Podcast 513

Advice for Podcasters. When I introduce myself as a podcaster at business network events, and events where I speak, or when I am singing the praises of podcast advertising to potential clients, they often say, “I want to do my own podcast”. I often have people ask me to tell them how to podcast, how to post their podcasts, what microphone I use, how I record and so on. I don’t give Advice for Podcasters, but this week a FaceBook announcement that a ‘big convention for podcasters’ would be held soon, triggered a response and the need for some Advice for Podcasters. The event includes a lot of radio people who will be on panels on which advice to podcasters will be presented, including ‘critiques’ of podcaster’s podcasts and ‘suggestions’ for what they need to do to ‘sound better’. If you’re a podcaster, should you listen to radio people when they give advice about how to ‘sound better’, or podcast ‘better’? First, podcasting takes a lot of work and effort, especially to stay in it and especially to make any money at all in it. We’re working on the monetization part, but who knows where the solutions will come from as far as making more money. Right now, about 25 percent of the public listens to podcasts – according to radio researchers. I think it is probably much higher, because it’s very hard to assess whether people listen to podcasts and how long they listen, when they listen. There’s no question podcasting – as all on demand services – are going to grow by leaps and bounds as smart phone penetration increases, and as new and more powerful iterations of these devices are developed and purchased. Let’s face it, radio is a contracting industry, and while people in the radio industry don’t like to hear it, it’s a sad fact that the old girl just ain’t what she used to be. What’s amusing about the radio industry is, radio people seem to think they ‘know’ how everything should be done, and aren’t shy about telling everyone else what they should do, and how they should do it. After pooh poohing podcasting for years, companies like Hubbard are jumping into the podcast business (Hubbard Radio just bought a huge share in Podcast One, for example), in an effort to establish a beach head in podcasting, even though everyone in radio will tell you how dumb podcasters are and how terrible they all are. Radio people are trapped in a paradigm, a specific approach to what they do. This approach is what has killed the business, and it will probably never get fixed. The same thing is happening to broadcast television, and movie studios and record labels to a lesser extent. This is a good podcast for you if you’re thinking about podcasting or doing anything creative today. Creative people; artists, writers, musicians, and DJ’s have tools that never existed before, and the ability to reach audiences we would never have been able to reach before the very real technology revolution. This is a change that calls for Revolutionary Thinking. Should you spend thousands of dollars to hang out at some radio convention and have them listen to your ‘tape’ and tell you what they think? Well, my Advice for Podcasters? This podcast is free. Listen to it first and see what you think. Sponsored by Hydrus and Brush Studio in The West End Saint Louis Park.

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Podcast 216

Climate Change. A few thousand ‘protesters’ crowd into the streets of lower Manhattan and it looks like the Puerto Rican Day Parade and Street Fair on Upper 3rd Avenue, when millions of people hit the streets. But alas, it is only Al Gore, Leo DiCaprio and Robert F Kennedy Jr to add more hot air to the already wheezing planet’s atmosphere. Listen to how they react when reporters ask them about their SUV’s and Cell Phones and ‘Carbon Usage’. For Thee, not me, they say. When do draconian laws being pushed by the environmental movement begin to hurt the people the movement says it is trying to help. Slow, or no economic growth threatens the security of the world, farmers can’t get grain to market because oil has to be shipped on rail roads owned by Warren Buffett, and the scion of the rich family that became powerful politically because of corruption, blames the Koch Brothers for all that ails our fair nation. A slash-and-burn-walk-and-talk podcast in reaction to listening to Al Gore and Robert F Kennedy Jr NOT answer questions asked by reporters about their behavior, and the hypocrisy of the so called ‘Global Warming’ movement. Yes, there is a question about the 17 year slow-down in warming, the dire warnings issued more than twenty years ago about the post apocalyptic environment we would be living in (we’re not), and no, scientists do not agree, the ‘debate’ is not over…isn’t that what science is supposed to be about? And then there is the garbage problem; Protesters left tons of their garbage in the streets of Gotham after the ‘protest’. Leo, Al and Bobby were apparently too busy climbing into their SUV’s, heading off to their yachts, or to the next champagne fueled charity event to bother cleaning up after themselves. Meanwhile, China is the largest producer of carbon ‘pollution’. Think they’ll protest there? Yes we have Climate Change. The trees are already changing colors in the upper midwest, and we know a long, cold winter awaits. Sponsored by Sedation and Implant Dentistry of Saint Paul. 

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