I spoke this past weekend at “Podcamp NYC” to a standing-room-only crowd. I promised to post a summary and also provide the links, especially for those peeps who watched from the hallway!
Thanks also to these peeps who attended and offered their input: Jamison Tilsner of Tilzy.tv, Chef Mark Tafoya of Culinary Media Network, Tom Guariello of True Talk Now, Adam Sherlip of New York Islanders and Rahiem Drinkwater of Pdashmedia.
- Concept (How time-consuming is it?)
- There is a direct correlation between the difficulty of producing your show and the frequency by which you publish. The easier the format, the more often you can realistically deliver an episode.
- The more often you release new content, the more often you show up on the top of the page of the various web video aggregation sites.
- It better be something you love in order to sustain the amount of work it takes to deliver well and deliver consistently.
- A typical 3-4 minute episode of Beach Walks with Rox, which uses a very simple formula (8 second title sequence, 3-minute one-shot main clip, and 20-second credit roll) and is unscripted, takes about 2.5 – 3 hrs to produce from start to finish.
- Naming Conventions (for you & your subscribers)
- Creating a naming convention makes it easy to file and search your content.
- It makes things line up nicely when displayed on other people’s directories such as iTunes.
- For correct date sorting, use YYMMDD or YYYYMMDD, regular English will not work.
- Project Template (reusable parts)
- Create a master template folder (using your naming convention).
- Have your main project file built in the software of your choice, and embed all of the reusable clips, such as your theme music bed, your show name and URL, and your version of copyright licensing.
- Do the same for your episode thumbnail graphic. (You can use one main show graphic or you can use a unique graphic for each episode. I recommend using an episode graphic if you have visual content that changes from day to day – it helps people find an episode when viewing in iTunes, for example.)
- Duplicate the template folder and rename accordingly for each new episode.
- Assemble any additional bits and pieces of content in there belonging to that episode.
- Look & Feel (easier editing & brand consistency)
- Take some time when first creating your show to develop a look and feel.
- Experiment with a few transition and titling styles, then stick with them. (Saves you time by being able to ignore all the other choices!)
- Be sure to build in your show name, your web site address, and your copyright license. Some people also plan ahead for ad insertions, contact information, or other custom items.
- Encoding & Uploading Tips
- Flash format will play for most users. Several hosting sites will encode your Quicktime or Windows Media files into Flash for you.
- You must also supply a downloadable format to enable RSS subscriptions. Your best option is a Quicktime-compatible format.
- Be sure to add the META data to each episode. You can do this easily by bringing the encoded file into iTunes, and editing the info and adding your artwork.
- Encoding times can vary considerably depending on the length, size, and output quality of each episode, as well as the speed of your computer. The Visual Hub software (below) does a remarkably good job in dramatically faster times. (Almost in real time whereas other programs can take 3-10 X real time.)
- Uploading video files can be very time-consuming, and naturally will vary depending on your internet connection speed.
Links Mentioned
Visual Hub – Encodes in multiple formats; $23.32 USD
Viddler for free hosting, comments, & social features
Blip.tv for free hosting and built-in blog; geared to episodic shows
Tube Mogul for batch distribution across the web & stats tracking
Creative Commons for licensing your work if you want something other than full copyright.
Ioda PromoNet for royalty-free music for non-commercial useUpdate! Going through my acquired business cards, these folks work in the space.
A Few More People I Met
Ariel Publicity – Ariel reps independent bands who want to promote their music on other people’s shows
Filmosity – Chris Cavallari can help you with shooting, editing, on location work for hire, etc
Carrot Creative – Creative shop to help you with the web site and embrace new media
Truffle Media – They can help you with turn-key business podcasting
Vivid Screen Designs – Jane Gussin does motion graphics and video production
Cheil Worldwide – Ann Marie Mathis and Howard Levenson grok new media & social web campaignsThanks for reading! Now is a good time to sign up to receive new articles by email as soon as they are published or subscribe to our RSS feed.
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