TellTail Signs

Help! Recording skype and/or Gizmo calls

I'm trying to figure out the best way to get some decent sound quality in recording calls I make via Skype or Gizmo.  Anyone have any tips?  And by the way -- if anyone has actually used Gizmo and found it to work well, could you email me or comment here? 

AgWired: Letting a blog speak

A great example of business podcasting is AgWired. Chuck Zimmerman is a former colleague I've been meaning to mention here for a while. He's doing some really interesting things with blogging and podcasting in the ag industry. His blog has all kinds of agri-marketing information on it, and it also serves as a nice marketing tool for his own business. It's a great model for how a blog can be the primary face a company presents to the public. Everything you need to know about Chuck's business is right there on the blog. Spend 15 minutes at AgWired and you know exactly what Chuck's capable of doing. And that's what a website should do.

MP3 vs. Radio: New Numbers

Check this out, from podcastingnews.com: 12-24 year olds would choose their MP3 player over traditional radio, according to a recent Bridge Ratings Study.  Key findings:

• 85% of the total sample would choose their MP3 player over traditional radio as their preferred option for music.
• There is a clear generational difference between 12-17 and 18-24 year olds.
• For music listening, the Internet is preferred over traditional radio.
• MP3 use far out-paces radio use.
• When
  given a choice between listening to music over the Internet or
  traditional radio stations, 54% prefer the Internet while 30% prefer
  radio. This preference is more pronounced among 18-24 year olds.

How does radio stop the bleeding?  Some suggestions from the researchers:

• Add variety - more different types of music and different types of programming throughout each day.
• Reduce repetition
• Showcase much more new music
• Hire relateable personalities who can expose this age group to new music.
• Podcast your personalities, create blogs, eliminate the pre-recorded, imported automoton announcers.
• Completely embrace all of the technology available as extensions of the radio station.
• Re-think
  commercial loads, placement and production quality. For example,
  properly placed hour long sponsorships would enhance client brands and
  station image.
• Provide what the MP3 player cannot.

Not sure what that last one means.  I assume it's local news, breaking weather, etc.  Anyway, the reason this caught my eye is that it showcases what I've told a few potential clients who are specifically trying to reach this age group.  Podcasts (and blogs) are where this audience is getting its information.  It's a multi-media conversation involving thousands and thousands of people in that age group, and if we want to reach them effectively, podcasting and blogging will do it in a much more "relevant" way.

Even the suggestions for local radio are interesting, in that they essentially suggest that radio play on the strengths of its new-media rivals.  Radio stations are urged to go back to personalities, which are what helps drive blog and podcast loyalty; and they're told to establish blogs and podcasts of their own. 

Honda's Missing Roblog

Easton Ellsworth at Business Blog Wire definitely is thinking the right way about blogging for business. This post tackles the question of why Honda doesn't have a blog or podcast for its ASIMO robot. (Call it the RoBlog!) He has five ideas for a Honda-run ASIMO blog:

1. Post videos of ASIMO doing all sorts of fun things. And maybe looking lame sometimes.
2. Post transcripts of interviews with some of the engineers and programmers working on ASIMO.
3. Put up podcasts of ASIMO news and answer reader comments in the podcasts.

Check out his post for the rest.

This kind of product just cries out for consumer-driven marketing, pulled together in a blog maintained by the company. Maybe the most important part of Easton's list is in #1, where he suggests the blog should include videos of ASIMO "maybe looking lame sometimes." That's it! Show folks that your product isn't perfect, but that it's pretty cool, nonetheless. Just a small step like that will give you legitimacy with your audience, and build the trust that eventually turns into purchases.

Share your knowledge!

Larry Weber, at the Syndicate Conference, is right on point as he talks about where marketing is headed. Doc Searls blogged Weber's presentation and added some commentary. Here are some of my favorite nuggets:

The stronger the dialog, the stronger the brand; the weaker the dialog, the weaker the brand.

Hey, throw a party in your digital space. Opinions shape marketing now. Marketing doesn't shape opinions.

If your sites don't have a social interface, you're going to lose the leadership position in what you do. Something that wants to look, teach, and learn from you. And it's going to be hard because in this marketing world, people are used to looking through one-way media.

The trick here is to understand that you're in business because you're an expert in a particular area. Or, at the very least, you've gained some expertise over time, on the subject your business covers. So if you're in the medical field, you have some expertise as a nurse, or a doctor or as a pharmacist. If you're in the tourism business, you're an expert on your local market, or on tourism in general. That means you have information people want! People are thirsty for knowledge about the subjects that interest them. Satisfy their thirst by sharing your knowledge and voila!--you have a relationship with them, and you've built trust. The business relationship follows that trust relationship.

Read more at Doc Searls' blog.

Seeding User-Created Podcasts

News flash: CNN is offering four channels of streaming video! I guess it's a decent move. They're giving their audience more options, and that's a good thing. But New Media Musings quotes JD Lasica with a great idea for how they could make it even better:

"What would be revolutionary is if they allowed you to download their video, remix and add your own commentary, and then upload it to CNN's site."

That comment reminded me of a recent brainstorming session I had with a publisher who's looking to add some audio to what's been a text-and-photo site up to now. Let's say a publisher identifies 10 potential podcast, and produces those programs. But then it goes a step further, and breaks the podcast audio up into narrow "slices," or sound bites, categorized by subject. It posts those sound bites along with the regular podcasts, and establishes RSS feeds for each of those very narrow slices, by topic, and encourages its audience to pull those sound bites and create their own custom podcasts, with commentary. The best of the user-created podcasts could even be featured on the site. I can't help thinking that would be a great way to create a community and interact with an audience in a new and exciting way that wouldn't have been feasible even a year ago.

The Second Front

Here's a theory I'm working on, and I'd appreciate any feedback you could give me.  I call it the "Second Front" theory.  It says the public has traditionally received all its information from a single front (the bottom line on the diagram), where advertisers have bombarded them with scads of overlapping messages designed to hit the broadest audience possible. Because there was no other source of information than TV, radio, newspaper or magazine, the public was forced to stay near that First Front.

But the advent of new media has given consumers an option. They're migrating away from the old front, and toward the new front, where they can get the information they want.  Tivos, Ipods, the Internet and other developments are luring consumers to the top of the diagram for two reasons:

1. They won't get bombarded by ads there.
2. They can choose precisely what information they want to seek out.

The trick for producers, who still need to reach their audience, is to position themselves along the Second Front.  That means the message should change in two ways:

1. It should talk about the consumer, not the producer.
2. It should provide the information the consumer wants, on a topic the consumer cares about, in a form the consumer can receive easily.

Because the Second Front (good blogs, podcasts, and other "new media") is consumer-driven, the information along that front is more trusted. Good marketing on the Second Front will build that trust by being about consumers and their needs--not about producers and their products.

Build Communities First

The ad:tech blog reports on its just-finished conference. You can read about it in detail at the blog, but one thing stands out, after a cursory glance. It's here, noted by Maria Mandel of Ogilvy Interactive, who noted three themes:

1. We're moving to all on demand. Consumers want it when they want it.
2. Entertainment. We need more creative advertising to connect to consumers.
3. Community: help consumers build community and then connect your brands to them.


Number three especially gets my attention. Marketing is, more than ever, a participation in a community. I wrote a proposal today for a marketing project for a tourism market that has a lot of promise, but has often been overlooked because of its proximity to a bigger destination. The director of the the convention and visitors bureau has some great ideas for reaching out to a specific target audience. The area has a ton of hiking and biking opportunities, so I proposed putting together a blogging/podcasting package that would cater to that market. Forget about talking up the destination for its own sake. Reach out to people who can benefit from what you offer (hikers and bikers) and give them content that they can use. Establish your authority by putting someone enthusiastic and knowledgeable in charge of the whole shebang, and marvel as people develop trust in you -- then marvel further as they choose you as a location for day-trips and longer vacations.

Help consumers build a community. Then, connect your brand to it.

Direct Line to Voters

I can't imagine the frustration level involved in relying on a middle-man to communicate.  It's like the kids' game "Telephone:" anytime we whisper in someone's ear, our message always ends up changed somehow.  And yet political candidates and office-holders have to rely almost exclusively on middle-men to tell their stories to voters.  In the past, it's simply been impossible to communicate directly to everyone, without having a reporter or an editor in-between.

That's why I think politicians stand to benefit the most from podcasting, if they do it right. If a politician is forward-thinking enough to talk honestly and interactively with voters, a podcast is a great opportunity to cut out the middle-man.  Imagine, after years of relying on a messenger to communicate, being able to talk directly to the people you want to speak to! 

Podcasting is really just an extension of the traditional political commercial -- but without the time constraints. What would that kind of candidate site look like?  How about this?

Whirlpool is Podcasting

Whirlpool is podcasting: 

What's interesting is the podcasts are focused on family issues and are not centered around Whirlpool products. Moreover, Whirlpool has done no overt promotion of the podcasts, preferring that they be found through word-of-mouth marketing. One charmer: the interview featuring ... an interview with the 200,000th recipient of a Habitat For Humanity-built home (Whirlpool supports the non-profit by supplying a refrigerator and range to every Habitat home).

This is where we're all headed.  Whirlpool's becoming a part of the conversation with its customers.  It's not talking about its own appliances, but about topics its customers want to explore. The listeners might not even own an Whirlpool appliance -- but when their refrigerator goes out, chances are good they'll give Whirlpool serious consideration because they've come to trust the company.