Chris Abraham » Pod Camp

Podcasting Isn’t Dead it is Just Really Really Hard

Chris Abraham — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:25:05 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

I have done everything to do with podcasting except for having a podcast. I would say I am as close to an expert in podcasting as anyone can be without a stitch of practical experience. I have been listening to podcasts for well over five years and know all the major podcasters. I attend as many podcamps as I can. I have even been blogging for 12 years and yet I have never started a podcast. “Why,” you ask? Well, because podcasting is really really hard.

It has been such a challenge to be persistent enough to maintain both Because the Medium is the Message and Marketing Conversation. To keep up-to-date with what’s going on, being au courant, relevant, and interesting. That’s hard enough. Recording audio or video, synchronizing with a co-host, making technology work, making sound work, learning the recording, editing and compression strategies necessary to compete with more professional podcasts, and then being persistent, consistent, amusing, reliable, and worthy of a Very Large Download approaching 50-100 megabytes.

I listen to No Agenda religiously as well as Adam Curry‘s Daily Source Code when I can. I also listen to Shel Holtz‘s FIR as much as I can and used to listen to many more — but it is also hard to spend and dedicate the time listening.

I believe that podcasts are going the way of the blog. As I wrote in The Blog is Dead — Now’s the Best Time to Start Blogging!, most of the fair weather bloggers have given up because even blogging is hard. Especially when you do it alone. Now, Marketing Conversation is becoming much more effective and popular these days, but that’s because we’re blogging as a team — we’re collaborating.

Podcasting is sort of a little like radio — people listen to their favorite personalities. I guess you could have different hosts and run Coast to Coast AM post Art Bell and have a stable of hosts, but then there is the challenge of organizing more than just yourself, wooking multiple people to commit what can be a grueling schedule of keeping, maintaining, editing, uploading, and marketing a podcast.

What’s more, podcasts are a little dangerous. The more successful a podcast becomes, the more people download and the chance that you will incur lots and lots of bandwidth overage charge.

What’s more, casually monetizing podcasts is impossible. With this blog, I can post annoying Google AdSense / AdWord ads all over the place and make a couple cups of coffee back and help underwrite the hosting. For Podcasts, however, the only advertising that you can do is either reading ads into your podcast that one or more sponsors have given you — thus, you have to spend lots of time finding sponsors and advertisers — or you can ask for pledges the way Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak — and NPR — does, sending people to a pledge or donations page.

That said, God bless everyone who goes through that ringer. I guess I would surely participate in a podcast as long as someone else did all the editing, all the pre- and post-production, all the uploading, all the hosting, all the fees, and took care of all of the advertising stock. Then, I would be more than happy to saunter in and be the face, be the voice.

So, until someone offers me that, I will just listen. I listen via my iPad, via my iPhone, via my Blackberry using an awesome app called Podcasts — and it is surely worth the $3.99 fee as you can download password-protected podcasts like Streamlink offers — and also I love using the built in Nokia podcast software on my aging-but-still-awesome Nokia N95.

Anyway, happy new years and I don’t know really why I wrote this. Maybe because I was listening to some podcasts this AM and, for a second, I was contemplating it, especially as I unpacked my trusty ZOOM H2, until I stopped, reconsidered, and said, “no way, man, podcasting is too hard!”

God bless you merry podcasters of the world!

Attend Your First Podcamp in Philly!

Chris Abraham — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:51:27 +0000

One of the biggest and best secret in social and new media is that Podcamps are some of the best and cheapest access to everyone and everything associates with New Media and Social Media you can ever imagine. If you’re in PR, marketing, or advertising you probably have not been to a Podcamp, Wordcamp or Barcamp — and why the hell not. The last Podcamp I attended, I got to chum about with Laura Fitton @pistachio, Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan, Christopher Penn @CSpenn, and Jeff Pulver @jeffPulver. Well, it sucks for you that you didn’t make it to Podcamp Boston but you still have time to make it to Podcamp Philly!

Are you ready for what’s NEXT in new media?
Are you new to new media like blogging, podcasting, Twitter, Facebook, and wondering where to get started?
Are you a veteran of all things 2.0 and wondering what’s just around the corner?
PodCamp Philly, now in its 3rd year, aims to help you answer these questions and many more. On October 3 -4, 2009 at Temple University‘s Tuttleman Learning Center, PodCamp Philly will bring together the best and the brightest – including you – for two days of learning, sharing, and growing your social media skills. Podcamp Philly, Philadelphia‘s largest digital media, community-based unconference, also includes SearchCamp with sessions geared towards helping you better understand how to optimize all your web-based products so they can be found easier by search engines. For the first time, Podcamp Philly is also partnering with Social Media Club, who are adding special sessions on leveraging social media tools for business.
Who should attend PodCamp Philly?
You. It doesn’t matter where you are on your social media journey, whether you just starting podcasting yesterday or whether you’re one of the decade-long bloggers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500, a director of a non-profit, or a guy who likes to knit on the air. What does matter is that you are an expert in something. You have questions AND answers, and PodCamp Philly is the best opportunity to contribute and learn all at once.
What will you learn at PodCamp Philly?
PodCamp is driven by what YOU want to learn and share. Twitter? Sure. Facebook? Of course. Blogging? Definitely. Podcasting? By the bucket. More important, we want you, as you register, to consider leading a session in which you pose a burning question that you absolutely must get the answer to. Maybe you need to know how to figure out the ROI of Facebook. Maybe you need to learn how to make great Internet video. Whatever your burning question is, we want you to ask it at PodCamp.
Take a look at some of the planned topics:
Social Media Optimization – Enhancing SEO
Project Management and Podcasting
Online Revenue Strategy
Bootcamp Express – Your Social Media Plan in 60 Minutes or Less
Educators: tools, triumphs and tips
How to Cure Social Media Anxiety
Podcasting on the Cheap
Ready to get started?
PodCamp Philly is a mere $20 to participate, but we guarantee you’ll get so much more. Register today, as space is limited.
Click here to register for Podcamp Philly today!
After you’ve registered, share this with your network and invite them to come to PodCamp Philly with you!

PodCampOhio As Blogged in the Blogosphere

Chris Abraham — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:54:32 +0000

There were just some of the blog mentions I have found so far about PodCampOhio — I will try to look around a little bit more and I will post again when I find more stuff.

Another Lovely Report on PodCampOhio from Andrea Hill

Chris Abraham — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:41:54 +0000

I met the lovely Andrea Hill at PodCampOhio. Andrea is a runner, a Canadian, a new media maven, and a senior developer at Resource Interactive. She also hung out with me part of the day and over lunch and I was charmed — Andrea is lovely. I would like to share her experience at PodCampOhio, PodCamp Ohio Networking:

PodCamp Ohio Networking
As always, some of the best outcomes from an event are a result of the interaction with other delegates. There is something special about a group of actively engaged, newly informed individuals. Going into PodCamp Ohio, I hadn’t been sure about the people I would meet. I wasn’t a podcaster, would I have things to share with my fellow attendees?
As it turned out, I was incredibly engaged and impressed with the folks I met. There were folks from a wide background, all united by their passion for social media. The entire conference was very engaging and social, including the automated podOhioCheckIn twitter feed. As I mentioned, the first session I attended was incredibly interactive, with the attendees offering their own best practices and advice. I enjoyed putting faces to screen names, and realized that there is an entire community of like-minded individuals here in town I should get to know!
As someone who has worked on fostering online community for a long time, I have weathered all the comments about how technology throws up walls between people. Rather than interacting directly, we’re sitting in rooms on our laptops or mobile phones. However, how we do we explain the coming together of this group of technophiles? One fellow had driven from Nashville, another is based in Berlin and D.C. The Internet is the communication medium that allowed these individuals to find this information, and brought us together to share and network.
While the day passed quickly and I know I didn’t meet as many people as I could have, I have confidence that we will all leverage these online tools to continue to communicate and share our thoughts and insights from PodCamp Ohio moving forward.

Bill Balderaz is a Social Media PR Rock Star

Chris Abraham — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:26:39 +0000

Bill Balderaz, President of Webbed Marketing, is a Social Media rock star! I sat in on his session at PodCampOhio, Strategies for blogging, podcasting and social network marketing — and even tried to stream it via Qik but only got seconds of it! You should check out his session if at all possible — I don’t know who else recorded it — I only got one minute :(:

Here are the session notes:

Wait a minute.
There is a form marketing that involves consumers creating videos, podcasts and blog posts about your brand and distributing that content freely? And they don’t have to go through rounds of lawyers, executives and brand police when they are creating this content? And they do it without getting paid, on their own time and show genuine passion and interest in doing so?
And these programs enhance my search engine optimization, pay-per-click, online public relations and traditional marketing campaigns?
To top it all off, this form marketing is viewed as credible by consumers and has a measurable impact on my business?
Sign me up.
Social Media Marketing…working with consumers to create and distribute content about your brand is a powerful tool that smart marketers can’t ignore. In this session attendees will learn:
How to build and execute a great social media campaign
How blogging, and working with bloggers, can help a marketing program “go viral”
The role podcasts and video play in online marketing campaigns

Random Photos from PodCampOhio

Chris Abraham — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:49:51 +0000

A Report from PodCampOhio by AnnOhio

Chris Abraham — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:43:14 +0000

I have been trying to think of the best way to convey the weekend at PodCampOhio but my ~~virtual friend~~ new friend Ann Miller did a much better job of honoring the weekend! And, yes, I was one of the folks who received hand-made cookies! And here, below, is Ann Miller’s (AKA AnnOhio‘s) Introduction to Pod Camp…

Introduction to Pod Camp…
I never ever ever thought you would hear from me, I’m going to Pod Camp Ohio. Yet, yesterday morning I was up and out the door at 7:45 to drive to Columbus for the first ever Pod Camp Ohio. I’ve seen a lot of people on my Twitter list talk about Pod Camp experiences…and I admit I have liked the idea of having so many friends in one place to get a chance to meet. But the rest of it? The sessions? Meh…
I probably would not have gone at all if I hadn’t seen a status message from Chris Abrahams–going to Pod Camp Ohio–I sent him a message, are you serious. That was the nudge I needed to sign up and make plans to go. I kidded pre-conference that I would be in the corner with the giant panties over my head tied up with a cat5 cable. :o)
With the help of Andrew I found the location without any difficulties, it was close to the highway and very easy to get to. A gold star for the Pod Camp Ohio planners for finding such a great location. The facility was nice, free wifi a geek’s paradise! I spotted Ms. Sangs, @KaitSwanson as soon as I got in the door. I had to give her a hug even before I checked in for the conference. That hug and that chance to finally meet her made my day, could it get any better than this?
I started wandering around, getting my bearings, pulling out the lanyard for my name tag, writing @AnnOhio on it and getting myself organized. As I made my way back to the room for the first address of the day, I passed a lady with pink streaks in her hair–I knew right away it was @AlisonL. I gave her a big hug and delivered the promised homemade cookies. It was nice to finally get to meet her in person. As a I am talking to her I see a few more familiar faces @BarbaraKB and @DanielJohnsonJr–more hugs delivered.
I found a seat about mid-way back and made myself comfortable. I love to people watch, and I took a look around and didn’t see anyone else that I knew. I hear someone behind me talking to the person next to him. “Hi, I’m Chris Abraham.” I turned in my seat… “Chris? AnnOhio!” Naturally I jumped up to give him a big hug to welcome him to Ohio.
I looked through the session list, trying to find the non-geekiest session to go to. First up a session by my twitter pal (who I constantly harass for being a geek) DanielJohnsonJr. When I got to the room Chris was standing outside, he was planning to attend the same session. Alas, the door was locked. I pull out my cellphone and send Daniel a text message–the door is locked dummy. I made my way to the back of the room, I planned to knit during the session. The room filled quickly with people and I was glad to have a seat with a table to spread out all of my stuff. There was about 10 minutes before the session started, it gave Chris and I a chance to talk a little more. Daniel then had people do introductions, you know the usual name, where are you from blah blah blah…when it was my turn I said, “My name is Ann I’m here to see Daniel and to knit”.
It really was a great session, I have to confess that I learned about a few new things, and it was fun to see a Twitter pal in a new light. (That does not mean that my constant harassment of the guy is going to end!) I noticed during the introductions a familiar name and stopped him. “Oh Mr. tw3nty3ight? I saw PreppyDude talking about me to you last night I’m AnnOhio. “
“AnnOhio! I have to take a picture for PreppyDude.” Acckkkk I iz on BrightKite! But it shows me knitting so the guy is ok in my book. (Sheesh BrightKite?)
The next session in the room was on viral marketing, I was comfortable and decided the topic sounded interesting, as did most of the other people at the unconference, we moved to a larger room which put the presenter 10 minutes behind. I could have actually stayed in this session for another hour, I have a feeling that the period after the presentation, the time for questions and responses would have been just as valuable as the session. Next up..LUNCH!
There were some challenges for lunch, but in no part due to the organizers of the event. The catering company forgot a few of the ingredients for the tacos. It might have also helped to make things go faster to pull the tables out from the wall and to let people go through the line on both sides, it was a narrow hallway that may have been a challenge. I honestly heard no one complaining at any point during the day. It was a well run event, and the organizers should be proud of what they accomplished.
Lunch, was my favorite part of the day–not because the food was amazing, it was sitting down and connecting with friends. Talking, laughing, sharing stories…and seeing the circle of people grow and grow. I made a few new friends–people who I added to my Twitter list with the caveat that if they weren’t adding to my life I was subtracting them. I saw people sitting off alone, laptops open, Twittering and doing a variety of online social media. Excuse me? You are in a room full of people, many, if not most with the same interests as you and you are ONLINE? I’ve been known to stick a cellphone down my shirt at tweet ups when people were tweeting, not even my bra is big enough to hold a laptop. :o) I had someone from the conference add me on Twitter–he said he did the add during lunch. I later teased him “Why didn’t you come find me at lunch and sit at the cool table and have a real conversation with me?”
After being entertained by Paull Young and Luke Armour I had to stay for their session about what not to do in social media. They made me giggle, and I would give them two thumbs up as my favorite session of the day.
Then..it happened…I attended a session at the very edges of geekiness, what I thought pod camps were all about. As more and more html code popped up on the screen I felt the energy, the very life leaving my body. I turned into pod camp zombie. The presenter was full of lots of helpful information, but it was clearly the wrong session choice for me. I hit the geek wall and crumbled to the bottom in a pile.
Yikes, it was time to escape and make my way back to my corner of the cornfields. I passed out a few hugs on my way out the door and headed home in the pouring rain. I saw several tweets from friends who went out to dinner and or drinking afterwards, and that made me wish I was still there.
A few things I would have done differently–I would have made hotel reservations and stayed in Columbus on Saturday night. In reality I didn’t even plan to be there at lunch time, I thought I would be long gone. I would have left the session that sucked the life out of me and just wandered the halls connecting with people. I’m used to going to conferences and feeling the need to attend as many sessions as possible.
All in all..a day much better than expected and a chance to connect with friends.
tw3nty3ight

Viral Marketing Talk by Jennifer Laycock at PodCampOhio

Chris Abraham — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:20:39 +0000

I have been trying to record some of the sessions at PodCampOhio but since my lovely Nokia N95 8GB isn’t working with 3G (thanks, AT&T 3G for breaking on me), I have been doing my best using Qik with EDGE, which sucks. The good news is that I was able to record quite a little bit of Jennifer Laycock‘s session on how to get your podcast to go viral and how to do online promotion and blogger outreach. Jennifer is a guru and an expert and I am damned glad to know her! The session below was called “Orchestrating a Viral Explosion.”

Unfortunately, I only recorded six-minutes of the session… From the session notes:

Everyone wants the benefits of a viral campaign, but few people really understand how to put the pieces together to create the best chance for success. Find out the most common mistakes companies make when aiming to go viral and how a little bit of brainstorming can set you up for success. Jennifer Laycock will walk you through the actual brainstorming process she uses with clients to help you gather information needed to put things together. She’ll also help you learn to identify “key influencers” within your industry and will offer concrete tips on the best way to approach them with your campaign.