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 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.