Mark O’Neill is integrating podcasts into his ebay auctions.

“After discovering a great website for making audio files and RSS feeds, I am now offering audio descriptions of my eBay auctions and RSS feeds for people to keep up with my latest offerings. You may have heard of this concept by another name - podcasting …

“As well as catering to visually-impaired customers, you are also adding a human voice to your auctions, which could make buyers more inclined to trust you more.

“In each future recording, I am planning to add my own jingle and catchy tune as well as promote my other auctions. Consider it your own personal eBay radio station (move over Griff!). Why not start podcasting your own eBay broadcasts and publicize them on your eBay ‘About Me’ page?”

That would make for a nice case study. Anybody else out there doing this?

Steve Jobs speaking at Macworld today: “For those of you that missed it at the Detroit Auto Show, Chrysler is the first American manufacture to offer iPod integration on their models. In 2006 over 40% of the cars sold in 2006 will offer iPod integration.” (emphasis mine)

It’s only a matter of time before all vehicles are iPod-ready, and that can only be great news for podcasters.

podcasting, ipod, macworld, trends

1. Reduced bandwidth costs. When you post a new podcast, the Fruitcast system picks it up from you RSS feed and creates a new file which they host on their server. So any time someone downloads a one of your podcasts through an aggregator like iTunes or iPodder, Fruitcast covers the bandwidth. If, however, folks download your podcast directly from your blog, you’re still on the hook for bandwidth.

2. Great service. James is great to work with. Each time I’ve had a question or problem, he’s been right there to address it within - at most - a few hours, and usually, immediately.

3. Revenue. As of the time of this writing, I’ve earned about $400.00 on about 8100 downloads since mid November. If my math is correct, that works out to just under 5 cents per download (my most recent downloads, however, were only bringing 2 cents per). Since most podcasters are used to having to pay to support their podcasting habit, this is obviously a plus.

4. Ease of use. Once you have your podcast set up through Fruitcast, there’s nothing else to do except keep podcasting and posting them to your blog. Fruitcast handles the rest.

Now, here are the current problems with Fruitcast in my book (I’ve covered all these with James):

1. Increased file size. When Fruitcast creates a new file from your original podcast, they increase the bit rate to 128 kbs. Although the sound quality is a bit better for the listener, it makes for a really big file. As an example, a 30 minute podcast at 64 kbs is about 15mb in size. At 128 kbs, your file size is doubled to 30mb, which makes for a longer time to download the file and more space consumed on a hard disk or mp3 player.

2. Modified ID3 Tags. ID3 tags provide information such as the title of the podcast and the podcaster’s name. They make it much easier to find stuff when you have more than a few different files on your mp3 player. When Fruitcast creates the new file, they replace the ID3 tags with just the file name. So instead of seeing this on your mp3 player: “SavvySoloCAST #28 - MicroISV: From Vision to Reality With Bob Walsh,” you see “ssc-ep28.”

3. File Clipping. This is the biggest problem I’ve experienced so far with Fruitcast. My last two podcasts have been cut short by the Fruitcast system, and I’ve had to repost them. As an example, the podcast I posted last night runs about 44 minutes, but when I downloaded it through iTunes this morning, it was cut off at about 10 minutes. Likewise, when I downloaded it through iPodder, it was cut off at about 28 minutes. I’m not sure why that’s happening, but it’s just too much of an inconvenience to my listeners no matter how much revenue it generates.

4. Stats tracking could be better. The fruitcast stats system provides:

• total downloads per podcast
• total ad runs per podcast and per month
• total revenue per podcast and per month
• top ten cities in which your listeners reside

That’s not bad, but I’d like to see something more extensive in a stats package. One crucial missing element is the downloads per month. I can tell you how many total downloads I’ve had since starting to use Fruitcast, but I can’t tell how many total donloads I had in December alone.

5. Limited number of advertisers. Since I began using Fruitcast in mid November, I’ve had about 20,000 podcast downloads. However, only 8100 of them have had ads inserted, which can only mean there are not enough advertisers to use up all the inventory. This, of course, has less to do with Fruitcast and more to do with the young age of podcast advertising, but it’s something to take into account if you’re considering using Fruitcast.

Going forward, podcast advertising is going to happen one way or another. And although there are several benefits to using Fruitcast, you have to weigh them against the possibility that you may alienate your listeners due to the current problems with the Fruitcast system. From my dealings with James, I suspect he’ll eventually get these problems ironed out, but until then, Fruitcast is off the table as an option for me and my listeners.

Computer Podcasting Recording Equipment Recommendations - You’ll find several different podcasting systems here.

The biggest problem for would-be podcasters is figuring out how the hell to do it. And it looks like that problem may soon have a much simpler solution in the form of Odeo (website. cool name - a spin-off of audio perhaps). Odeo (blog) is the brain-child of “Google alumnus” Noah Glass and Evan Williams, the 32 year-old founder of blogger.

For an idea of how Ev and Noah are trying to simplify podcasting for everyone, you can read Jason Calacanis’ post today titled Odeo podcasting software/portal demo by Evan Williams.

Podcasting is significant for solopreneurs. Period. Here’s why.

1. Transportable Content - if you create a podcast, your network can listen to it anywhere they want. Why? Because they can download it to their mp3 player. You can also transfer your recordings to CDs and offer them to your network. You no longer have to go the “traditional publishing” route to get your ideas/content into audiobook form. If you do a one hour talk, give away or sell CDs that expand upon the the ideas offered in the talk. Hand out CDs as audio business cards. There are so many ways to feed your network this way.

2. Passive Revenue - It’s great to have a full house of wonderful clients. At the same time, it’s a financial hamster wheel. If you want the revenue to continue, you have to keep the the clients coming. You have to keep putting in the hours with those clients. For some people, that works. For others, it might be nice to cut your work-load down by 40% without a comparable reduction in revenue.

3. Brand Equity - quality content goes a long way toward establishing you as the expert in the hearts and minds of your network. And that’s the goal. To make yourself the go-to gal/guy when the need arises.

4. Social Equity - there’s a level of personality that comes through in speech, which the written word fails to capture. People get a better sense of who you really are when they hear you engage in conversation. When people feel as though they know you personally, they’re that much closer to doing business with you. Assuming they like you.

The opposite will also happen. Assuming you do it right, you’ll turn some people off. And the beauty of that is you filter out incompatible clients. But with all that passive revenue, will you really care?

That’s all I can think of right now, and I’m sure there’s more to be said about it. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section.

In addition, I have to say this. Podcasting is not a panacea or some cure-all for your business building challenges. You’ll still have to do the work of building a network. You’ll still have to be very focused and clear about the value your bring to that network. You’ll still have to create valuable content for that network. The beauty of podcasting however, is you can also involve your network in the content creation - via interviews, recorded teleclasses, R&D calls, etc.

Also, there is another program called mixcastlive that is apparently designed just for podcasters. I’ve not used it yet, but I’m investigating it further.

Finally, Audacity is a free, open-source program for recording/creating and working with sound files. It’s a pretty well-known program among geeks and podcasters. You should check it out if you’re gong to get into recording your own stuff.

“Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing
sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and
other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity… “

“The goal, H-P Chief Executive Carly Fiorina says, is ‘delivering simplicity into what is today a much too complicated world.’ Digital electronics in general are too expensive and too difficult for consumers to use, says Fiorina, who will give a speech Friday at the giant trade show. They should “work together easily and intuitively,” she says.”

I’m hoping that’s not a new revelation for Carly. I’m a long-time fan, and I’d hate to think she’s been blind to the complexity thing till now. In any event, I think you’ll see other tech companies following suit to simplify the technology.

If you’re a blogosphere regular, you’ve undoubtedly heard the term podcasting being thown around like a beach ball at a baseball game. If blog is the #1 word for 2004, it’s looking like podcasting may be the #1 word for 2005 (remember, you heard it here first).

ipodder.org explains podcasting this way:

“Think how a desktop aggregator works. You subscribe to a set of feeds, and then can easily view the new stuff from all of the feeds together, or each feed separately.

Podcasting works the same way, with one exception. Instead of reading the new content on a computer screen, you listen to the new content on an iPod or iPod-like device.

Think of your iPod as having a set of subscriptions that are checked regularly for updates. Today there are a limited number of programs available this way. The format used is RSS 2.0 with enclosures.”

Basically, podcasting seems to be the convergence of RSS (blogging), digital audio recording technology and mp3 player technology. And everyone’s talking about it. Well not everyone, but here are a few in my world . . .

Smart Blogging Babes Yvonne Divita and Jennifer Rice, along with Jackie Huba (Church of the Customer), participated in a podcast hosted by Effern over at The Vision Thing.

Kimberly Black of Agile Business Content podcasts from the beach and talks about “podcasting, making money, finding your own voice and making plans for the new year.”

800-CEO-READ podcasts an excerpt of Built to Last by Jim Collins. It’s a nice little try-it-before-you-buy-it kind of a thing. Good idea for you AudioInfopreneurs out there to help sell more stuff.

Although it’s not a true podcast, copywriting guru David Garfinkle recorded a series of short interviews with marketing experts, and made them available on his World Copywriting Blog.

Mike Stewart, The Internet Audio Guy, is capitalizing on the podcasting craze. He even takes it step further, and incorporates video into his sales pitch. Again, this is not true podcasting, but I’m sure you’ll see video becoming available via iPods and other media players.

The Digital Podcast Directory currently lists over 500 different podcasts on topics ranging from business to erotica to travel.

Lately, I’ve found myself saying that marketing is a conversation. 1000 years ago, if you were yak dealer, you had to take your yaks to the market, where you hopefully met people wanting to buy yaks. That’s the only way you could talk to your prospects.

Then the phone came along, and you could just call prospects and talk to them without leaving your home or office. Or you spoke to people through your brochures, flyers and other written materials.

Then came websites, which made it even easier to talk to people, assuming you could get them to your website.

Then came blogs. And the thing about blogs - relative to websites, brochures and such - is to be an effective medium, people expect you to be real. They expect you to write like you talk to your friends. They don’t want the marketing-ease language. They want you to show up as you. And if you do that, and they like you, and you create something of value for them, they will probably buy it.

Now comes podcasting. It’s another was to easily CONNECT with your prospects. It’s not even fitting to call them prospects any longer. These are your friends, your network, your partners. Podcasting lets you talk to them, and it allows them to walk around with you in their back pocket. Assuming you offer value. As suggested in the Customer Evangelism Playbook, it’s another way to “napsterize your knowledge.”

This is how you build your brand in the 21st century.