July 14, 2005
Will Corporate Podcasts Push Aside the "Independents"?
From USA Today: "Podcasting goes from indie to mainstream overnight," by Michelle Kessler--
Customers signed up for more than a million free podcast subscriptions in just two days when iTunes started featuring them last month. That includes independent podcasts, such as The Dawn and Drew Show. But the soaring popularity of mainstream podcasts on iTunes may make it tough for indies to find an audience — and profitability.
Corporate podcasts include shows by Disney, Bravo, NBC, ABC, ESPN, and CNN, all available at iTunes.
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 09:08 AM
June 27, 2005
So It Was All About Cool Gadgets?
Here's the Associated Press lead about the Grokster decision:
Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod.It seems to me that there might have been a little bit more at stake. For better coverage, I recommend Tech Law Advisor.
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2005
Podcasting Defended
Shel Holtz, writing for webpronews.com, has penned a point-by-point response to Darren Barefoot's weblog post, "Why I'm Not Smoking the Podcasting Dope."
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 07:42 AM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2005
BlawgCast Issues
If you do not want your podcast aggregated in the BlawgCast feed, please email me.
Why is this a cause of concern? It's certainly not of copyright concern, but Denise Howell indicates (not seriously I hope) that it may rise to the tort of feed interference and that there have already (?) been complaints.
[Editorial: Well, it would have to rise to a new tort, because you simply would not have a claim for copyright infringement, deep linking etc. Consider this: if creating such a feed is "illegal", then so must be the following: technorati tags, del.icio.us, link blogs, feedburner smartcast technology.... someone tell me I'm wrong.]
You can access Denise's most recent podcast discussing this extremely interesting issue by venturing here or subscribing here.
Notes: the feedburner feed seems to be operational again for anyone concerned.
Denise there are approximately 37 subscribers to the "blawgcast all in one feed." Also, feedburner does not interfere with your ability to see your podcast download stats.
Posted by Kevin J. Heller at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)
Are You Smoking the Podcasting Dope?
Both Kevin and I readily admit to being podcasting boosters. But there are plenty of naysayers. One of them is Darren Barefoot, whose thought-provoking post "Why I'm Not Smoking the Podcasting Dope" is a must-read for anyone interested in the podcasting phenomenon. Check it out.
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 02:06 AM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2005
Do You Believe These Numbers? 6 Million People Have Downloaded Podcasts
From Reuters via Yahoo! News: "Podcasts Catching on with iPod Owners":
Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults who own MP3 players like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod say they have downloaded podcast programs from the Internet, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.6 million: that's a lot of people smoking the podcasting dope.That means more than 6 million people are listening to a form of communication that emerged only last year, according to the nonprofit group.
Related: Pew Reports: Podcasting catches on [pdf]
Update (4/13/05): Forrester: 12.3 million Will Be Listening to Podcasts by 2010
Steve Rubel: "According to a new report from Forrester, 12.3 million U.S. households will use their portable music players to listen to audio podcasts by the end of the decade as MP3 adoption climbs and broadband reaches 62 percent of households."
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
Are your rss feeds safe with feedburner?
Eric Lunt of Feedburner reassures users that their rss feeds are in safe hands in response to Rogers Cadenhead asking how a weblogger could hand over their most loyal readers to a third party:
I'm sure many publishers are reluctant to offload the feed management to us until they can be assured they will continue to have total control over the URL no matter what happens to FeedBurner. A few more things I just want to say:I've been wondering myself why I'm willing to do it, but that makes me feel a little better.1. We never do anything to your feed that the publisher did not elect to do. If you ever see an ad, for example, in a feed managed by FeedBurner, then that's because the publisher wanted it there and is deriving revenue from it.I totally understand your concerns, and we're doing everything we can to offer features to publishers in as seamless a manner as possible. As soon as we add the ability to redirect off of a FeedBurner feed, I hope we'll have addressed your issues.
2. Everything that's free today will be free in the future. We are planning on offering additional premium paid services in the near future.
3. We're not going out of business anytime soon. I can't elaborate on this right now, but you'll have to trust me on that one. (smile)
Thanks!
Eric Lunt
More: FeedBurner Fully Financed For Future Feed Formatting Fun:
We are well funded by investors who share our vision for the company, and this will enable us to provide a more thorough suite of publisher services. Our existing free services will remain free. There will be new free services, expansions of existing free services, new premium services, the same dedication to customer support we've provided since day one, and hopefully, an office that my daughter can walk into without saying "is this it?"news services including Total Stats Pro, a premium version of their free statistics service, for people who need to know about who's subscribing to theri podcasts.
Posted by Kevin J. Heller at 06:14 AM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2005
David Giacalone, podriah
Excerpted from podriahs -- blissfully outside the pod-caste system:
Cluttering weblogs with podcasting links, posts, and references -- and taking away from the content and quality of weblogs by spending time instead producing podcasts -- is unlikely to make weblogs appear useful and attractive to those outside the podcaste.The beauty in BlawgCast.com, for myself and Evan, is that our blogs will not become distracted with news and utterances from the "new technology"; rather we have created a seperate outlet where those interested in legal podcasting can aggregate. And we're not giving up our day-blawgs either.
As Evan so eloquently puts it:
Perhaps my cheerleading makes you ill. If so, you'll be happy to learn that this is the last time I'll promote podcasting on this weblog. Why's that? Because as of this week, I've become a co-host at Kevin Heller's BlawgCast.com, a weblog designed to bring you news about all the developments in law-related podcasting.Also, I strongly believe that there's an audience for podcasting because I myself enjoy it. If you are lucky to have a 15 minute commute, then maybe it's not right for you. But I spend 4 to 5 hours on the bus getting back and forth to Wall Street and I can only listen to Stern or the music on my iPod for so long.
But David, I certainly enjoyed reading your thoughts on the subject and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
update: David's inital post has created a landslide of commentary and discussion amongst the lawyers cited in his post. Anyway, JurisPundit rounds em up: Technology is bad mmmkay...
Posted by Kevin J. Heller at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)