SLS: Are Show Flaws and Mistakes Ok?

SLS: Are Show Flaws and Mistakes Ok?

By Spreaker Live Show

Spreaker Live Show #114 for May 31st, 2017

Show Today:
-Are Flaws and Mistakes, Ok to leave in your show?
-Podcast Suicide: 5 Errors to Avoid
-Survey shows: Many podcast listeners are switching away from radio
-Is something big happening to MP3 audio file format?
-Is Radio Old and Boring? Is that fair and accurate about radio?
-Listener Comments


Show Duration: 62 minutes

Host: Rob Greenlee, Head of Content, Spreaker @robgreenlee - rob(at)spreaker(dotcom)
Co-Host: Alex Exum, Host of “The Exum Experience Podcast” on Spreaker

Are Flaws and Mistakes, is it Ok to leave in your show?

Gail Nobles
“Talk about flaws and mistakes. We are taught that we have to be perfect in recording. Some mistakes are not that noticeable. There are people that pay attention to every little thing so that they can make negative comments. Everyone may not like your show, but some people will.”

-Yes, some flaws and mistakes are ok - little things like segment transition errors, ums and ahhs, audio silences, light backgrounds sounds are ok
-Not ok, big variation in volume levels, painful to hear humming and audio quality and loud background sounds.
-Audio recordings that don’t fit the content flow or topic that are part of the show

Blog.Spreaker.com: Podcast Suicide: 5 Errors to Avoid
1) Refusing to recognize your target audience
While keeping a broad appeal is good, not targeting a specific bracket is like shooting yourself in the foot. It’s like refusing to recognize that you’re speaking to actual listeners, not just to thin air.
Start with the very basics: who is your model listener?
2)Not having a pre-launch marketing plan
This is no time to be modest. At the very beginning, you have got to be your very own cheerleader – cos if you don’t cheer, who will?
3)Not bothering to submit to iTunes
Maybe you just haven’t got round to it yet. Maybe you are trying an alternative podcatcher service. But there’s no denying that the first place where listeners seek out podcasts is iTunes so no submitting yours amounts to podcast suicide.
4)Messing up your RSS feed
The magic touch of podcasting lies in the seamless way information syncs up, like a smooth dive into a pool. This is thanks to your RSS feed. Messing that up, well, it’s tantamount to a belly-flop: jarring and kinda cringe-worthy
5)Uploading your podcast directly onto your website
It’s nice to keep everything in one place, but that’s no reason for uploading your podcast files onto the same server as your website. First of all, hosting your podcast on your site will be a strain on your bandwidth and therefore make your website really slow.

Many podcast listeners are switching away from radio
Radio marketing and research company Nuvoodoo offered new research on podcasting. Two recent surveys about podcast listenership.

For the overall population, 9.5% of respondents spend at least one hour a day listening to podcasts.

Certain demographics reported heavier use of podcasts, most notably men aged 25-34 with 21.7% listening daily for at least an hour.

The other top groups with at least an hour time spent listening were men aged 35-44 at 14.2% and men aged 18-24 at 12.9%.

According to the participants, the shift to more podcast listening is coming from terrestrial radio.
Two-thirds (66.4%) said they listen to less FM radio since they’ve been listening to podcasts. Personal music was the second most-common response at 39.4%, followed by AM radio at 37.9%. Sirius XM has also lost listeners to podcasts, posting 29.7%.

The trend of increased podcast listening echoed arcs seen in the latest Infinite Dial results. The podcast audience is still growing, and although it’s a small share of overall audio now, the dedication level is high among people who like the format.

-Is something big happening to MP3 audio file format?
https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/12/mp3-is-dead-long-live-aac/
Reports of the MP3's death have been greatly exaggerated. Earlier this month, one of the patent holders for the audio file type, the German technology institute Fraunhofer, announced that in April it had allowed its patents to expire.
Fraunhofer releasing its patents doesn’t mean MP3s will cease to exist, though — it simply means the ubiquitous file type has been released into the wild, making it easier for developers who had previously been unable to support the file type to now go forth and use the file extension any way they want.

-So which is it — are MP3s DOA, or finally free?
The answer is kind of complicated. Sure, the MP3 isn’t what it used to be — an inescapable, ubiquitous part of the digital musical landscape — but it’s also not going anywhere.

-Be free, MP3, be free
The expiration of Fraunhofer’s patents means that as of April, the MP3 is no longer tethered to the host of encoding licenses that hindered its development since the first patent was filed in 1987.

-So why declare the format dead: AAC?
Fraunhofer Institute owns patents on another file format that is generally considered to be better — the AAC file, or Advanced Audio Codec. YouTube has plenty of videos attempting to audibly illustrate the difference between the sound quality of an MP3 file and an AAC, but the gist is that AAC files are generally thought to sound better at lower compression rates, or bitrates. Compared with a standard MP3 file, an AAC file sounds sharper and takes up less space on your computer.

In actuality, there are already several other file formats, notably FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and Opus, that don’t come with the same licensing restrictions but do offer the same amount of quality as an AAC.

But there are also plenty of other reasons why it’s a bit silly to declare the MP3 in its current state to be dead, and they all boil down to two facts: The MP3 is everywhere — and as digital audio formats go, it’s still pretty great. Fraunhofer’s director wants it to be considered the “de facto standard” file format we should be using.

-Like other classic file formats before them, MP3s are here to stay
For most people, however, if you’re not doing a lot of deep sound editing and aren’t a hardcore audiophile, an MP3 is just fine.
In podcasting over 90 percent are MP3, and within the most popular 500 podcasts, 99 percent are MP3.

Compares the MP3 to another classic file extension that’s shaped the way we think about the internet — the JPEG:
MP3 is very old, but it’s the same age as JPEG, which has also long since been surpassed in quality by newer formats. JPEG is still ubiquitous ... because it’s good enough and supported everywhere, making it the most pragmatic choice most of the time.
In other words, most of us are going to keep using the MP3 for the same reason we still save images as JPEGs: The quality is fine for our purposes, it’s supported on all the software we use, and we’re used to it. Why wouldn’t we keep using it?

The MP3 is almost certainly here to stay.

Is Radio Old and Boring? Is that fair and accurate about radio?
http://jacobsmedia.com/attention-tech-entertainment-writers-enough-already/


Listener Comments:

Dave Kanyan
Am I using proper etiquette? I don't want to piss people off when I tag them that may not want to be bothered with being associated with my show. So far no one has complained.

Dave Kanyan
/Question of the week. When I send out a tweet about my show I like to tag as many people as Twitter will allow. So I've added @robgreenlee and also @spreaker at the same time on certain Tweets. Who sees the @spreaker tag? Is that Overkill? Are you okay when we tag you? Maybe one show you can get a guest and discuss Twitter etiquette? I find that when I add a pic or two to my Tweets I can add more tags/names to the tweet.

Dave Kanyan
Glad you are enjoying my breather. No royalties expected. Breathe free, breathe away. A gift to the community. I liked your interview with Dan Franks. I'm gonna re-write the letter I sent you about PM17 and send it to him. I'm curious to see how he responds. I also enjoyed Andrew Allemann from podcastguests.com. When I get a chance I'll sign up for the guest available part and later on when I do interviews I'll sign up to request guests. I like the free aspect of it. I like the interviews and to hear about things that can directly affect my Dumbcast. I'm looking forward to hearing episode #114 on demand. Here's Dave's Dumbing it down with Dave


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