More than half of the U.S. population over age 12 has now listened to a podcast, according to Edison Research. The medium has fundamentally altered the landscape for audio content, liberating and empowering both listeners and creators.

So you want to get into podcasting? By now, you have probably had a few friends launch their own podcasts and read a handful of articles on what it really takes to start a successful podcast. Our company has bought roughly a half a billion dollars worth of podcast ads over the last decade. We know a thing or two about what makes a podcast special.

The podcasting industry was shaken up this week with the announcement that JRE is moving exclusively to Spotify and it looks like it has caught Apple’s attention.

Bloomberg reports that Apple is looking to increase its investment in original podcasts, as well as buying existing ones, to augment its nascent Apple TV+ service. While its easy to view this as a classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, Apple seems to view podcasts as either a by-product of video content or as material that could then be adapted to video.

Apple effectively invented the podcast format, which derives its name from the pioneering iPod digital audio player, but the pre-eminence of iTunes as a podcasting platform is under serious threat thanks to this recent development. You have to assume Joe Rogan (pictured) spoke to Apple before recently committing to Spotify, so it would be fascinating to know what led him to ultimately reject it.

Blubrry has released its new Private Internal Podcasting service for businesses looking to lock down their podcasts to protect them from public distribution.

The hosting service is offering three levels of security based on three hosting plans, simple (limiting private podcasts to 50 user-seats), standard (additional security and 200 user-seats), and enterprise (500 user-seats, most secure).

Put simply, a podcast is a web series in an audio format. It can be downloaded by the listener or it can be streamed. The joy of the podcast is that you can listen to them wherever you are. Whether you’re in the car, in the house, on the train, or doing the ironing.

Many people find podcast series that they love and will avidly listen to every episode. Some podcasts have such great followings that they spawn live tours, books, and other merchandise.

Although podcasts have seen a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years, the root of podcasts actually goes all the way back to the 1980s when they were called audio blogs.

But it wasn’t high-speed broadband and the invention of Apple iPods and smartphones came along that the world was ready for the podcast. The rise in internet speeds that made downloading or streaming podcasts possible timed itself well with the perfect devices to listen to them on.

Determine your topic, audience and format

Everyone has something they could talk about for hours on end. When deciding which of these things should be the focus of a podcast, you need to consider topics that you will never get tired of talking about. Brainstorm 52 show topic ideas, one for each week of the year. This will let you know if you have enough ideas to have a regular podcast of your own, or if you would be better off finding guesting opportunities on existing programs. Of course, a show does not have to be weekly, but it is a starting point.

Defining your audience will help to hone the direction of the show, as well. A show geared toward young mothers will sound much different than a podcast for mid-career professionals. Your audience is rarely everyone. Figure out who they are and talk specifically to them, their needs and interests. As you plan your show, consider what type of format will be most effective, as well. Will you host guests, have a co-host or fly solo?

Choose memorable, straightforward branding

When coming up with a title for your podcast, it’s best not to be too clever or obscure. Make it easy to remember and spell and also give some idea of what the show is about. Search potential names in Google and on iTunes to be sure your idea is not already an established podcast. You will also want to claim a custom URL and related social media handles. Again, searching for these items will indicate if the title is already taken.

Cover art for your podcast needs to be an exact square, sized at least 1,400 pixels by 1,400 pixels and 3,000 pixels by 3,000 pixels at the most. Remember that people will be viewing it on a small screen, so use large text for your show name and relevant artwork.

Assemble a digital audio workstation

1. Strive To Be Different
2. Pilot Your Idea
3. Do Not Do It Alone
4. Understand Your Audience
5. Do Not Think About The Audience
6. Help Businesses Solve Challenges
7. Establish Yourself as an Authority
8. Target A Specific Niche
9. Focus On Building New Relationships
10. Three Elements Every Episode
11. Bring In A Variety Of Voices
12. Define The Why Of The Podcast
13. Keep Your Podcasts Brief
14. Make It Fast-Paced And Entertaining
15. Be Careful Not To Niche Down

I think this comes down to treating your marketing campaign mix holistically. A lot of digitally native brands tend to think about each channel independently and think about, you know, how do I get my Facebook campaign working, or how do I get my Google AdWords campaign working. But on Google and to some extent on Facebook, our activity is really driven around intent. People effectively putting their hands up, saying, I am looking for a sofa! through some kind of signal we can pick up on.

Podcasts are completely separate. There is no demand signal. So it is about finding that target audience that you are after and really introducing and sort of familiarizing that audience with the brand. That requires a holistic, full-funnel approach to your entire marketing mix, understanding that people we introduce to our furniture via podcast will be converted down the line via some other channel. That is key to building out a proper marketing mix, instead of just running some Facebook ads and hoping they do all the lifting.

Building out a physical space associated with a podcast business used to be a really good idea. For one thing, it offers an alternative revenue stream — through studio rentals and in-person events, among other things — that could check against the growing but volatile advertising revenue pool. It is also a really good fit for any podcast operation built on a sense of community. Having a physical space for listeners to routinely gather can really strengthen that relationship between publisher and fan, expanding the notion of how that community can be served.

COVID-19 has threatened the key communication channels corporations need to survive. Workers are displaced. National meetings have been cancelled. Town halls and offsites are viable only through online platforms. In the face of the storm, companies are turning to new channels to keep the lines of communication open. For many organizations, podcasting is a timely and effective way to unite a fractured workforce.

Even before COVID shuttered offices, and work-from-home directives became commonplace, large organizations were discovering podcasting was a worthwhile addition to their communication mix. According to Forbes, the majority of Fortune 500 companies in the US already use podcasting as part of their internal communications. Ideal for a geographically-distanced and mobile audience, podcasting seems purpose built for the modern lifestyle, bringing content where the audience is. Add to the mix a pandemic that has scattered workers across the country, and podcasting makes more sense than ever.

JD: Podcasting — then and now; what do you make of its evolution?

DC: It has gone from being passive to a very personal on-demand commercial work. We have the ability to totally integrate content and commercials - it’s a good mindset. It went from a Howard Stern read to a re-envisioned, re-engaged conversation. It is the new native, a really positive, advertorial. We have the ability to weave in the right message at the right time and see more organic growth for both the listener and the advertiser. If you can think of a subject, there's a podcast for it and more coming on daily.

Podcasting Continues Growing
Podcasting is mentioned above and has become a huge part of digital marketing. There are a number of different types of podcasts listed below:

Individuals or groups of people trying to build their personal brand. This could be a humorous podcast or professional one that helps a person establish themselves as an authority on a topic.

~ Companies that are looking to reach and educate current customers. Attracting customers in the industry in B2B situations will work far better if looking to have work contracted out to your business.

~ The sporadic podcast is of a company that sees the value in podcasting yet hasn’t dedicated time or money to the process. This could happen once a month or a few times a year. Generating listeners is about putting out content that is informative/entertaining consistently. Being able to rely on a certain podcast on a specific day provides comfort to loyal listeners.

~ Question and answer podcasts could be a favorite regardless of the ultimate goal of the podcast. Being able to answer specific questions from listeners is important. This can earn new customers and provide a sense of comfort to current customers that know they are in good hands.

~ Keep in mind that your podcast should have at least an outline to provide some kind of structure. Transcribing these podcasts can be a great way to turn these in-depth conversations into a searchable document.

The Apple Watch will no longer be counted in podcast listener numbers for Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Lab partners because it has been found to falsely inflate listener numbers.

Currently, when a podcast is automatically downloaded by an ‌Apple Watch‌ user, it is counted as two listeners; one from the ‌Apple Watch‌, and one from its paired iPhone. Since the ‌Apple Watch‌ and ‌iPhone‌ download the same podcast episode by default, and they both report different device user agents, the podcast appears to be downloaded by two different people. This means that the ‌Apple Watch‌ falsely inflates podcast listener numbers.

1. Relationship Building
2. Infinitely Recurring Revenue
3. Securing Media

Today, podcasting has exponential reach. In the US, for example, The latest Niesen release notes that the number of heavy podcast listeners—those listening every day— has grown by more than 3.6 million. The total podcast audience is growing at a compound average growth rate of 20%. (source: Nielsen)

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, at the end of 2019 around 7.1 million people were listening to podcasts each week. That’s one in eight people and is an increase of 24% over the past year – and more than double over the past five years. Ofcom research also found that half of listeners have joined the podcast wave in the last two years. (source: Ofcom)

Imagine the perfect custom talk radio station tailored exactly to your unique likes, with a never-ending flow of great content.

That is exactly what Apple could soon be delivering with its recent podcasting acquisition, Scout FM. Because that’s precisely what Apple has achieved already — in the music sense — with its new personalized music stations in iOS 14.

iHeartMedia announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Voxnest, the leading consolidated marketplace for podcasts and the best-in-class provider of podcast analytics, enterprise publishing tools, programmatic integration and targeted ad serving. With this acquisition, iHeartMedia, through Voxnest, will now be able to provide podcast advertisers with additional targetable inventory at scale by allowing the effective and efficient monetization across an entire range of podcast inventory on this one-of-kind programmatic platform.

Academia and podcasting have a similar problem: unless you’re involved in them, they seem incredibly intimidating to get into. With academia that is mostly true; a number of economic, systemic, and personal reasons make it inaccessible for a lot of people. With podcasts, however, that is not the case — to the same extent. If you have access to a recording device, editing software, and an internet connection, that is all you need to share your work with the digital world.

Podcasting is having a moment. Maybe, if we stretch just a bit, a year. And possibly even an era.

Twitter just bought podcasting platform Breaker, the app that took podcasting and made it social. And what began as a trend — Spotify buying podcast platforms Anchor and Gimlet in 2019 — is turning into a torrent as many of the other big players in technology are buying podcasts, podcasters, podcasting tools, and podcast publishing platforms.

Tech moves in eras.

There was the era of PCs. The era of search. The era of social, and the era of smartphones. None of these necessarily roll over and go away: like radio or TV or magazines, they adapt, morph, and persist as new eras and new paradigms take precedence. But each era focuses innovation and investment and attention in a new space.

Today podcasting is one of those spaces.

Open podcasting is the foundation on which the entire industry was built: in short, an ecosystem that allows content creators to share their work with listeners everywhere, through all the applications and podcast players that exist.

The magic of podcasting is discovering a new show that you look forward to sharing with friends, or following one for so long that you feel like part of a family, and all of that is made possible by the open nature of the industry.

Spotifys $100 million-plus Anchor acquisition is seemingly paying off. In data released today as part of its annual Wrapped look-back on the year, the company says Anchor, which makes podcast creation software, powered 80 percent of new podcasts on Spotify this year, meaning the software contributed more than 1 million shows to Spotify’s catalog in 2020 alone. Overall, Anchor powers 70 percent of Spotifys total podcast catalog, or around 1.3 million out of over 1.9 million shows.

1. Create An Ideal Listener Avatar
2. Know Why You Are Doing It
3. Be Authentically You
4. Interview Other Podcasters
5. Accept That Episode One Will Not Be Perfect
6. Get To Know Your Audience Intimately
7. Be Clear About The Value You Want To Bring
8. Never Quit
9. Know Your Audiences What Is In It For Me
10. Let Interesting Guests Talk You Up
11. Commit To A Disciplined Purpose For A Year
12. Find A Niche Aligned With Your Expertise
13. Take A Step-By-Step Approach
14. Figure Out What People Need To Hear
15. Be Relevant And Real

Amazon has long owned Audible, the audiobook titan that dabbles in podcasting, but only very recently began to work its way into the podcast arena. Just this September, Amazon Music launched podcasts, in an effort to boost one of the truly struggling arms of the company. For whatever reason, Amazon Music streaming has not been able to maintain a foothold as a competitor to Spotify for Apple Music, in the same way that Prime Video contends with other top video-streaming services.

Spotifys $100 million-plus Anchor acquisition is seemingly paying off. In data released today as part of its annual Wrapped look-back on the year, the company says Anchor, which makes podcast creation software, powered 80 percent of new podcasts on Spotify this year, meaning the software contributed more than 1 million shows to Spotifys catalog in 2020 alone. Overall, Anchor powers 70 percent of Spotifys total podcast catalog, or around 1.3 million out of over 1.9 million shows.

Anchor-hosted shows account for more consumption of third-party podcast content on Spotify than any other podcast hosting or distribution provider
Spotify says Anchor’s top five markets in 2020, by total number of shows, were the US, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Great Britain. In Indonesia, Spotify signed nine shows to become exclusives. Meanwhile, the fastest-growing markets, looking at the average monthly increase in new shows, are India, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Indonesia. India accounts for nearly 40,000 Anchor-made shows and has been growing at an average of 22 percent month-over-month increase in 2020.

In an age wherein a variety of marketing tools are available for experts, one tool is often underutilized—podcast. Podcasts are effective tools for marketing because they help brands to reach a niche targeted audience. According to research, podcasts help to hypertarget audiences and give a good return on investment. Podcasts also create value for listeners because they are often informative and educational.

According to Forbes, iTunes is a rank one website. Hence, any founder who is featured on a podcast with a description contributes to SEO ratings of the brand. Hence, podcasts can be an effective tool in boosting up page rankings. Listeners are increasing for podcast channels and 115 million people are expected to listen to podcasts per week.

The role of podcasts in the information ecosystem has gone largely unexamined. While alt-right figures have been increasingly chased off Facebook and Twitter, podcasting is shaping up as the next arena where the fight over questionable or dangerous content will play out. However, the problem of how to moderate audio content is proving thorny.

As podcasting grows in stature and revenue, its disinformation problem can’t be ignored.

As you might recall, 2020 closed out with yet another flashy podcast acquisition. Right before the New Year, Amazon announced that it was buying Wondery for its Amazon Music service, where it will presumably be made to pump out original content rendered exclusively at some point to lure new users to the platform.

Any summation of the past year begins and ends with COVID, even if we’re just talking about podcasts. Given everything that’s happened, how can it not?

We had just a little over two months of expected life in 2020 before counties across the United States started implementing initial lockdown measures, drastically altering the shape of everyday activity. Movement was scaled down, businesses were shuttered, and a great cloud of uncertainty descended upon the populace as this massive and utterly terrifying thing unfolded all around us.

Article by Guest Blog Contributor Karen Schweitzer.

Are you an instructor or trainer looking for new ways to entertain and engage your students online? The Internet is loaded with free tools, blogs, and informational sites that are designed to aid and improve your courses. Here is a list of 20 free eLearning and training resources worth checking out:

Tools

• CourseLab - CourseLab offers a free eLearning authoring tool that can be used to effectively create web-based training. Some of the features users will find with this system include layout, editing, rich-media support, rapid development, testing, and interactivity.
• MyiCourse - Instructors can use this site to create free online courses or universities for educational material. MyiCourse gives users the ability to create public or private courses on just about anything.
• Utilium - Utilium is a free beta site that provides instructors with the tools they need for organizing and sharing learning materials. This site makes it easy to inspire and engage students through videos, articles, podcasts, and other rich sources.
• Prezi - Prezi is a unique presentation tool that uses zooming technology instead of slides. With Prezi your ideas flow freely on a stage that can be zoomed in on and out of for further explanation.
• Yugma - This free online conferencing tool makes it easy to host web conferences and online meetings. With Yugma Free, users can share their desktop with up to 20 attendees.
• Open Huddle - Open Huddle is a beta site for presenting or instructing people online. This site provides you with files, video, audio, chat, and drawing boards for interacting and collaborating with your students.
• Campfire - Campfire can be used for online group chat and education. This site allows users to instantly create password-protected chat rooms for collaborating and working out important questions. Campfire comes at a cost, but users can try it free for 30 days.
• Slideshare - Slideshare provides a way to upload and share presentations. Once the presentations are uploaded, they can be shared privately or publicly and work well for webinars.
• SourceForge - This site provides a free authoring application that can be used to assist instructors in creating free eLearning seminars. SourceForge employs the eXeLearning tool which provides the ability to publish web content without knowing HTML or XML markup.
• ClassMarker - ClassMarker features a free way for instructors or presenters to test students online. Simply sign up for a free account for access to an array a quiz creating materials. The quizzes can even be linked directly to websites or emails.

Blogs

• eLearningLearning - eLearningLearning is an online community blog dedicated to organizing and collecting material about eLearning. Within this blog, users can find information about eLearning technology and media, events, and ideas.
• eLearning Technology - eLearning Technology is a blog that provides information and resources on the latest in the business of learning. Just a few of the concepts discussed in this blog include trends, software, rapid eLearning tools, and open source eLearning.
• eLearningSpace - The eLearningSpace blog offers information, knowledge, and networks that are specifically designed for eLearning instructors.
• Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development - This blog provides information that explores technology for eLearning. Within this blog, instructors can find resources, ideas, technology, and more.
• Thoughts from Training Time - This blog deals with the issues and ideas that can be found in corporate and government training.

Informational Sites

• eLearningPost - The eLearningPost site provides blogs and articles that instructors and trainers can use for information. Within this site, users can explore views, news, and stories that surround eLearning, corporate training, instructional design, and much more.
• eLearning Magazine - eLearning Magazine offers a free place for instructors and trainers to find a wealth of information through articles, reviews, case studies, and more. This public information center is also an excellent place to find forums and exchange ideas with others.
• Web-Based Training Information Center - This free info center provides information and resources on web-based training trends, surveys, and more.
• Learning Circuits - Learning Circuits is a free informational site from the ASTD. The goal of this site is to provide a large database of eLearning and training knowledge as well as efficient training technology.
• BusinessBalls.com - BusinessBalls.com provides free materials, exercises, tools, ideas, and templates that instructors and other eLearning professionals may find helpful.

Guest Blog Contributor By-line:

This post is from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is with the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineCollege.org, an accredited online college resource.

When someone studies to become a teacher, they learn a number of different teaching strategies that help them effectively impart knowledge to students. Corporate trainers with advanced degrees in adult education are also often exposed to similar strategies as a part of their academic preparation. In contrast, many internal employees who take on training duties at their companies aren't familiar with effective teaching strategies. Many of them are selected to train new and current employees because they are good at their jobs and not necessarily because they're skilled educators. Unfortunately, this can mean that their training efforts don't quite achieve the desired results.

You may already provide your new hires with some sort of technical training to help them perform their specific jobs according to your standards. You may not, however, provide them with any sort of training that will enhance their general performance as staff members. There are numerous e-learning courses and online training options available to employers that help employees gain the essential professional skills they sometimes lack. If you're deciding or re-evaluating which e-learning courses you invest in for your new hires, you may want to consider these useful types of courses:

The online versus traditional classroom debate has been going on for some time now. You can't get through one blog on eLearning or modern education without finding a discussion of the pros and cons of the digital classroom and online degree programs. The debate has been going for some time now and has seen many different facets and opinions. While online schools were shunned from the start, today they have grown and flourished into highly regarded institutions for higher learning. Today, rather than simply disregarding online learning as a lesser option to brick-and-mortar schools, people are beginning to see the two entities as options for different learning styles and lifestyles. There are many people who can benefit and really grow from their experience in the online classroom. Online learning facilitates many of the same skills traditional learning does, but has a few added elements. As our society becomes more and more married to the online and digital world, a comfort and ease in these areas becomes very important in the professional world.  The following three skills, essential in the corporate world today, are established and perfected in the online classroom.

Why Personalize?

So Where Do We Start?

Software Considerations

Ways to Personalize

Terminal emulation for Wyse, Viewpoint, VT100,VT220 and more

MacWise allows a host computer to control the functionality of special keys on the keyboard. The keys can be re-programmed by the host. Information for host programmers.

Apple has made a much larger comeback in Yale student and faculty computing than its 10 to 12 percent national market share would indicate.

March 7th, 2005 Effective today, Carnation Software will have a new RSS news address. Our new address is http://www.carnationsoftware.com/carnation/RSS/CarnationSoftwareNews.xml

This release of MacWise fixes a VT100 / VT220 emulation problem. The screen could get scrambled by an incorrect ESC [ ascii code sent from the host. MacWise now absorbs the invalid code. Also fixes a rare Array Bounds Error message.

This release of MacWise adds a telnet option, "Use the tc shell to log in". When this option is enabled, MacWise first logs into the Mac unix tc shell before issuing telnet commands and opening the connection. This option provides more compatibility with host computers that request the terminal type. It could prevent error messages from the host such as "Connection refused by host" or "Invalid terminal type".

MacWise now has SCO ANSI emulation for Macintosh. All emulations now work with SCO ANSI. (Wyse, Viewpoint, VT100, VT220, Televideo). SCO ANSI colors, cursor positioning and a 25-line screen are supported.

MacWise font now works correctly in Tiger ( OS X 10.4 ). The symptom in previous versions of MacWise was that columns did not line up correctly. The other symptom was that the flashing cursor did not completely erase the cursor line when it flashed on and off.

Added option to keep TCP sessions alive for telnet and ssh. Look under the Special Menu for this option. It allows you to enter a time interval to tell the host that you are still there. This keeps the host from disconnecting you after a pre-determined idle time.

Fix - The MacWise Registration window would not open and you could not register the program.

Fix - If you closed the connection to the host, you could not open it again (when you selected Close Connection from the Connection Menu or Option - O from the keyboard). This problem was introduced in 10.7.63

Fix - Dragging the mouse to capture text on the screen would get an array bounds error if you dragged the mouse beyond the top of the MacWise window. More fixes...