The Reach - Podcasting and other Portable Media Strategies

Well, don’t you just know that all the fun things happen at home while you’re on the road. Gio got a call from the Fort Worth Star Telegram while I was in London, that turned into this article and the subsequent posting to The Agency Blog. Blake Burris from Cocoa Radio got good mentions as well, not only for Cocoa Radio, but also for his additional distribution of CR through Media Swamp.

Since Gio has driven everything around the Media Swamp, it’s good he got the call.

6 days after returning from SE Asia, I turned around and flew to London for 2 days of a 3 day conference. I was asked to speak on a panel regarding technology and specifically on our efforts to podcast in “out of the way places”. I met people interested in utilizing this new trend (which obviously is newer in most other places in the world than it is here in the U.S.) as well as possibly funding some of the MPReach capital needs. Time will tell as to the overall interest, but I believe it was time well spent, both in terms of education and visibility. Thanks to those that made it possible for me to attend.

We were treated to nice digs, first class speakers, such as The Baronness Cox, former Deputy Speaker of The House of Lords, and great food. 1st class treatment from a 1st class organization.

Another podcast while on location (actually on the way out, while waiting for my flight at Gatwick), is over at The Media Swamp.

Or whatever. I’ve finished moving The Reach from the hosted version on WP servers to the installed version on my own servers. I think I’m caught up on writing about the recent trip to SE Asia - cities/countries we touched were: Taipei, Taiwan (but only for layovers); Hong Kong; Shen Zhen, China; Bangkok, Thailand; Yangon, Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma); Bangkok, Thailand; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Bangkok, Thailand; Taipei, Taiwan. That was the itinerary, in case you wondered why Bangkok and Taipei were mentioned several times.

Well, after spending 10 days working 14-15 hour days in other countries, Thailand was somewhat of a relief. We still worked hard, but the combination of it being a more western city of Chiang Mai (very tourist oriented) and traditional business meetings made it seem a bit more like home. Include with it 90-100 F temperatures, and it felt like Dallas in the summer time - except for that it hit 100% humidity at times as well, without much rain.

Chiang Mai is in the northern reaches of Thailand, surrounded by beautiful mountains. It’s hot in the valley, cool in the mountains. Many westerners visit this city of 400,000 and those that have visited can usually figure out a way to retire here. While I’ve never lived outside the U.S., it seems that this could be one of the easiest places with which to adjust. Meaning that if you want traditional Thai food and the Thai experience, you’re on. If you want McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, et, you’re in business too. It is as inexpensive to live or as expensive. Bed and Breakfast - queensize bed, AC, garden, etc, try out Riverside House on Chiang Mai Lamphun Road for $15 nightly. Or you can find a 4 or 5 star hotel within walking distance. Your choice.
Enough English is spoken that low brow westerners like me can feel right at home. There are many educators and business people in the city that are western, so while they’re still a minority, there are enough to where you wouldn’t feel far from home.

We had great business meetings and were very encouraged by the response - there were many people who wanted to help us get a greater foothold for podcasting in SE Asia. Since there are many countries near Northern Thailand, it makes distributing audio and video content very easy in that geography.

Again, there is a podcast on The Media Swamp that I did while sitting on the patio at one of the four Starbucks on a busy corner in Chiang Mai.

Our first day in Hong Kong was primarily arrival and trekking about to Stanley Market, a western tourist trap for seconds of brand name clothing. Decent deals were had, but nothing to “write home” about.

The second day was our trip to Shen Zhen and then our third day was in Hong Kong where we were to meet up at the Golden Computing Center to get a demo unit of a particular device we’d seen at the MP3 factory in China. Prior to going there, our partner took us to lunch for Dim Sum at a restaurant overlooking Hong Kong harbor - what an incredible view (this was on the Kowloon side, so we were looking straight out at “Hong Kong” (as in the pictures and postcards we all see). As we were driving to the restaurant, my wife had seen the Hard Rock Cafe, so in keeping with my attempt to buy HRC memorabilia in our travels, I picked up my HRC cap to add to the collection.

Our trading partner had made contact with the rep at the GCC showroom, but after wandering around for about 45 min, the guy at the show room never showed up. At least we got to see the famous Golden Computing Center - so busy you can barely walk through it, but I will say that for the items I was interested in, the prices didn’t seem to be any better than eBay!

After all this trekking around (again, horrible traffic), our partner took us to dinner with his wife and two adorable daughters (11 and 5). The unique portion of this experience was that we traveled out to the New Territories (in between Hong Kong and China) and went to select our live fish from the fish market prior to taking the bags of fish to the restaurant which then prepared them for us to our specifications. Once again, we were at a “local” restaurant, with no Anglos anywhere to be seen. What a tremendous gift it was to see true life on that side of the world, without having to be westernized by the cuisine.

When we got back, I recorded a podcast, which you can find on The Media Swamp.

Feedburner posted this on their “Burning Questions” blog. Great overall data regarding podcasting. Interesting, though, that they state that they support more podcasting feeds than there are radio stations worldwide. Good piece of PR there, but while Feedburner is loved by all, let me sprinkle a little cold water on that number.
Each podcast is like a show. Not a radio station. So, while they host more than 44,000 podcast feeds - that’s more like 44,000 shows on what would be somewhat less than 44,000 radio stations. Let’s be generous and say that there are 24 shows per day on a 24 hour talk radio station. That would be more like 1,833 radio stations…..
Before you think I’m criticizing them, let me say, hosting feeds for 44,000 shows is huge. I congratulate them. Just wanted to do the math for them.
Read the report - it’s a fantastic piece otherwise.

Steve Rubel, on the Micro Persuasion blog, asks if podcasting is evolutionary or revolutionary. He compares it’s impact to blogging, for which he is a professional spokesperson and model, so to speak. He ends up in the evolutionary camp on podcasting, revolutionary on blogging, to no great surprise.

His argument is that podcasting is not very social, and blogging is. A lot of discussion around Web 2.0 is around the social aspects. I agree that podcasting is not social, but then again, neither is broadcasting. It certainly has more social possibilities than traditional podcasting ever did, but social is probably not at the top of the list. On the other hand, just because a trend is not social does not mean it’s not revolutionary.

Podcasting is revolutionary! It is revolutionary because of the perfect storm of portable hard drives with headphones (known as iPods, MP3/MP4 players, portable digital media players ), cheap bandwidth, RSS, and consumers being fed up with poor programming choices from media giants.

Some people have expectations of miracles in this trend of podcasting and the world to change overnight. If it (a new trend) doesn’t satisfy instant gratification needs, it is deemed a losing proposition. My experience says that sea change comes like a Tsunami. It starts with a violent crack way down below the surface. You don’t see it coming until it’s almost too late. Unfortunately, often it is too late for some.

But, the change comes….