Podcast NYC - Front Page Podcast

Podcast NYC: New York City Podcast Community

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:33:04 PST

After all this time I decide to hop on my soap box and attempt to drum up support for the New York City Podcast Community over at http://community.podcastnyc.net. It's about time that we had a place online where podcast producers, consumers and artists can connect, learn and share information. Register today, join the map and let's build a world of podcasting from the ground up.

Podcast NYC: Portable Media Expo Recap

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 15:56:22 PST

Better late then never folks! Here's a recap of the Portable Media and Podcast Expo featuring several audio clips that I recorded over my four days in California. I talk about my experiences at the expo, my thoughts on the sessions, people I met, etc. Look for the video podcast soon.

Tags: Portable Media Expo, Podcast Expo

Podcast NYC: Podcast Expo Session on Premature Monetization

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:46:25 PST

This is a podcast of a session titled How To Avoid The Frustration of Premature Monetization from the recent Portable Media and Podcast Expo. The speaker is Curt Franklin, co-author of Absolute Beginner's Guide to Podcasting. The sound could definitely better, but once again I think the message still comes across pretty well. Enjoy!

Tags: Portable Media Expo, Podcast Expo

Podcast NYC: Music Licensing Session

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 07:21:59 PST

Another sweet bit of audio from the Portable Media and Podcast Expo. I snagged a seat in the very crowded music licensing session to get the skinny on music and podcasting. There's a bit of noise since I was holding the recorder and space was tight. Some of the questions are too low as well. Still, you'll get the gist of the session, which got very animated with debate at moments. That's Frank from The Overnightscape causing a stir over fair use. Go get 'em Frank!

Originally published at PodCrawl.

Podcast NYC: Leo Laporte Keynote Address

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:31:48 PST

I originally posted this one over at PodCrawl. It's an audio of the opening keynote address of the Portable Media and Podcast Expo delivered by This Week In Tech podcaster (among other things) Leo Laporte. Enjoy folks!

Podcast NYC: Portable Media Expo Dispatch

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 07:48:10 PST

I originally posted this one over at PodCrawl.

Hey podcrawlers. Rob from PodcastNYC.net here with an audio dispatch from the Portable Media and Podcast Expo in Ontario, California. Just some info on the pre expo festivities and a live clip from the pre-show concert that featured Chance and Brother Love. Enjoy!

Podcast NYC: Geek Dinner Alert

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:32:57 PDT

Big news this week in podcasting with Google and Yahoo jumping into the fray with podcasting and RSS related services. Plus, a Geek Dinner happening this coming Sunday in NYC. I'll be going to the Portable Media and Podcast Expo on behalf of the Boomer Esiason Foundation and filing a report or two for Hilary over at PodCrawl.

Podcast NYC: Confession Of A Podcaster

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 21:31:10 PDT

It's been way too long since the last FP Podcast. What can I say? I've been busy with other podcast stuff and who needs to hear me ramble on podcasting on a weekly basis anyway?

I regain my footing by talking about a couple of things that I don't think work really well in podcasting. I move on to talk about more developments in the podcasting world like enhanced features in Odeo and Big Contact. And of course the big dollars received by PodShow.

Where is podcasting going? The popularity of PSAs related to Hurricane Katrina relief, along with the adoption of podcasting by some obvious and not so obvious sources tell us that if podcasting is in it's 15th minute of fame, it's going to be a very long minute.

What about money? It's flowing to some of the big boys and it can certainly flow to the little guys. No one pooh poohs the few hundred a month that someone can make from an AdSense or AdBrite program so why not apply that to podcasting. If you create a quality product and develop a listener base then someone will want to reach that listener base. You may not be able to quit your day job, but you might just cover all of your server costs and have enough left over for a nice vacation or more if you manage your money correctly.

Podcast NYC: The State of Podcasting

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:13:30 PDT

A very long recording about the state of podcasting. I recorded this while driving up to Massachusetts yesterday morning. I talk about the general state of podcasting and provide a review of some of the current podcasting tools. I also talk about my thoughts on RSS. I believe that RSS will eventually disappear into the background as software companies develop smarter applications that support RSS.

Podcast NYC: Commercial Podcasting

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 07:33:42 PDT

A rambling post with thoughts on the word "podcasting," podcasting business models and the commercialization of content syndicated over the internet.

Mentioned on the show: Odeo, iTunes, Gnomedex, Mark Cuban Weblog, Feedburner, The Podcast Network, Hacking Netflix, Our Media, Audioblog, LibSyn.

Podcast NYC: Odeo Overview - Part I

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 11:45:59 PDT

It's a first look at the forthcoming podcast management website Odeo. That's pronounced like rodeo. Odeo's tag line is Listen, Sync, Create. I've been beta testing for a few days now and I give you my thoughts on the Listen and Sync portions of the sites services. I'll talk about the features that matter for podcast producers in part II to be published very soon.

You can check out screen shots and another review courtesy of Jared Hansen over at his Backdrifter.com blog. Thanks to Jared for taking the time to pull that together.

Also, I've announced my participation as a member of the NYC Pod Squad. Find out more about it at http://nycpodsquad.blogspot.com.

Podcast NYC: Odeo Overview - Part II

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:07:15 PDT

Part II of my Odeo overview. This time I focus on what's available for producers at this time. In short, there's not much available since you need to request special access to the "create" portion of the site. There are some features that you should know about though, including how to make sure your feeds are included in Odeo, how to get them into Odeo and what to do with them once your podcast feeds are present. I also talk about the plans that Odeo has for recording functionality within the system.

Podcast NYC: Musicians and Podcasting Part III

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Tue, 31 May 2005 15:11:42 PDT

This is the final installment of the special Musicians and Podcasting series. I discuss marketing your podcasts to the right audience in order to make the proper impact. You should utilize your current fan email lists to get the word out to your local community. Let other podcasters get the word out to the larger podcasting community. Send sample tracks and promos and let others get the word out for you. Try sending your stuff to: Daily Source Code, Association of Music Podcasting and of course here at Podcast NYC. Do your best, have fun, get the word out and you can't lose!

Feel free to email me with any questions at MediaMaster[at]PodcastNYC.net.

Happy Podcasting!

Podcast NYC: Musicians and Podcasting Part II

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sun, 29 May 2005 05:06:22 PDT

This is part two of (what will now be) a three part series encouraging musicians to start their own podcasts. Part I covered the many reasons why musicians should be involved in podcasting as a 21st century music promotion tool. Part II covers podcast content and the steps to take to get a podcast started. Part III will focus on musicians creating awareness and gaining listeners for their podcasts. The run time on this podcast is 41:39.

A musician's podcast can include a variety of content in order to make fans feel more connected to the musician or group. This content may include a combination of:

Music - rough demo tracks, alternate mixes, throw away tracks that didn't make the album or lower bit rate versions of album tracks
Artist News - a personal audio weblog, coming events or a view into the creative process
Experiences - live music recordings from shows, audio blog recordings just before or just after being onstage, audio recap of live shows or recording sessions

Musicians can use a variety of tools to record/edit their podcast content as necessary, including:

Portable Recording -iRiver H320, iRiver iFP-799 and others
Production / Editing - Audacity, Garage Band, Magix Music Studio, BlogMatrix Sparks and others
ID3 Tagging and Conversion - dB Power Amp, ID3 Tag It, iTunes, Windows Media Player and others

A number of free or low cost services are available to facilitate the creation of blogs and RSS feeds for podcast content, including:

Blog / RSS Feed Creation - Blogger, TypePad, Big Contact and others
RSS Feed Management- FeedBurner
Podcast Recording / Publishing - Audioblog, Slapcast
File Hosting / Blog / Podcast Publishing - LibSyn, Blog Matrix, Garage Band Podcast Studio and others

Part III coming very soon. Feel free to send comments or questions to MediaMaster@podcastnyc.net.

Podcast NYC: Musicians and Podcasting Part I

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sat, 28 May 2005 05:50:41 PDT

This is a special podcast where I talk to directly to musicians about the importance of musicians utilizing podcasting for their benefit. The podcast will be separated into two parts. Part I (this podcast) explains why it's important for musicians to get involved and start their own podcasts. I talk about my experiences as a young musician over a decade ago. I talk about the opportunities provided by this new technology, and I also give a frank speech about the economics of the music industry. Run time on the podcast is 28:26.

Samantha Murphy's Podcast: Link
Courtney Love Article: Link
Steve Albini Article: Link

In Part II I will talk about how musicians can utilize podcasting (and associated technologies) to their benefit. I will follow that with a step by step explanation of how a musician can easily get their podcasts published to the internet. I will conclude with a short discussion on how to get the word out about the podcast to current fans and other podcasters.

My hope is that after listening to these podcasts, musicians will:

Have a better understanding of the importance of podcasting as it relates to their careers.
Understand how they can use podcasting to their benefit.
Have the knowledge to be able to start an artist promotion podcast right away.
Understand how to create awareness for their podcast withing their existing fan base and the podcasting community.

Comments are welcome here on the web page and at mediamaster@podcastnyc.net.

Podcast NYC: The Business of Podcasting

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Thu, 19 May 2005 05:48:20 PDT

I'm back after a bit of a hiatus. Lots of content creation happening on the other channels and other life related stuff as well. I also wanted to collect my thoughts for this posting. The end result is not exactly how I wanted it. But what is ever exactly what we want it to be? In any case, I'm speaking on the business of podcasting. Here are the main points that I make:

People need to stop asking the question, "How can I make money from Podcasting?", and start asking the question, "How can I add value?"
Podcasting is not a business in itself. Podcasting is a new method of distribution.
Three of the main businesses related to this new method of distribution are:

Content Creation/Distribution
Enabling Services (i.e. AudioBlog.com, LibSyn, SlapCast)
Ancillary Services (i.e. Feedburner, PodScope)

A fourth business type revolves around providing the above mentioned business types as services to corporations, small businesses and artists.
The rules of doing business haven't changed. You still have to understand the different pieces of the puzzle. You also have to understand how these things can help a particular business. Finally, you need to be able to sell your ideas and then deliver!
The tools we use to to business have changed and they should be used accordingly.
Content creators/producers/distributors can make money from what they do provided they take the time to understand the business and create valuable content.
Don't protect your main content because you'll end up chasing your tail and reducing the size of your audience.
Find ways to add value.
Advertising needs to be relevant to the audience or it takes away from the experience. Remember that the audience is worldwide.

Comments on this post are greatly appreciated. Also, I've added a "Super Feed" that splices together all seven Podcast NYC channels into one RSS feed. You can now subscribe once and get all of my content. Go here to get the link for the feed.

Happy podcasting!

Podcast NYC: Geek Dinner Podcast

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sat, 07 May 2005 07:13:44 PDT

I attended the geek dinner last Monday night at Grand Central Station and had a wonderful time meeting and talking shop with some very influential bloggers/podcasters/content syndicators. I also put a new Griffin Lapel Mic through it's paces and did some recording. I picked up a lot of background noise but I was able to get a few good snippets after playing with input volume levels. The three short snippets from the evening are:

1. Robert Scoble and Mike Dunn talking about Scoble's role at Microsoft as a tech evangelist.
2. David Parmet discussing splitting his blogs between family and business.
3. A humorous story involving Bill Gates.

Then I present a few thoughts on how podcasters can learn something from the development of the blogging community. And how major media support is not needed to take podcasting to the next level. Do we even know what the next level is yet?

Podcast NYC: Podcasting Law

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 07:59:21 PDT

A bit of a ramble this week to flesh out some thoughts on law and podcasting. The ethics of soundseeing and playing of copyrighted music come to mind. Can you legally record and distribute recordings of people without their knowledge or consent? Where is the line drawn on the playing of different music in podcasts?

Comments on a Wall Street Journal article on podcasting that was pretty weak. Also, a few thoughts on the NYC Podcasting Association meeting.

Podcast NYC: NYC Podcasting Association

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:09:35 PDT

A report on the first meeting of the NYC Podcasting Association meetup group. The first meeting was held on Wednesday 4/22. A very interesting evening. I got to meet some folks who I've either been talking to or listening to on their podcasts. Much of the meeting involved formalities since it was the first meeting. Lots of introductions. There was a fair mix of podcast producers, technologists and marketing type folks. I give some of my thoughts on the meeting and provide some insight to what I think are good discussion topics for any podcasting meetup.

Includes a short conversation from the meeting with Mike Dunn of Nomadic Audio and John Federico of Brand Brains (and Audible). We talked a little about the current state of podcasting, soundseeing ethics and musicians getting into podcasting.

Some other notes...

I've added a Pay Pal donation button to the front page of site. A donation is certainly not required but appreciated if you regularly enjoy the content on this site. At this point I'm just looking to recover the costs of producing the site along with trying to fund new features and content.

Along those lines, check out the new Video Extras section. Powered by AudioBlog, I'll be posting short video snippets to go along with some of the audio content on the site.

Thanks for listening and happy podcasting!

Podcast NYC: Podcast Software Landscape

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 17:29:36 PDT

I talk about the state of podcast software as I walk across midtown Manhattan. I also comment on the discussion over at Dave Winer's new site podcatch.com about the developments at Odeo and Adam Curry's PodShow. It seems that a couple of very useful podcast apps like AudioBlog.com and phpBB Podcast have been left out of the discussion. phpBB Podcast has been working for me and it looks like Eric Rice has got some features that I've been looking for over at AudioBlog.

Also, I wonder how much of the development time for PodShow and Odeo will be dedicated to audio recording functionality. It seems to me that what's really needed at this point in the game are apps that support distribution and subscription. Let's get those into the mix and then people can focus on the much more difficult problem of giving people the ability to very easily create quality audio recordings. I'm thinking of the many musicians and internet radio-philes who already have quality content, but not necessarily the RSS or blog skills. There are a lot of them out there!

Podcast NYC: Mobile Podcast Recording

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 04:54:26 PDT

A little primer on mobile podcast recording from my point of view. Mobile recording is a good idea, especially if you want to add variety and ambience to your podcasts. Hardware is important. I've had good results with the iRiver H320 and the Radio Shack tie clip mic. I've also developed a list of things to keep in mind to insure that the mobile recording process goes as smoothly as possible.

Do sound checks in the recording environment.
Try different volume settings.
Be aware of the effects of background noise.
Have your equipment organinzed and easy to get to (even in the dark!)
Double check to make sure your recorder and mic are on.
Turn off mic and recorder when complete to save precious battery life.
Recording short segments reduces editing time.
Organize, rename and tag audio files as soon as you transfer them to your computer.

Those are just some things I've noticed that can make a big difference. If you have other tips, feel free to email me or comment in this space.

Happy Podcasting!

Podcast NYC: NYC Area Podcasts Take Flight

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 17:14:03 PST

The New York Podcast meetup group is in the process of forming over on Meetup.com. As a result I've decided to listen to and log some info on some of the seminal New York area podcasts. It's an exciting development that the NYC area is finally coming up to speed on podcasting.

Here are some of the NYC area podcasts that are leading the way:

Bibb and Yaz Take Over The World - link - rss
Beware of the Babylon - link - rss
The Daily Sonic - link - rss
Hoboken Rock City - link - rss
The Ken and Squip Show - link - rss
Listen Up Brooklyn - link - rss
The Overnightscape - link - rss
Podcast NYC - Listen

I've set up a new phpBB based forum over at http://www.audiofeedforums.com. It's a place for podcasting news, discussion, debate, etc. There's also a cool mod that I added which I'm calling Podcast Preview. It allows a podcast producer to either link to a full podcast or upload a small sample so that listeners can hear their podcast in the browser. Listeners can rate and comment on the podcasts that are posted there.

Also, thanks to Eric Rice, PodCrawl, Adam Curry, Mike Dunn and The Hobson and Holtz report for either mentions or link postings of Podcast NYC.

Podcast NYC: Podcast Planning

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:18:40 PST

Expanded comments on the commercialization of podcasting. Comments on some podcasting related announcements in the last week.

Chris Pirillo picked up sponsorship from Citrix.
Eric Rice is now being sponsored by Warner Brothers Music.
http://www.ourmedia.org is offering free storage and bandwidth for podcasters.

I also talk about the importance of podcast planning. As Podcast NYC has expanded I've realized the importance of planning podcasts ahead of time. Good podcast planning leads to more enjoyable podcasts for the listener and saves time on actual production.

Podcast NYC: Podcast Commercialization

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 07:02:11 PST

A stream of thoughts on the commercialization of podcasting. It's obvious that this new distribution method s going to stick and there are already a few entrepreneurial spirits looking to capitalize early with their business model. More folks will follow and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm keeping an eye on how product/brand marketing plays a part in the development of podcast business models.

One important thing to note is that all of the key skill sets to excel in podcasting, or providing podcast services, currently exist. Creativity, marketing saavy, web development and digital media development skills, etc. are a plenty. The knowledge of XML and RSS may be the only area where there is a shortage of deeply skilled folks. Those concepts are relatively simple to grasp for the technical minded so that gap is small and certainly won't last for long.

I believe that honesty and quality will win out in the long run, just like they do in most other industries.

Podcast NYC: Podcasting Interview

mediamanster@podcastnyc.net (Robert J Safuto) — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:30:08 PST

Two weeks ago I did an interview for Manhattan public access television with Harold Channer. The main subject was, of course, podcasting. We also spoke about general technology, creating digital audio on the PC and satellite radio. Mr. Channer was a very nice guy and he was as eager to learn about podcasting as I was to talk about it. You can find out more about Harold Channer by visiting his website at http://www.channer.tv.