Podcast Marketing | Podcast Submission | Podcast Syndication

iPhone Lockdown

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Apple has apparently stepped up its efforts to thwart the ubiquitous practice of iPhone jailbreaking. Indeed, Club Cupertino is currently seeking a security expert who would be tasked with leading a team dedicated to preserving the iPhones fragile integrity.

complete article

Update Your Apple TV Now To Avoid Losing Your Media

James Lewin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:57:45 +0000

Apple is warning that you should update your Apple TV asap to avoid losing your media:

There is an issue with Apple TV software version 3.0 that can possibly cause your content to disappear after a period of time. All customers running Apple TV software version 3.0 should immediately restart their Apple TV and then upgrade to Apple TV software version 3.0.1.

For either symptom, do the following:

1. Restart your Apple TV by unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in.
2. Select Settings > General from the main menu.
3. Select Update Software.
4. Select Download and Install when prompted.

Note: Your Apple TV will restart; this is followed by the Apple logo and a status bar.

According to Apple, the symptom of this problem is “You are using Apple TV software version 3.0 and all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be missing,”

via Tuaw

Stream Your iTunes Library To The Internet With Free Mac Orb App

James Lewin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:37:50 +0000

Orb Networks today announced the availability of Orb for Macintosh, a free application that lets you stream your iTunes library over the Internet.

Orb lets anything from iTunes be accessed on any internet-connected device, without downloading titles beforehand or uploading anything to the cloud.

The free Orb application and service enable the streaming of any media type from computers running Windows or the Mac OS to any other internet-connected device including laptops, mobile phones, and even TVs connected to a game console. Users can enjoy all their music, photos, video and webcams anywhere, anytime, without first having to download content before they leave the house, or upload anything to the cloud. All media stays on the computer and is streamed directly to the remote device.

“Orb users are a wildly passionate bunch. They let us know – how do I say this gently – ‘frequently’ about their desire for what they described as the best media application running on the best media computer,” said Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks.

Download here.

Details

Orb for Mac runs on any Mac with OS X 10.5 or later. It can stream music, photos, videos, home movies, and webcam feeds stored in iTunes, on the computer, or any connected device (support for live TV, via a connected tuner card, will be included in subsequent versions).

On-the-go access to this media requires only a browser, streaming media player, and an internet connection, so every laptop or netbook, virtually any recent generation mobile phone, and many other devices like media players, game consoles, and tablet-type computers can play content from the Mac. No other hardware, software or subscription fees are necessary.

via engadget

Is This Taking Citizen Media Too Far? Woman Plans To Stream Childbirth On Internet

James Lewin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:39:01 +0000

A 23-year old Minnesota teacher has announced plans to stream the birth of her first child over the Internet to anyone that wants to watch.

“We wanted to share this experience,” Lynsee said about the decision she made with her husband Anders. “If I were in a classroom, I’d be teaching about development. It was a way for me to teach… A way for me to use myself as a textbook.”

When she gives birth, a cameraman will be in the hospital room with Lynsee, her husband, her mother and her midwife. A second camera will be mounted in the corner. There will not be any graphic shots from the midwife’s perspective.

She also plans to live chat with members of the site momslikeme during her delivery.

People are videoing and sharing everything nowadays – but the idea of turning childbirth into a social networking opportunity seems a bit much to me.

What do you think? Do your Facebook “friends” belong in the delivery room?

This Week In Audio Books -11-06-09

Alex Nesbitt — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:44:28 +0000

This Week in Audio Books – This Week’s Best Sellers

Subscribe to the podcast – http://feeds.feedburner.com/BestSellingAudioBooks

1. The Gathering Storm: Book Twelve of the Wheel of Time (Unabridged)

Summary: Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle, looms. And mankind is not ready.The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light , was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times best-selling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan’s editor – his wife, Harriet McDougal – to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so Tor proudly presents The Gath…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Gathering Storm: Book Twelve of the Wheel of Time (Unabridged) audiobook…

2. The Copper Bracelet (Unabridged)

Summary: LIMITED-TIME OFFER: The Copper Bracelet is on sale for only $9.95 till November 24, 2009. A peaceful picnic in the French countryside explodes in violence. A mysterious assassin hisses a deadly threat. And events are set in motion that could propel India and Pakistan down the road to nuclear confrontation. Two years after the events of the Audiobook of the Year – The Chopin Manuscript – former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton and his Volunteers once again must crack a secreti…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Copper Bracelet (Unabridged) audiobook…

3. True Blue (Unabridged)

Summary: A mysterious high-profile homicide in the nation’s capital collides with the dark side of national security in David Baldacci’s new, heart-stopping thriller. Mason “Mace” Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything – her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she’s back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major …

Click to hear an audio sample of True Blue (Unabridged) audiobook…

4. The Lost Symbol (Unabridged)

Summary: The Lost Symbol is Dan Brown’s follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown’s writing shows us why he is the one of the world’s most popular author of thrillers. Just like the Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol is thrilling race to find the secret. Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon is once again needed to meet the challenge. He must search the hidden codes, unravel the secrets while avoiding the bad guys.

Set within the underground of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol races through a t…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Lost Symbol (Unabridged) audiobook…

5. Nine Dragons: Harry Bosch, Book 15 (Unabridged)

Summary: LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life. Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store’s owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li’s family that he’ll find the killer. The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation–not just of languages but also of the cul…

Click to hear an audio sample of Nine Dragons: Harry Bosch, Book 15 (Unabridged) audiobook…

6. SuperFreakonomics (Unabridged)

Summary: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies in 35 languages and changing the way we look at the world. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with Superfreakonomics , and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we…

Click to hear an audio sample of SuperFreakonomics (Unabridged) audiobook…

7. The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller (Unabridged)

Summary: 15 thriller masters. 1 masterful thriller. Former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a previously unknown score by Frederic Chopin. But he is unaware that, locked within its handwritten notes, lies a secret that now threatens the lives of thousands of Americans. As he races from Poland to America to uncover the mystery of the manuscript, Middleton will be accused of murder, pursued by federal agents, and targeted by assassins. But the greatest threat will come from a shadowy f…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller (Unabridged) audiobook…

8. Pursuit of Honor: Mitch Rapp Series (Unabridged)

Summary: The action begins six days after a series of explosions devastated Washington, D.C., targeting the National Counterterrorism Center and killing 185 people, including public officials and CIA employees. It was a bizarre act of extreme violence that called for extreme measures on the part of elite counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp and his trusted team member, Mike Nash. Now that the initial shock of the catastrophe is over, key Washington officials are up in arms over whether to make friend…

Click to hear an audio sample of Pursuit of Honor: Mitch Rapp Series (Unabridged) audiobook…

9. Kindred in Death: In Death, Book 29 (Unabridged)

Summary: In this novel from number-one New York Times -best-selling author J. D. Robb, the newly promoted captain of the NYPSD and his wife return a day early from their vacation, looking forward to spending time with their bright and vivacious 16-year-old daughter, who stayed behind. Not even their worst nightmares could have prepared them for the crime scene that awaits them inside. Deena has been brutally murdered in her bedroom, and her body shows signs of trauma that horrify even the toughest of…

Click to hear an audio sample of Kindred in Death: In Death, Book 29 (Unabridged) audiobook…

10. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (Unabridged)

Summary: Over the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has become the most gifted and influential journalist in America. In The New Yorker, his writings are such must-reads that the magazine charges advertisers significantly more money for ads that run within his articles. With his #1 best sellers, The Tipping Point , Blink and Outliers , he has reached millions of readers. And now the very best and most famous of his New Yorker pieces are collected in a brilliant and provocative anthology. Among th…

Click to hear an audio sample of What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (Unabridged) audiobook…

11. The Scarpetta Factor (Unabridged)

Summary: It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta – despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN – to offer her services pro bono to New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Scarpetta Factor (Unabridged) audiobook…

12. An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Unabridged)

Summary: Diana Gabaldon’s immensely popular Outlander saga soars to new heights with this seventh novel, which takes listeners on a breathtaking journey to 1777 America. Jamie Fraser knows from his time-traveling wife Claire that, no matter how unlikely it seems, America will win the Revolutionary War. But that truth offers little solace, since Jamie realizes he might find himself pointing a weapon directly at his own son – a young officer in the British army. And Jamie isn’t the only one with a torme…

Click to hear an audio sample of An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Unabridged) audiobook…

13. The Help (Unabridged)

Summary: Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid, Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman rai…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Help (Unabridged) audiobook…

14. House of Night: Tempted (Unabridged)

Summary: So…you’d think after banishing an immortal being and a fallen High Priestess, saving Stark’s life, biting Heath, getting a headache from Erik, and almost dying, Zoey Redbird would catch a break. Sadly, a break is not in the House of Night school forecast for the High Priestess in training and her gang. Juggling three guys is anything but a stress reliever, especially when one of them is a sexy Warrior who is so into protecting Zoey that he can sense her emotions. Speaking of stress, the dar…

Click to hear an audio sample of House of Night: Tempted (Unabridged) audiobook…

15. Grave Secret: Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 4 (Unabridged)

Summary: Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as sisters. But, as always happens when they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface. To make matters worse, Tolliver learns from his older brother that their father is out of jail and trying to reestablish contact with other family members. Tolliver wants no part of the man- but he may not have a choice in the mat…

Click to hear an audio sample of Grave Secret: Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 4 (Unabridged) audiobook…

16. Bed of Roses: The Bride Quartet, Book 2 (Unabridged)

Summary: Since she was a little girl, Emma Grant has always loved romance. So it’s really no surprise that she has found her calling as a wedding florist at Vows. She gets to play with flowers every day and work with her three best friends in the process. She couldn’t ask for a better job…. And on the surface, Emma’s love life seems to be thriving. Slim and sultry, she brings color into every room she enters, just like the arrangements she creates. Though men swarm around her, she still hasn’t found…

Click to hear an audio sample of Bed of Roses: The Bride Quartet, Book 2 (Unabridged) audiobook…

17. The Girl Who Played with Fire (Unabridged)

Summary: The electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (”An intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing thriller” The Washington Post ), and this time it is Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, who is the focus and fierce heart of the story. Mikael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium , has decided to publish a story exposing an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Girl Who Played with Fire (Unabridged) audiobook…

18. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Unabridged)

Summary: In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time. In 1859 Charles Darwin’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species , shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would have raised an incredulous…

Click to hear an audio sample of The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Unabridged) audiobook…

19. Heat Wave (Unabridged)

Summary: Best-selling romance author Jill Marie Landis writes from the heart. Her sexy, warm, compelling novels resonate with readers long after their conclusions. In Heat Wave , California P.I. Kat Vargas has promised herself to steer clear of intimacy ever since her dream life with her first love and fiance came to a tragic end. One day, an attractive man named Ty Chandler walks into Kat’s office desperate to find the child he gave up years ago. So begins a passionate love story of the mending of t…

Click to hear an audio sample of Heat Wave (Unabridged) audiobook…

20. Evidence: An Alex Delaware Novel (Unabridged)

Summary: Number-one New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Kellerman writes unforgettable tales of crime and detection that expose the shadowy side of glittering Los Angeles. And in Evidence , listeners are once again in the dexterous grip of a master storyteller and stylist equally skilled at teasing your brain and taking your breath away. In the half-built skeleton of a monstrously vulgar mansion in one of L.A.’s toniest neighborhoods, a watchman stumbles on the bodies of a young couple – mu…

Click to hear an audio sample of Evidence: An Alex Delaware Novel (Unabridged) audiobook…

Find more best selling audio books at Castlibrary.com

Subscribe to the podcast – http://feeds.feedburner.com/BestSellingAudioBooks

Technorati CEO Talks State of the Blogosphere

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:00:45 +0000

Update 2: Here is our exlcusive interview with Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra from the BlogWorld Expo this past weekend:

Update: The State of the Blogosphere report is now availalbe here.

Original Article: Technorati's 2009 State of the Blogosphere report is due to come out Monday, but attendees at the BlogWorld Expo (including WebProNews) got a preview from Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra.

First and foremost, Jalichandra says the "State of the Blogosphere is strong." Some have suggested that it might be dying due to microblogging services like Twitter, but he says it's not dying or leveling off. It's thriving. "Blogs are media," he says.

The report is based on a survey of 2,900 bloggers and includes interviews with blogging pros like Steve Rubel and Arianna Huffington. Here are some key findings:

- 72% blog for hobby/fun and don't make money
- 28% are professional bloggers
- 2/3 of professional bloggers are male
- 60% are 18-44
- 40% of professional bloggers have at some point in their life worked for traditional media
- 7% are actually still employed in traditional media
- 73% of bloggers use Twitter vs 14% of general population

That last statistic is particularly interesting. Chitika just released results from a study finding that most Twitterers are looking for news.

Jalichandra says, "There's a rising profession of professional bloggers" and that traditional media has given bloggers a bad name.

"These findings prove that wrong." He says that all bloggers' number one use of Twitter is to promote their blogs. Famed blogger Robert Scoble said from the audience, that they use Twitter "to pimp their blogs." Either way, the main reasons deal with helping their blogging business.

According to Jalichandra, 24-32% of professional bloggers blog over ten hours a week, and they invest seven times more money in their blogs. The top 500 authority bloggers generate almost 300 times more posts, and the top 5,000 generate 100 times more.

63% of bloggers in general say that they have become more involved with what they are passionate about as result of blogs and only 6% say relationships with friends or family are suffering.

Pros monetize their blogs via:

- display ads - 40% (up from 28% last year)
- Search ads - 39%
- Affiliate links - 36%
- Paid postings - 8%

According to the report, self-employed bloggers are most likely to sell their inventory through a blog ad network and use affiliate links. 70% of all bloggers blog about brands.

Technorati itself just launched a big redesign. You can read more about here.

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report from BlogWorld.

What Is Podcasting Video Tutorial

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

What Is Podcasting? Video tutorial that explains the ins and outs of podcasting.

FTC Guidelines Raise Big Blogging Questions

Chris Crum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:25:04 +0000

Update 2: Now Cleland says, "If people think that the FTC is going to issue them a citation for $11,000 because they failed to disclose that they got a free box of Pampers, that's not true. That's not going to happen today, not ever." (via)

Update: The FTC is now saying that the $11,000 fine is not accurate, at least for the first violation. Fast company got some responses from Richard Cleland, assistant director, division of advertising practices at the FTC, who says:

“That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law. To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?” [empahsis added]

Cleland addresses more of the concerns here.

Original Article: The Federal Trade Commission has released its revised guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The revisions include a focus on "bloggers" and social media users, requiring them to properly disclose when they have received payment in the form of either money or product from a company or organization and produce content regarding said company or organization. The word is that bloggers can be fined up to $11,000 per post for not disclosing.

Have you ever mentioned a free product you received online and not disclosed it? Comment here.

The reasoning behind the guidelines seems noble enough - provide transparency and keep consumers safe from hokey information. However, the concept of the government dictating how this happens does not sit well with a lot of people. The revisions (which can be found in this 81 page document [pdf], should you care to peruse them [they start around page 55]) have ruffled quite a few feathers and the conversation has become one about free speech.

Well-known author/editor/publisher Jeff Jarvis makes a really good point. He says the FTC assumes that the Internet is a medium. "It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking," he says. "So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media – as they explicitly do – is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed."

It's not hard to find echoes of Jarvis's sentiment all over the web. Although, I don't believe I've seen it as eloquently put as with the Denny's analogy. Still, not everyone sees the FTC regulations as a bad thing. In fact, Google's Matt Cutts stepped into the conversation with Jeff Jarvis, expressing a bit more enthusiasm for the guidelines.

"As a Google engineer who has seen the damage done by fake blogs, sock puppets, and endless scams on the internet, I’m happy to take the opposite position: I think the FTC guidelines will make the web more useful and more trustworthy for consumers," he says. "Consumers don’t want to be shilled and they don’t want payola; they want a web that they can trust. The FTC guidelines just say that material connections should be disclosed. From having dealt with these issues over several years, I believe that will be a good thing for the web."

Commenters essentially tell Matt the whole thing would smell a lot better if he were the one regulating it. The reasoning for this is that Matt is involved with the industry. He is not a government worker that has been one his whole life. He's been in the field. He knows the score. The argument coming from most of the opposition is not about the fundamental principle of making content more trustworthy for consumers. At the root of it, it appears that people are much more concerned about a government body of regulators who aren't necessarily involved with online content production telling them how it is, when there are many, many questions about what falls under the criteria.

A number of these questions are nicely placed in an "open letter to the FTC" from Ron Hogan at MediaBistro's GalleyCat. Here are a few of them:

- If an unpaid blogger at the Huffington Post "endorses" a consumer product without meeting the FTC guidelines for disclosure of "material connections" to the makers of that consumer product, who's liable: the blogger or the Huffington Post?

- If a blogger prints out a series of blog posts and distributes those printed copies, is he now the publisher of a newspaper or magazine? If so, the Village Voice is distributed for free, so can a blogger/publisher distribute his newspaper or magazine for free, too?

- What if a blogger confines herself to stating demonstrably proven facts about a book, its author, its contents, and the matter of its publication? Does the FTC consider that an endorsement? What if she confines herself to stating such facts and includes links to an ecommerce site? Has her writing somehow been transformed from a statement of fact to an endorsement?

There are plenty more where that came from. The list goes on. You can probably think of a few yourself. It may be hard for the guidelines to be enforced. The FTC does acknowledge that its guidelines aren't exactly the law themselves. The FTC says:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

It should also be noted that the rules presumably apply to publications beyond bloggers and social media users, but for some reason it appears that "bloggers" are the ones with whom the FTC had on its collective mind when drafting these guidelines. You have to wonder if they are able to come up with a definition for "blogging" (others have had trouble in the past. Even those directly involved in the online content industry). The rules are scheduled to take effect on December 1st.

What questions do you have about the FTC's guidelines? Share them here.

Podcast Submission

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Large list of sites that you can submit your podcast to.

MNM 09 | Permission-Based Marketing: Turning Visitors into Followers that Buy

jason@PodcastingUnderground.com (Jason Van Orden) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:36:15 +0000

To turn prospects into followers and fans that buy you have to build a relationship over time. This is done by maintaining their attention with regular interactions. To do this you first have to get their permission.

The goal is to build an audience of people that anticipate getting your content. In this episode, we discuss how to get your prospects to subscribe to and follow you through various new media channels.

Download the MP3

Items Mentioned in This Episode

Aweber: My recommended email list management service
Gist: Interesting tool that I’m trying out for managing the inbox and social connections online
FBML Application: Use this to post an opt-in box to your Facebook Fan Page

Take Action

Make sure that you always ask for permission (subscription or opt-in) on your site and in your content
If you have not done so already, start building e-mail list now
- Sign up for Aweber
- Place an opt-in form in the sidebar of your site
Create an incentive and a compelling offer to get site visitors to sign up for your e-mail list
Add one more permission channel to your current marketing mix (e.g. Twitter, YouTube Channel, Facebook)

What Do You Think?

What’s one thing you are already doing well to get permission from your site and content visitors?
One is one thing that you will do in the next week to do better at asking for permission from your visitors?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.