by Lee Gibbons, CEO

In real estate, they say, “location, location, location!” when citing the key element of success. The web entrepreneur’s equivalent element would be, “differentiation, differentiation, differentiation!”� � When I first wrote Podango’s 10 Rules, and in particular Rule #8, the thing that was standing out for me was the importance of letting each Podango Station Listener customize their Podango feed to meet their precise needs. This gives them the best podcasts coming to them by way of the sifting sorting and prioritizing provided by their Station Director, AND they can opt out of and re-arrange the priority of the podcasts to� match their tastes.

More recently, with the launch of PodShow Plus, I have become convinced that Podango’s uniqueness is its model with Station Directors at its core. Rather than having people create a glorified MySpace playlist of their favorite podcasts and calling that a channel, which is really no better than just subscribing to the various RSS feeds that comprize the channel, but for the ability to share the lists and see the lists put together by others (I am not knocking PodShow, here, just expressing a belief that there is a deeper contribution model that enables a richer set of benefits to those served by it.), Podango’s Station Model, with Station Directors who own their stations provides a truly differentiated set of benefits for listeners.

Podango Stations reflect the wisdom of passionate Station Directors whose proven expertise� guides their ongoing sifting, sorting and prioritizing of the best podcasts that serve the needs of their listeners. Station Directors are explorers, critics, infectors, organizers, combiners, refiners, and creators. They provide an invaluable service to a deliberate mass of people with a focused, shared interest. The result is a very useful set of podcasts that contain the most important conversations going on in their field of interest. They also sit at the center of the community comprising the station listeners and� podcastsers as well as the community’s luminaries, key thinkers and leading vendors/sponsors. From this spot they can enable rich, on-going conversations that align important agendas and move the community forward. They bring forward the most compelling podcasts. They help introduce important new podcasts. They spotlight podcast episodes that truly matter that were created for other audiences. They monitor and highlight the best conversations happening within the community.

I now strongly believe that even as important as customization and giving users choice is to our success, giving users expert guidance and voice in the important conversations that define their areas of interest is of superior importance. Station Directors make that happen. Their passion and empassioned service of the communities served by their Podango Stations will continue to be the key differentiator for Podango. This is what Podango will work to empower and enable with the highest priority going forward.

It is what will separate Podango stations from ordinary podcast feeds.

It is what will keep listeners and sponsors coming back for more, and more and more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Lee Gibbons, CEO, Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.