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Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
6 Reasons I'm Not Hooked on Podcasts
A year ago, Mark wrote about the factors that were limiting the growth of podcast adoption. Some of the problems include the difficulty in finding quality content, a lack of understanding of the medium, and a general impatience in getting podcasts to work. I can relate. Try as I might, I haven't been able to make podcasts a part of...
more »Your Take
What blogs would you nominate as the best in the world?
It's that time of year again. No, not just the new fall TV season. It's also blog nomination season, when big international groups (and smaller national groups) ask people to submit nominees for the best blogs. In November, I'll again be a judge for the Best of the Blogs (The BOBs) awards, run by the German's international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle....
more »Digging Deeper
Collaborative Radio Shows Invite Listeners into Creative Process
Long before the term citizen journalism became trendy, ordinary citizens shared the stage for decades with professional journalists in talk radio. They collaborated, they cajoled, they ranted and they often added wit and wisdom to live radio call-in shows. But with the advent of the Internet, public radio shows are finding that websites -- and blogs in particular --...
more »Digging Deeper
Will Video Kill the Audio Podcasting Star? Not Exactly
All the media heat these days is around online video and the YouTube phenomenon. Presidential candidates are sparring through YouTube. Google pays a bundle to buy YouTube, and then Viacom sues for $1 billion. It all makes the online audio phenomenon of podcasting feel like yesterday's news. Audio fans, however, need not despair. Video may have stolen the media...
more »Digging Deeper
Podcasts are audio or video shows that you can subscribe to via the Internet and listen to or watch on your own time on your computer, portable MP3 player or other web-connected device. The power of podcasts is that you can subscribe to the shows you want, and then they automatically appear in your podcast aggregator software such as Juice or Apple's iTunes. When you plug in your portable MP3 player -- which can be an iPod or any other player -- your podcasts can then be uploaded and experienced on the go.
more »We Media 2007
Mainstream Media Wants to Take Back Control
MIAMI -- Thanks to the audience taking control of their media experience and creating their own media in blogs, podcasts, video and social networks, the people who are losing control have decided to meet -- and meet, and meet again -- until they figure out how they can take back some control of this uncontrollable situation.
more »Open Source Reporting
Building the Ultimate Auto Media Center
When it comes to enjoying music or talk radio in the car, why does everything have to be so complicated? First, I have to spend time loading up my iPod with music or podcasts I've downloaded. Then I have to charge my iPod up with power. Then I have to connect my iPod to my car stereo's converter cable. Then I have to fiddle around with the iPod controls to find the music or podcasts I want to listen to -- and NOT while driving.
more »Podcasting
Podcast Audience Small But Growing...Enough?
You could call it the Headline Conundrum. Or maybe Sound-Bite Logic. Whatever the term, there's a regular problem with journalism related to the brevity of space to explain a complex issue or finding. A recent survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 12% of Internet users have downloaded a podcast, up from 7% who said they did the same thing in a similar survey six months before. But as for people who download podcasts on a daily basis, the number was a tiny 1%.
more »Your Take Roundup
AmigoFish, VlogMap Point to Podcast Goodness
For people new to the world of podcasting, there are a few hurdles to jump before feeling comfortable with the medium. First, you have to consider where you'll listen or watch podcasts -- on your computer or on your portable MP3 player. Then you have to subscribe to podcasts you want to hear, and learn how to do that. For the techno-savvy, it's a relatively painless process, but for others it could be simpler.
more »Your Take
How do you find out about good podcasts?
A couple years ago, you could find all the podcasts in existence just by checking the iPodder Directory to see the eclectic mix of homegrown and technology-related audio shows. Now the number of podcasts has exploded as many mainstream news and entertainment companies jump on the bandwagon, and Jupiter Research estimates that 9 million Americans downloaded a podcast in the month of June. I've done a Guide to Podcast Directories but I'm wondering how you find out about good podcasts. Do you find them on news websites or other media sites? Do you check the iTunes podcast directory? Do you hear about them from friends and family? Share your thoughts on how you find good podcasts in the comments below and I'll run the best ones in next week's Your Take Roundup.
more »NewspaperShift
Newspaper Sites Hot to Blog, Cool to Podcasts
Newspaper companies are feeling the shift hard, as people go from reading print newspapers to getting their news and classified ads on the Internet. But if there's one thing the Newspaper Association of America can hang their hat on, it's that newspaper websites continue to grow their audiences and advertising revenues. So if people are not reading papers in print, at least they might be getting their news online from the same news source.
more »Your Take Roundup
True Gritz Videoblog a Comic Fave Among Friends
So this is how you win elections in the South. I asked MediaShift readers to name their favorite sites for comic relief or work breaks, and the True Gritz video blog won in a landslide of 11 votes. But upon further review, two of the votes came from the True Gritz videoblog's stars, Jen Gordon and Grayson Hurst Daughters, with another vote coming from the show's lighting person, Danielle Ayan.
more »Media Usage
Big Media Last to Know Bloggers Not in Pajamas
Today was going to be a day of triumphalism in the new media world, a day where I would celebrate the growing ranks of blog creators (a.k.a. bloggers) and blog readers in the U.S., while also noting the growing number of people downloading podcasts. I would combine the happy results from a Pew Internet survey on blogging with the great news (PDF file) from Nielsen//Netratings that podcasting was gaining a foothold.
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