Spark Minute

Can’t cope with Facebook changes?

David Spark — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:51:33 +0000

How are you coping with Facebook’s changes? Do you freak out every time they move an option to a new location? Notice that whenever there’s a change with Facebook or other popular application that initially everyone gets upset about it, and then days later they completely forget about it. Well, it appears that’s what’s happening yet once again. Funny, I had this conversation on WABC Radio exactly seven months ago. People just can’t deal with change.

I chatted about Facebook changes, Facebook etiquette, and real-time search on The Curtis Sliwa Show on WABC Radio. Stream below or download the MP3 (Time: 14:10).

Acting like a TWiT

David Spark — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:59:34 +0000

I just recorded TWiT (This Week in Tech) with Leo Laporte yesterday. Listen to the entire show (1 hour 33 minutes) with me, John C. Dvorak, Jim Louderback, Baratunde Thurston, and obviously Leo Laporte. The show is called the “A.I. Spy Club.” Listen and you’ll find out why. BTW, you can also watch the video of the show over at ODTV.me, but I highly suggest you download the video and then watch it. They recorded more than just the show and there’s a lot of extra stuff at the beginning and end and there’s no way to fast forward through it via their player.

A great quick appropriate response to blogger outrage

David Spark — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:15:45 +0000

So often when we see social media stories that involve corporate outrage it’s usually the organization that falters. The swift and nimble bloggers who often who have no financial, corporate, or government responsibility can quickly tell a tale that will strike a chord with the community and drum up outrage. If the organization is too slow to respond, the community will have developed and defined their truth of the story. And that response must be quick, within hours, maybe even minutes…not days.

Such was the case of the now notorious and passionate “TSA Agents Took My Son” blog post in which a mommy blogger, Nic, tells a tale of how TSA agents took her 16 month old son, Jackson, as they were going through airport security. The post begins, “As I sit and write this post, 24 hours after this event took place, my hands still shake… with rage and with terror.”

When a story opens like that, you’re compelled to read, and you can also probably expect some melodrama. An aspect that the blogger Nic recognizes as she asks and answers her own questions. From her later apology to the post:

am i a dramatic writer? most definitely.

did my son and i suffer a traumatic experience? absolutely.

was my post written when i was extremely emotional? yes.

The post goes on to tell a tale of how a mother tried to reasonably negotiate with TSA agents who wouldn’t listen to her and that drove her to using profanity against the agents. She kept harping on a mother’s worst fear, having your son taken away. It was very heavy handed.

Nic posted her incendiary story on Friday, October 16th, and the blogging and Twitter community got wind of it quickly, as did the TSA who probably is tracking mentions of its organization on Twitter. Smartly, the TSA wanted to squelch this negative story as quickly as possible so they responded quickly with a post of their own (Response to “TSA Agents Took My Son”) also posted Friday, October 16th. In the 15 minute long video (by time stamp. It appears one portion at the beginning has been removed) you can see Nic and Jackson traveling through airport security and the agents never take or separate her from her son.

UPDATE (10/19/09): A lot of people noticed the edit at the beginning of the video so the TSA went one step further and posted all nine video feeds in their entirety. They were posted at 7pm on Sunday night. It’s all on the same post.

As of writing this post there are 226 comments on the TSA’s response. The comments range from understanding the tough job TSA has to do, to appreciating that they posted the video, to thinking the woman is a liar, to still arguing with the TSA that they can use video to defend their actions but travelers can’t record their actions.

In general though the response is very positive to the TSA. They’re usually seen as the bad guys and this blog post could have been more evidence to hate them, but they smartly did the following:

They responded quickly, on the same day.
Provided their own video evidence of the woman’s story, thereby letting the viewer see that her story had no merit.
Acknowledged that the accusations would be harmful if true.
Posted the response on their blog and allowed for comments.

In the FlyerTalk Forum, community member ScottC notes, “A government agency pulling in their public affairs staff (albeit lowly bloggers) on a Friday night & a weekend to conduct an aggressive rebuttal counterattack is pretty extraordinary.” Their response was stamped 8:43pm on a Friday night. That’s quite unusual. In traditional PR parlance it’s best to break bad news late on a Friday and let it die out over the weekend. But as we know with Internet communications, that weekend can be used to build the story against you.

In response to the TSA’s video, Nic, author of the original incendiary post, apologized, yet claimed that portions of her story were edited out of the TSA’s video.

Unfortunately for Nic, she’s manic, as evidenced by numerous red flags.

She repeatedly announced that she only had 45 minutes to catch her flight. She started to panic and announced that she was going to miss her flight and that she would be stuck in Atlanta. Who knows when there will be another flight to Baltimore, she worried.
She admits in her bio that while she’s not an alcoholic she does like to drink wine to relieve the pressure of her life. She wears it as a badge as the name of her blog is “My Bottle’s Up” which shows an image of her holding a bottle of milk for her baby and a glass of wine for herself.

She started swearing at the TSA agents.
She keeps an emergency Xanax with her at all times.

She had tons of comments on her apology post calling her liar of which she’s removed all of them. While I appreciate not wanting to keep comments on your own blog that call you a liar, she has not acknowledged that she has removed all those comments.

Bloggers have to be wary of their own brand

We are repeatedly being told in these days of social media and blogging that we all have the power to respond and that companies need to be careful of the powerful community that has a voice. But rarely is it discussed as to how a blogger’s personal brand can be tarnished if they make false accusations. While this woman still holds true to her story, claiming that she’ll iron the issues out with the TSA, the evidence against her is damning. And in just one day the well known “court of public opinion” has switched from being on her side to the TSA’s side. I’m sure when she wrote this story she never thought that any of this vitriol could come back and harm her, but it has. This is a warning to all other bloggers who choose to go out and attack an organization. They need to realize that they’re opening themselves up for scrutiny as well.

This is a great case study for companies and bloggers to study and analyze. Swift open response is effective for companies, and if you’re a blogger making an accusation, you must be ready to accept the magnifying glass that will be placed on you in return.

To read another good company response to negative criticism, read my piece on the Intertainment Media blog, “Is it better to have people angry with you than not talking about you at all?”

A tip of the hat to my friend Josh Weinberg of Digital Life Consulting Group who alerted me to this story.

Adam Curry of Mevio: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:47:38 +0000

Just before my appearance on Cranky Geeks today, I sat down with former MTV VJ, podcasting pioneer, and President of Mevio, Adam Curry, to be the last interview in my 15-interview “Making Money from Podcasting” series (read summary “9 Successful Techniques for Making Money from Podcasting”). Mevio is a podcasting network that sells advertising against its programming. Cranky Geeks is now being shot at the Mevio studios and Adam Curry was my co-guest on the show today. Here’s my interview with Adam Curry (full HD version here).

Motivate your audience

Curry said Mevio’s production model was based on the short form and low cost production model of MTV. He took the concept of clips and shows and created an advertising franchise. Curry quickly realized that the traditional CPM (cost per thousand) model can’t work in podcasting because it’s hard to get enough M to make enough C. Only thirty percent of Mevio’s money is via CPM-based advertising. Most of their revenue is generated through podcast producers motivating their audience.

I suggested to Curry that what he was selling was CPA (cost per action) advertising which is the process of getting people to perform a certain measurable task and then getting paid every time they do. The most common technique to measure audience engagement and action for an advertiser is to offer up a show-specific coupon code. The hope is the viewer will be enticed to buy the product, and if so, they’ll use the podcast’s promotional code. When they do, the podcaster gets paid.

Advertisers love CPA because it means they only pay for advertising when it’s actually working. Ad buyers don’t have to worry if an ad is actually being run or not. All they need to do is see the results. Heck, podcasters don’t even need to even run the ad if they want. They could simply tell all their friends via social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) or via their mailing list, as Curry suggested. One podcaster I spoke to, Kevin Kastner of Alaska HDTV used to be on the Mevio network (read and listen to the interview), didn’t like this technique because it allows an advertiser to have free access to their audience. It also puts the onus on the podcast producer to motivate his audience so he/she can get paid. But, as Curry said, who knows their audience better than the producer?

Curry negated my suggestion that the rest of his non-CPM advertising operated under the CPA model. To him, the model was about the producer knowing his/her audience the best and they’re the ones who would best be able to motivate their audience to use their sponsor’s product. The example Curry gave is of a knitting show where the producer really knows how to talk to that audience. Eventually, people who are watching the show will inevitably need to rent a car. Who better to speak to that audience about getting them to rent the car than the producer, said Curry. If the producer can convince their audience to rent a car, and it’s proven by using the show specific coupon code, then they can get paid.

Mevio splits all its revenue 50/50 with podcasters. They currently have 15,000 shows in their network. Many of the podcasters are making “beer money” or less than $1,000 a year, said Curry. The second category of podcasters make $1,000 to $10,000 a year, and the last category are podcasters making $10,000+ a year. Those podcasters are known as Mevio’s super producers, which currently number 400 members and will grow to 700 by the end of this year, said Curry. More astonishing is that three podcasters right now, said Curry, will make between $500,000 to $1,000,000 by the end of this year. Curry loves those podcasters because if they make $500,000 so does he.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ESPN (”Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)

Cranky on Twitter and Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:46:11 +0000

Do you really think Twitter is worth $1 billion? Would you accept advertising from it? What is Twitter going to do with that $100 million investment?

What about making money from podcasting? John C. Dvorak makes money on Mevio hosting Cranky Geeks. How does he make money from Mevio, and are there other ways to make money?

That and a whole lot more was discussed on Cranky Geeks today as I joined Mevio President, podcast pioneer, and former MTV VJ, Adam Curry, host John C. Dvorak, and co-crank Sebastian Rupley. We get to a very quick discussion about making money from podcasting at the end of the show. Just before the show I did a one-on-one interview with Adam Curry about Mevio and how they make money for themselves and podcasters. Watch the show or watch my one-on-one interview.

ESPN: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:04:43 +0000

This interview is part of my series “Making Money from Podcasting” (read summary “9 Successful Techniques for Making Money from Podcasting”) where I interview podcasters who are actually generating revenue from their podcasts. There are many techniques, and here’s one person’s tale of how his company is making money from podcasting.

Marc Horine, VP of Digital Media at ESPN

Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it

Marc Horine is the VP of Digital Media at ESPN, the ubiquitous sports network that has built up more than 100 podcasts (about 75 audio and 25 video). ESPN was one of the first media companies that got into podcasting in the summer of 2005, said Horine. In those early days, their podcasts began as a “best of” ESPN radio shows and some other repurposed content. Demand for additional content soon morphed into a full blown podcast network of shows, many of which are original content, separate from ESPN Radio programming.

Interview (Time: 15:12)

Download MP3

ESPN’s presence is impressive with a full blown ESPN Podcenter hub on ESPN.com, a featured podcast provider button on iTunes, along with a page to display all their podcasts.

All of this content is categorized and sold to sponsors. They do pre-roll and post-roll advertisements. While pre-rolls are hugely popular for advertisers because they’re guaranteed listens, post-roll ads don’t do nearly as well. According to Matt Cutler CMO at Visible Measures, twenty percent of the people don’t watch a video all the way to the end (see my short video interview with Cutler on this subject). When I asked Horine that question he didn’t offer up any statistics but rather explained that sports fans are a unique and passionate bunch and he believes they listen to shows all the way to the end. While he didn’t have any statistics in front of him, he didn’t think his listeners fell into the “quit and run” viewing/listening category.

Sponsor branding can go beyond just a pre-roll and a post-roll. ESPN can offer a completely integrated ad experience as they do with their sponsor Subway who has ads in podcasts, on the ESPN site, and also in iTunes on the ESPN Podcenter page where podcast sponsorship can be seen in the icons for the specific shows.

ESPN works with the ad insertion company Ando Media to place all the podcast ads. Ando Media delivers detailed reports to ESPN and their advertisers.

Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast

Two weeks ago ESPN launched a podcast iPhone application ($2.99) that has been incredibly successful. It’s currently the fifth best selling paid iPhone application. The application has scores, live streaming, breaking news, and access to about 40 podcasts all within the application. Stats of usage are showing that people are gravitating most towards the live stream. That’s bad news for the satellite radio industry where ESPN also has a presence. But once you have a live radio stream on an iPhone with a 3G network, there’s no need for satellite radio. Access to radio programming far exceeds what any satellite network can provide. Horine described a colleague who drove the two hours from New York to Bristol (ESPN’s headquarters) listening to the live stream the entire way, and it never cut out. And that’s on the AT&T network! And we all know how much that sucks.

The success of the iPhone application flies in the face of a massive ESPN flop, the ESPN phone which back in February of 2006 was selling for the ludicrous price of $499 at launch, dropping down to $99 two months later. It appears this new iPhone app along with ESPN’s other sub-$5 iPhone applications offer all the same capabilities as the ESPN phone did, but they’re doing it a lot better, and obviously with a much more reasonable and digestible price.

For more, listen to my interview with Horine as we talk about the success of the iPhone app and what works and what doesn’t for advertisers on their podcast network.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

Manager Tools: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:57:27 +0000

Mike Auzenne, Co-host of Manager Tools podcast

Build your brand to sell your services

Mike Auzenne is the co-host of the Manager Tools podcast, which is also the name of his management consultancy. The podcast is a weekly show that offers easy concrete advice on how you can be a better manager. Auzenne and his partner Mark Horstman have a rather lofty objective, and that’s to improve management across the world. People have had bad bosses and careers have been ruined as a result. Through their podcast, Auzenne and Horstman hope to create a world of better managers.

Interview (Time: 10:52)

Download MP3

Since launching their podcast four years ago, Auzenne and Horstman have built their “Manager Tools” brand by offering great actionable content every week, says Auzenne. To build an audience, it’s very important for them to continue to do that. Auzenne didn’t want to create a model where he would only give away half of a solution and then require the audience to pay for the rest of the solution. He’s all about laying it out all there, providing as much value as he possibly can.

Auzenne and Horstman’s business model is to simply build an audience and maintain trust, so when their audience eventually needs management consulting services, they’ll go to Auzenne and Horstman first. Auzenne’s not worried about giving away too much. There’s simply too much information out there, he said. There’s no way for the two of them to capture it all within their show. And even if they do talk about it on one of their shows, and a potential client calls to hire them on that topic, Auzenne will simply point them to the free podcast instead of taking their money.

Egalitarian moves like that have resulted in an ongoing and strengthening foundation of trust. While the audience is getting an education about management, they’re also learning the duo’s management philosophies, said Auzenne. Their audience knows them through their podcast. They’ve built a relationship with them for four years. When the time comes that they do come across a management problem, all of their listeners will be thinking about two people, Auzenne and Horstman.

It’s this long relationship of trust and delivering results to an audience because of the Manager Tools advice, that creates a compulsion to give back when the need arises. That’s when they get hired.

Working as management consultants isn’t the only revenue stream that’s resulted from their four year long podcast. They also offer premium content, which are show notes and slides of the podcast, at a cost $15 a month. They also have a monthly conference series where Auzenne and Horstman travel to cities around the world and people must pay a fee to attend. In addition, there’s a resume review service and a 16-part series on how to interview. Auzenne admits they’ve had multiple offers for sponsorships, but they’ve turned them all away because the advertising model doesn’t currently fit into their model and brand of building trust.

They do no marketing at all. They have built a Manager Tools media network through their podcast and their blog. All of their business, every single piece, comes from people who have listened to their podcast, said Auzenne. Since the duo started podcasting, Auzenne estimates that business has grown ten-fold.

Listen to my interview with Auzenne as he explains and offers advice on how his podcast has translated into this phenomenal growth for his business.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
ESPN (”Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

Slate Gabfests: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:13:08 +0000

Andy Bowers, producer of podcasts and videos at Slate

Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial

Andy Bowers is the producer of the endless lineup of podcasts and videos available on Slate. One of their most popular podcast formats are the “gabfests” which are just a group of smart journalists talking about the hottest stories that week in politics, sports, and pop culture. I became quite a fan of the Culture Gabfest, a group discussion of that week’s arts and entertainment from low pop to high culture.

One of the sponsors of the show is Audible, a digital audio book retailer that sponsors many podcasts. What’s different about Audible’s sponsorship of Culture Gabfest is that the show hosts and producers have successfully integrated the sponsor’s product into the content of the show in a very natural and appropriate way. As Bowers pointed out, the show’s hosts were consumers of Audible’s digital “books on tape” and were excited to have them as a sponsor, and therefore eager to recommend books to read. It all fit in perfectly with the show’s editorial.

Interview (Time: 9:45)

Download MP3

While an in-show sponsorship read always begins with the sponsor’s offer, Slate’s Culture Gabfest is able deliver even more relevancy with their own Audible book recommendations and also audience recommendations, which come in droves, said Bowers. Plus, they’re able to play snippets from the books, adding even more pertinent show content.

In the past, Slate’s had advertisers such as car companies run pre-roll ads. The sponsor had very little to do with the content of their show. They were just after the show’s total audience and demographics. There was no natural way to integrate the sponsor with the show’s content, therefore making it difficult to create any level of engagement.

With the Audible sponsorship, users get a free audio book if they sign up on Audible with a specific promotional code. The code measures the engagement of specifically Culture Gabfest’s audience. Other shows have their own promotional code. During a few episodes the hosts announced an internal contest to see which Slate podcast could get the most people to sign up for the Audible membership with that specific show’s promo code. With that contest announcement, listeners got even more engaged. Audible memberships jumped. Listeners and show hosts really got into the friendly rivalry as evidenced by their increasingly active Facebook fan sites. Bowers is very impressed with how engaged their audiences are. A similar Slate audience rivalry happened when they were trying to get people to join the shows’ respective Facebook fan sites.

Slate doesn’t get any kickback for each listener that signs up with Audible, but they do prove that their audience is engaged - a far more important statistic to advertisers than your entire listening audience. As Slate continues to prove their audience’s engagement, they continue to get sponsorship.

Listen to my interview with Bowers as we chat about building the relationship with Audible and seeking out other sponsors to integrate with their programming.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ESPN (”Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

Windows 7 party video, “Dirty Edition”

David Spark — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:30:42 +0000

I’ve got an update to a post I wrote yesterday entitled, “Windows 7 launch party video: Is Microsoft trying to be funny?” In it I just expressed my ultimate confusion as to what the purpose of the video was. It appeared it was supposed to be funny, but there was no actual commitment to being funny.

Well someone corrected that.

Harry McCracken at Technologizer turned me on to the “dirty” version of this video, available at Cabel’s Blog. With a little inspiration from a fellow Twitter user, Fraser Speirs, Cabel re-edited the video to bleep out every reference to Microsoft, Windows, or any of its capabilities. Look how a little creative editing can turn something completely strange and unfunny to something hysterical.

Windows 7 Party video - “Dirty Edition”

Izzy Video: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:00:19 +0000

Israel Hyman, host of Izzy Video

Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.

Israel Hyman is the host of Izzy Video, a video podcast about shooting and producing great video. I discovered Izzy Video a few years ago and I became quite a fan learning a little about video production as that’s part of the work that I do for my business, Spark Media Solutions. When Hyman first started Izzy Video, he was working in sales for a Fortune 500 company and it had absolutely nothing to do with his passion, video production. For two years Hyman produced his video podcast when he had free time. At night, on the weekends, and he gave it all away for free.

Interview (Time: 12:50)

Download MP3

All the work was completely exhausting. He had produced about 45 episodes and he realized he had gotten to a point where he had to make a decision about the future of his podcast. Was he going to invest all his time and make a business of it, or just completely quit? It was a difficult decision as Hyman had a steady sales job and a wife with three children. Obviously with support from his family he slowly shifted into going full time with Izzy Video, making it the main source of income. I remember Hyman making the announcement on his podcast to all his viewers that he was going to need their support.

Hyman didn’t know how he was going to make money from his podcast until he attended the Portable Media Expo and talked with Don McCallister about how he’s making money with his podcast, ScreenCasts Online. (Read and listen to my interview with Don McAllister for the “Making Money from Podcasting” series.) Since his content was also educational, and his back catalog of videos were evergreen and still had value, he realized he could copy McCallister’s model for monetization - give away every other episode for free, and make people pay for the rest. Similar to McCallister, a six month subscription to Izzy Video costs $69 and then for the six months following users pay $19. Hyman is definitely committed to the long term as he even has a lifetime membership option for $150 that many subscribers have chosen. Hyman recommends and uses the membership management software program, aMember Professional.

It’s a model that works

Hyman has gone on to repeat the Izzy Video podcast model two more times, launching the shows Paperclipping (a scrapbooking show) and Rolling R’s (a show to learn Spanish), both of which have made money. They haven’t made nearly as much money as Izzy Video which constitutes 85% of all his revenue, estimates Hyman. His goal is to launch a total of ten shows. To launch a show, he looks for a market by browsing the magazine racks at the bookstore. If there’s a successful magazine in a possible “How To” field, Hyman sees potential success with launching a premium video podcast.

Listen to my interview with Hyman as he tells his tale and discusses a few other ways he’s generating revenue from his video podcasts.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ESPN (”Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)