3.3 Podcasting

O podcast pode valer publicidade?

«(...) Podcasting has a long ways to go before it becomes a mainstream medium, but is poised to grow exponentially through the end of the current decade and will increasingly become an attractive outlet for advertisers, says a new report from eMarketer.

By 2008, podcast advertising should reach $150 million, approaching $300 million by 2010, according to the report.»

fonte: Mediaweek, Study: Podcasting to Grow Ads, Mike Shields, FEBRUARY 28, 2006)

O podcasting como negócio pode ser uma coisa séria

Corey Deitz: «Some may think that Podcasting is only for hobbyists and DJ wannabes. But, it may surprise you to learn that businesses – some very large companies – are either exploring or already Podcasting like IBM, RealNetworks, Oracle, Disney, and General Motors. »

E agora para o Edgard: «The 7 Deadly Sins of Commercial Podcasting»:

1. Podcasting Without a Plan

2. Podcasting Without Providing Unique Value

3. Podcasting Like a Broadcaster

4. Underestimating the Commitment

5. Believing That Talent and Expertise Don’t Matter

6. Being Seduced by the Age of Amateurism

7. Believing That the Playing Field Is Level

Plus: The Three Unpardonable Sins

8. Relying Primarily on RSS to Build an Audience

9. Believing That Format Doesn’t Matter

10. Overestimating Podcasting / Underestimating Podcasting

O primeiro podcast a pagar?

"THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW: SEASON 2 IS COMING TO AUDIBLE ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28!

YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE RIGHT NOW BY CLICKING HERE. For the low, low price of $6.95 you’ll get at least four new, weekly, full-length episodes (and possibly more, unless Karl’s innate denseness leaves Ricky and Steve permanently speechless). Subscribe now and we’ll start you off with the FREE PREVIEW.»

«iTunes doesn't currently support the purchasing of podcasts through its own store, but does allow the purchase of audio spoken content through its link with Audible, which can be accessed through the Music Store.

An Audible subscription to the show will cost $7 a month in the US and £4.50 a month in the UK. For the money, you'll get four half hour shows.»

BBC deixou os testes e passou ao ataque

Inspirada certamente no esforço da sua congénere norte-americana (mas congénere com muitas aspas, como é óbvio), a BBC deixou a fase de testes de podcasting (beta...) e passou à segunda fase da experiência:

"A total of 29 new programmes will be added to the trial, including Radio 4's Woman's Hour and hourly news summaries. All of the programmes will be available to download until June. The BBC's podcast trial started in May last year with around 20 shows.  (...) Last month it was revealed that almost two million BBC radio podcasts were downloaded during December, with the corporation's breakfast programmes the most popular with listeners."

Muito mais agora que o único programa que fazia sombra acabou: Ricky Gervais, «o podcast mais ouvido do mundo acaba amanhã» (no Público de ontem).

O podcasting como "espada de dois gumes" para a rádio

"The truth is that podcasting is a double-edged sword. While it allows listeners to hear a show or a segment they might have missed on your station, it also offers an alternative to listening to your station. The trick will be to use podcasting to brand your station, build loyalty and make a buck, while retaining listenership.

Among advertisers, the talk about podcasting is getting louder, even though it is not a line item in media plans. And many agencies see media companies as the key beneficiaries.

In the end, the ability for stations and their parent companies to develop new revenue streams using the medium will determine whether it will be seen as friend or foe."

"Six In '06: Radio's Mega-Trends", Billboard Radio Monitor
Jan. 13, 2006
By Tony Sanders, Bram Teitelman, Phyllis Stark, Paul Heine and Ken Tucker

TiVo converge com o podcasting

O facto de o TiVo (potente máquina de gravação video digital, que - por aquilo que sei - apenas existe nos EUA) passar a receber e a reproduzir podcasts é um sinal dos novos tempos; da capacidade das novas tecnologias convergirem; do podcast se afirmar.

"The functionality uses  RSS feeds to bring the audio shows to the listeners. The shows are not actually downloaded to the TiVo boxes but are in effect streamed. There's no word on what additional ads might be included as part of the service but whatever spots might be within the podcast will be left intact"

As primeiras reacções não são muito animadoras: "initial reactions aren't too promising. Perhaps the service is still in alpha beta, but folks are finding that it takes a good four or five minutes to add an RSS feed to the TiVo via a remote. Worse yet: after all that hard work the only reward you get is to have the feed disappear from your Favorites after using the regular TiVo menu. That's pretty sad since TiVo remembers every pixel of a television show. You'd think it could remember a few characters for a podcast feed."

 

Dois milhões de podcasts da BBC em Dezembro

"Quase dois milhões de podcasts da BBC foram descarregados durante Dezembro. Os programas da manhã mostram-se os mais populares, com Chris Moyles da Radio 1 no topo (o seu programa foi descarregado 446,809 vezes). O Today da Radio 4 vem no segundo lugar. Mark Kermode, autor do programa de cinema da Five Live e Chris Evans' Best Bits, da Radio 2, também estão no top 10".

Excerto: "The Best of Moyles mp3 - a 20-minute broadcast featuring speech highlights from the week - was boosted by daily podcasts when the show was in New York.

Moyles said: "I'm very pleased we're number one and that people are making an effort to listen to the show even if they can't be bothered to get up early to hear us."

BBC Radio 4 has a strong presence in the chart, with the Today programme's daily 0810GMT interview receiving 413,492 downloads in the month, while From Our Own Correspondent and In Our Time both performed well.

Simon Nelson, Controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive, said: "It's fantastic to see how the demand for radio downloads has grown since we first offered them in 2004.

"These figures underline the enduring relevance of radio in the digital world."

Twenty programmes were made available in BBC Radio's download and podcast trial last May. At the end of 2005 it was announced that the trial would be extended into this year and would include more programmes.»

 

O podcasting é a nova revolução da rádio?

"The New Radio Revolution", MARCH 3, 2005, By Heather Green, Tom Lowry, and Catherine Yang (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005033_0336_tc024.htm)

Sobre o podcasting: "With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They’re bypassing an entire industry. The digital revolution took its time getting to radio. Now it’s exploding -- and the big bang goes far beyond podcasting. As radio shows are turned into digital bits, they’re being delivered many different ways, from Web to satellite to cell phones. Listeners no longer have to tune in at a certain time, and within range of a signal, to catch a show or a game. As the business goes digital, the barriers to entry -- including precious airwaves -- count for less and less".

"Whatever the reason, there’s no denying a stark reality: Listeners, increasingly bored by the homogeneous programming and ever-more-intrusive advertising on commercial airwaves, are simply tuning out and finding alternatives. Says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media: "Radio pissed on their own product and then cluttered it up."

Nos telemóveis da Motorola

"Motorola recently revealed plans to distribute a podcast for ROKR owners. While that may sound like a “me too,” the podcast comes with a unique extra twist — it contains legitimately-licensed music by signed acts. The podcast was originally slated to go live on Monday, though the company still has a “coming soon” notice on its site. The transmission was recorded in New York in September, with hip-hop star Common and DJ Gilles Peterson emceeing the experience. It takes place at a time when digital deals to allow legitimate music use in podcasts are in their infancy, giving Motorola a nice window to “shape the future” of the medium. Meanwhile, these types of licenses for digitally-distributed music content were directly encouraged by the European Commission as part of its recent recommendations for a pan-European music licensing system.
Following the release, two more podcast updates are planned. In one, music writer Robert Elms and DJ Bobby Friction talk listeners through London’s most influential music venues. The third update features DJ/actor/MC Ramon Rodriguez and journalist Tom Terrell on a tour of New York's five top nightspots. Elsewhere, Seattle-based mobile music provider Melodeo has furthered its entrance into mobile-based podcasting, or "mobilcasting". The company recently made its Mobilcast application available for the RAZR, ROKR, and 5 other phones by Nokia and Samsung, part of an expansion that also includes new podcasting content. "Our catalog of podcasts is growing at an amazing rate," said Stan Sorensen, senior director of Product Management & Marketing at Melodeo."
(via Digital Music News)

Yahoo cria grande portal para podcasts

podcasts.yahoo.com

O podcasting no New York Times

(é uma coisa a sério!)
Um excerto:
"A podcast, as anyone under 25 can tell you, is an audio recording posted online, much like a short radio show. ("Podcasting" is a pun on "broadcasting," implying, of course, that you listen to it on your iPod or another music player.) The beauty of a podcast is that it's free and you listen to it whenever you like. And there are more than 7,000 podcasts "on the air" right now, on every conceivable topic. Their quantity and variety already dwarf what you can find on regular radio.
What makes podcasting a national dinnertime conversation these days, though, is that anyone can make one. You just need a microphone, a sound-recording program, and the tutorials that have already appeared at many points on the Web, including apple.com/podcasting.
Yes, some are corporate broadcasts, repurposed shows from traditional radio shows. But the real fun is finding the homemade ones, the amateur attempts made in somebody's basement with a laptop and a microphone. These can be unpolished and quirky, with plenty of dead air and "ums," but that's their charm. Podcasts, in other words, are the audio version of blogs - the Web logs, or daily text postings, that made up last year's hot dinnertime conversation."

Um software que já incorpora podcasting

É o triunfo do podcasting: uma empresa de software, que até agora lidava apenas com recolha de som na internet, lançou uma nova versão que já permite descobrir e descarregar podcastings.
um excerto:
"Finding and subscribing to Podcasts is done through the Media Guide. You can search by Top Rated shows, category, Podcast name, and other ways. Once you have found a Podcast you’re interested in, you can play it from within the Media Guide, download a particular show episode, subscribe to a Podcast by automatically moving it to iTunes, mark an episode as a favorite, convert automatically to iPod bookmarkable, burn podcasts directly to CDs and check for new shows at specified times or intervals.
Replay Radio is a premiere application suited to handle most any online and offline recording needs. The developers have been meticulous in correcting any bugs, adding fixes and continually making the product better.
The full version of Replay Radio is $49.95 and considering how much it offers, this is one software investment you don't have to justify."

Mais um a prever o fim do podcasting

"Billionaire: Podcasters will be forgotten

Mark Cuban, the billionaire founder of Broadcast.com and current owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a message for Podcasters who have dollar signs in their eyes: Read your history books.
Sure, Podcasting is the faddiest thing since, well, the iPod itself. Everyone and their golden-voiced brother is jumping onto the Net to provide their own audio take on life, the universe, and the latest episode of American Idol.
But we've all seen how this one ends, Cuban says. The above description is precisely what happened in the mid- and late 1990s, when streaming audio technology made everyone a home Webcaster. The radio shows weren't downloadable, but thousands of people became the equivalent of radio and television producers overnight. Lots of money was invested in the space, with little ultimately to show for it.
Granted, Cuban himself made his fortune by selling streaming media infrastructure company Broadcast.com to Yahoo, but the programmers themselves have mostly faded from view.
"Try to find any of the many that created original content for PSEUDO.com, TSN, EYADA.com, Broadcast.com and others that I have long forgotten," Cuban writes, in a warning to starry-eyed Podcasters. "There is a good chance that their history is your future".»"

Apple faz explodir o podcasting

Dois excertos de uma notícia da Billboard Radio Monitor:

"Apple is reporting over 1 million new podcasting subscriptions just days after announcing the release of its new iTunes version, according to a statement on the company's Web site.
iTunes 4.9, released June 28, includes built-in podcasting support and the iTunes Podcast Directory, which gives easy access to thousands of free podcasts.
(...)
According to the latest report from technology research consultancy The Diffusion Group (released in June), the US podcasting audience is expected to approach 56 million consumers by 2010. Demand for podcasting has exploded wihin the last year: With only 0.8 million in 2004, the podcasting audience is expected to reach 4.5 million in 2005 and grow by 101% each year in the next five years."

Aprender mais sobre o podcasting (em livro)

Foi publicado um livro sobre o podcasting, da autoria de Todd Cochrane. Chama-se "Podcasting: The Do It Yourself Guide" e tem um excerto on line. Aqui. (via PontoMedia)

Podcasting mais fácil

Uma empresa de programação informática criou um software para facilitar a realização de podcastings e de videocastings. Opera com o windows e vem simplificar algo que ainda implicava alguns conhecimentos informático.

(via RadioAbout) "The U.K./Canada based software company Lionhardt Technologies has released Webpod Studiofor Windows, a software application for creating both Podcasts and Videocasts.
WebPod Studio is easy enough for beginners yet is comprehensive enough for more experiences users. Besides recording audio and video, WebPod Studio handles creation of RSS feeds, has a built-in ftp upload feature, and final creations can also be quickly burned onto CD or DVD disc.
WebPod Studio's graphical interface is simplified with icons that represent the different functions available which makes for an efficient, easy-to-comprehend process.
WebPod Studio also includes a "Teleprompter" function which scrolls your text on-screen so you can look directly into a computer-mounted camera if you're creating a videocast or not have to hassle with a piece of paper (and it's noise) if creating a Podcast.
WebPod Studio is available for Windows operating systems."

Mais aqui.

O podcasting começa a ser um caso sério

"Podcasting, the new medium burst from the confluence of iPods and audio downloads, is advancing at incredible speed as more marketers and media owners incorporate it as an extension of the radio business."

Parece-me que isto terá a ver com o podcasting...

17-5-2005
CNN.com com acesso livre aos vídeos
A CNN está a preparar uma reestruturação dos serviços online que disponibiliza no seu site, noticia o The New York Times. A partir de Junho, o site da CNN passará a contar com vídeos que podem ser vistos gratuitamente, deixando a cadeia de cobrar quase quatro euros pela subscrição deste serviço. Esta decisão deve-se à crescente procura de espaço publicitário online e pretende atrair tanto anunciantes, como mais visitantes e colocará a CNN ao nível das rivais Fox News e CBS News, que não cobram pelo acesso aos vídeos das notícias. No Outono, a CNN pretende instalar um serviço de subscrição dos vídeos que será cobrado aos visitantes, mas apenas no que diz respeito ao acesso ao arquivo desde 1996, não revelando para já o valor a cobrar por este serviço. SP (Meios e Publicidade)

A BBC na vanguarda do podcasting

A BBC anunciou que vai aumentar as suas experiências de podcasting, oferecendo mais 20 programas de rádio para o download

Comentário: que as coisas estão a mudar é a única certeza; dúvidas: em que sentido, com quem e com que resultados? Uma coisa é certa, quem já lá estiver vai ter mais facilidades. A BBCparece-me ser a primeira grande emissora a acreditar nas potencialidades do podcasting. Mas, aqui, por exemplo, há mais notícias de rádios que também aderem...

Sinais positivos (podcasting - síntese)

Um amigo, que também trabalha na rádio, ao ler alguns dos textos deste blogue, comentou qualquer coisa deste género: “estou tramado, daqui a 10 anos tenho de arranjar outra profissão”.
Na verdade, o tom geral dos textos que aqui tenho apresentado (e estou na fase da recolha genérica, sem ser muito selectivo, à mistura com a tentativa de elaboração de um índice) é de algum pessimismo, pelo menos quanto aos formatos clássicos que conhecemos actualmente na rádio portuguesa (e não só...).
Mas, eu próprio, não estou tão pessimista.
Se a rádio sempre soube, ao longo de um século, tirar partido da tecnologia, também o poderá fazer agora. O “podcasting” pode ser uma saída: a partir do momento em que há gente interessada em receber ficheiros que não são apenas música, continua a haver espaço para a transmissão de voz ou de música fora dos circuitos massificadores. Por outro lado, o mesmo “podcasting” significa que há gente que quer fazer ou ouvir rádio. É um conceito diferente de rádio? Mas por que é que o conceito não pode evoluir? Será uma rádio de nichos? Não tenho a certeza. Mas sei que há nichos que, mesmo pequenos, têm efectivo poder de compra.
E, como síntese, retenho uma frase que li no texto “«Podcasting»: faça rádio em sua casa”, do Courrier Internacional, nº1: “Diria que o «podcasting», hoje, é o equivalente da Internet em 1995”.

PS – Há mais uma questão, que pelo menos nesta altura me parece, essencial: estaremos a falar de comunicação social? Os conceitos estão em mutação, mas para ser “social” tem de implicar um emissor e vários (muitos ou poucos…) receptores. Da mesma forma que a possibilidade de programação individual de rádios na Internet não é comunicação social (um emissor, um receptor), também a troca de ficheiros “peer to peer” (a abundância de termos por traduzir para a língua portuguesa é trágica) não o será…