by Lee Gibbons, CEO

The week in San Francisco attending the Corporate Podcasting Summit and Supernova2006 was all I could have asked for and more.

I wrote in my last post that I looked forward to learning of people and learning of things. My hopes were absolutely fulfilled in this regard. I have blogged about some of the absolutely amazing web 2.0 companies I have become familiar with in my private blog (The Web Immigrant Blog). Here, I will highlight two things I took away form the events that have particular importance to Podango and to Podcasting in general. (Later I will muse over a few more, but for this morning –now 1:30 a.m.—I will keep it relatively brief.)

The first key learning I took away from Jonathan Schwartz (Sun Microsystems) through a combination of points he made.

Point #1: “100% of companies want the tech that will let them connect with their customers.” In podcasting that means that 100% podcasters want the tech that will let them connect with their listeners and the communities of interest which they serve.

Point #2: “If you are not in front of the next wave of consumer demand, you will miss out on the market.”

The key learning here for podcasting is that we, too, are about serving this need and helping people connect with their communities of interest. I think Jonathan probably had a more literal connection (as in fiber optics and big hardware) in mind, but I think the driving point is that people want to connect to other people. This is why I view Podango as so much more than just a podcast delivery network. Delivery is important, but then what? How do people truly leverage the knowledge conveyed by the audio of video that has just entered their realm of understanding. We must help them Aggregate, Encode, Process, and Apply (see Tim Sanders’s Love is the Killer App) the information they receive so that it becomes an advantage to them– so that they can take it and put it to work to improve their communities of interest.

My second key learning comes from Craig Newmark (Craigslist) and two points he made.

Point #1: He said that the only way the site (Craigsllist.com) can run is by counting on people policing the site as much as possible themselves, stating that, “people are overwhelmingly trustworthy.” As a result of self-policing, trust develops.

Point #2: He introspectively shared that in his little world, one of the thing’s that has worked is remembering what it’s like to be left out, and then include people, making some mention of pocket protectors in there somewhere.

The key learning is two fold: A) that Podango and podcasting will flourish most abundantly as we learn to put cultural norms in place that attract people to our media properties. And, B) that Podango must, in order to adequately provide an experience that allows maximum contribution from podcasters and listeners, interacting within communities that exist both inside and outside Podango, provide them with frameworks for their interactions and contributions. To the degree we actually succeed at that, we will be fulfilling our mission.