to remember is that Squidoo is well ranked, free, and waiting to link to your podcast.
Do you use squidoo for your podcast, or for another reason? Let us know the results, leave a comment! We would love to hear how you used Squidoo to grow your podcast audience.
Make money with your podcast without trying… too good to be true is what you are already thinking, but somehow you keep reading. What many people have tried, failed, and then cursed to the darkest corners of oblivion is a little phrase called Affiliate Marketing.
