Disruptive Conversations

The Hardest Part of Podcasting Is...

... probably not what you think it is.

It's not the technology... as that is in so many cases the easiest aspect. Download a tool like Audacity to your computer and start talking into your built-in mic. Boom. You're done. Or point your phone's video camera at someone and press the record button. We've got a zillion different devices that will record audio or video.

It's not the post-production... although that can take some time depending upon the level of "professionalism" you want to give to your podcasts. Some people are fine with just posting raw "(wo)man-on-the-street" interviews up with little or no post-production. Some people want to do some editing, add intros and outros, etc.

It's not the on-air voice (the "talent")... as there are many podcasts out there that demonstrate that you don't need to have the proverbial "radio voice" to still have a show that builds a community of listeners. Of course, having (or developing) a good voice does help, but it's not the hardest part.

It's not the marketing of your podcast... the world of social media has made it so much easier to get the word out. Good shows will spread virally and people will learn about what you are doing. MANY tools out there to help spread the word.

It's not the story or the outline of what you will talk about... although admittedly this CAN be one of the harder aspects - to craft the outline of what you are going to do over a period of time, to think about the audiences, to figure out what story you are going to tell.

No, the absolute hardest part of podcasting is none of those, although all of them can be challenging in different ways.

Instead the hardest part of podcasting is...

... keeping the podcast going!

It's easy to start a podcast... it's far harder to maintain a podcast.

To keep doing it... week after week after week after week after week after...

For every podcast like For Immediate Release that has been diligently going on week after week for over five years now (just passed episode #621) or the VoIP Users Conference that has been going on for 4+ years, there are a hundred other podcasts where the hosts had brilliant ideas, the best of intentions... yet didn't keep the podcast going.

The Internet is littered with the remains of thousands of podcasts that started... (and yes, the same could be said of blogs).

One of my own is amidst those remains... from 2005 to 2008 I produced and co-hosted Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast. It was great to do and we built up quite a strong community of listeners. But then jobs changed... life changed... new kids came into the world... and so we ended the show's run. I keep thinking about bringing it back... but I'm conscious of this "hardest part" of podcasting. If I do bring it back, I have to be ready to commit to bringing it back on a regular basis.

THAT is the hardest part of "podcasting".

Keeping the podcast going.

IF, of course, you are trying to create a "show" that is ongoing. If you are just putting up some audio interviews... well, those might just be "downloadable audio files" and not really a "podcast", per se. Or they might be a "podcast" that has a predetermined lifespan... such as for an event or conference. There are many such podcasts around an event or date - or for a set series of topics - and they are great for what they are: a "body of work" with a defined beginning and end.

But if you are trying to create an ongoing show that attracts a community of listeners... then this "hardest part" comes into play. When I've been consulting with clients about starting up a podcast, I stress this fact again: it's easy to start a podcast, but far harder to keep it going.

Are you ready to commit to the long-term run of the show?

To do it week after week after week after week?

THAT is the hardest part of podcasting.

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Final Day of the 2011 FIR Listener Survey - Help Us Guide The Show!

Do you listen to the For Immediate Release Podcast? If so, do you have a few minutes to take the FIR listener survey if you haven't already done so?

The survey is a very important tool to help Shel and Neville (and by extension, we who are correspondents) shape the future of the FIR podcast. The feedback IS highly valued and much appreciated.

THE 2011 FIR LISTENER SURVEY CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT GMT ON SEPTEMBER 20!

So please, if you have a few minutes, help us out and complete the survey!

P.S. And if you are not an FIR listener but are interested in social media, why not give it a try now? Each week there is an hour-long show plus sometimes other interviews and book reviews. I'm always learning something new from all the great content!

PodCamp NH Begins Tomorrow (Sat, Aug 13) in New Hampton, NH

If you live in New Hampshire (as I do) and are interested in all things related to social media: blogging, podcasting, digital marketing, Twitter, Facebook, and so much more, PodCamp NH is happening tomorrow, Saturday, August 13, 2011, from 8:30am to 5:00pm in New Hampton, NH.

The schedule of sessions so far has been posted (tip: note that the schedule box has both vertical and horizontal scroll bars - there are simultaneous session tracks), and I've seen from Twitter that a number of great folks are already planning to head up that way.

The latest PCNH blog post has some more info - including that over 70 people have already registered! It sounds like a great event... and so if you are here in the Granite State or one of the surrounding states, please do head on over and check it out - and join in, too, because PodCamps are by design a place for people to collaborate and be involved.

P.S. Alas, I am not one of those 70 people going as I have other family plans tomorrow... but I'm looking forward to getting to one of the PCNH events one of these years...

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Do You Flip? Cisco Says "No" And Shuts Down Flip Video

I've always thought the Flip video cameras were among the coolest of the latest wave of consumer video gadgets out there. Pull one out, point it at someone or something, press the big red button and start recording. Flip out the USB connector to plug it into your PC or Mac and... ta da... your video was up onto YouTube or in email or whatever.

How many zillion videos have been shot with Flip cameras over the past few years? How many "person-on-the-street" video interviews have been shot at events, conferences or just anywhere? How many video podcasts have had episodes quickly created via Flip cameras?

I long desired a Flip camera but held off for the promise of some of the WiFi-enabled versions that Cisco talked about some time back. Meanwhile, many folks continued to buy them.

Not any more.

Cisco Systems announced this morning that it is shutting down the Flip video division and will "support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan".

On one level, it's not a huge surprise... the acquisition by Cisco always seemed a bit strange. While Cisco has had a consumer presence, most notably with the Linksys product line, that consumer focus was still around Cisco's core networking. You could stretch the Flip acquisition to fit in with all of Cisco's other breathless talk about video, video, video... but still, it was a consumer camera and did seem odd. Obviously Cisco management held this view.

One also has to wonder if there really is a place now for a dedicated "pocket" video camera. I do record videos these days... but using my iPhone 4 that is always with me and able to just start recording. With the rise of the iPhone, Android devices and even Blackberries with cameras, the writing may have been on the proverbial wall for Flip for quite some time.

Still, it's worth pausing for a moment and celebrating how effective Flip was at introducing so many people to creating new video content and sharing it online. Thanks, Flip, for all you did... and for your "big red button" that made it so easy for people to get started!

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The FIR "Podroll" - *other* marketing/PR podcasts to listen to

On the January 17th FIR episode, Shel Holtz mentioned that he'd cleaned up the sidebar of the FIR site to make it both more readable and useful. Indeed he has and you can see the results at:

http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz

The most interesting part to me, though, is that if you scroll down the page toward the bottom of the sidebar, you come to the FIR "Podroll" listing other PR podcasts. Shel updated it and confirmed that all of these are active podcasts. While I knew most of them already, there were a couple that were new to me and so it was good to find out about them.

If you are looking for great audio content to listen to while you are traveling, working out or whatever, do check out the list!

P.S. And of course you can check out all the other aspects of the updated sidebar, too... :-)

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Novelty trumps production values - for a while (the maturation of new media and video)

A few weeks back, Mitch Joel wrote a great post on his blog called "Online Video Can Kill Your Credibility" that really asked those of us involved with video online to step up our game a bit and really look at how to make better videos.  Mitch, who admittedly does not create video himself, pointed out that with the sheer volume of videos being uploaded daily we need to look at how to improve the production so that our videos stand out.  He offered several suggestions, of which I'll point out:

• AUDIO - It has always amazed me how incredibly important audio is to video. Mitch has a number of good pointers here.
  
  
• LIGHTING - This may be obvious, but it's a point that people so often don't pay enough attention to - make sure you have good lighting!
  
  
• BACKGROUNDS - It does matter what is behind you. Does it support your story? Or does it at least not detract from your story? (i.e. do people watching your video spend their time trying to figure out what the big orange thing on your shelf is?)

I agree with Mitch on the value in Steve Garfield's great book, Getting Seen - and I in fact recorded a video review about the book.

However, I'm not sure I entirely agree with Mitch's overall view that without improving production values your videos are doomed to die.

It all depends upon your audience.

It may be that the format for your videos may be perfectly fine as the "man-in-the-street" form with quick interviews taken with a Flip camera and rapidly posted. It may be that your video shot in your messy office fits in with the theme of the show.

Or not.

Mitch's post is a great reminder of the natural evolution that occurs in every "new media" as it matures into just "media". Go back to the mid-80s when the Macintosh first came out and brought everyone into the world of "desktop publishing". Do you remember the "ransom note publishing" that ensued when everyone started throwing a zillion fonts on a page just because they could? Do you remember how many horrid looking documents were created? Over time, though, people learned to use the tools better and expectations were raised for a higher level of document.

Similarly, back in the early '90s when the Web was brand new, pretty much everyone had to connect in to a server and edit HTML files by hand. The fact that you HAD a web site was the huge deal - so people didn't care as much about what it looked like. Over time, expectations have been raised and (thankfully!) many of the atrocious sites have been left back in the 90's.

Ditto podcasting... back in the early 2000's when podcasting first appeared it was perfectly fine if someone just turned on the microphone and pressed record. It was a new, joint experiment and any podcast was cool... ditto video podcasts...

Novelty trumps production values.

To Mitch's point, though, there comes a point in time when the "new media" is so commoditized that higher quality content does rise and get greater visibility. It is up to all of us who create video to take a look and ask ourselves - what will we do to stand out from the competition? How will you improve the quality of what you are doing?

I know what I want to do with my show - what are you going to do with yours?

P.S. And yes, we're in this funny state where you don't want to improve your quality too much or people see it as "too commercial" and "not authentic" - there's a balance in there somewhere... that will undoubtedly change over time as well.

Note: Photo courtesy of pursuethepassion on Flickr.

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Podcamp Boston 5 coming up Sept 25-26 - sign up now! #pcb5

Do you want to learn more about social media, online content creation, marketing, PR and so much more?  Do you want to meet people who are changing the online world?

If so, registration is now open for Podcamp Boston 5 taking place at Microsoft's New England R&D Center on the weekend of September 25-26, 2010.  It's hard to believe that it's been 5 years since Chris Brogan, Christopher Penn and company kicked off the Podcamp world in "Beantown"... but it has been that long... and in looking at the list of people already registered, this year's event should be outstanding!  You can register directly at:

http://pcb5.eventbrite.com/

or learn more about what will be going on at:

http://podcampboston.org/

I've attended and spoken at Podcamp's before, and they are well worth the time!  Great people, great information... it's all good!

P.S. My own schedule won't work for me to make the drive southwest due to some family and school events, but I'm looking forward to hearing all about it and seeing the news and posts coming out of the show.

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Ch..ch..changes in the For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast - and the impact to my reports

As listeners to FIR #542 on Monday, April 12th, have already heard, there are a number of changes happening to the "For Immediate Release" podcast hosted by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson and to which I have been a "weekly correspondent" for now most of 5 years.

The largest change is, of course, moving from "twice weekly" to simply "weekly" and dropping the Thursday show. For reasons Shel and Neville explain, they really had to do this because of their schedules. Personally, I've been absolutely amazed that they have been able to keep the twice-weekly format going for as long as they have - and so the change wasn't a big surprise.

So what does this change mean for me and the weekly reports I've been sending in since 2005 for the Thursday show?

On one level... not much. I'm still sending in reports... just now for the Monday show. There are, though, some tweaks you'll hear to tighten up the show a bit given that ALL correspondent reports will now be in the single show. These include:

• The RadioDaddy intro to my segments has been dropped ("From the serene and picturesque hills...")
  
  
• My reports will no longer have the intro/outro music. (MANY thanks to FIR listener and composer Joseph Fosco who gave me that music to use many years ago!)
  
  
• My reports will not appear at the beginning as they have in recent times but will rather be simply mixed in with all the other news items and other correspondent reports.
  
  
• I'll be sticking to a hard limit of 5 minutes for each report. (In the past they've ranged but typically have been 5-8 minutes.)

I don't have an issue with any of the changes. I actually really don't mind the RadioDaddy intro going away - I've gotten kind of tired of being labeled as "from the technologist's point-of-view" given that these days most of my time is spent much more in a pure communications/PR/marketing viewpoint (admittedly, though, I'll always be a "technologist" at heart). Like I said, I'm surprised Shel & Neville kept going with the twice-weekly format as long as they did.

The big challenge for me is just going to be to remember to send in my reports on Monday! That will take some getting used to...

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FIR Podcast hits the iPhone (and Android) as an app

It was great to learn of the FIR iPhone app and naturally I had to install it right away on my iPhone. (It's also available for Android phones.) It's free, of course, and gives you access to all the podcasts produced under the For Immediate Release brand.

With the iPhone app you have a very easy way to immediately jump to FIR episodes and start listening. When you go into one of the episodes you have a "Play Podcast" link when loads the iPhone's QuickTime player and starts playing the episode for you. You can also follow the "Web Link" to view the page out on the FIR site (where you could see comments). There's also a nice "Categories" screen that lets you see the various different categories of FIR podcasts.

If you create an "account" you can then apparently mark episodes as "favorites", comment on episodes and rate episodes. My one point of feedback I'll be passing along to Shel and Neville is that it's not entirely clear to me where I am creating this account. Is it on the service of the vendor behind this app? (GenWi, the company behind iSites.us) Admittedly I'm a bit more paranoid than the average user (blame my security background), but I'd like to know a bit more about who is going to have my data before I sign up.

Speaking of iSites, they are the iPhone application vendor Shel and Neville used for this app. It's admittedly very cool... for just $25 you can get your own iPhone app created.

Now, the only caveat is that for that $25 one-time fee, you are stuck with the in-application advertising that you see in the image to the left and over which you have no control. iSites does have a $99/year pricing plan that gives you control over ads and presumably they are expecting that a certain number of folks will choose that plan to lose the ads. (I would.)

I obviously just started using the app and I'll be interested to see how using it compares to using the regular "iPod" functionality built into my iPhone. This app has the advantage that you can very quickly get to FIR podcasts and be able to see what is there. Whenever you launch the app it seems to check for the most recent episodes so you are always up to date.

On the other hand, in the "iPod" app on my iPhone I do have to manually initiate the "Get more episodes" process to download new episodes. However, one advantage to the iPod app is that I get to see how far I have listened to any given FIR episode - and it retains that info so with one glance I can see which episodes I still need to listen to and how much more I have of each episode. This is a great advantage when your time to listen to podcasts is rather fragmented.

Regardless, I think it's rather cool for Shel and Neville to now have an iPhone (and Android) app. If you are an FIR listener (or are interested in the intersection of social media, technology, PR and communications), do check out the app and try it out. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts. What do you think of it? Do you see yourself using it versus the iPod app to listen to FIR?

P.S. In full disclosure... if you are not aware, I am a weekly correspondent into FIR, usually on Thursdays, and so I am affiliated with the podcast.

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Flip Video Cameras with WiFi Might Be Useful for Conference Videopodcasting

Intriguing to read today that new Flip video cameras will be coming in 2010 with WiFi support. I don't (yet) own a Flip camera, but I've been watching their evolution, particularly after Cisco acquired the company. I've watched friends use them quite effectively to upload quick video snippets to YouTube and/or their blogs... and sooner or later I know I'll get one. Probably wait for 2010, though, for these WiFi-equipped models...

My particular interest is in being able to shoot quick video interviews at a conference or trade show and then upload them to YouTube directly from the show floor. Sure, you can do this today with a Flip camera by simply plugging it into the USB port on your computer - but you have to open up your computer to do that. That's one more step that gets in the way of rapid posting of videos. As the Mashable article notes, the iPhone 3GS solves this issue by letting up upload video directly over AT&T's network. And for those with a iPhone 3GS that is true (I have a 3G and am too cheap to upgrade), assuming you have decent AT&T coverage wherever the conference is.

A Flip camera with WiFi support, though, could be quite useful at conferences with decent WiFi - which, admittedly can be a challenge. Still there are several that I go to that do have decent video, and when Voxeo has a booth at an event we have our own (secured) WiFi... so I could see it working.

I also could see it working well in an office environment, too, for quick video interviews.

What do you think? Would you buy one with WiFi? If so, where would you use it? Or will you just stick with something like the iPhone 3GS?

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