The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #330: March 24, 2008

Content summary: How did FIR Live on BlogTalk Radio go this weekend?; new FIR Speakers & Speeches podcast posted; Inside PR podcast changes format; thanks to Scott Monty; Sallie Goetsch reports from the Podcast Asylum on France’s President Sarkozy and the web, and more; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; unique visitors are not the best mark of web success for mainstream media; blogger outreach: new research attempts to define success; 17 tips for getting bloggers to write about you; the Institute for Public Relations’ ‘Essential Knowledge’ project; a conversation with Jen McClure about the New Communications Forum next month; listeners’ comments discussion; music from Jonathan Coulton; and more.

[Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.]

Show notes for March 24, 2008

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Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 65-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

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So, until Thursday March 27…

Posted by neville on 03/24 at 12:21 PM
  1. The fact that people sell things to podcasters doesn’t make podcasting an industry. There are all kinds of businesses out there that make money by providing tools for scrapbooking, but very few people earn a living by creating scrapbooks. There’s tons of money to be made from hobbyists, but rather less made by hobbyists.

    Manufacturing audio equipment is an industry, but very little of what’s on show at the Podcast Expo is really podcast-specific equipment. And Apple and Microsoft, whose players at least list “podcasts” in their default menus, have never bothered to show up there. (One of my favorite stories from PME 2006 was the iPod distributor who asked Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers “So what’s a podcast, then?”)

    Maybe if podcasting becomes an industry, there will actually be players, or even ID3 tags, that don’t assume all audio files are music.

    Posted by Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with "sketch")  on  03/25  at  09:39 AM
  2. There are ad networks that specialize in placing ads in podcasts. There are podcasters (including us) who make money (not enough to live on, but it’s still negotiable currency); there are some who ARE making a living. Podshow and Podango and Wizzard are companies that support podcasters. It may not be a big industry, just a nascent one, but I’d argue there’s enough money changing hands and enough unique podcasting businesses to legitimize the use of the term.

    Posted by Shel Holtz  on  03/25  at  04:15 PM
  3. Businesses catering to podcasters don’t count. (Though I would love for there to be more of them.) Lots of businesses make money catering to hobbyists.

    I certainly don’t dispute that it’s possible to profit from podcasts one way and another, but I think what Michael Geoghegan said back in 2005—that there’s far more money in producing podcasts for other people than in producing them for yourself—remains true.

    Of course, I charge people $20,000 to write business books that probably won’t bring them anything like that in direct income. For most authors, a book is a marketing tool that lets them charge more for their services. Most non-fiction authors are not in the “writing industry,” and I’ve never heard a freelance writer refer to writing (as opposed to publishing) as an industry.

    Come to that, I can’t remember anyone ever referring to blogging as an industry, either. Which makes me wonder why anyone feels a need to claim that podcasting is an industry. Just what do podcasters get from that label that they don’t have without it?

    Posted by Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with "sketch")  on  03/27  at  03:13 PM
  4. According to Princeton’s dictionary, an industry is:
    “the people or companies engaged in a particular kind of commercial enterprise”

    Good enough for me!

    Posted by Shel Holtz  on  03/27  at  05:35 PM
  5. Yet podcasting is not necessarily a commercial enterprise. Podcasting-as-commerce is still the exception rather than the rule. Which would make “the podcasting industry” a subset of podcasting in general, rather the way “professional football” is a subset of all football.

    Industries have standards and regulations. Professions have certification and licensing. Is that actually the model we want for podcasting? I think it’s terrific if people make money from podcasting, but does classing it as an industry as its own (somehow separate from other kinds of media, publishing, or performing arts) give podcasting something it otherwise lacks?

    Posted by Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with "sketch")  on  03/27  at  06:27 PM
  6. Hence my use of the word “nascent.”

    Posted by Shel Holtz  on  03/28  at  06:44 AM

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