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 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.â€�

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.

by Lee Gibbons, CEO

Learning! That’s what moves me. (Creativity and Innovation–count that as one, combined thing–comes in a close and highly compatible second).

I am absolutely stoked for this week. I will be in San Francisco for the entire week attending the Corporate Podcasting Summit, followed by SuperNova 2006. These two events actually overlap by a day, so that will make for a challenging juggling act on the 21st (I’ll use creativity to get through the challange that creates). But, what has me so excited is the amazing learning opportunity I will have.

Learning, this week, will come in two forms: learming of people, and learning of things. Or, building relationships and cultivating knowledge. But more important that just meeting new people, one must build relationships. And, rather than listening to a new idea, one has to cultivate knowledge.
It is the difference between counting the seeds in an apple v. counting the potential apples within seeds. Both relationships and knowledge require follow-on efforts for them to bear fruit. And when that effort is expended, the potential is as endless as the number of apples within a given seed. If you mearly meet someone and never work to nurture the relationship, it is as helpful as encountering an apple seed while eating an apple.
When you learn of people, and nurture and build a relationship, or learn a timeless principle and cultivate knowledge around it, the relationship or principle continues to give and give and give.

So, this week I am all about learning. I will post about the people and things I learn. Maybe I will be able to pass along some ’seeds’ that can benefit you as well. As a matter of fact comment here with any questions you might have.

by Lee Gibbons, Podango CEO

As a “Podango podcaster” your life is different than your solo channel counterparts. Because, when they produce podcasts with the traditional model, they are on the hook to produce every episode on their own.

But as a podcaster who distributes your podcasts via a Podango Station you are part of a team of podcasters, serving the market you love. The concept of a Podango station means that there are many contributors to the content under the direction of a station owner (also know as a Station Director.) You still have your own podcast or show, you just have the luxury of knowing that a Station Owner is helping you to grow your audence as he helps grow the audience of the entire station. You also have Podango working to bring you ad revenues and leading edge technologies enhance Listeners’ experiences consuming podcasts.

The Station Director may contract with as many podcasters as she wishes and include their podcast episodes in the mix of podcasts she organizes fot the audience. Her primary mission is to organize the best podcasts in her area of interest into a great set of content for the cummunity she serves. In the course of doing so, she may consistently include in her station’s programming “Anchor Podcasts” that occur with regularity from particular podcasters. She may also contract with some other podcasters to include particular episodes of their shows in “Spotlights” within her station. This gives her listeners a chance to hear something new and different, while also providing a great place for new or rising star podcasters to get a boost in their audience size. This also opens the door for some podcasters to produce shows less frequently, or to produce one-off podcasts and have a chance to monetize their show. Celebrities, as well as highly successful business people, who are interested in podcasting especially like this model because they can ocassionally produce a lucrative show and have a ready audience in the context of a station, with no obligation to continue to produce podcasts.

Finally, as a Podango Podcaster you have the enginering and marketing resources of Podango who are constantly working to provide unique and innovative ways to produce, distribute, and build communities around your podcast content. Podango enables the richest set of end user listening and community features, and the station model shifts the burden of providing technologies and know-how to Podango and the Station Directors.

So, podcaster friend, give some thought to putting your podcast into the context of a Podango Station. You will find that you can do more and go further in your efforts to serve your community than you can do on your own. And, you will have the chance to share with others the burdens and benefits of consistent, high-quality podcasts. Or, think about becoming a Station owner in your area of interest and building a station to serve your niche maret!

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.