The economics of podcasting
How much bang for the buck are they?
Monday, July 17, 2006 by Draginol | Discussion: Industry
I do a podcast -- PowerUser.TV. It's a tech podcast but with a lot of tongue in cheek. I play up my more offensive side of things with lots of weekly rants.
We really enjoy doing the podcasts, but the problem is that the work vs. reward is just not there.
Here's some of the problems with podcasts:
1) The sites that syndicate the feeds are the ones who get all the rewards. ITunes, PodNova, Yahoo, they're the ones who make all that advertising revenue without having to create the content. It costs Stardock thousands of dollars each week to do the podcast. Even the Neocast version costs Stardock money too even if it's not producing it, it runs/maintains the site for it. But the iTunes of the world merely have to link to the MP3 file leaving the content providers out in the cold.
2) The effort vs. reward is totally not there in terms of listeners. Take PowerUser.TV -- it involves 3 salaried people plus 1 volunteer to produce the show plus another salaried person to maintain the website. That same staff could put together a pretty impressive website. A popular website like Neowin.net might get a million visitors PER DAY. A popular podcast might get 100,000 listenres PER WEEK. It's not even remotely as effective a means.
3) Podcasts aren't sticky. You can't say in the middle of a podcast "Hey, go check out this post on Neowin.net" and the user be taken to the website somehow.
Can you imagine me saying http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry587710294 on the air?
"I repeat, that's st=0%#..."
4) Bandwidth costs. A page view on Neowin.net might use up 60K. A download of a podcast might be 60 MEGABYTES PER LISTENER. Ack.
5) Podcasts are being crowded out by radio shows and other NON-podcasts (i.e. things that were produced with a totally different audience in mind and then tossed onto the web as an MP3 with an RSS feed and called a "podcast"). You can't even find most real podcasts anymore.
Of the top 50 podcasts on Yahoo, nearly HALF of them are now NPR (that's National Public RADIO) shows that have been tossed onto the net as "podcasts" despite them not really being podcasts. It really aggravates me because a) they're paid for by taxes and
they're abusing the medium. It would be like Electronic Arts submitting games into the independent games festival.
That doesn't mean podcasts are doomed. It's too early by far to say that. What is really needed first off is a way to filter out the NPR's of the world off the various podcast lists so that people can actually find genuine podcasts.
Secondly, we need to learn who the listeners really are. The lack of raw numbers could be made up for if the listeners are "industry influencers". For example, Neowin.net may not get even a fraction of the traffic of a Digg.com but the difference is that (I believe) Neowin.net's average viewer has a lot more influence over what kind of technology people around them use over the average Digg.com viewer (and the average Digg.com viewer has a lot more influence than say the average MSN home page viewer and so forth).
It will be interesting to see what happens to podcasts. I don't think it'll be going away but I think it may become like blogging where at first everyone was starting to have blogs (and just as annoying then was on-line columnists turning their articles into "blogs") but now it's found its own particular niche.
We really enjoy doing the podcasts, but the problem is that the work vs. reward is just not there.
Here's some of the problems with podcasts:
1) The sites that syndicate the feeds are the ones who get all the rewards. ITunes, PodNova, Yahoo, they're the ones who make all that advertising revenue without having to create the content. It costs Stardock thousands of dollars each week to do the podcast. Even the Neocast version costs Stardock money too even if it's not producing it, it runs/maintains the site for it. But the iTunes of the world merely have to link to the MP3 file leaving the content providers out in the cold.
2) The effort vs. reward is totally not there in terms of listeners. Take PowerUser.TV -- it involves 3 salaried people plus 1 volunteer to produce the show plus another salaried person to maintain the website. That same staff could put together a pretty impressive website. A popular website like Neowin.net might get a million visitors PER DAY. A popular podcast might get 100,000 listenres PER WEEK. It's not even remotely as effective a means.
3) Podcasts aren't sticky. You can't say in the middle of a podcast "Hey, go check out this post on Neowin.net" and the user be taken to the website somehow.
Can you imagine me saying http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry587710294 on the air?
"I repeat, that's st=0%#..."
4) Bandwidth costs. A page view on Neowin.net might use up 60K. A download of a podcast might be 60 MEGABYTES PER LISTENER. Ack.
5) Podcasts are being crowded out by radio shows and other NON-podcasts (i.e. things that were produced with a totally different audience in mind and then tossed onto the web as an MP3 with an RSS feed and called a "podcast"). You can't even find most real podcasts anymore.
Of the top 50 podcasts on Yahoo, nearly HALF of them are now NPR (that's National Public RADIO) shows that have been tossed onto the net as "podcasts" despite them not really being podcasts. It really aggravates me because a) they're paid for by taxes and
they're abusing the medium. It would be like Electronic Arts submitting games into the independent games festival.That doesn't mean podcasts are doomed. It's too early by far to say that. What is really needed first off is a way to filter out the NPR's of the world off the various podcast lists so that people can actually find genuine podcasts.
Secondly, we need to learn who the listeners really are. The lack of raw numbers could be made up for if the listeners are "industry influencers". For example, Neowin.net may not get even a fraction of the traffic of a Digg.com but the difference is that (I believe) Neowin.net's average viewer has a lot more influence over what kind of technology people around them use over the average Digg.com viewer (and the average Digg.com viewer has a lot more influence than say the average MSN home page viewer and so forth).
It will be interesting to see what happens to podcasts. I don't think it'll be going away but I think it may become like blogging where at first everyone was starting to have blogs (and just as annoying then was on-line columnists turning their articles into "blogs") but now it's found its own particular niche.
Andrew (Ace2000)
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:43 AM
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:43 AM
I do agree with most everything that you say but in the end people only care about anything/something in terms of "how can I best use this for my needs".
For example, for a long time I listened to stupid morning shows on the radio on my drive to work. This really was a waste of time. Then I find out about Podcast so I download almost anything and everything I cared about to better use my time and educate myself a bit.
AudioPodcast have replaced 90% of my time I used to listen to the radio and likewise VideoPodcasts have replaced 80% of my television watching. Now I can subscribe to the channels (podcasts) I care about not like radio or cable tv which for the most part I hate. I hate the fact that I pay for cable to watch crap on tv because the stuff I like to watch is on at another time. I know Tivo and other devices are out there but I can't afford Tivo and don't have the time between two jobs to create my own right now.
Now I don't want to lessen the amount of content in any of these media just because I don't like it but I like the idea that I get out of it what I want. I my case if tv, radio, or other forms of the media care to join the podcast realm as JoeUser I benefit. I just google search my own interest and subscribe to what I want. I also don't mind listening to the ads when I know that I am getting good content from the show that I subscribed to.
Of course if others, probably the majority, use podcast in this fashion. That is they get to watch/listen to what they want when they want. This unfortunately means free podcasting might not be the future. There will most definately be charges for podcast unless they do as radio stations do and have the ads pay the bills. Capitalize always finds a way in to make money of whatever they can.
I am predicting that listeners would love to use podcast as a radio tivo of sorts and will urge and welcome BIG MEDIA (cable, radio, NPR) to join the Podcasting party. Podcast are great right now but they will not be in the future I am sad to say. It is going to be because of the public demands more content and still expect it to be free. It is just to much to ask I think.
Let me know how you feel about this.
For example, for a long time I listened to stupid morning shows on the radio on my drive to work. This really was a waste of time. Then I find out about Podcast so I download almost anything and everything I cared about to better use my time and educate myself a bit.
AudioPodcast have replaced 90% of my time I used to listen to the radio and likewise VideoPodcasts have replaced 80% of my television watching. Now I can subscribe to the channels (podcasts) I care about not like radio or cable tv which for the most part I hate. I hate the fact that I pay for cable to watch crap on tv because the stuff I like to watch is on at another time. I know Tivo and other devices are out there but I can't afford Tivo and don't have the time between two jobs to create my own right now.
Now I don't want to lessen the amount of content in any of these media just because I don't like it but I like the idea that I get out of it what I want. I my case if tv, radio, or other forms of the media care to join the podcast realm as JoeUser I benefit. I just google search my own interest and subscribe to what I want. I also don't mind listening to the ads when I know that I am getting good content from the show that I subscribed to.
Of course if others, probably the majority, use podcast in this fashion. That is they get to watch/listen to what they want when they want. This unfortunately means free podcasting might not be the future. There will most definately be charges for podcast unless they do as radio stations do and have the ads pay the bills. Capitalize always finds a way in to make money of whatever they can.
I am predicting that listeners would love to use podcast as a radio tivo of sorts and will urge and welcome BIG MEDIA (cable, radio, NPR) to join the Podcasting party. Podcast are great right now but they will not be in the future I am sad to say. It is going to be because of the public demands more content and still expect it to be free. It is just to much to ask I think.
Let me know how you feel about this.
GhoS
Reply #3 Wednesday, July 19, 2006 6:31 PM
Reply #3 Wednesday, July 19, 2006 6:31 PM
I personally haven't found a need for podcasts. Granted I haven't looked into them all that much. However I just find them useless. I have only tried Poweruser.tv and Neowincast and I would much rather listen to music than people talk about stuff. I would just as easily read it as well. Its nice to hear voices I guess, but again I would rather have music on.
As far as the problem with linkage obviously it is limited. Perhaps someone will come up with a way to have links generated either within the pod listening program or a different format for transmission entirely.
Either way I just find podcasts rather ho hum. I'd be happy to check out podcasts that people say are worth listening to and see. But like with the Poweruser.tv while there are parts of each cast I would like to listen to , there are usually parts I don't care about and yet I can't selectively pick those sections.
As far as the problem with linkage obviously it is limited. Perhaps someone will come up with a way to have links generated either within the pod listening program or a different format for transmission entirely.
Either way I just find podcasts rather ho hum. I'd be happy to check out podcasts that people say are worth listening to and see. But like with the Poweruser.tv while there are parts of each cast I would like to listen to , there are usually parts I don't care about and yet I can't selectively pick those sections.
relswick
Reply #4 Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:45 PM
Reply #4 Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:45 PM
for your comments I have some thoughts on the subject:
1) The sites that syndicate the feeds are the ones who get all the rewards. ITunes, PodNova, Yahoo, they're the ones who make all that advertising revenue without having to create the content. It costs Stardock thousands of dollars each week to do the podcast. Even the Neocast version costs Stardock money too even if it's not producing it, it runs/maintains the site for it. But the iTunes of the world merely have to link to the MP3 file leaving the content providers out in the cold.
ITunes doesn't link to the file per say, they link to it, so you download it for listening to. Rewards, that is sort of ambiguous. Speaking for myself, I don't go out there searching for podcast info. I have to some degree, but that is generally to try to find something I am interested in. When looking for a podcast to listen to, I don't care about the web side of things, since I want to get the RSS feed, so I can start listening to the feed. After I have that, I generally don't revist a website of a podcast, unless there is a reference in the podcast to a link I want to check out or something else, which drags me to the site, but then I am only going there to obtain a certain thing, not general browsing. I could be in the minority here though.
2) The effort vs. reward is totally not there in terms of listeners. Take PowerUser.TV -- it involves 3 salaried people plus 1 volunteer to produce the show plus another salaried person to maintain the website. That same staff could put together a pretty impressive website. A popular website like Neowin.net might get a million visitors PER DAY. A popular podcast might get 100,000 listenres PER WEEK. It's not even remotely as effective a means.
Ah yes, how do you judge the expenditure of money on Marketing and Advertising.... Is it strickly about the cost to produce or as the way the discussions go on Poweruser, is it about sharing what you know and enjoying a conversation about the news and events of the day/week? Is it also strickly about the numbers of visitors? How many of the 1M visitors stay for 45 minutes on the site, which they probably do for your podcast? Also, how many companys spend money on marketting and advertising to try and 'get' consumers to buy their products and cover their costs? I expect there are more that lose money than gain money. I am not advertising or marketting expert though.
You could skip out on your costs and move towards a lesser or no cost type of show, whereby the participants do it on thier own time (although salary is company time all the time.
) or even get volunteers outside the companies to join the cast. You could also start taking advertisements to your show... Hell you might get lucky and reach the costs associated with a full page ad in a magazine...
I know this great contractor in Warren, MI , who could produce your podcast for you....
3) Podcasts aren't sticky. You can't say in the middle of a podcast "Hey, go check out this post on Neowin.net" and the user be taken to the website somehow.
Your right, it isn't a website. Of course you could reference your site as to having a link to the post...
Can you imagine me saying http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry587710294 on the air?
refence the show notes or even say visit the poweruser.tv website for the link.
If they really want it, they will visit.
4) Bandwidth costs. A page view on Neowin.net might use up 60K. A download of a podcast might be 60 MEGABYTES PER LISTENER. Ack.
One word: Libsyn
found at: Link
Host your mp3 files there and reference them from your site. Yes, you have to pay storage fees, but no bandwidth costs what so ever!
5) Podcasts are being crowded out by radio shows and other NON-podcasts (i.e. things that were produced with a totally different audience in mind and then tossed onto the web as an MP3 with an RSS feed and called a "podcast"). You can't even find most real podcasts anymore.
Competition. Free market! I agree with you, it sucks, but welcome to Capitalism! Now, how do you go about finding independent radio stations (on the vice verse situation) not easy. Sounds like you stumbled upon a new website, which only lists independant podcasts or a search engine of independant podcasts! So go get those folks working on it and skip out on Poweruser.tv! Na, keep the podcast and do the website!
In the end, I think there is a huge explosive growth that is going to happen for Podcasting as people become more aware of the possibilities. Using your TotalGaming.net website as an example. It would be nice to just open up your prefered podcather (iTunes for me) and see there is a new audio news item for my Totalgaming.net feed, which talks about the latests game addition to the TotalGaming.net service! Instead of reading about it, I can sit at work doing my job and hear about this totally cool new game, that was just released or perhaps news about what is going on with the website and service. Using your GalCiv 2 game as another example... listening about what is going on with the game and/or tips and tricks. It is just a matter of time before folks start catching on. Hell, you could write the podcatching software into your games, so instead of reading a long boring list of release notes in the readme.txt file, I can just listend to it as I play a portion of the game or perhaps while a patch downloads...
did I mention that I know this guy, who produces podcasts.... hehe
yes I have some thoughts on how Podcasting can be used for a business to connect with it's customers and I believe Stardock has done an excellent job of doing this with your Poweruser.tv podcast, even if you shy away from doing it too much. hell i have started visiting QuarterToThree.com more because of it and I love the logo by the way.
1) The sites that syndicate the feeds are the ones who get all the rewards. ITunes, PodNova, Yahoo, they're the ones who make all that advertising revenue without having to create the content. It costs Stardock thousands of dollars each week to do the podcast. Even the Neocast version costs Stardock money too even if it's not producing it, it runs/maintains the site for it. But the iTunes of the world merely have to link to the MP3 file leaving the content providers out in the cold.
ITunes doesn't link to the file per say, they link to it, so you download it for listening to. Rewards, that is sort of ambiguous. Speaking for myself, I don't go out there searching for podcast info. I have to some degree, but that is generally to try to find something I am interested in. When looking for a podcast to listen to, I don't care about the web side of things, since I want to get the RSS feed, so I can start listening to the feed. After I have that, I generally don't revist a website of a podcast, unless there is a reference in the podcast to a link I want to check out or something else, which drags me to the site, but then I am only going there to obtain a certain thing, not general browsing. I could be in the minority here though.
2) The effort vs. reward is totally not there in terms of listeners. Take PowerUser.TV -- it involves 3 salaried people plus 1 volunteer to produce the show plus another salaried person to maintain the website. That same staff could put together a pretty impressive website. A popular website like Neowin.net might get a million visitors PER DAY. A popular podcast might get 100,000 listenres PER WEEK. It's not even remotely as effective a means.
Ah yes, how do you judge the expenditure of money on Marketing and Advertising.... Is it strickly about the cost to produce or as the way the discussions go on Poweruser, is it about sharing what you know and enjoying a conversation about the news and events of the day/week? Is it also strickly about the numbers of visitors? How many of the 1M visitors stay for 45 minutes on the site, which they probably do for your podcast? Also, how many companys spend money on marketting and advertising to try and 'get' consumers to buy their products and cover their costs? I expect there are more that lose money than gain money. I am not advertising or marketting expert though.
You could skip out on your costs and move towards a lesser or no cost type of show, whereby the participants do it on thier own time (although salary is company time all the time.
) or even get volunteers outside the companies to join the cast. You could also start taking advertisements to your show... Hell you might get lucky and reach the costs associated with a full page ad in a magazine... I know this great contractor in Warren, MI , who could produce your podcast for you....
3) Podcasts aren't sticky. You can't say in the middle of a podcast "Hey, go check out this post on Neowin.net" and the user be taken to the website somehow.
Your right, it isn't a website. Of course you could reference your site as to having a link to the post...
Can you imagine me saying http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry587710294 on the air?
refence the show notes or even say visit the poweruser.tv website for the link.
If they really want it, they will visit.4) Bandwidth costs. A page view on Neowin.net might use up 60K. A download of a podcast might be 60 MEGABYTES PER LISTENER. Ack.
One word: Libsyn
found at: Link
Host your mp3 files there and reference them from your site. Yes, you have to pay storage fees, but no bandwidth costs what so ever!
5) Podcasts are being crowded out by radio shows and other NON-podcasts (i.e. things that were produced with a totally different audience in mind and then tossed onto the web as an MP3 with an RSS feed and called a "podcast"). You can't even find most real podcasts anymore.
Competition. Free market! I agree with you, it sucks, but welcome to Capitalism! Now, how do you go about finding independent radio stations (on the vice verse situation) not easy. Sounds like you stumbled upon a new website, which only lists independant podcasts or a search engine of independant podcasts! So go get those folks working on it and skip out on Poweruser.tv! Na, keep the podcast and do the website!
In the end, I think there is a huge explosive growth that is going to happen for Podcasting as people become more aware of the possibilities. Using your TotalGaming.net website as an example. It would be nice to just open up your prefered podcather (iTunes for me) and see there is a new audio news item for my Totalgaming.net feed, which talks about the latests game addition to the TotalGaming.net service! Instead of reading about it, I can sit at work doing my job and hear about this totally cool new game, that was just released or perhaps news about what is going on with the website and service. Using your GalCiv 2 game as another example... listening about what is going on with the game and/or tips and tricks. It is just a matter of time before folks start catching on. Hell, you could write the podcatching software into your games, so instead of reading a long boring list of release notes in the readme.txt file, I can just listend to it as I play a portion of the game or perhaps while a patch downloads...
did I mention that I know this guy, who produces podcasts.... hehe
yes I have some thoughts on how Podcasting can be used for a business to connect with it's customers and I believe Stardock has done an excellent job of doing this with your Poweruser.tv podcast, even if you shy away from doing it too much. hell i have started visiting QuarterToThree.com more because of it and I love the logo by the way.
Jay
Reply #5 Friday, July 21, 2006 3:53 PM
Reply #5 Friday, July 21, 2006 3:53 PM
Sounds like you should quit - it's clearly not worth your effort.
garycoryer
Reply #6 Saturday, September 23, 2006 11:16 AM
Reply #6 Saturday, September 23, 2006 11:16 AM
Also you have to remember that podcasting is VERY new. Less that two years of significant amounts of material. So there really hasn't been a lot of time to build awareness. I listen to podcasts a lot but I'm a techie and can deal with the less than convenient pod-catchers and players. When someone comes out with the "TiVo" version of a podcatcher/player, thats the killer app that will expand the audience.
(Listening StarDock???
Gary C
(Listening StarDock???
Gary C
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Reply #1 Monday, July 17, 2006 11:18 PM
Other podcasts that are done in peoples' spare time, and have started to pick up sponsors are probably more typical of podcasting.
Todd Cochrane at Geeknewscenral http://www.geeknewscentral.com/ has one of the longest running and most widely listened to podcasts (possibly the longest running tech-related podcast) He now has two to three sponsors for the Geeknewscentral podcast, and has just launched blubrry.com http://blubrry.com which hosts close to two hundred podcasts already.
The NPRs and other more "mainstream" podcasts will probably continue to grow as traditional broadcasters try to regain some of the listenership/viewership they have been losing to internet based media. The week of July 4th 2006 is rated as the lowest TV rating period since they started tracking it.
TV and radio are continuing to lose ground to satellite radio, internet news sites, podcasts, etc... so it only makes sense that they will try to jump on the bandwagon.