Perplexed Podcasters Join Forces to Compete for a Slice of the Pie
We’ve long been perplexed on the problem of online video
content – who will buy, and for how much. (Answer: no one, and nothing.) Coming
to terms with the fact that advertising is going to have to be the sugar daddy
for streaming video, and it now looks like audio is in the same boat. No one
will pay to receive podcasts. But marketers are thwarted from embracing
podcasts because they have no way of tracking how many times their messages are
being heard or changing outdated ads.
However, like a hungry herd of raptors from
to “have closed in on a solution in recent months” and may soon be able to
provide consumers with “a much wider array of free audio (and video) content…if
they can stand a little advertising to go along with it.”
Sure, why not? But the question now is not what and when,
but where and how? iMediaConnection offered up some advice last year what
was the best way to do it, but Susan Bratton has her own ideas: the mid-roll.
“I have the ability to not just have a single ad in front and end, but a series
of them that’ll tell the story.” Ooh. Ahh.
With technology that keeps the podcasts connected to the
publishers’ site for better tracking, and the formation of a new industry
group, the Association for Downloadable Media – with about 15 companies
involved, from Apple to NPR – the future looks fairly good. Projected to grow
at a compound annual rate of 154.4 percent to $327 million in 2010 by PQ
Media’s Alternative Media Research, and to $400 million by 2011 by eMarketer,
we’ll certainly be seeing more on this.
With search, video, social networks, blogs and streaming TV
so prominent these days, though, we’re wondering along with RawVoice
if “podcast advertising [is] doomed to
play fifth fiddle online”.
In an attempt to crank up its popularity, we’ve done our own
podcast. Check out CEO Bruce Carlisle’s podcast with Lisa
Morgan on The Future of Advertising, in anticipation of his appearance at
Online Market World in October. No-Ad!
