Well let me jump on the Microsoft iPod reporting bandwagon. Our sister sites engadget and PVR Wire have posts on the Microsoft Argo Personal Media Player including a scoop on the first look on the device.
Now to add the Droxy angle to the discussion, with the WiFi connection it is rumored to have, will it come with some kind of podcast aggregator built-in? I think it would be a great advantage for them to have that built right int the device. Anytime you go to a feed on the wifi connection it check to see if it has any enclosures in it, and then ask if you want to subscribe to it, if you are not already.
Of course this is all just my dreams for the device. It would require a little more of an interface to allow browsing of feeds. But I would guess they will be having some kind of interface to whatever music (or should we say media) service that you can buy / download stuff from. So if they add some kind of Podcast (Argocast, or maybe just Gocasts, or in the Pirates of the Caribbean theme, Arrrrgcasts) directory like in the iTunes store, it could work.
Microsoft, if you are listening, this would clinch me as a convert from my iPod.
Yes it is, according to Todd Cochrane, and he is not too happy about it. You can go over and read about it at his blog, but what it seems they are listing as the RSS feed for his podcast is a mash-up of it hosted at the Podshow site. And it also seems they are stripping the Copyright from it and replacing it.
Dave Winer, the man responsible for adding the enclosure tag to RSS (and RSS itself) is not too happy either that Podshow is doing the same with his Morning Coffee Notes podcast feed. He also cites some other examples. There are others weighing in which you can see in an update at the bottom of Todd's post
Today Todd added a second post explaining more why he is so upset with this. He shows with screen shots some of the changes being made to his RSS by Podshow. He makes mention of the fact that the programmers behind Podcast Alley, which had an uproar against them and the way they reused RSS for podcasts are part of Podshow, and that they should have known the outcome of doing the same thing again.
Update: According to Todd's post Podshow has fixed what they claim was a bug, but he still stands by his original posts.
Blubrry.com a new podcasting social network aimed at the listener's user experience had it's big debut at Gnomedex. Blubrry is another product offered by RawVoice, Inc. who is also responsible for Podcasternews.com (where I am a podcaster hosting two shows). The new site offers the typical social networking features, podcast directory, and tagging podcasts by users.
Podcasters can join the network for free as long as they agree to promote the network on their podcasts. For this the podcasters get another presence for their podcast on the web, and the chance to be involved in network ad buys setup by the blubrry team. According to the CFO of RawVoice, Inc., Jeevan Padiyar, "We've taken the model that is already making money for podcasters on the PodcasterNews Network, and are using it on this site." He went on to mention that there is no lock in of content producers with RawVoice.
Today SIRIUS announced that NFL Legend Jerry Rice will be hosting a show on the SIRIUS NFL Radio (channel 124). This follows last week's announcement that Andrew Wilkow will be hosting a Conservative talk show on SIRIUS Patriot channel.
Last week, on June 8, SIRIUS announced that Andre Wilkow, who is called "the next generation of talk radio" according the the press release, will be starting a new show on August 1 this year. Wilkow has been hosting a daily talk show on WGY- AM in Albany NY, as well as a weekend show on WABC-AM in New Your City. He will be hosting a weekday show from 12-3pm ET, airing on Channel 144 SIRIUS Patriot. Wilkow said of his move "Moving to SIRIUS lets me take that style and passion nationwide. I am honored to be given this opportunity."
But the wait for Jerry Rice is much shorter, as he will start June 13th co-hosting "The Afternoon Blitz" from 3-7pm ET with Adam Schein. He will be heard part time, being only on three times a week throughout the year. Rice joins quite a team of past players that are currently on NFL Radio on SIRIUS. Other past NFL players on NFL Radio include Cris Carter, Randy Cross, Gil Brandt, Tim Ryan, Pat Kirwan, Solomon Wilcots and Adam Schein.
The registration has been open since March but if you have been waiting to see the conference sessions before registering, now you have no excuse for not getting over to their site and registering for the Expo. On Saturday the 27th they announced that they had released the full session schedule on the Expo's website. The schedule and other things are discussed on this week's "Podcast Brothers" podcast, check out the site and the podcast for more information on the sessions available.
One session on Friday that sounds interesting, and is aimed at the people attended Track 3: Corporate Podcasting, is the "Podcast to Your Employees and Improve Your Internal Communications" being presented by Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication + Technology. Having been in big companies and seeing the whole site shut down and no work get done while attending company wide meetings I can see the advantage of podcasting to get out company information.
What sessions are you going to attend? Leave a comment here on what sessions you are attending or find interesting.
SIRIUS continues
their signing ways with the announcement of the latest star coming to SIRIUS Stars 102. On May 4 SIRIUS released that
they had signed Deepak Chopra as a host of a weekly 3 hour live call-in show on Saturdays. His show is scheduled
to start in the summer later this year. Deepak Chopra, the author of over 42 books, said "I will be focusing
on four areas -- success; love, sexuality and relationships; well being; and spirituality. My hope is to develop a more
personal relationship with a back and forth communication, something that I haven't been able to do with my books."
I am a little late in reporting this, but SIRIUS announced on
Tuesday that Mark Cuban, the outspoken, sometimes too outspoken for the NBA league commissioner, owner of the
Dallas Mavericks has signed to do a weekly talk show. Mark Cuban was interviewed by Kevin C. Tofel
back last October for Weblogs Inc. sibling blog HDBeat.com. Cuban's show "Radio
Maverick" will be broadcast on SIRIUS Stars 102 Sundays from 12 pm - 2 pm ET starting this summer.
In the press release Cuban is quoted as saying that he is fired up about the show and that "I plan on
raising hell and covering any and all topics that I think are interesting and taking no prisoners along the way."
Having seen and heard some of his tirades toward the NBA officials during some of the Dallas Mavericks games, he
definitely has his own opinions and is not afraid to use them.SIRIUS' President of Entertainment and Sports, Scott
Greenstein said "Radio Maverick will be a forum without limits, where he can talk to SIRIUS listeners about
everything from the NBA to an MBA."
The Walt Disney Company has been in the podcasting space for a while.
They have had podcasts on iTunes since that software started official support of podcasts directly in the software.
They contacted Michael Geoghegan in the summer of 2005 to do a series of podcasts on the start of the 50th Anniversary
Celebration of Disneyland in California. These turned into the Official Disneyland podcast which is released monthly
and still produced and hosted by Michael Geoghegan. Walt Disney World followed with a weekly podcast started in late
December 2005.
Now the Disney Cruise Line is getting in on the action, sort of. The podcast feed is at the DCLNews.com site, which is designed for use by news media outlets and
professional journalists. There are only two items in the podcast feed so far, which are an audio segment and a video
segment on the press conference announcing the 2007 Disney Cruise Line Mediterranean cruises. These were produced
by David Brady who is producer and host of the Walt Disney World Resort: Plugged In podcast, which is the official
podcast for Walt Disney World. He does a good job with the Walt Disney World resort podcasts, and did another good
job with these two segments. I personally hope for more podcasts from the Disney Cruise Line and The Walt Disney Company
in general as they could do some really imaginative things.
EXPO
magazine has released their 2006 Best New Shows Awards, and the Podcast and Portable Media Expo was the winner in the
"Trade and Consumer Show" Category. In the first year of the Podcast and Portable Media Expo had over 2,000
attendees and 60 exhibiting companies converge on the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario California.
The 2005 Expo was in November, but this year it is being moved up to September. The registration is open for this years conference as reported previously. And if you are
interested in going to this year's show you are in for even more. In an email from Tim Bourquin, he said there will be
about 80 companies exhibiting this year which is a third more than last year's show. And to accommodate the additional
companies at the show, as well as the over 2500 attendees they are expecting, they have moved to a bigger hall to
accommodate everything and everyone, myself included as I will be there covering the event for Droxy.
Over at Libsyn's
Soundoff blog they posted a report on their numbers for the
first quarter of this year. What does the post cover? It starts with the number of unique IP addresses to libsyn.com
requesting feeds and media files. This is a huge number reported. They have over 45 million unique IP addresses for the
first quarter, and this is a 200% increase from the previous quarter. Thats from the previous quarter,
not to the previous year.
The post then breaks down the statistics on the podcatchers being used by those users. Apple's iTunes still has the
vast majority at around 72% which is reported as being almost a 5% drop from the previous quarter. The next category is
web browsers at around 22% of which Internet Explorer makes up the largest share at 12% of the overall
numbers.
The Virtual
Podcasting Expo we reported was happening
is now open. If you follow the "Read" link at the bottom of this post you can get into the
virtual lobby. From there you can view the schedule and take some orientation tours of how the virtual conference
system works.
From the schedule they seem to have some interesting topics being covered, like the "What Makes (Or Breaks) A
Podcast - Podcast Listeners Speak" by Leesa Barnes, the "Podcasting Networks - The Best Way to Market Your
Podcast" being offered up by Todd Cochrane, as well as several sessions on Feedburner uses with podcasting. But
there are also some that are a little confusing on how they relate, like the "Top 10 Tips for Running a Political
Campaign" session, I am sure one (or more) of those is to have a podcast on your campaign site to build community
with your potential voters.
If you check it out, please leave a comment on what you think about it.
Back a while
ago we covered the advertising impact from a
research study, and fellow Weblogs Inc Network (WIN) blog The Unofficial Apple
Weblog (TUAW) reported on the audience size aspect
of the report. Now we have a blog post from the Geek
News Central blog that their numbers for the current podcasting audience size is way off. Geek News Central is getting
their counts from being involved with TechPodcasts.com network of podcasts
and Podcasternews.com as well as also several other sites that are using the
RawVoice Generator.
The post over there shows that if the Forrester Research report was correct that the numbers they have
verified stats for would be a large percentage of the whole audience that the report says there is currently existing.
Of course they know there are lot more other podcasts out there than they have the stats for, so they reach the
conclusion the numbers from the report are way off.
If you can't
make it to the Portable Media Expo, which is taking registrations as
reported here, or just don't want
to wait until September, you can check out "The International Podcasting Expo" which is being held April 21 -
23, 2006. The unique thing is that this expo is being held around the clock, and online. The expo will be a non stop 48
hour event using a virtual expo system. There will be a cross platform audio conference room which will be recorded.
Listeners can participate in live podcasts which will be available shortly after they are recorded on a special expo
feed. You can go sign up for the expo at their site.
Are any of our readers planning on signing up for this virtual expo?
On March
21 Delphi issued a press release that I
saw mentioned over at The Auto Channel. It at
first sounded like a normal press release about a new radio being released by Delphi, but reading through it an item
caught my eye. That was "It can be equipped with digital satellite radio reception from either of the two North
American satellite radio companies."
The radio is generally designed for commercial vehicles and Delphi even went to professional drivers and found what
they wanted and needed. So the new radio has ergonomic controls and rugged materials for better wear. They also worked
on reducing mass on the radio and thereby reducing costs of the unit. And the unit does just do Satellite radio, it has
CD/MP3 player as well as AM/FM and NOAA. And it can also charge and play an iPod as well. This is a full featured unit
even has an alarm clock in it.
We have had some SIRIUS S50 portable device coverage here in the past including Kevin Tofel's post on the last minute changes they
made in response to RIAA intervention, and now we got news of an agreement concerning the device. SIRIUS and Universal
Music Group have reached an agreement over the S50's ability to separate individual songs from the satellite
stream into individual MP3 files.
Music industry leaders were concerned that the ability to save songs
individually was a lost chance at being able to sell that song. The music industry wants their money and felt they
should be getting paid for these lost sale opportunities. Record labels had threatened to sue SIRIUS over the S50
device for copyright violations. Back in December an agreement was reached to extend the deadline to work out the final
deal.
The final details are not known, but it seem that SIRIUS will be compensating Universal Music Group and
avoiding any legal proceedings. These charges are not going to be passed onto the SIRIUS subscribers.
This deal is expected to serve as a basis for similar deals with other record companies, and since the current deal
only covers the S50, most likely it will also be used as the template for other devices in the future.
EXPO
