Blog Relations
Podcastcon
Saturday’s Podcaston was a success, but you could feel the tension between those who would do podcasting seriously, and the radio-ham type pioneers. Brad Gibson of Macformat made the ‘controversial’ suggestion that a good podcast should aim to have listeners. He went on to say that it shouldn’t be over half-an-hour, and it should have some sort of formal structure. When he was contradicted from the floor, at least half the audience cheered loudly. After that, the discussion on creativity got no-where, descending instead into how to please sponsors.
Nobody really defined the attractions of podcasting. Almost everybody said it’s not a radio show – but what’s the difference? I hate to state the obvious, but the first difference is that the listener can choose when to hear it, and choose out of a big catalogue of different shows, broken down by categories. This tends to make podcasting very niche – if you are interested in knitting, one evening you will seek out and find Caston. If you are interested in Dr. Who, you will find one of sereral who-casts.
If you are generally interested in the world, there’s always BBC 5 Live or Radio 4. If you want the latest news – again you go to the broadcasters. Podcasting is all about focus. Sorry – but that’s the way it is. It’s not about getting as many listeners as the BBC, but it is about reaching as many people as possible who are interested in your subject.
I was also bored with the ‘anyone can do it refrain”. Few thought that they could easily do my job when I was at the BBC, but now that I’m effectively producer, sound engineer, co-writer, co-publicist, blogger, webmaster, designer, and a few other things all at the same time, everyone thinks they can do my job.
No. Not everyone has the time or the inclination or the skills to podcast. That’s why there were about 160 people at Podcastcon – not quite enough to fill Earls Court yet. But if you really really want to podcast, you can learn. That’s pretty much true of lots of things in life.
The best session by far was on business. Guillaume du Gardier of Edelman gave a sobering account of how big business can’t see the business case for podcasting. They want to measure only the size of the reach, and have no interest in the quality of the relationship with the listener. The reason that business should be interested in podcasting is that it delivers such a targetted audience who feel involved in the programme – rather than a mass of people who are only half listening.
A great example of what a small business can do came from the Wiggly Wiggler/ Podcast. Heather Gorringe and her husband are farmers, and online suppliers of plants for ‘wildlife’ gardens. They talk about life on the farm and conversations with customers. “How do you measure the value of a conversaton?” asks Heather.
Her podcast has gained her coverage in national and international media, and she’s received orders from as far away as California. Her business continues to grow, even though she relies far less on traditional advertising. But Heather is clearly a natural communicator. She has found a community of interest in natural things, and she supplies it with what it wants. This is good podcasting
[...] Oh and by far the best write-up of PodcastCon2006 (yes 2006, not this Marty McFly time travelling I did in my blogpost!) is this one over at Blog Relations. Although I don’t feel it was one body providing the us vs them (no not even Podshow whose low chilled profile was a masterstroke, and worked well) but there was that vibe of old media vs new media…. [...]