I have written quite a bit about what I call "Average Joe Podcasting", or podcasting for normal people who don't want to turn it into a business. I have also mentioned that I think the most common form of podcasting will indeed be this kind of hobby podcasting, not radio-style business podcasting. Unfortunately, it seems rare that someone else understands this, but today I found another person who does:

Rob Walch, a podcasting consultant and host of the popular 411 interview podcast, says he's bombarded with questions from people looking to strike gold with podcasts. His advice? "I tell people that over 80% of podcasters will never even break even," he says. "This is a hobby. You don't expect to make money from flying model airplanes, and chances are you aren't going to make money from podcasting." Still, for trailblazers like Curry who are quickly forging links to one another, it won't be for a lack of trying.

Well said, and in a way that I think a lot of people will be able to understand. Not that it's bad for people like Curry to try and make some money from it, every industry needs that, I just feel that it won't overshadow the rest of podcasting for very much longer.

BusinessWeek   podcasting averagejoe media audio advertising radio

We spent some time yesterday nailing down a schedule for releasing all of the good stuff we've been working on. About time too - the Expo and all the work we did leading up to it kind of took it's toll for a few days. In any case, look for a much improved release of Podcast Spot by the time Christmas arrives. Shortly after the holidays we're planning to release a little more. We will of course be revisiting the schedule pretty often too, to make sure it's relevant and accurate.

Oh and Podcast Tags should be running properly by next week too, we're almost finished fixing the few issues we encountered.

Just a quick thank you to everyone who's been testing out the services we've made available! We have discovered some bugs and configuration errors that we're working to fix as soon as we can, so we appreciate you helping us flesh those out. If you discover anything you think we should know about, please leave a comment or email us!

I guess a little clarification should be made. Podcast Spot is really more of an alpha than a beta, while Podcast Tags is pretty much a beta. We're going to be working really hard over the next week or two to pump out some new functionality and make them better, so keep a look out for that. I'll also be adding some "beta" graphics to the sites, so that it's more clear what stage of the development process we're in!

As always we encourage and welcome your feedback, so don't be shy!

First of all, a big thanks to Tim and everyone at TNC New Media for putting on a great show this past weekend in Ontario, California. Plans are underway for next year too:

The next Expo will be September 29-30, 2006 back in Ontario, California at the Ontario Convention Center with larger rooms for the conference sessions and improvements suggested by all of you.

My main suggestion is wireless Internet! Aside from that, the expo was great both for Paramagnus and for podcasting in general, and we'd be happy to participate again next year. Thanks to everyone who came by the booth and spoke to us, and everyone who attended the presentation Saturday morning. We look forward to helping all of you with podcasting! If you weren't able to attend the Expo, don't worry! We're going to be making some new stuff available very soon.

We have discovered a couple of issues with Podcast Spot, but we're working on them. Currently we're planning to roll out a couple new features this week too. I'll post an update on that later.

We're very pleased to announce the first (and very early) beta of our podcasting products! Of the four applications and services on our roadmap, two are now available for public testing. You can now tag episodes at Podcast Tags, and you can create your own podcast and upload episodes at Podcast Spot. We anticipate releasing beta versions of Podcast Basket and Podcast Wizard sometime next month. For more information on all four products, visit the Paramagnus Podcasting site.

Although we had previously released a version of Podcast Tags, it was more of a test for us than anything. We've worked hard to fix the issues we had with the previous version, and we've added a few things too!

• The website is now http://www.podcasttags.com, instead of the awkward http://podcasttag.com.
• We have ping interfaces in both SOAP and XML-RPC (including ExtendedPing support).
• In addition to looking for tags in your podcast, we also look for categories! That means almost every podcast can immediately take advantage of Podcast Tags.
• We're still working on the API, but it should be available soon. The API project will allow you to tap into Podcast Tags from your own applications and services.

Podcast Spot is our podcast hosting service. The first ever release is now available for you to play with and take a look at. There is still lots of work to be done, but for now you can:

• Create an account (register here)
• Add episodes and categories
• Select a Creative Commons license for your podcast

Additionally, these features are currently working:

• If you upload in MP3, we'll automatically convert it to WMA (and vice versa)
• You can download segments of audio files in MP3 format
• Users can subscribe to a dynamic, general feed for your podcast or more specific MP3 and WMA feeds

We're really pleased that we were able to release the first "beta" in time for the Podcast & Portable Media Expo! There is still lots of work to do, but we're looking forward to getting some initial feedback on what we've done. If you're going to be at the Expo this weekend, come see us in booth #312!

paramagnus podcasting podcast tags podcast spot portable media expo

Wow, what a very busy last couple of weeks! We've been working really hard to get beta versions of some of our applications and services ready for the Podcast & Portable Media Expo this weekend, and we're almost there. We should be launching the beta versions of Podcast Spot and Podcast Tags sometime tomorrow, with beta versions of Podcast Wizard and Podcast Basket coming probably in December 2005.

We have also launched our Podcasting Beta site, at http://www.paramagnus.com/podcasting/beta. There you'll be able to find information on all of our products and services. We're also bringing some information materials to the Expo, so feel free to drop by our booth - we'd be delighted to talk to you! Our booth is #312, which you can find on the floor plan.