Download Jeremy Strong Interview

Packages are where audio editing gets creative. They are big part of BBC output, but not many podcasters make them. They are all about creating pictures with sound. You have to record plenty of ‘wild track’ atmosphere and mix it in with the words later.

This package comes, of course, from Storynory. It’s a visit to Reigate Priory Junior School to meet Jeremy Strong, author of The 100 Mile An Hour Dog. He was speaking to 600 school kids and did a wonderful speed-reading. It came about as part of our continuing friendly relationship with the children’s book publisher, Puffin. As I have mentioned before, I think Puffin understand the power of the Internet for reaching kids, as well as anyone.

For those who are interested, I mixed it in Sony SoundForge making ample use of Special Paste Cross-Fade and Mix. I also used plenty of fade out and fade in. Part of the trick is to make sure that a blast of atmosphere fades out and fades in gracefully. Also, you often start the atmos under that last few words of the preceding sentence, or even just ‘tuck” it under the last word. You might want to pick up the narration over the end of the atmos.

I could equally have done it in a multi-track program like GarageBand. The hardest part of recording it was to capture Jeremy’s words while he was speaking in front of the school. I sat on the floor near his feet, which didn’t look too silly as all the kids where doing the same.

Download the interview with Molly.

If I say so myself, this is a truly fascinating audio interview with Molly E. Holzschlag of Molly.com

Molly, who is one of the top speakers on web design and development - confessed on her blog last week that she was sitting in her London hotel room with “a minibar full of alcohol, and 80 Lorazepam tablets (2 milligrams each) and 100 friends within a mile radius,” and that she was suffering from a deep depression. She went on to write frankly about series of personal problems.(Counting the Coup Telling True)

She was inundated with responses on her blog, as well as emails and phone calls from friends who were truly worried about her. The very next day she appeared at the @media and gave one of the best presentations of her career.

In the interview, she says of the decision to blog about her problems:

“It was a turning point in my whole process. That night I didn’t know that I had the courage to live another day.”

I think this goes to the heart of what blogging is all about. Here we have a leading professional in her field who has used her blog to enhance her reputation for expertise. At the same time, she writes on a deeply personal level, and has an amazingly close relationship with readers around the world, many of whom she has never met before.

It’s worth a listen, and makes up for my first disasterous attempt to interview Molly last Christmas. The duration is around 10 minutes.

Many thanks to Ian Forrester for organising the @Media social event where I met Molly.

Until now, I don’t think I have heard of a well-known business getting a blog relations campaign just right, let alone one aimed at kids. The pitfalls for non-blogging adults are numerous, especially when it comes to tone. But this is a first.

Penguin’s top title in their Puffin range for children is Artemis Fowl. I haven’t read any of the Artemis books (yet) but the hero is high tech and supernatural all at the same time. When Penguin wanted to tell Artemis’s numerous fans about his new website, they needed to do it on budget. They employed a graduate to spend a few days researching the top Artemis bloggers on Technorati. The first idea was to write to the young fans under the guise of Artemis, but then they realised that this would hit a false note. So they sent out some plain honest emails. So you see, the art of Blog Relations, isn’t so hard. Still, most corporations can’t accept that it’s that simple.

Anna Rafferty, head of Penguin.co.uk tells the story in this 6 minute audio interview. It’s my last from the online marketing show.

Download the interview with Anna Rafferty

Yomego are tremendous fun. They produce 3D animations of both real and fictional characters. I thought I knew they guy with the tashes and the nice suit, but it turns out they invented him.

The real Yomego characters include the England Cricket legend, Geoffrey Boycott, in his incarnation as “Desktop Boycott.” TV channel Five have been using the animated version of Geoff - the commentary comes from the real man himself, but Geoff will bounce around your PC and bowl a ball, raise and umbrella, and more.

I spoke to Andrew Sirs-Davies, business Development manager. He told me about Yomego and gave me his top tip for online marketing.

download

This one is timely. The Internet Advertising Bureau (iab) has just released figures showing ads rushing online on both sides of the pond. In Q1 2006, the online spend in the US was $3.9 billion representing a 38 percent increase on the same quarter last year. In the UK, the report predicts that online advertising will overtake the spend on newspapers by the end of the year.

Against this healthy background, Dan Redfearn of the iab gives me his top tip at the online marketing show.

download

I particularly like this one. futuremedia specialise in Branded Learning,which is about using education to draw visitors into your website and keep them there. Carl Hodler, design director, gives me his top tip at the online marketing show.

download

madeyoulook work for some top names online, designing websites and promoting brands. Pip Spratt gives me her top tip at the online marketing show.

or download

Nielson NetRatings track online behaviour to understand consumer consumption beyond demographics. Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst, gives me his top tip at the online marketing show.

As usual, use the play button, download, or subscribe with iTunes (top left).

download

Email Marketing is NOT the same thing as bulk mail - so says Deepa Dhillon of campaignmaster, which specialises in Email, SMS, and Fax marketing. Deepa gives me her top tip at the Online Marketing Show.

download

Selling on line is all about grabbing attention, right? This certainly seems to be the guiding philosophy behind many of those flashy websites that are still oh, circa 2000, and yet continue to appear all over the place. I think they are built to impress chief executives who never use the net, but want to have something “for the younger generation,” which is why they are so un-usable.

I was very pleased, therefore, to meet up at the Online Marketing Show with David Soskin, who runs one of the UK’s most successful ecommerce sites, Cheapflights. There’s absolutely nothing flash about it, but it is very usable and sells loads and loads of travel deals. I was also joined by web designer Margaret Manning of READINGROOM, whose clients include The British Library, and Cancer Research UK. Margaret specialises in accessible websites.

The audio is just under 10 minutes long. Use the button below, download, or subscribe to our podcast.

Download

This interview from the Online Marketing Show is with Julian Walker of Steak Media. Julian and much of the team from Steak worked at Espotting Media which introduced pay per click advertising to Europe in 2000, before Google Adwords. So Julian is in an ideal position to see an Online Marketing Campaign from both sides of the fence.

Download