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CompuSchmooze™ Newspaper Columns: A Monthly Guide to Jewish Resources in Cyberspace

CompuSchmooze

The CompuSchmoozeTM name is a trademark owned bySteven L. Lubetkin, and is the name of a series of columns published monthly in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey. These articles and associated podcasts are Copyright © 1996-2010 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.

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Friday, June 24, 2005

 

CompuSchmooze June 2005 (2nd column) : Podcasting Gains Support from Network Radio

CompuSchmooze June 2005 (2nd column) : Podcasting Gains Support from Network Radio
By Steven L. Lubetkin
Copyright © 2005 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.
WORD COUNT: 688

Podcasting has gone legit. In May, the Sirius Satellite Radio Network (www.sirius.com) launched “Adam Curry's PodShow,” a four-hour, weekday program featuring what a press release called “highlights and insights from the world of podcasting.” Curry, a former MTV veejay, is widely credited with coining the term “podcasting” after devising software to make it easier for users of portable digital music players such as Apple’s Ipod to download audio programs from the Internet onto the devices.

Then, last week, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced last week that it had commissioned Tod Maffin (www.todmaffin.com), its technology correspondent, to develop a broadcast radio program about podcasting for the CBC’s national network. The program, tentatively titled “The Feed,” (www.thefeed.ca), will feature the work of Canadian podcasters as part of the content.

“Sorry Americans, for now it's only Canadians,” Maffin writes in The Feed’s blog. He’s taking an interesting approach to development of the program, allowing listeners/readers a unique inside look at the efforts to develop the show. The blog site for The Feed includes an audio sample of theme music being considered, and even has an Acrobat PDF document containing the proposal he submitted to CBC for the program.

Maffin has written and distributed an electronic book, From Idea to Air: The Freelancer’s Field Guide to Selling to Radio, which he’s adapted into a shorter “Podcaster’s Edition.” He sells both versions of the book on his website (http://todmaffin.com/ideatoair/).

“There are some things that you don’t need to know if you’re podcasting,” he said of the podcast version of the book. “You don’t need to know how to pitch a show, or feed it to the station.”
One of the critical weaknesses of the many thousands of podcasts being distributed over the web is the lack of attention to production values and telling a story effectively in the radio format, Maffin says.

“We’re still in that early stage of learning about the media,” Maffin explained. “There are a lot of podcasts about podcasting, but increasingly, these are people going beyond that and trying to tell stories, and in that way they’re trying to replicate a lot of radio already, so with my background as a short documentary producer, here are some tips I’ve learned along the way.”
Maffin tries to help podcasters understand how to prepare programs that are entertaining for listeners.

“One of the big negatives is they are in the mindset that ‘I’m talking to a couple of my friends,’” he said. “There are far too many podcasts that go on for an hour or an hour and a half where you as the listener feel completely excluded from the conversation, they’re laughing at jokes that don’t make sense to you. You get wider audiences when you realize that there is no ‘everybody,’ and that you are talking to one person.”

Radio executives are not terribly concerned that podcasters will threaten their livelihood. At a luncheon panel of the Jersey Shore Public Relations and Advertising Association last week, Dan Finn, vice president of Greater Media, which owns several New Jersey “terrestrial” radio stations, said podcasting was “part of the new technology.”

“We opened up a digital music store at two of our radio stations’ websites,” Finn said. “We’d rather they buy the music from us. I think the bigger question when it comes to new technology is the younger listener. Are they going to grow up on radio?”

D. Carnedy, senior vice president of sales for XM Satellite Radio (www.xmradio.com), another panelist, said “We’re engaged at this point with it. It’s really about the content and how people interact with the content.”

Maffin thinks there is a valid business model for podcasting that could make them profitable.
“I think there will be a few pay-for podcasts,” he said, but he thinks most podcasts will be part of a package of benefits offered to subscribers at various sites. He noted that Rush Limbaugh is offering podcasts of his daily programs as part of a package for people who join the “24/7” subscription club through his website (www.rushlimbaugh.com).

Be sure to listen to the CompuSchmooze podcast interview with Tod Maffin.
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CompuSchmooze June 2005: AIIM On Demand Conference Spotlights Digital Documents

CompuSchmooze June 2005: AIIM On Demand Conference Spotlights Digital Documents
By Steven L. Lubetkin
Copyright © 2005 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.
WORD COUNT: 656

From May 17-19, more than 20,000 professionals involved in document creation, publishing, and distribution converged on the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City Philadelphia for the AIIM On Demand conference, one of the largest exhibits of technology devoted to printing, publishing, and document delivery.

Gutenberg would have been amazed at how far publishing has come.

The globalization of business is forcing companies to customize their materials for different markets, languages, currency conversions, and cultural demands.

“The old way [of printing] is long-run, manufacture and ship. It’s about the beauty of the [printed] piece,” said Gary Kusin, president and CEO of FedEx Kinko’s, who was one of the conference’s keynote speakers. “The new way is about effectiveness and efficiency without sacrificing quality. It’s about quick response to a rapidly changing market, and it’s about the logistics of getting the message right content to the audiences quickly, as customized and as efficiently as possible.” (You can hear Kusin's entire keynote in our podcast associated with this column.)

FedEx Kinko’s has had dramatic success in on-demand delivery of printed materials since merging the express delivery service and the Kinko’s print shop business, Kusin said.
He told how FedEx Kinko’s had arranged to deliver a customer’s work via email to its print facilities in Australia for subsequent shipping to Malaysia. This allowed the customer to deliver customized training materials in 48 hours, compared with the previous two-week lead-time required. Organizations can use the time savings from digital demand publishing for greater customization of materials and more in-depth treatment of the topics, he said.

Demonstrating his belief that “information logistics” is the big opportunity for his firm, Kusin announced that FedEx Kinko’s will open a 28,000 square-foot commercial printing plant at the FedEx distribution hub in Memphis. Customers will transmit large commercial printing jobs directly to Memphis for what he described as “the latest drop-off time available” for FedEx overnight deliveries.

Other vendors demonstrated technologies allowing organizations to use the same content in different forms, such as training manuals, web pages, Acrobat PDF files, and other formats.

“Electronic Content Management,” or ECM, allows users to edit a document in a single web-browser interface, and have the change automatically appear wherever that content is used.
One firm, SilkRoad Technology, provides a system called Eprise OnDemand (http://www.eprise.com/products/hosted__wcm/index.htm) that lets individual users update organizational websites without understanding the HTML language that’s used to create the look and feel of the web page.

At a press conference called the “Declaration of Education” program, six manufacturers joined forces to offer a live demonstration of how technology can be used to prepare books of classic literature (such as "War of the Worlds," "The Odyssey" and "Frankenstein"), print them, and bind them at the rate of one book every nine seconds so that 10,000 copies could be distributed to Philadelphia school district students.

You’ll probably never encounter the suppliers involved in this creative demonstration of the power of digital publishing technology, since they are mainly selling their technologies to other large companies. But I like projects that try to help disadvantaged students get a little bit of an edge, so I think they deserve some credit for being engaged in this project. They were:
Weyerhaueser (http://www.weyerhaeuser.com), which provided its special Lynx Digital Opaque paper, designed for digital printing; paper;
Océ (http://www.oce.com/en/default.htm), a Netherlands-based printing company, which provided a 1300-page-per-minute digital printing system; Lasermax Roll Systems, which contributed page cutting technology that can slice 450 feet of paper per minute
Lasermax Roll Systems (http://www.rollsystems.com), which contributed cutting equipment to slice continuous strips of book pages into single sheets at a rate of up to 450 feet per minute.
MBO America, Inc. (http://www.mboamerica.com), which added its folding equipment; and
Muller Martini Corp. (http://www.mullermartiniusa.com), whose binding equipment created finished books at the rate of about 1,000 books an hour.

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Sunday, June 05, 2005

 

CompuSchmooze Podcast #6: Tod Maffin, CBC Broadcaster and Podcast Expert

We interview Tod Maffin, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation technology reporter who has just been named to host a new program about podcasting on the CBC's radio network.

More info on Tod at: http://todmaffin.com/speaking/bio.htm

Tod's new podcast program is called The Feed. It has a blog/website at http://www.thefeed.ca/

Podcast also features comments from:
Dan Finn, VP and Regional General Manager of Greater Media (http://www.greater-media.com/)

D. Carnedy, Senior VP Sales, XM Satellite Radio (http://www.xmradio.com/)

Both were panelists at the Jersey Shore Public Relations and Advertising Association's luncheon in West Long Branch, NJ on Friday, June 3. More information on JSPRAA at www.jspraa.com.

Theme Music: Zombie, podcast friendly track from Devin Anderson (http://podsafeaudio.com/jamroom/bands/3/)

Technical Notes
Olympus DS-2 stereo recorder used for location recording at JSPRAA luncheon.

Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) used for editing this time. Much easier to use for podcasting applications than n-Track Studio, our first editing program, which is better suited for music studio applications.

http://libsyn.com/media/lubetkin/CSchmooze6-Maffin.mp3

Thursday, June 02, 2005

 

CBC to Develop a National Podcasting Show (I Love Radio .org)

Podcasting is gaining ground in the radiosphere, that is, the in the
"legitimate" sphere of radio broadcasting.

CBC Radio, Canada's public broadcaster, is developing a weekly on-air
program about the blogosphere and podcast community, using the voices of
audio bloggers and podcasters, reports Tod Maffin on his I Love Radio blog.

CBC has commissioned Tod (http://www.todmaffin.com) to host and produce the
show and a pilot is currently in production (not all pilots make it to air).
Maffin is an active podcaster and blogger, and maintains CanadaPodcasts.ca.
He has been a national producer and host for CBC Radio for several years. He
is also the network’s technology columnist.

I've just completed a CompuSchmooze podcast interview via Skype with Tod
about his excellent e-book, "From Idea to Air: Podcaster's Edition, A
Podcaster's Guide to Making Radio," which gives practical, step-by-step
instructions on how to script audio features for radio and for podcasting.
The book spends a worthwhile amount of time on podcasting equipment and
software for recording, and how to edit a show. You can get the book for $15
for a limited time at http://todmaffin.com/ideatoair/podcast_edition.htm

The podcast interview with Tod Maffin will be posted to our CompuSchmooze
podcast/blog in the next few days.

According to Tod's blog entry, over the next week, he will be travelling to
major Canadian cities to host a series of podcaster meetups in Vancouver,
Toronto, and Ottawa (with a special invitation to Montreal podcasters) to
field questions about the show pilot and explain how podcasters can get
involved.

Should the pilot get approved, the program will likely be called The Feed
and its web site is at http://thefeed.org

Tod's blog reports that the CBC podcast show will air "the very best moments
from the best podcasts from around Canada and the world," and adds that
"Podcasters selected for the show will be paid a license fee to air their
material." Steve calling Tod: "Hello, I'm ready to license!"

The Feed will also be available for acquisition by other public radio
networks via the prx.org licensing site, Tod said. He added that he expects
CBC to announce what he called "a series of major podcasting initiatives
over the next few days."

More info at Tod's I Love Radio blog:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/iloveradio?m=432


 

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