In the course of writing this book, Penny Haynes posed a LinkedIn question asking to talk to business owners who had never used audio or video to market themselves. I was hard put to think of anyone besides my mother. It’s not just that I know a lot of podcasters and vidcasters. I’ve spent my time in industries where people have used audio and video to market themselves for decades.

Back when I was teaching Greek and Roman drama, I made video recordings of all my productions. The first client whose book I helped write gave me audiocassettes with recordings of his class lectures to turn into book chapters. Nearly everyone I’ve worked for since has used some form of video or audio—including the old-fashioned “getting interviewed on radio and TV” format.

The only difference between that and what Penny talks about in this book is that most of the audio and video recordings used as “demo reels” or sold as products before 2004 weren’t digital, and they weren’t online.

The rapid growth in both the tools for creating digital media and the bandwidth for sharing it just mean there more ways to use audio and video for your business. More than 101 of them, in fact. Penny lists 103 and then provides some additional ideas in the Sample Projects section at the end of the book.

I defy anyone who reads it not to think of some way to use these tools for his or her business. And I’d be surprised if those of you already using audio and video don’t discover new applications. My favorite discovery was one Penny also mentioned in a recent interview with Anna Farmery: turning audio into video by adding slides to your audio recording.

I don’t know why I never thought of that. It’s probably because I’ve been too focused on extracting the audio from video files where the visuals add little or nothing, the better to listen to them on my MP3 player while driving. Now I just have to find time in my schedule to go back and do it with some of my presentations.

On the down side, 101 Things could have benefited from the services of a book designer, as there are some odd page breaks and layout issues. Those are only a minor distraction, as the repeated references to the Commercial Creation Center are a minor annoyance.

If you’re a podcaster or a podcasting/media consultant, buy this e-book for your clients—but read it yourself first to help you pitch them.

SRG

While various people claimed in 2007 that podcasting (or at least the word ‘podcast’) was dead, the truth seems to be that podcasting is just now entering business consciousness for everyone except those who pursue every shiny new toy that comes along.

The 2007 podcasts included several episodes on the intersection of new media and publishing, as well as panels on book reviews, US vs. UK publishing, and markets. If you’re a writer of any kind, you’ll want to tune in for these.

The next BEA is at the end of May, 2008, so the series should be starting up again soon. Meanwhile, you can catch up on the archives at http://bookexpocast.com/.

‘The Connected Generation’ itself is not so much an age range (though many episodes do talk about relating to Generation Y) as an attitude. Most podcasters, and many podcast listeners, belong to this group. You might want to recommend it to those who haven’t drunk the social media Kool-Aid.

Listen or subscribe at http://www.reachgroupconsulting.com/blog/.

Production has been a bit irregular as of late (April 2008), but you can cruise the archives for tips on everything from writing to social media to inter-generational relations to finding a job.

Listen or subscribe at http://www.forward-moving.com/blog/category/podcast/.

If you want to know about e-mail marketing, SEO, the importance of your house list, and other tricks of the trade from people who make their living doing this kind of thing, you should definitely have a listen.

And the miracle of podcasting is such that you don’t have to get up at 6 AM to meet them in Dunkin Donuts.

Listen or subscribe at www.marketingovercoffee.com.

And none of that matters. This is a great podcast. For those who haven’t heard of him and his many books, David Maister is a Famous Consultant who has always believed in the value of giving things away. Right now the podcast is a special series of combined audio and PDF files containing excerpts from his latest book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker.

The premise of the book is that most of us (and our consulting clients) already need to know what we do for our businesses, the same way we already know what to do for our health. But we persist in our old habits anyway. I’m convinced this is the business book of the year. (Yes, even as much as I like Seth Godin.)

Run-don’t-walk on over to http://davidmaister.com/podcasts/ and subscribe.

If you’re wondering about business podcasting—how to start one, where it might fit within your communication planning, or even how to make your current podcast more effective—winning the FIR Listener Contest could be the answer you’re looking for!

To mark the third anniversary of For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report on January 3, we decided to run a contest for listeners where the prize is a free copy of How to Do Everything with Podcasting, the book written by Shel Holtz with Neville Hobson (FIR’s co-presenters) and published last June by McGraw-Hill. The book’s list price is $24.99 / £14.99 / C$29.95.

How to Do Everything with Podcasting walks you step by step through the process of creating, publishing and promoting your own podcast. It includes a substantial business focus that will help you see how businesses can use podcasting as an effective and measurable way to communicate with customers and employees.

There are actually three copies of the book up for grabs, depending on where in the world you are.

We’ve arbitrarily divided the world into three segments—The Americas, Europe and the Rest of the World— and we’re looking to award the book to one winner in each of these areas.

The whole FIR team is behind this contest—Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, together with FIR correspondents Lee Hopkins, Dan York, David Phillips, Eric Schwartzman and Sallie Goetsch—and will judge each entry.

How to Enter

1. Tell us your answer to this simple question:
   “I think a podcast will help my organization/my client because...”
2. You can communicate your answer to Shel & Neville in English in any way you wish—email, recording (audio or video), comments to this post, whatever way you think is the most effective. Look around the FIR blog for your contact options.
3. Submit your answer by the deadline—Friday January 25, 2008 at 6:00pm GMT.

That’s all there is to it.

We’re looking forward to your entries! (Complete Rules Here.)

Longer ago than I care to admit, I was asked to evaluate SnapKast, a product by Lecture123.com designed to “create PowerPoint podcasts in a snap.”

The interface is very simple: you just drag your PowerPoint file onto the “Record” button in SnapKast, rather the way you use the Levelator. Nevertheless it actually took several snaps before I could produce a video, due to two problems. The first is that I’m constitutionally incapable of producing a podcast without audio and video clips in it, and SnapKast can’t process those, so it spat out an error message at me the first time and hung up.

SnapKast processed the second file I tried successfully, and I was able to record myself narrating the slideshow, even if I couldn’t play any of the included recordings. This part of the process reminded me of nothing so much as using the Co-op World interface for the Online Podcasting Expo back in April, though I can’t remember whether their system produced the same pixelated effect when processing transparent images.

Once you’ve recorded your presentation, you choose the format you want. The options are .mp4 video and .mp3 audio, with some advanced options for choosing the size of the video and the frame rate. The recommended 320 x 240 size for video podcasts is painfully small for viewing PowerPoint slides, even those like mine which include mostly pictures and very few words. The largest size, 1024 x 768, is fine for playback on a computer, but not too useful for playback on a portable device. That problem, however, is really due to PowerPoint as a medium and not to SnapKast.

After the conversion phase comes the playback phase. I noticed two problems: the audio tends to skip every so often, and the video switches to the next slide before I’m finished narrating the first one. The latter problem might be solved by adjusting frame rates, which is something I’ve had to do to get audio and video synced properly with Camtasia.

At this point, you can e-mail your presentation or copy it to the clipboard, but I, of course, was interested in the podcasting function—and this is where I ran into my second problem. I have a 1440 x 900 widescreen laptop, and I had set it to use large fonts so that I wouldn’t have to squint to see things. This messed up the way SnapKast displayed and meant that I was unable to enter a URL into the required field for generating the RSS feed. When I re-set my display, it worked just fine, and I was able to get to the “Publish” window, which is the last stage of the SnapKast process.

I was a bit puzzled at first, since it said “Drag and drop to publish,” but not until I opened the help section did it explain where to drag it. (You have to open your FTP client, connect to your site, and then drag the podcast folder over.) I’m not sure that I’d exactly call this “publishing,” given that if you hit the “Publish” button in, say, Microsoft Expression Web, it actually connects you to your web server and puts the file there.

For actual podcasting purposes, in order to include a click-to-play option and show notes, I’d be better off just uploading the file into my media directory and using PodPress to include it in my feed existing feed—which is what I’m doing here in order to let you see the video. The only viable option on the SnapKast feed page seemed to be iTunes, which did work correctly. Otherwise I could see the RSS feed, but not a link to the file. And there’s no autodiscovery on the feed index page, either.

Apart from that, the quality of the video produced is quite good for the file size, and the audio (between skips) is fine. If someone only wants to create videos of PowerPoint presentations, and doesn’t mind adapting the presentations to accomodate SnapKast, it’s a decent tool. But I don’t expect it to be a big hit with podcasters, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone whose budget extends to purchasing Techsmith’s much more sophisticated Camtasia.

The support team was very responsive, though.

SRG

Note: click the “Play in Popup” button to see the video.

Disclaimer: As a contributor to the authors’ podcast, For Immediate Release, I might be expected to have a biased opinion. I do, but I also held the book to the standards of their podcast and their blogs. If it hadn’t been good, I would have been seriously disappointed.

But not to worry, it’s good.

Naming a book “How to Do Everything with Podcasting” is ambitious, but that was the publisher’s choice. They have a whole series of “How to Do Everything” books. And while there might be things you can do with podcasting that aren’t covered in the book, it’s impressively comprehensive.

I particularly appreciated the details about sound editing in Chapter 9 when I had to assemble the interviews from the iMeme conference. (It helped, but with background noise as bad as that, there’s not a lot you can do if you don’t use a directional mic in the first place.) The only omission I’m aware of in that section is a reference to the Levelator, an amazing tool every podcaster should have. (It’s free, too. Gigavox invented it in self-defense.)

I imagine many people will head straight to Part IV, “Make Money with Your Podcast,” but I really appreciated Part V, “Use a Podcast as a Business Communication Tool.” These 65 pages are pure gold for any podcast evangelist operating in either the corporate or small-business world. Shel and Neville start by pointing out that creating a podcast is not a business goal. Rather, podcasting is a tool that can serve a purpose in the business’ overall strategy. If your company starts podcasting “because everyone else is doing it,” the podcast is not likely to be a success.

There’s also an appendix about legal considerations for podcasters, one listing podcasting resources, and a podcasting glossary to help you sort out the jargon. And to keep up to date (because things on the Web change so quickly), there’s a website for the book. You can find Shel’s mix-minus instructional video (for recording Skype calls without echoes) and a whole lot of other good stuff—including a long list of links to podcasts.

Three cheers and five stars, guys.

SRG

I hadn’t gotten very far into The Business Podcasting Bible before concluding that the book designer should be hauled out and shot. The book is very difficult to read, not because of the writing but because of the way it’s put together. The font for the main text ought to be called “eyestrain.” It’s plenty large enough, but seems to vibrate on the page. (Being able to see the text on the other side doesn’t help, either.) Given that one person in eleven is subject to migraines, as I am, headache-provoking print is not a good investment.

The sans-serif font in the sidebars is actually easier on the eyes, the graphic design truism about not using sans-serif fonts for long blocks of printed text notwithstanding. But the sidebars themselves are maddening, because most of them run to several pages. A sidebar is an eye-catching thing, particularly when set off with a shaded background and a different font. It distracts from the main text. In order to finish reading the sidebar, I had to go forward several pages, then come back and read the rest of the main text—or read the main text first, and then come back for the sidebar. Either way, it created a lot of work, and it interrupted the flow of ideas, making it very hard to take in the information the authors were trying to impart.

I also found it jarring that the word “podcast” was capitalized and often used instead of the word “podcasting.” We don’t capitalize “radio” or “television” or “film,” so I can’t think why we should capitalize “podcast.”

These formatting issues are a terrible pity, because Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian have some great things to say about podcasting for—and as—a business. I’ve been a regular listener to Marketing Online Live, where most of these ideas were previewed, for years. Colligan and Mandossian are probably the ultimate authorities on making money with your podcast, because they’ve used everything they tell you about in their own businesses.

This is not a technical how-to book about podcasting. If you want to know how to record and edit your podcast, set up your feed, and so forth, read Podcasting for Dummies or How to Do Everything with Podcasting. If you want to know about dead-time learning, teaching your audience to consume podcasts, premium podcasting, and monetization, read this book.

Better yet, buy the book and download the bonus audio you get from the member site (instructions on page 77). It’s a sight easier to take in than the printed version (so to speak). The member site hasn’t been all that active lately, but the recordings of the LA an Orland Podcasting Secrets Workshops contain tons of helpful tips, and Paul Colligan’s “Picking Your PodcastTopic – 17 Questions You Must Ask Yourself” is not to be missed.

It’s probably worth the 20 bucks just to get the audio downloads, but my recommendation would be to wait and see whether they overhaul the next edition to be more readable. It would be easy enough to solve the layout problem by incorporating those long sidebars into appropriate parts of the main text, saving sidebars for short tips, and to pick a better font and thicker paper.

Or go back and listen to all the archives of the Marketing Online Live podcast, which covers most of these topics. And whether or not you download the earlier episodes, subscribe now if you have any interest at all in podcast monetization.

SRG

Neville experienced recording problems yet again, leaving him with only Sallie’s recording to edit (and a dreadful four-hour slog that was). The repeated technical difficulties may mean that it will be quite some time before ‘Professor’ Goetsch repeats her Shel Holtz imitation.

‘Professor’ Goetsch’s qualifications as a correspondent for this long-running PR podcast include:

• Not being a podcaster
• Not being a communications or PR professional
• Not having a background in audio production
• Not being anywhere near as funny as Lee Hopkins

We therefore expect the segment to be a smashing success and wish Lee a speedy conclusion to his doctorate and return to his post.

Skylook is the brainchild of Australian Jeremy Hague, designed to integrate Skype into Outlook. I liked Skylook 1.5 and love Skylook 2.0. (You can read my review of Skylook 1.0.3 at Kickstartnews.com.) The SMS message features (you can send text messages to your cell phone through Skype) aren’t as interesting to me, or likely other podcasters, as the call recording.

One thing I always liked about Skylook’s recording feature is that it starts immediately. No forgetting to press the “record” button and having to re-do the interview. But recordings used to be MP3 only, one channel. Now Skylook records both sides of the conversation on separate channels, and offers a variety of audio formats and bit rates.

Audio geeks will tell you not to record directly into your computer, but Skylook is easy, reliable, and produces sound quality as good as most of the podcasts I listen to. Plus it gives you a Skype answering machine with an Aussie accent, and it saves your text chats, too. (All these things get sent to your Outlook inbox, so you don’t have to remember to check for them.)

SRG

Disclosure/Disclaimer: I was a Tee Morris fan before I read this book. I still am. So obviously I was predisposed to like it.

Wiley Publishing’s ‘For Dummies’ series is wildly popular in spite of the fact that most of us don’t like to think of ourselves as Dummies. Fortunately, this book works just fine for smart people who don’t happen to know much about podcasting, and there’s a great companion podcast by Tee Morris. (Season 1 contains 20 episodes; Season 2 will accompany the sequel, which has the unlikely title of Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies.)

The book is both readable and comprehensive, and includes plenty of humor (and not just in the cartoons before each section). I could do without the font used for the subheadings, but at least it’s legible, and I presume they chose it to convey friendliness. Podcasting for Dummies walks you through the basics of choosing your equipment (microphones and mixers), using audio editing software, podcast blogs, RSS, bandwidth and hosting—and that’s just chapter 2!

It was Podcasting for Dummies I turned to when I needed to know how to put a music ‘bed’ under a voice recording. (I later used that knowledge to record a comment for Tee Morris’ podcast, The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy.) The explanation of bit rates, sample rates, and ID3 tags should be required reading, and the chapter on XML and RSS is a useful reference for moments when feeds won’t validate. Indeed, the traditional ‘For Dummies’ design makes it easy to use the book as a reference on any of the topics covered.

The final section of the book is a series of Top Tens (types of podcast, most influential people in podcasting, reasons why podcasting won’t kill radio—and reasons it will). Some of these lists, like specific links and details about software, may become obsolete quickly, but the principles remain sound and neither audio editing nor ID3 tags are going away any time soon.

Many of the example podcasts used in the book relate to science fiction, reflecting the interests of the authors, and there’s a wee bit of Macintosh bias in the screenshots. (Why are so many podcasters Mac users?) Those are just observations, though, not criticisms, and the inclusion of podiobooks.com is a boon to would-be podcasters who are either published or unpublished authors.

One thing that is missing, at least from the first edition (I think I have the first edition, though they were up to the third printing by the time I got my copy at the PME last year), is any discussion of PodPress, the popular WordPress plugin for podcasting (used on this site for the Reports from the Asylum). Of course, PodPress was much less sophisticated at the time the book was written, and WordPress hadn’t yet opened up the WordPress.com hosted service.

It will be a great relief when the sequel to this book appears and Tee Morris can get back to podcasting.

SRG

www.reidgivens.com/roi_blog

www.prjunctionpodcast.com

www.qdnow.com

As of March 2007, there hasn’t been an episode for several months. I don’t know whether this is a temporary hiatus or a permanent conclusion. But this is definitely a podcast whose material is timeless, so it’s worth downloading the archives.

In this case, I suspect the show was a victim of its own success: once Alan and Andrew started getting major corporate clients as a result of their podcast, they had less time to produce the show. www.themarketerspodcast.com

Some of you may be wondering what happened to the KSN Revue Podcast. After stabilizing at a biweekly download rate of about 11,000 subscribers (Feb through May 2006), subscriber interest began to wane due to heavy competition from literally thousands of other podcasts. We responded by changing our format, tightening the show, introducing harder hitting interviews, producing regular new guest segments and so on. We had a blast and even won a couple of minor awards. But good quality podcasting remains a costly and time consuming sideline with no associated revenue. The last KSN Revue is show #58.