Apple iTunes support podcasting

By Charlene Li

I invited my colleague, Ted Schadler to comment on Apple enabling iTunes to find and play podcasts. I had my own take last month based on the announcement, but I thought you'd like to hear from Forrester's resident music expert. Ted's also the author of a Forrester report, The Future of Digital Audio, which is available only to subscribers. But you can watch/hear a free summary here. And here's Ted:

Apple has added support for podcasting -- a way to subscribe to audio downloads -- in its iTunes software. This isn’t the first time Apple has reached beyond downloadable music; it also supports audio books from Audible.com and Internet radio from Live365. But this is the first time that iTunes users -- those with iPods and those without -- can easily subscribe to what Apple exec Eddie Cue calls “free podcasts” (if easy means accessible to non-alpha geeks).

What it means #1: iTunes support is a big deal for podcasting. By making the podcasting application easy and available, many more people will find it convenient to search for audio downloads -- commercial radio talk shows, Wayne’s World-style programming, and subject matter experts’ personal audio blogs. Forrester expects 12 million US households to be listening to podcasts by the end of the decade.

What it means #2: There’s no money in podcasting yet. At the moment, podcasting is a feature not a market. While podcasting allows many more amateurs to create and distribute audio programming, there’s no indication yet that anyone will pay for a subscription (though podcasts of Howard Stern may convince a few more people to subscribe to Sirius Satellite Radio). That leaves advertising as the only business model. And advertising needs a generally accepted audience measurement tool before a serious advertiser will invest. The obvious measurement tool -- monitoring downloaders’ listening behavior -- is off limits for now because of security and privacy concerns. Apple will not collect listener data. That leaves surveys or emerging measurement tools like Arbitron’s Portable People Meter -- a voluntary audio tracker -- to fit the bill.

What it means #3: Music is the bogeyman in podcasts. The music industry hasn’t yet figured out how to license songs used in podcasts. That means smart podcasters will avoid commercial music -- even tiny clips like NPR uses between segments -- to stay off the RIAA’s prosecutorial radar. GarageBand.com has a nice workaround, though, as it owns the publication rights for the songs its independent musicians host on the site. That means Bo Bice’s pre-American Idol songs can be incorporated into podcasts hosted on GarageBand.com. Apple should do a deal with GarageBand.com.

iTunes to support podcasts (and Forrester's podcasting forecast)

By Charlene Li

Just saw on various blogs that iTunes 4.9 will support podcasts. Steve Jobs made the announcement at D: All Things Digital Conference last night. The service will be available within 60 days, Jobs said.

This will make the whole podcasting phenomenon SO much easier. I've just been playing with a few other RSS aggregators this morning and noticed that You Software's RSS reader allows one-click subscription to podcasts and automatically downloads the files into iTunes. I'm sure there are other aggregators will allow you to do this -- I'm just getting caught up so let me know what you're favorite podcasting solution is!

Jobs also mentioned that he'll include a directory of podcasts, allow publishers to add podcasts to the directory, and even allow them to charge for podcasts. As a long-time subscriber to Audible, I find this a very interesting alternative, even substitute to Audible's subscription programs. If I can easily find and download my favorite broadcasts -- even if I have to pay -- I'll switch. Audible better get its podcasting act together very soon!

Lastly, I realized that I hadn't written about Forrester's podcasting forecast. It makes a little appearance in The Future Of Digital Audio report that my colleague, Ted Schadler wrote in March (available to clients only). He looks at podcasting as a "time-shifted audio experience" with adoption driven by a combination of broadband penetration and MP3 ownership. 2005 forecast is 300,000 US households using, rising to 12.3 million US households by 2010. This feels about right -- that will be 36% of all MP3 owners in 2010 that also use podcasts.

Sites discussing the iTunes announcement:

O'Reilly Radar
Engadget
Six Apart Blog

Supernova pre-pre-party: Rocking like it's 1999.

By Charlene Li

I just came back from a great networking dinner hosted by Kevin Werbach as a pre-pre Supernova get-together. You can see a preliminary guest list – there were well over 150 people at the confab.

The evening had a certain 1999-esque flair but with a big difference – we each had to pony up $20 for the Thai food (which by the way, was very tasty!). And it was a cash bar!

But it was worth every cent – I mentioned to Kevin that I got more done in a few hours than I usually do in a couple of days! To which Marc Cantor replied, “That’s what networking is for.”

A couple of highlights – at least the ones that I’m allowed to talk about (one of the highlights of the evening was hearing about all of the stealth developments going on…it’s going to be an interesting couple of months).

- I met several of my BlogHer Conference advisory board members for the first time. It was like a reunion – we’ve all been communicating online it was great to finally meet each other.

-  Learning more about how to actually create podcasts. One of my tablemates was Steve Sloan, who has the interesting job of teaching the professors at San Jose State University how to use new technologies like podcasts. They’ve been podcasting there since last fall – everything from supporting “how to” tutorials that support the class curriculum to actual lectures.

- Speaking of podcasting, I ran into Deborah Schultz and Ian Kennedy from Six Apart and had only one, simple request – enable podcasting on Typepad. They already provide hosting services for Movable Type installations – it seems like it would be a fairly simple task to open up those servers to Typepad users. And I would pay for the service, just to make it easy (and I suspect many other wanna-be podcasters feel the same way). They both promised to look into it.

- I also ran into Stuart Henshall, who is the editor of Skype Journal. Now here is an example of a blogging business model. The blog is maintained by a team of writers, has ads from Google, and also points users to all things Skype (equipment software). But Stuart told me that a growing part of his business is working with companies grappling with how to think about Skype – what the impact will be, if they should use it, and if so, how to deploy it. So using the blog to demonstrate thought leadership and then hiring oneself out. Very cool model.

- The best part was running into people like Tony Gentile and Jeff Clavier who are regular readers of this blog. I know people read this blog – I can see the stats. But it’s just a really cool feeling when I can put a name and face to a reader, especially those who have commented on the posts.

So it was a very fun, enjoyable evening and I expect that Kevin is planning another party – after all this was billed as the “pre-pre-Supernova” party. Can’t wait! And I expect that the Syndicate Conference next week will be very similar as about a quarter of the same people will be there.