from Doug and Lee (Founders) 

Podango is excited to bring you a complimentary ticket ($97 value) to the first ever Virtual Seminar Week.  The first 5000 people to register with the Podango code receive a free ticket. Go to www.podango.com/vsw for information on how to get your complimentary ticket. 
Virtual Seminar Week is next week, November 10-17 and includes over 49 top business leaders, trainers and inspirational luminaries that you can listen to all from the comfort of your living room.
Experts include:

• Jay Abraham –> Legendary $5000/hour marketing mastermind
• Carlos Marin –> Recruited & managed sales force of 600,000
• Dr. Joe Mercola –> Founder of the #1 natural-health site in the world
• Bill Bartmann –> Billionaire to bankruptcy & back again
• Bob Proctor –> Modern-day Napolean Hill (Discover The Secret)
• Bill Romanowski –> Secrets to peak performance (4 Superbowl wins)
• Tellman Knudson & Stephanie Frank –> Overcoming ADHD at home & work
• Miriam Adler-MacWilliams –> Discover the truth about options trading
• Paul Colligan –> How to use podcasts for profit (One of our own Station Directors: Internet Marketing Podcast Network)
• Gay & Katie Hendricks –> Creating love & harmony in relationships

We are excited to bring you this unique opportunity.

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 Lee Gibbons, Podango CEO
What does the “Pod” in Podango stand for? Here is my quick list:

• The same Pod as in Podcasting
  
• Podcasts On a Dedicated subject
  
• Publishing On Demand
  
• People: Open. Dedicated.
  
• People On Demand
  
• Personal, Open, Different
  
• Podcasting Over Disparate devices
  
• Podcasting Over a Decentralized networks
  
• Podcasting On the way to Dinero
  
• Planning on Dancing?
  

Does that help? For those thinking I have lost it (or never had it…), here are brief explantions of each bullet:

The same Pod as in Podcasting
Podango is all about Podcasting (Yes that means video, too.)

Podcasts On a Dedicated subjects
Podango is organized into specialized go!Stations, owned and directed by passionate Station Directors, who enable communities of interest with Podcasts, Blogs, Social Tagging, etc.

Publishing On Demand
For so long, Publishing on Demand has been a pipedream, not practical for most users, not available broadly if at all. Podango stations, like all podcast delivery networks, provide users what they want when they want it. (We just do it a little—or a lot—differently!)

People: Open. Dedicated.
As you get to know the Podango team and the Station Owners we give go!Stations to, you will find yourself stunned at how open and dedicated we are (or always intend to be). Open to new ideas, open to all good things, open to learning and growing. Dedicated to our passions, to our convictions, to our causes, to the service of our communities of interest.

People On Demand
I covered publishing on demand first so that you would get the hang of this a bit. Let me contrast the two: Publishing on Demand means you get what you want when you want it. People on Demand means you can join fabulous communities of instant friends with common interests, goals, passions, and now tools for communicating. You will get a kick out of meeting so many people who share your interests. The published content (Podcasts, Vidcasts, Castbacks, Blog Posts, Social Tags, etc.) is only the currency of the community, and it is THE ONLY currency of the community, since Podango makes all of this free for the price of listening to highly relevant ads.(Whoa! That was a long description—Sorry!) Â

Personal, Open, Different
Podango is very personal. You can have it your way. Our model for providing personalized RSS feeds lets you have your set of go!Stations delivering your content your way. More on this later…

Podcasting Over Disparate devices
Podango is not just about iPods. It is about a great “lean forward� or at-your-machine experience as well. And we are fully committed to support all forms of portable devices over time.

Podcasting Over a Decentralized networks
Podango is not ready to share too much about this, but to be effective and efficient in enabling communities of the size and number we are supporting, things have to work in a decentralized way. More later…

Podcasting On the way to Dinero
Podango is also about creating a free market economy enhancing participation model where people serve each other out of passion and do so with excellence. In order to spend sufficient time at this, Station Directors and Podcasters need to be compensated. We make that happen as soon as possible and with greater leverage than any other podcast delivery network (if you doubt me on this, keep watching us).

Planning on Dancing? Â
Lastly, and absolutely not “leastly�… Podango is all about learning. Our intention is to provide community features and custom RSS capabilities that make Podango communities among the most able to teach and learn from each other. Dancing, singing, golf, pottery, search engine optimization, homeopathic medicine, genealogy… name a passion! Join a Podango go!Station.

Now. Does THAT help? Leave a comment to extend the conversation, or to extend the definition of this TLA (three letter accronym). Thanks for your attention!   Â