YouTube is UCG

The most clearly defined form of user generated content is YouTube (and similar sites). Anyone can, and does, upload anything. ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

The advertising industry and UGC

Advertisers are simply terrified of UGC (User Generated Content). With no means of predicting exactly what kind of content their brands will become associated with on the page, it becomes tougher for agencies to have confidence in reaching the audience they must reach on behalf of their clients (remember, in the vast majority of international brand advertising, it is not the brands themselves who buy the advertisement space).

What advertising buyers are hunting for is trusted, “brand-safe” content with which to associate their products. They need the confidence that there will be no unpleasant surprises and that their clients’ brands will have their image both enhanced by the associated content, and that it will reach their defined target audience.

True UGC cannot guarantee either of those important criteria.

Aren’t podcasts UGC?

In that they are generated by “users”, they are, of course. But in the eyes of the advertising industry, podcasts have unfortunately become tarnished with the very same brush as true UGC. Whereas, in fact, the vast majority of niche podcast-distributed programming is very much brand-safe.

Serialised, audio and video programming maintains an audience primarily through loyalty. That audience comes to expect a certain style and structure of content. If the show consistently fails to provide what they expect, they will move on. Producers understand this and strive to provide what their audience wants. Thus the loyalty grows and the show becomes increasingly brand-safe.

Within each individual show’s audience, the programming is entirely brand safe in that it is predictable, consistent, and reaches the same eyes and ears over and over again – and important factor in converting an advertising message into audience action.

So why aren’t advertisers clamoring to write cheques to independent podcast producers?

Apart fro the image problem (as mentioned above), the vast majority of the productions out there have far too small an audience to be attractive to international brands who need to reach millions. Networks such as Mevio get around that issue by aggregating similar audiences together across multiple smaller show properties. And it is working.

But whether any company can become strong enough to truly wipe the memories and associations podcasts have within the advertising industry remains to be seen. I do not believe that will happen – advertisers like to be in control, and no-one has broken them in the past four years (since podcasting first appeared).

This lingering, troublesome association is, as I see it, the reason for PodShow re-branding to Mevio.

The story has not changed

Since the dawn of podcast content, the key players have been preaching that the programming’s strength is its unique and intimate relationship with its audience, and that relation must, therefore, be attractive to advertisers. I have not seen this view change.

Along came the tsunami of UGC (YouTube, etc.) and what should have been a tall, razor-wire topped wall between the independent content productions and true UGC, became a fuzzy blurr of confused notions about the differences between professional, independent, and amateur produced content.

I believe this is one of the primary reasons why so many quality podcast producers did not see the returns they believed were possible from their content..

Disclaimer: I work for Mevio. The opinions in this article are wholly personal and in no way prompted, endorsed, or motivated by Mevio.

Photo credit: Bulent Fahri Ince

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It’s Minor Technicality 36 – Happy New Spring! This episode looks at the changes in PodShow over the past week, Alternative Kitchen Garden and growing vegetables, TableRappers signed to PodShow Press, rediscovering live music a bit quieter, and the free trial at eMusic.com/minortechnicality Promos from Hall of Mirrors and Made in the UK Tracks from Bloc Party and Plain White Ts from the Podsafe Music Network. Running time: 36 minutes.

Listen here

Free 35 tracks – two week no obligation trial: eMusic
About eMusic, theMusicShack

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This is version 1.1 release. Currently it has only been tested on WordPress 2.5, please report any issues with any other versions. This should still work without a problem on WP 2.3.3+.

DOWNLOAD
Current release: version 1.1 Download MevioPMN_1.1.zip (9Kb)

INSTALLATION
- Extract MevioPMN_1.1.zip to your wp-content\plugins directory
- Go to the WordPress plugins admin panel then activate the Mevio PMN plugin.

USAGE

1. Decide which player orientation you require:
   supersize: height=358px , width=615px
   vertical: height=408px , width=338px
2. Search for the artist at http://mevio.com/music
3. Make a note of the artist_id in the URL of the artist’s dedicated page
4. Add to your blog post in the following format:

   [pmn=artist_id&vertical]

   For example:
   Alice Cooper‘s artist ID is 5266, and we would like the supersize player:

   [pmn=5266&supersize]

5. Save your post, and your player will appear!

The player object is surrounded by a <div> with a class ‘pmnplayer’ enabling you to position the player using css styles if you wish.
Look and feel of the player cannot be changed as it is a Flash file

You can add the above line into your wysiwyg editor in normal wysiwyg mode, or in code mode.

CONFIGURATION
No configuration required.

SUPPORT
Please leave a comment below, or get in touch via the contact form.

CHANGE LOG
1.1 podshow.com changing to mevio.com: fixed urls of embed calls
1.0 Initial release

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UPDATE: Adam Curry refers to this as less a facelift than a shot of botox!  ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

This interim change refocused the site around primary promotion of video content, which is – despite the understandable resistance from those involved solely with independent audio – is where both audience growth and advertiser interest are undergoing significant accelleration.

This morning was the first time I had seen the v2.5 interface (I have simply been too wrapped up in other projects), and I like the emphasis on show promotion right there on the front page. Much more is being done to push the content from producers with whom we have a relationship – something that is close to my heart, of course. The initial lineup seems a little weighted to the bigger productions, but that is understandable for day one to offer the strongest lineup.

One of the main challenges the site still faces is media persistence – the ability to keep watching or listening uninterrupted as you explore – and the ability to interact with the rest of the site without losing the connection with that already playing media.

With the very much stronger, and still growing interest from advertisers in associating their brands with video content, I think this new interface is going to open a number of doors for PodShow and associated producers, of course. We are already seeing a marked increase in the number of, and potential from, new advertisers. Most of the new campaigns being offered to producers have unlimited potential for growth and earning, regardless of audience size. Now that is an important point, it is no longer the shows with bigger audiences that are (potentially) able to generate the biggest earnings. Could we have discovered exactly how to tap in to the full potential of aggregating many small-audience productions to distribute brand and product promotion? Not quite yet, but every single day is a learning experience and we are a lot closer to understanding how to help producers make the most out of their shows.

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Familiarity most certainly breeds complacency, so in this post I am partially putting things to rights regarding a very familiar place.

I pop into Tea&Podcasts a few times a week to see what’s going on. It’s an open forum for podcast and independent producers, their audiences, or anyone interested in podcasting, which has existed since the closure of other, dedicated UK podcast forums a little over a year ago (ancient history, I’m not getting into that now).

A recent discussion thread opened the point about forum activity dropping and it occurred to me one of the reasons has to be the lack of current forum users letting anyone else know the forum exists. A little search revealed almost no sites linking into it. The regular users – me included – have forgotten the need to constantly spread the word of familiar and potentially very useful resources such as this. So this post is a first step in correcting just that!

So, producer, listener, viewer, or just generally interested in this podcasting thing, head over to Tea&Podcasts and meet a bunch of like minded folk.

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I was forced to miss on some important work stuff this week, stuff that I have been preparing for several weeks now. People were relying on me to be places, attend meetings, and generally do what I do. Instead I had to put additional pressure on others to step in and fill the gap. That’s what working in a team is all about, right? I mean, I would do what is necessary to fill gaps when required. But I still feel bad about it. I have a fundamental distaste for doing something – however unintentional or avoidable – that results in someone else having to do more, be put out, or change their plans.

Even when, such as this week, it all started with someone deciding not to stay indoors and give themselves time to recover from the flu before going out in public last week. Whoever that was, thank you, your unadulterated gift was bags of fun. And ended up with this text you are reading being the first time I am capable of forming enough words for a blog post, the best part of a week later. Frustration is high right now, but I thankfully do not have the energy to stomp around a fume for a bit.

Back on the subject: maybe I should just get a grip and accept the professionalism of the team I work with, and their ability to deal with whatever comes just as I would in their shoes. Maybe too many years as a freelancer having very few others to rely on has skewed my thinking a little.

Bah, that’s enough, time to grab some of that big bottle of catch-up and finally sweep this virus-infested, zombie-groaning, must-stop-watching-In-The-Night-Garden-because-it’s-so-trippy, week firmly into the ‘shit happens’ trash bin.

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TableRappers_teaser1_audio_52sec.mp3

Please spread the word

If you play the promo in your podcast, on your website, or just plain help out by letting the world know about TableRappers, then please let me know so you can be added to the “Friends” page at tablerappers.com, as a thank you.
You can download the mp3 promo from:

http://tablerappers.com/promos/TableRappers_teaser1_audio_52sec.mp3

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