Podcasts

Have you ever had one of those incidents where you look in the mirror one morning and suddenly realize that you’re a bit fat? I’ve had a few of those. It just sneaks up on you, it’s not something you notice on a day to day basis. In a similar way I’m beginning to think that something like that is happening to podcasting. I woke up one morning and realised it was fat.

You might have read my previous post about the idea of running a podcast forever, but I’m a lot more wound up by stuff than that.

To begin with I’d like to adress the issue of video shows. They’re very hard to do you know. In all my years of podcasting I’ve never attempted it because of the time and resources necessary to produce a weekly video show forever. Since it was decided to no longer live by this ongoing torment method of production we can start to look at the viability of video content again. For starters it’s a lot easier to make a series than it is to make a long running show. If we were to make six episodes of something we could put much more effort in to those six episodes. But now lets not stop there. We’re breaking the rules remember? How about we mix video and audio together. That’s right, I’m talking about having a show that has video and audio episodes. I know you’re just supposed to pick one format and go with it but hey, I don’t care.

Everything must be free forever. Sorry but I’m not really up for that. There are two ways you can make money in this business. You can sell advertising to businesses, or you can sell content to consumers. I really truly believe that people are happy to pay for content as long as they know they are getting value for money. That value can come in many forms. It could be the number of episodes of a show that you get for your pound. It could also be the effort that has gone in to creating something. Really what I’m saying is that as long as people aren’t having the piss taken out of them (Pirates 4) then you can sell content to happy people. I like happy people. Traditionally podcasts are all available forever. That doesn’t really work if you want to sell content. However it’s important to have your work out there so people can start to enjoy it. I’ve found that getting the balance between what’s free and what isn’t is very important. Take Movies You Should See as an example. On our RSS feed the last 25 episodes are always there, so the first time you listen you’ve already got just short of 25 hours of content available to you. On top of that you can subscribe to the feed and get every episode that comes out from that day on for free. What you don’t realise is that we’re really tempting you. We know that one day you’re going to want to listen to a new episode of the show and there won’t be one available. Then you’ll find your way into the store and buy a Year 1 box set, 44 episodes at £9.99 and be very happy with it. At least we’ve had no complaints so far.

So far then we’re eliminating long running shows, shows that are one of either audio or video, and committing to reasonably priced content with most of it being free. Not bad. All of this makes you realise something. The new media company of 2010 is nothing like the new media company of 2005. I feel like things are moving on and it’s time to move along with it. Let’s talk apps.

Without noticing it we’re suddenly living in a world of apps. I think it’s about time we had an iPhone/iPad/Android app. We’ve got all these great little mobile devices and no easy way to get Simply Syndicated content onto them when you’re out and about. That’s certainly something we could achieve with an app. Apps for the forum would be awesome too.

This is all still in idea form, but I think it’s time for a reboot of serious podcasting. That’s what I mean when I say podcasting is dead. It is to us, because it’s not enough any more. There will always be podcasting in some form or other, but I think the gap between professional and amateur is going to really open up.

If you read my last post you’ll have realised that I’m on the lookout for new things to go in our store. Whilst thinking about it I realised that there are loads of great episodes of shows that aren’t available on our rss feeds any more. They would go great in the store and people would get the chance to hear some quality content that is otherwise unavailable.

As always, Your with the conent we sell, I like to make it at a higher quality than it was when we offered it for free. Traditionally that means raising the bit rate of the mp3 file that you download. The first two years of Movies You Should See was sold at a bitrate of 328kbps, which was far too high. Then year there came out at a bit rate of 256kbps, which I think is still too high, but it’s the same as a music track that you’d get from iTunes.

It’s important to remember that all our content is spoken word rather than music so it doesn’t need to be as high a bit rate. Because of this we’ve been selling SHaFT at 128kbps. In the six months we’ve been selling it has never been a single complaint about the quality of the audio.

When I put lots of new content in the store over the next few days I intend to have it at the same rate of compression as SHaFT, as I think it provides a compromise between sounds quality and file size that offers good value for money.

I’d love to know what you all think about this issue. Is the compression rate of SHaFT acceptable? Do you even care? It might just be me that gets obsessed about this sort of thing.