Podcasting News: IndiePodcasting.com Announces Podcasting Service for Musicians

IndiePodcasting.com began generating podcast feeds on February 12th. Seventy-five artists have been promoted on IndiePodcasting feeds since the initial podcast and five new artists are added each day. Artists have been evaluated on songwriting skills, recording quality and production, vocals and lyrics, and musicianship by staff members with backgrounds in these areas.

Some feeds have included well-known indie artists, such as former Capitol Records artist Dexter Freebish, former Buck Cherry frontman Josh Todd, and Celldweller, an industrial/electronica artist whose music has been in several movie trailers for major films such as Spiderman 2, Catwoman, and Constantine.

Today, the NY Times released an article on Odeo in the Technology section. Although it’s hard to say EXACTLY what Odeo is (the product is not yet released), the thing that seems to be driving the press more is the involvement of Evan Williams, founder of Blogger. Here’s what the Times did tell us about Odeo:

The primarily amateur Internet audio medium known as podcasting will take a small, hopeful step on Friday toward becoming the commercial Web’s next big thing.

That step is planned by Odeo, a five-person start-up that is based in a walk-up apartment in this city’s Mission District and was co-founded by a Google alumnus. The company plans to introduce a Web-based system that is aimed at making a business of podcasting - the process of creating, finding, organizing and listening to digital audio files that range from living-room ramblings to BBC newscasts.

Source: NY Times, “For a Start-Up, Visions of Profit in Podcasting”

If Odeo is what I think it might be, that would be very cool as I support any platform that gets the general populous involved. Unfortunately, I’m not interested in Odeo solely for the potential of the product. I’m interested in it as a case where Power Laws, in this case the big spike, rears its ugly head. Just for clarity, this is in no way an attack on Evan or anyone involved - just a quick observation about these damned laws.

So why Odeo? Why the press interest. Why are bloggers going to take it and run. The wrong answer, for now, is because the product is exciting or great. The right answer, and I’ll stress FOR NOW once again, is because of the all-star team that’s behind it. Can anyone tell me who the other 3 people on the 5-person startup is. Anyone who’s ever started a company knows that when you’re at 5 employees, everyone’s critical.

How about another example. There has been considerable press to Adam Curry’s soon-o-be launched Podcasting company. Problem is, there is nothing ever been stated about what that company does, who’s involved - nothing. Last publicly stated proof of its existence was a post from Adam or Dave, can’t remember who, stating that they WEREN’T going to do business together. So why is Adam Curry’s yet-to-be-named Podcasting business still written about and promoted? Simple, it’s Adam Curry the Podfather himself.

So here’s the proof from the other side. If you subscribe to any of the podcasting lists, you’ll see a sweeping array of announcement of new sites, services, what have you. Sign up for a Google Alert! and you’ll get a few more each day that are related. And this is the only place you’ll hear about them, FOR NOW.

The truth is its easy to expect great things from those who have done great things previously. In this case, it’s reputation instead of links. Of course, there’s far too many examples where success does not breed success.

[note] - This post is not meant to serve as any form of assessment of the efforts by anyone involved. It’s meant solely to look at the role of reputation and power laws in the Podcasting context.

Back in January, I laid out what I believe the 3 phases of Podcast development to be. Here’s a quick recap:

Phase 1: Content
Phase 2: Creation
Phase 3: Composition

Since then, I’ve been even more immersed in the process of Podcasting, more specifically my own brew Beercasting. What’s most interesting, at this moment, is that there are now businesses that are attaching themselves to these different phases.

A couple of days ago, I posted about the first Podcasting Studio that has been setup. Clearly, the studio caters to the Creation phase. Now, there’s a new entrant that hits further down the stream in the Composition Phase.

PWOP Productions has announced that they are providing production support for podcasters. Here’s a quick blurb:

Pwop Productions provides podcasting services such as local and remote recording, audio editing and production, custom royalty-free music, transcription, RSS feeds, web development and hosting, and graphic design.

One of Pwop Productions’ newest customers is Microsoft’s MSDN Academic Alliance (msdn.microsoft.com/academic). The MSDN Academic Alliance will be providing a monthly podcast to schools and colleges to utilize in their academic programs.

Source: emediawire, “Podcasting Pioneer Launches Podcast Production Services Firm”

Once again, it’s not clear how successful this will be in the long term, however, it seems more scalable in the longer term to offer Composition services over Creation services.

It comes as no suprise to me that there’s an official Podcasting studio now open. The production of quality audio is a skilled dance and requires much more than a simple microphone and a velvet voice.

I think that PaleGroove Studios is doing something that’s not only interesting but also potentially risky. There’s no doubt that $75 for a session in the studio (I’m assuming it’s close to an hour) with MP3 generation and hosting is a great deal. But it could be pricey for some.

Right now, the Podcasting bar is set pretty low. Anyone with a microphone is on the job it seems. There’s definitely people that are investing quite a bit more into their production, but it’s a bit of the lease vs. finance model at work here. Do I pay per use or should I invest in the equipment to do it right. In the beginning it might be easier to try a few in the studio and once committed move on to the larger committment. Of course, hardware may hold its value better and make the investment less risky.

What I am quite interesting in, however, is the potential implication of who might be the actual target for this service. There’s great discussion forming over the future of business podcasting. It seems only natural that businesses would look to professional service centers like this for their answers.

I’m still yet unresolved on the entire business podcasting phenomena. Though I think it has potential, it’s also got to get to a much higher plateau. Right now, a lot of what qualifies as “business” podcasting is actually the publication of speeches and presentations as MP3 files. I know Neville Johnson does a good business podcast, but we need MORE.

In any event, if you’re in the Chicago area (I think that’s where it is) and have the opportunity to stop by, I’d love to hear about it.