Podcasting has a very low barrier to entry; all you need is audio recording software and a means of creating an RSS feed, be it through software or manual work. As a result, just about anyone can podcast, and the quality of podcasts is therefore highly variable; there are professional podcasts that rival professional broadcasts in quality, and there are amateur podcasts that can't even be heard clearly. For this reason, copyright infringement leeches, often unwittingly, into a number of podcasts. To produce a successful podcast, it is important to understand and respect Western copyright laws. To help ensure that these things are done, we have compiled some information about podcasts, music, and copyright law.

Podcasts and Copyrights

Podcasting is hard, time-consuming work, and it can be incredibly frustrating when your shiny new episode only gets a handful of downloads.

There are many different strategies you can use to build your audience, but today we're going to focus on guest podcasting, which I will lovingly refer to as guesting.

complete article

Last week, the APA released a study finding that Americans were experiencing the first statistically significant stress increase in the surveys 10-year history. In January, 57 percent of respondents of all political stripes said the U.S. political climate was a very or somewhat significant source of stress, up from 52 percent who said the same thing in August.

complete article

Syndication represents a very useful way to expand your reach, build your audience, and contribute to your industrys thought leadership. The quality of your message influences the quality of your customer development and engagement results, but this is often not enough.

complete article

If you have ever tried your hand at blogging then you are already aware it can be more challenging than others may assume. Between all of the brainstorming, research, writing, and editing, you are devoting a lot of time to just one piece of content. While that content is extremely useful, there just may be times when you can’t find the time to create amazing blog posts on a daily basis. This is where content syndication comes into play.

complete article

If millennials are the yardstick by which we measure what drives communication on social media, then it would seem that all eyes should be on social messaging platforms such as WhatsApp this year. This is the view of Dominique Pienaar, CEO of DUO Marketing & Communications, who says these platforms are becoming increasingly popular due largely to the immediacy of contact and response and are certainly preferred platforms among the millennial market when it comes to one on one, broadcast and group communication.

complete article

Content marketing paved its way into the global village a decade back and has immediately shone up to fame with the coming of new media. Business houses across the globe are increasingly developing solutions for content marketing.

complete article

It takes time to build an audience: you need to attract them to your site, which they’ve likely never heard of, and convert them into loyal readers, so they come back and tell their friends – and eventually turn into customers, which is the whole goal of content marketing.

The Truth About Content Syndication and Duplicate Content

While there may be businesses that specify in SEO, to many, Google Search Engine Optimization remains a mystery. In fact, Google is constantly making changes, refining how they want results to be displayed to its users.

complete article

Some people might think that online privacy is, well, a private matter. If you don’t want personal information getting out online, then you can just not put it out there. Right? Wrong. Keeping your information private isn’t solely your choice anymore. Friends can play a big role in your privacy, new data show. And the more they share on a social network, the more that social network can figure out about you.

Someone who joins a social network — such as Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook —wants to find their friends. Often, the social network can help. Many apps offer to import contact lists from your phone or e-mail. These apps then use that information to find matches with people already in the network, and suggest them to you.

complete article

Twitter has been in hot water as more evidence emerges showing how Russia used the social network to influence public opinion. Ahead of a November 1st Congressional hearing on Russian manipulation, Twitter has introduced sweeping new rules for how it shares data on political posts. The network will launch a Transparency Center that lists all ads appearing on Twitter, including promoted ones that previously only appeared to targeted demographics, and will clearly label them when they appear in user feeds.


complete article

Google News will be deprecating their old RSS feed subscription URLs by December 1, 2017. That means if you have Google News RSS feed subscriptions from a year or so ago, you will need to go through all those subscriptions and update them.

To update your RSS feeds, you need to go to https://news.google.com and select the section you want or create a custom section. At the bottom of the section’s page, click RSS. This will make the feed appear. Copy the URL from the address bar to get the new URL for the RSS feed.

Google told us the old RSS URLs will no longer work effective December 1, 2017.

complete article

Ten years ago if we told people that social media management will be a full-time job, they might have laughed at us. As simple as they are to use, managing a number of platforms for businesses can be quite challenging. With so many platforms and changing algorithms, and hashtags to choose and use, you can easily feel that things are getting out of control.

I spoke to my colleague Sarah who manages different social media accounts for our clients and asked her about the common mistakes that people make when managing their brand accounts, and what should business owners avoid doing on social media:

complete article

Generally speaking, there are two main ways that you can store your RSS feed:

1) On Your Own Website (self-hosting your RSS)
2) On Your Media Host’s Website (the place where you store your files)

The reason why I have often elected for self hosting (option 1 above) is a simple one: 100% control.

complete article

Google may be the internets greatest killer.

Between its numerous acquihires, its aggressive approach to launching (and discarding) moonshots, and its tendency to build impressive products only to kill them months later, Google's ruthless assessment (and reassessment) of ideas is one of its defining traits.

complete article

Techmeme, the online aggregator of record for technology industry news, is adding some audio in the form of a podcast: the Techmeme Ride Home.

Beginning today, the site’s new podcast will appear at 5 p.m. every weekday. Over 20 minutes, host Brian McCullough (from The Internet History podcast) will summarize the day’s top tech news and commentary from around the web and social media.

Plain-vanilla news aggregation is unusual in podcasts. Even in tech, podcasts tend to be personality-driven, more often involving hosts providing commentary on the big news of the week rather than just the news itself. McCullough thinks Techmeme can offer something different.

complete article

And yet, unlike other social networks that followed it, HASTAC has managed to remain scandal-free. There have been no mass boycott movements and no accusations that the network ever misused anyone’s data.

Cathy Davidson, co-founder and co-director of HASTAC, and a professor of cultural history and technology at the City University of New Yorks Graduate Center, said that the secret to the networks good relationship with its users has been its decision to treat user data with respect from the outset. Privacy and security have been priorities for the network since its inception, and are built into every facet of the network.

complete article

You've probably experienced it yourself. Maybe it is the way you feel while scrolling through your Twitter feed — anxious, twitchy, a little world weary — or your unease when you see a child watching YouTube videos, knowing she's just a few algorithmic nudges away from a rabbit hole filled with lunatic conspiracies and gore. Or maybe it was this month's Facebook privacy scandal, which reminded you that you've entrusted the most intimate parts of your digital life to a profit-maximizing surveillance machine.

Our growing discomfort with our largest social platforms is reflected in polls. One recently conducted by Axios and SurveyMonkey found that all three of the major social media companies — Facebook, Twitter and Google, which shares a parent company with YouTube — are significantly less popular with Americans than they were five months ago.

complete article

Half a million doctors worldwide are sharing their knowledge on a social network for medics to find answers for their patients.

On MedShr, set up in 2014 by a London cardiologist, doctors can post details of cases and other medics can give their input.

A doctor treating a young Afghan refugee in Serbia, who needed plates and pins in his legs, received advice from other specialists that helped formulate a plan to help the boy walk again. In Kenya, hospitals run by junior doctors are able to get remote support from seniors.

complete article

Today, seven out of 10 Americans use social media. Despite the opportunity (and in spite of the lip-service paid to social), more marketers are skimping on their approach. Reposting 30-second TV spots to YouTube and uploading billboard or print ads to Instagram are commonplace, and a detriment to your brand.

complete carticle

According to the same Kaplan survey mentioned above, the percentage of college admissions officers using social media for admissions criteria went down from 40 percent in 2015, to 35 percent in 2016, to 29 percent in 2017. Students seem to be making it more difficult for college admission personnel to check them out on social media.

complete article

Blockchain has gained increasing popularity over the past year. Having begun as the technology behind cryptocurrency exchanges, it has now shown promise in almost every other sector of the economy as it’s a secure, reliable and tamper-proof way of recording transactions and exchanging data.

complete article

Some social media-content is easy to evaluate. Cute cat pictures? Great. Helpful how-to videos? Perfect. Unfortunately, parsing posts gets a lot more complicated when the content flowing through the tubes of social media involves news. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee brought in representatives from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to discuss the companies policies and practices for evaluating and moderating content (mostly political in nature) and the internet scourge that is fake news.

complete article

The U.S. is quickly becoming a podcast nation. According to a 2017 survey, nearly 25 percent of Americans — around 68 million — said they listened to podcasts. Forty-two percent were even willing to pay to do so. The largest contingent of podcast listeners (44 percent) are millennials, and that coveted cohort's tuned-in attention has attracted advertisers, whose podcast-generated revenue rose from $69 million in 2015 to $220 million in 2017. In the last four years alone, the popularity of podcast listening has doubled.

complete article

You have none of the usual constraints of traditional forms of media in terms of length, deadlines, format or language.

Plus -- and this is no small plus -- podcast listeners are some of the most loyal consumers of any form of media available today. If they listen once, they're likely to come back, again and again.

There are multiple reasons for that, and multiple ways to do it well, which we'll explore below.

complete article

Enterprise marketers face more challenges than ever in executing their customer-driven, high-ROI strategies. When customers search nowadays, they are looking for more complete and more specific answers provided for their queries: whether they are searching on a smartphone, looking for results specific to their city, or keeping up with the news of the minute. And Google is constantly improving how it delivers those results.

Conductors goal is to make sure the marketing team has all of the data and insights, features, and reporting capabilities customer need—so marketers can deliver for their customers and achieve above and beyond their goals.

complete article

Podcasting is going Hollywood.

Over the past year, HowStuffWorks, Gimlet and Wondery have stepped up their search for content that can be adapted into film, television, or even books as production studios snap up podcasts for high-profile films and cable TV series with A-list talent like Julia Roberts, Connie Britton and Eric Bana.

Gimlet Media, the startup that began selling film and TV rights to its shows last year, has already exceeded every 2018 goal it had set for Gimlet Pictures, said its head, Chris Giliberti.

complete article

In recent years, social media platforms have evolved from simple communication channels to full-blown news and entertainment hubs. From Facebook Watch to this years innovations like IGTV and Snapchat’s Story Ads, social platforms are stepping up the game to keep its users engaged and entertained -- and your company should not be too far behind.

If you want to keep up with the latest social media trends, you will have to reevaluate your strategy with an eye toward the future of this ever-evolving industry. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share 13 ways to step up your social game in 2019.

complete article

Spotify has opened up more to creators lately, with measures such as allowing independent artists to upload their music directly. The streaming service is extending a similar invitation to podcasters, by letting anyone add their shows to the podcast section.

The platform will not host podcasts directly. Spotify can make new episodes of your podcast available as soon as you upload them to your aggregator or host. All you need to do is provide Spotify with your podcast's RSS feed, much like you would when adding your show to Apple Podcasts or other services.

complete article

Nearly two months ago, Twitter began testing a feature that made it easier for users to see the latest tweets on their feed first, rather than the ones pushed by the companys algorithm. It is a toggle dressed as a sparkle icon that lives above the home timeline, which keeps you from having to go deep into your Twitter settings to get that purely chronological view. Certain iOS users have had access to this since October, but today Twitter is making the change permanent and rolling it out to everyone on Apples platform. Twitter's Android app as well as its website are getting the new magic button, too, but that won't be coming until after the holidays.

complete article

AI plays a huge role in how Spotify delivers personalized playlists to users, so it's somewhat fitting that the companys new partnership with Microsoft is focused on messages about how AI can impact all aspects of life -- including education, healthcare and philanthropy. Those messages are going to be showing up in the Discover Weekly playlist for free users, the first time that Spotify has lets brands have full customization and control over advertising in that feed.

complete article

Just because you are not on Facebook or Twitter does not mean your data is safe from the social media giants or their prying algorithms. A study from the University of Vermont adds yet more evidence to the argument that your privacy is no longer in your hands, even if you abstain from social media.

Researchers from UVM's Department of Mathematics and Statistics published a paper in this week’s issue of the journal Nature Human Behaviour demonstrating that social media users not only generate substantial behavioral data about themselves but also about members of their social circle.

complete article

In many ways, content on the internet is beautifully linked together and accessible, but despite the interconnectivity of it all we still frequently find ourselves visiting this site, then that site, then another site, all in an effort to check for updates and get the content we want. Thats not particular efficient and theres a much better way to go about it.

complete article

Get updates about volcanoes & earthquakes as RSS feeds

Schools can not do it all. We have known this for a long time, yet we often seem to deny this reality in policy and action. For decades we have piled expectations onto our schools, asking them to develop scholars, citizens, and workers and to provide for the academic, nutritional, social, and developmental needs of children. Schools, as critics are quick to point out, invariably fall short of these expectations.

complete article

Are you looking to maximize your use of Facebook Messenger within your digital marketing plan?

Whether you want to get more contacts, increase conversions or use automation to scale your growth, Facebook Messenger marketing tools can help - when used the right way.

complete article

Traditional sales tactics have begun to shift thanks to social media networks. Social selling leverages social networks and gives salespeople the ability to connect directly with customers. In 2016, LinkedIn found that 90% of top-performing salespeople use social media as part of their sales strategy.

Social selling relies on having robust, well-built social networks, which is why social media marketing is a crucial aspect of social selling. Since these two concepts are so similar, many people confuse the two.

complete article

The podcast wars are coming.

complete article

In  the summer of 2016, I gave a talk at a small tedx conference in northern Virginia. I began by admitting that I have never had a social-media account; I then outlined arguments for why other people should consider eliminating social media from their lives. The event organizers uploaded the video of my talk to YouTube, where it languished for a few months. Then, for unknowable reasons, it entered the viral slipstream. It was shared repeatedly on Facebook and Instagram and, eventually, viewed more than five million times. I was both pleased and chagrined by the irony of the fact that my anti-social-media talk had found such a large audience on social media.

completed article

The way young people use social networks is changing rapidly, partly in response to networks that threaten to take over their lives, that they see as fake, the opposite of social. A while back, it looked like they were abandoning Facebook because it had been taken over by the old folks, but it now turns out they’re just leaving anyway, and not just Facebook, but the whole social media concept.

complete article

The Academy has done it again -- opted for the safe choices, leaving the truly deserving out in the cold.

Stauffer, Devin, 1970- author

Abeyagoonasekera, Asanga, author

Australia. Parliament. Senate. Environment and Communications References Committee, author, issuing body

Australia. Parliament. Senate. Education and Employment Legislation Committee, author, issuing body

Kefford, Glenn, author

Australia. Parliament. House of Representatives. Standing Committee on Petitions, author, issuing body