By Doug Smith – Podango President

Podango have been in Beta 1 release for one week now and we have made good progress. We are not without issues, but for our first beta we are very pleased. We have six stations opens for business and another 17 approved and building out their content. More requests to become station directors are coming in daily. We reject some and accept some. We are holding to a standard in order to establish a professional environment with great niche focused content. I continue to be amazed at the applications from all over the world about some very interest niches. I love the “long-tail� and I love talking to experts in niche markets. I love their passion and desire to share, listen and create online conversations.

In addition to our content and stations we also have make progress in other areas. Our transcriptions are starting to roll in and our traffic is picking up. We have a Google page rank of 6/10 after a week and our Alexa rating is improving each day.

Included in those six live stations are industry leaders in Paul Colligan (Internet Marketing), John Jantsch (Small Business Marketing), Roger Merrill (Leadership), a great world news station, old time music and an Italian station.  We love our station directors and know they are creating huge value for their audiences. Some argue that a station director model takes away from the democratic process of web-wide voting for favorites. Though that might be true to an extent, it is my experience that a few in the minority tend to strongly influence the ranking of content popularity in the fully open web and the station directors add some sanity to audience rankings and more importantly, they don’t stand on the sidelines and point fingers, they take responsibility to listen and produce great station content that will create loyalty in those they serve. It is really about the conversations and some of the best conversations are moderated by leaders in a field. They don’t know it all, but they know enough to find the answers people are looking for. We love our station directors. In the end, their success is our success.

And if you think this week was fun. Wait until next week at the Podcasting and Portable Media Expo where we are sponsoring the Podcasting Unconference 2006 in our booth. #301 come and visit. We will have 18 sessions/conversations moderated by podcasting industry leaders. Sound familiar.  So for us it is not just about giving “voice�, it is also about having “ears�. It is about the conversation.

by Doug Smith - Podango, President 

I had the privilege of attending and presenting at The Super Saturday Network Marketing Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this past Saturday. I am a foreigner to the Network Marketing industry but this was a fun and enlightening event.  The event was sponsored by The Network Marketing Magazine whose editor George Madiou asked Leroy Maughan and me to present podcasting and the Podango Station model to the conference. The reception of this new means of communicating to a diverse, geographically dispersed, yet networked group of people was very exciting. Leroy and George are jointly managing a Podango Station called the Network Marketing World where by using George’s contacts with the training arm of this industry will provide great content on both the market and the skills necessary to be successful in this home based business industry.

We presented with 6 highly popular and successful trainers and leaders of this industry. It was a pleasure to learn from them and feel their enthusiasm for their topics. These six include:

 

Kathy Robbins who has reached the top position with four network-marketing companies, helped in the expansion of four of those companies to Europe. She is known as one of the best trainers in the industry.  

Having been successful, both corporately and in the network-marketing arena, it seemed natural for Kathy to consult with network marketing companies in the areas of operations, sales and marketing and expansion.

 

Sandy Botkin who is a CPA, attorney and former trainer of IRS attorneys nationwide. Sandy’s book, Lower Your Taxes Big Time!, is the best-selling tax book at Amazon.com. He lectures all over the nation on tax planning for self-employed and corporate taxpayers… he’s been written up in Newsweek and many other magazines.He is also a syndicated writer and noted author of this famed tape series “Tax Strategies for Business Professionals” and “Tax and Financial Strategies for Residential Real Estate.”

 Doug Firebaugh, an Expert in M.L.M. and Network Marketing, is CEO of PassionFire International. He is a successful entrepreneur who has spent the last 25 years in the sales and Direct marketing field, and has been blessed to help multitudes of others break numerous records in performance by training people on how to “Maximize their Human Success Capital” that lies within them.
 

Dale Calvert who started his first business from his parents home at the age of 14. For the past 25 years he has been supporting entrepreneurs and marketing professionals with some of the most powerful training programs in the industry. A directory of Dale’s websites can be found at DaleCalvert.com. His new course will teach you 21 Ways to create leads in your local market.
 

 

Max Steingart, Money Magazine called him “The Matchmaker” in 1983. He was named “The Success Story of the Year” by INC Magazine five years later. AT&T called him a visionary of the computer industry. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush congratulated Max for his innovative efforts helping people meet the right people.

Since 1996, Max has devoted his time to researching, studying, understanding and teaching people the secrets of online relationship building through the use of Instant Messaging.
 

Paula Pritchard, As one of the most consistent top performers in network marketing, Paula has proven time and time again that her business building methods work. Her techniques for building large successful organizations have created many successful leaders in the industry and have been well documented in her book Owning Yourself and the CD audio training series “What You Need to Know to Build a Profitable Network Marketing Business.” Today Paula is known worldwide as one of the top network marketers, trainers and leadership developers.
 

These are great leaders and they have much to share. They are not tech geeks, but could quickly see the advantages of podcasting in reaching larger numbers of people. We will have a few of their presentations on the Network Marketing World station soon. We also have the reaction of the audience to the conference. It is an enjoyable audio segment. I encourage you to have a listen.

I continue to be amazed at how readily people are seeing the advantages of time-shifted content consumption. Thank you Tivo.  Stay tuned for a ton of great content for this market from Leroy, George and friends.

 

By Doug Smith – Podango President
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Unlike most podcast networks, Podango stations target specific audiences with multiple podcasts to make advertising dollars perform better, so advertisers and sponsors spend more with Podango.

Podango Stations are popping up in all types of niche markets including snow skiing, family matters, event planning, automotive tools, mountain biking, business leadership and more.  The profile of Podango Stations will clearly follow the “long tailâ€� distribution curve.  Stations will focus on highly targeted niches where niche savvy Station Directors will coordinate the “conversationâ€� with likeminded listeners. We are beginning to talk more about the “conversationâ€� that will evolve as selected podcasts are delivered to these niches with simple mechanisms allowing the listener to join in and provide their own insights, questions, and answers. Each episode becomes the catalyst for a deeper conversation. Â

By subscribing to the Station, the listeners self-select themselves for these conversations. What a perfect target for relevant advertising and sponsorships.  As Dixie has become the perfect sponsor for the MommyCast show, we will see the likes of Shimano, Sram or Trek for the Mountain Biking Station, or Marriott for the Event Planning Station, or Salamon, Atomic, Fischer or K2 for PodSki Station and FranklinCovey for Business Leadership Station.  Sponsors are loving the results, but it is yet very early. Major ad buyers are moving to take advantage of the targeting opportunities of this “new mediaâ€�. Greg Stuart, CEO, IAB recently said: “The steady growth of online advertising is a clear indication that marketers continue to believe in the opportunities and effectiveness that this medium delivers in reaching and engaging their consumers,” He also reported that: “Online spending for advertising is on a pace to reach $15 billion in revenue for all of 2006.â€� Take a look at the graph.

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The attractive relevance of these niche-oriented stations is only part of the appeal to sponsors. The mix of advertising elements is also appealing. These elements include sponsor impressions (audio, video , text and image), product mentions and discussions, spot ads before or after podcasts, banner ads, infomercial podcasts, video ads, surveys, polls and more. Also the consolidation of multiple high quality podcasts into a single station will bring larger audiences and this focused variety (strange combination of words) will hold the attention of the audience.  To top it off the community features will bring the audience into the conversations about the products and services of the sponsors yielding great feedback and great testimonials.

I listened to a Mommycast episode (#105) this week, (I am a Dad however) to see how they support their sponsors. They took their children the new Atlanta Aquarium, an affiliate of Georgia Pacific, the parent of Dixie, Mommycast primary sponsor. Their description of the experience and awesome nature of the exhibits had me wanting to jump a plane for a visit. My next trip to Atlanta will include a visit to this new site. What a great way to advertise.

Podango go!Stations will become wonderful revenue opportunities for Station Directors and Podcasters. As Directors add more podcasts to the station, there will be incremental ad spots. And Podcaster will love to join a station with an existing and growing audience getting instance exposure.  Podango is about teamwork, strength in numbers, relevance in advertising and creating deep conversations about product, services and especially about life. Come and join us, the train is leaving the station.

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by Doug Smith - Podango President Â

It is easy to get noticed in an empty football station.  But when it is full, getting noticed requires a lot of obnoxious behavior or an inside relationship with the PA announcer. Like with blogs, where there are the “haves� and the “have nots. “ There are those podcaster in the top 50 or fat end of the tail and those in the narrow part of the long tail. A great article in the February 20^th issue of the New Yorker Magazine, Blogs to Riches by Clive Thompson does a great job of explaining the intricacies of “linkology� and getting noticed in the “blogosphere�.  Some of the same rules apply with podcasts, but the fundamental mechanism of a podcast to podcast link is not available. Podango’s “every podcast gets a transcript� will help with links going in and out of the podcast text pages. But that will only be one approach to Podango helping podcasters get noticed in a growing sea of content providers. There are not nearly as many podcasters (upwards of 60,000) as there are bloggers (23 million blogs), but it is still difficult to get noticed.

Have you ever been to a football game where the audience uses cards to spell out words or create symbols to be seen by the other half of the stadium? They are hard to miss. That is achieved through teamwork. Many people combine efforts to get noticed as a group, directed by a coordinator, for the benefit of the whole. Well, that is the general philosophy of Podango Stations, team together to be seen and noticed. Be big, influential and “remarkable�. As a Station Director recruits multiple podcasters into a station, each bringing a unique audience, they all get exposure to each other’s audiences. And the combined audience gets introduced to additional great content that is “sifted, sorted and prioritized� by the Station Director. There is strength in numbers and volume normally wins.

So, if you are a start-up podcaster with no audience, but great content, or an experience podcaster with a big audience, seek out a Podango Station owner in your niche market and audition to be included on their station, so you can get immediate exposure to their additional 10,000 to 300,000 listener.

Remember Rule #5: Get Noticed! And help others get noticed. Podango stations sign “anchor podcasts� and routinely spotlight rising star podcasts!
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by Doug Smith - Podango President

Rule #3 builds on Rule #1: Put the Listener First and Rule #2: Don’t Be Evil by enabling “Service to the Community� or “Engagement with the Community�. Online social networks are springing up everywhere and they are working because of the involvement of the users with user contributed  comments, content, opinions, tagging, etc. all which adds value to the community in a sense of service. I love the book “Love is the Killer App� by Tim Sanders. “The books premise is that you will find your success in business through helping others grow by sharing your intangibles—your knowledge, network and compassion.� Learn, grow, and share are the keys to this type of service. The benefits to this “giving attitude� are generally not measurable, but they are real. The appropriate approach in this service is one where the giving has “no strings� attached. Well, at least not too many strings. And those that are attached should generally be WIN/WIN where our contribution to the community improves the community for all, including ourselves.  A recent article on Skype’s “Word of Mouth� success claimed that “friends who persistently insist that their friends do something not only do so for their own self-benefit, but also benefit all members of the social network because expansion makes it stronger.�
Podango Stations will work if the community of listeners becomes involved in sharing their desires, thoughts, comments, tags and ratings. We encourage the Station Directors to engage their community and the community members to engage each other. To enable this approach to sharing Podango will provide Web 2.0 community features like “CastBacks� (audio feedback), blogs, full transcripts of podcasts, polls, forums and other tools. We also encourage engaging the larger community outside of a Podango Station which includes station to station engagement and cross-Web engagement. It is all about conversations, relationships of trust, service to each other. The role of the Station Director is to serve their audience by contributing the time to sift, sort and prioritize the best podcasts for specific niches. The audience assists by confirming and assisting in the sifting, sorting and prioritizing through feedback, suggestions, ratings and “word of mouth� audience building, so more can share and be engaged.

by Doug SmithÂ

A few weeks back my partner, Lee Gibbons, posted the 10 rules that Podango is following to help redefine the “Podcasting Game�. “Changing the Rules�  We hope this doesn’t sound arrogant. We don’t mean it to be. But we think there is a better way for podcasters to have influence and make money. It is not all about having “voice�, it starts with having “ears�.
 Rule #1 is about understanding the user’s perspective and solving their problems. Stephen Covey calls this “Seek First to Understand�, Habit #5. To serve a market, a podcaster must be in touch with the needs and desires of the audience. He/she must listen to the market and the audience feedback, build community involvement and garner the wealth of the audience’s knowledge to enhance the content being provided. A cornerstone of the Podango model is “Listening to the Market� even when the feedback is painful. Someone recently said: “A complaint is a gift�. If so, then bring the gifts forward so we can learn and grow.
 We are also listening to our users, the podcast listener audience, and what we are hearing is: It is too hard to find and too hard to consume great podcasts. We continue to hear and see the problem. It is discussed openly in various podcasts and blogs. Thus, we are recruiting Station Directors that will own their on Podcast Stations. And with their high passion an area of expertise, they will sift sort and prioritize the best content for a market niche and provide it to an audience over a single RSS feed. Our tagline is: Simple, Tailored, Targeted. We think it will catch on, because as a speaker said at the Syndicate conference last week, “We all have enough shirts. What is scarce is time.�
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Rule #1: Put the Listener First and provide a simple, familiar station format for uses to subscribe to, instead of one podcast at a time.

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by Doug Smith – President, Podango

I have managed eCommerce and online media companies for several years, 6+ years at Franklin Covey and two years as the CEO of a startup. But only now am I beginning to grasp the sub-culture of Web 2.0, the LIVE Web as Doc Searls referred to it in his closing remarks. This “Live� Web was clearly demonstrated throughout the conference by posts appearing on the internet before echoes settled from each speaker’s last words. Steve Gillmor referred to a prior panelist a pinhead not naming him, but the blogs did. On the first day, a lady sitting in front of me was in the state of panic because she could not connect to the web and post her blog. It was like an addict going through a withdrawal (not that I would know). This conference pealed back two layers of the onion for me, but I sense I have several more layers to go. And most of that learning will need to be experiential, so I am blogging and will soon be podcasting. The learning continues.

I entered the conference thinking Google was on the forefront of all new Web innovations. To my surprise a few of the esteemed presenters suggested that they were part of the “Dead� web, focusing their search engines of “static� pages, not highlighting their offerings for searching the Blogosphere or the “Live� web. I learned more about tags, gestures, attention and click streams. I picked up “Naked Conversations� and started reading it on the way home. This is a whole new world and I like what I see. It is a world of “love cats� and open hearted conversation and discussion. But it is only beginning to unfold as demonstrated early this morning on my 6am mountain bike ride with my neighbor and friend who works for Oracle. I asked him, if Oracle executives blog, he asked “what is a blog�? Enough said.