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A Tool to Tally Podcast Listeners
Carl Bialik writes "The company Audible is making an effort to measure podcast audience, which could make the audio shows more attractive to advertisers. From the article: 'Currently in podcasts, "there's no measurability," says Matt Feinberg, a senior vice president for radio at Publicis Groupe SA's ZenithOptimedia. Advertisers have no idea if people are actually listening to podcasts, or if they're just downloading them and never playing them back, so there's no guidance for pricing the accompanying ads. "Prices -- people have been making them up," he says.' The service will cost podcasters: 'The company will charge three cents per downloaded podcast to report whether a downloader listened, and for how long. Audible will also offer tools that will stop the podcast from being emailed to others. It will charge five cents per download to track listening and attach the access restrictions. For half a cent per download, Audible will insert an ad relevant to the podcast.'"
I will simply not download that podcast. I have better things to do with my time than listen to DRM'd podcasts, and I'll let the podcaster know that.
Reminds me of Bill Hicks. "Oh, God! Please stop turning everything into dollar signs."
Advertisers have no idea if people are actually listening to podcasts, or if they're just downloading them and never playing them back, so there's no guidance for pricing the accompanying ads. "Prices -- people have been making them up," he says.' Let's keep it that way. Now the advertizers know how to feel how it is to be cheated. Please.. Why not just podcasting for the joy of it.. Keep yous shows real and ban out all the advertisement and privacy problem shit. Lets keep up raising the prices for advertisers-> the more we will actually hear and see what we really want to hear and see. This message was sponsered by The Dump-Mental-Waste Company.. Please see our website at http://www.microsoft.com/
im sorry, thats a dumb idea. i really dont feel like being "watched" as to which podcasts i listen to and which ones i dont. and who wants to pay?
i just dont see the draw to this...if there is one, someone point it out to me please.
I'm a podcaster, and this model is not only DRm'ed, it's also behind closed doors, and not open.
Feedburner seems to have a better tack on it, as it can reliably provide stats for free. Audible's model is a little scummy on the skim job. Feedburner coudl be the source for reliable stats for advertisers in the future.
As for revenue, I think that people are turned off by ads, but that seems to be where everyone is turning. It seems that listeners support is better, as if people like what you are doing, they might be willing to give you a couple of bucks a month via a Paypal subscribe.
The whole podcast expo seemed to be about how to sell Preparation H and iDogs in your podcast. If you feel people want to listen to that, go ahead, but podcasting's success is based largely around non-commercial radio and niche.
If there could be a non-annoying way to advertise, fine. But it seems that a ton of people are going to be begging for corporate dough, and wondering why no one is listening to their show anymore, as it has been changed to the Fibercon iDog Gizmondo Hour, fueled by Dew.
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Because podcast clients automatically download content and the user may not actually listen to it.
Does that include spam and telemarketers, too?
I'm not entirely sure why they're not using 1 Download = 1 Listener, since Audible requires registration. The *best* thing about free podcasts to me is that they're in a format I can use on anything (MP3s). Any measuring method will require DRM and that's simply not something I'm willing to accept for free files, nor for Audible's overpriced content. The only reason I'd pay them for content is to *avoid* advertising, not so they can sell my ears.
Let me shout to the media: I'M PAYING FOR THE CONTENT I DON'T WANT ADS.
Unfortunately talk radio is missing out on this new technology entirely thanks to bumper music agreements with the RIAA and some unions. One of the few to get around it is the well known Rush Limbaugh, but he can do it largely because of his popularity.
Carl, turn in your geek badge.
Podcasting is for people who do not want commercials.
If commercials are put on podcasts, guess what's going to happen to podcasting.
"Piter, too, is dead."
"'The company will charge three cents per downloaded podcast to report whether a downloader listened, and for how long.'"
:P) which processes the data and reports which podcasts had the most listeners/viewers (video podcasts) and which site has the most popular podcasts. The media access control address (MAC address) of the computer would be attached to every filed report so that the site can discard it if the MAC address already downloaded a certain podcast onto their ipod, thus not allowing for duplicates.
:-/
I have a better idea
How about this: podcast makers tag their podcasts with a special "podcast" mp3 tag (what were they called again? ID3 tags?) which have the podcast site and date. The software which transfers these things to mp3 players then report this data to a central site (heck, apple.com or microsoft.com is fine
of course, everything would need to adopt this format, even explorer.exe if the mp3 player does drag and drop
hmm, maybe a firmware update can allow mp3 players to report the stats while theyre plugged in...
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
While it's true that some podcast client software just keeps downloading stuff you've pre-selected, I'd say that tracking the downloads of the files themselves is a pretty good way of estimating how many times something is listened to.
Not to mention, podcasters have a whole lot more statistics than, say, radio broadcasters do. This can even include a profile of the user based on all of the different podcasts he/she is subscribed to.
I interpreted this announcement as "Hey, instead of free and open podcasts, how about PAYING money for DRMed podcasts so that we can add ADVERTISEMENTS to them!"
Thanks, but no thanks.
Advertisers don't know if people look at their ads in magazines or newspapers, how many people actually look in the direction of their billboard, listen to their radio ad, or don't walk away when their TV commercial is on. Being able to see how many people download a podcast is probably more indicative of people that hear the ad compared to many other media.
They're just looking for MORE accurate data, but that's totally unnecessary. Ad agencies are very good at tracking usefulness of ad campaigns without specific numbers.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
The weirdest podcasts ever: http://feeds.feedburner.com/weirdos http://feeds.feedburner.com/weirdosvideo not for normal people...
I wonder whether fewer people read blogs or listen to podcasts? Both are hyper self-indulgent mediums for whiny, self-absorbed adolescents who actually seem to think that people besides themselves care what they are saying. And both are almost entirely wasted bandwidth.
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If you want to know if people are actually paying attention to a new podcast, just reference the show notes and allow people to hit the show notes. You can then use the stats for that web page as a metric for advertisers. It is also a good place to put the logos/links for advertisers.
Another common approach would be to allow for a discount by providing a code for the discount. The code could be given during the podcast. The number of orders created with the discount code would be a good indicator of the success of the ad.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
One of the best features of reading rss feeds using your feed reader is the absence of ads. The few podcasts that I listen to are mostly about programming and virtually free of any 'product placements'. I think the popularity of the podcasts come from the fact that it allows people to share their thoughts with someone else, and maybe make a difference in the life of the listener (it may be a small difference, for example talking about a new technique for input filtering when using PHP). Very few people do podcasts to make money. If the podcasters that I listen to start putting in ads and start putting restrictions on whether I can forward it ahead or not, I will not think twice before dropping it.
ITunes fails to update the "listened to" flag if a podcast is transferred to an iPod manually. I never do an auto sync on any iPod (save the shuffle) and I'm always resetting that subscription flag on iTunes.
So, let me get this straight.
These guys want to measure how often people listen to podcasts.
Podcasts. As in, things you listen to on an iPod, or other mobile music player.
Can these things even connect to the Internet at the moment?