Podcasts are simple audio files delivered via RSS. There is no streaming of the media, podcasts are downloaded to the user's computer in the background, allowing the files to be transferred to portable digital music players (hence the name.) The idea is that podcast content is perfect for listening to in a car or on the subway when you just don't feel like NPR.

Ev is very excited about the possibilities for grassroots radio production through podcasts.

He's also seeing great interest in his new company, but that is frankly less interesting to him than the opportunity to push the podcast form further out into the mainstream.

"It's not that I'm not interested in the business model, startup thing," Ev said as we sat in a corner at Mission bar Medjool, "but the bigger picture is let's make it easier, let's take it the next level and a business will come out of that."

While podcasting is getting a lot of hype and a lot of media attention right now, the actual uptake is still incredibly small. Even among bloggers the number of people actively listening to podcasts is estimated to be tiny. "Podcasting is so nascent right now," Ev said. "Lots of people have done great work in writing software and defining the medium and its evolved much faster than blogging did -- but it’s still not nearly something you can point your mom to. That's what really interests me -- making it accessible and easy and enabling distribution to and from non geeks."

Odeo consists of three modes -- listen, subscribe, create. The idea is to allow users to accomplish all three of those goals within the web browser. Odeo operates as an aggregator, audio player and bare-bones recording studio. When you login, you can play specific shows in the browser, add individual podcasts to a queue or subscribe to "channels" (that is, feeds).

"We want to take as much audio content as there is and make it easy to find and easy to point to and easy to listen to," he said.

Creating podcasts has been the least ready-for-prime-time aspect of the medium, because users have to figure out how to record and edit digital audio, learn about production techniques, upload files, and generate RSS feeds.

At the base level, Odeo offers the functionality of Audioblogger, the voicemail-based recording system created by Noah Glass, Ev's partner in Odeo. With "audblog," you can do personal or conference call recording by just making a phone call.

The real sweet spot, though, is Odeo Studio, a simple recording option in Odeo, which offers a blend of "higher quality sound and more production value but without the difficulties of learning a professional audio package."

In Odeo Studio, you can use built-in sound effects or record or upload your own. There's no mixing facility. The mix happens when you play various effects during live recording. Hitting "publish" adds the recording to a feed and uploads everything to Odeo's servers.

Since Odeo's concept is to be the one-stop finding-listening-recording podcast stop, the plan is also to host the audio that users create, which Ev admits is a substantial cost. "We plan to buy bandwidth in bulk."

The business model is three-fold:

• Offer free basic hosting and charge for premium hosting, based on bandwidth usage. "If you're Adam Curry and getting 50,000 downloads a week, we're probably not going to host that for free."

• Sell advertising into popular content (a la radio) with some sort of revenue-sharing arrangement. "We're not going to auto-insert advertising into your content without your permission. We see ourselves as a platform to allow advertisers and content producers to get together." Still, he said, "there may be an option for auto-insertions in the future, "but I want content creators to be happy -- you'll definitely get something for that," such as free hosting.

• Sell premium content. "Audible has shown that a significant audience is willing to pay for non-music digital audio," said Ev, who counts himself a loyal Audible customer. "I think there's a lot of potential in non-book forms as well. There are a lot of things I would be willing to pay to get in audio form even if they're available for free on text form. ... If we can create a critical mass of listeners then we can aggregate the content and make it feasible for content creators to have a revenue stream from content without having to build payment mechanisms, without subscribers having to have accounts at 100 places."

Look for more details on Odeo when Ev speaks at Etech Thursday and screen shots become available.

March 16, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Live from Etech
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March 2, 2005

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

By a strange series of links (starting with Scoble's Crossfader post), I see (via Mark May) that ASCAAP has updated its latest internet license to include a reference to podcasts. So podcasters are explictly included among those expected to shell out to play music. If you're not paying up right now, you're out of compliance. (Thus if the Grokster ruling is for MGM, the companies whose products you use to produce those 'casts would be liable for your actions, right?)

Mark figures the bill comes to $750 to performing rights organizations like ASCAAP, $42.50 per track to Harry Fox Agency for "mechanical rights" and a mystery figure you need to negotiate with the labels for "master use license" (they don't have to agree to give you the license either).

(Oh, btw, Crossfader is "a new online educational and collaboration community for electronic artists. Built by artists for artists, Crossfader will help you learn about the tools of trade [sic], promote your style, experience new genres and stay ahead of the technology curve.” Via Greg Yardley.)

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SPONSORWATCH TIBCO TIBCO's First Hardware Delivers Quantum Leap Performance – Changing the Game for Enterprise IT TIBCO Positioned as a Leader for SOA Governance in 2009 Magic Quadrant TIBCO Contributes General Interface to the Open Source Community Comments Ike on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing Allow me to (uninvited) clarify a piece of Tom's thesis. Conversations are interactive for the participants, and are held solely for the participants. A conversation that is held for the benefit of a non-participating audience becomes *something else*. People don't talk with each other in front of an audience the same way they would if they were alone. If you advertised that Tom Foremski, Robert Scoble and Andrew Keen were going to have a conversation about online inte Tom Foremski on 10 Basic Digital Publishing Skills Journalists/Anyone Should Know... Yes, you can change the video size to whatever you'd like. Just take a look at the embedd code. Cog on 10 Basic Digital Publishing Skills Journalists/Anyone Should Know... I think I would pass almost all of them, but how do you resize a youtube or other embedded video to fit a web page's size? I know you have to keep the dimensions proportional, but can you just change the height and width, or is there something else you have to follow? Mike on Startups In LA... Building The West Coast Corridor Of Innovation - 1400 miles Long There is no place like the West Coast for innovation Sandy Kotch on Startups In LA... Building The West Coast Corridor Of Innovation - 1400 miles Long I love the feeling of innovation for 1400 miles- that is the West Coast! Having moved from San Francisco to Santa Monica in the late 90s and being in start-up modes with companies for a majority of that time, it is great to confirm my true feelings all along - that we are in the innovative crux: California! Couldn't agree more that the creative energy in LA is bound to drive the technology here, it is a great place to be - although often expensive to do business! Tom Foremski on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing David: I don't think the problem is finding a new term for a stilted conversation, but that 'conversation' is misleading when applied to social media because it's about something that is much more exciting and amazing. Conversation is a red herring when it comes to understanding this next phase of the Internet... David Shantz on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I beleive that the nomenclatures may be what's failing us. None of our current lexicon really fits exactly: A CONVERSATION is really an exchange of ideas, with each response being dependant on the other and with the overall context... A DISCOURSE is more of a formal debate. PUBLICATION is as you say, to make content available publicly (but seems not to have enough emphasis on exhange) Perhaps we need a new word. "Publicly sharing an idea that is Doug Millison on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I enjoyed reading this. McLuhan is worth re-reading, especially his book THE MECHANICAL BRIDE. Digital media are bringing us back to something like the manuscript era, where readers were usually writers who compiled their own books. Now we're creating & compiling our own "books" -- sometimes we call them "blogs" -- by mixing text & image & sound/music online. My "prose+comics scrapbook" format makes this explicit & ushers in a new, interactive scribal epoque, as we let readers become co-cr Bud Gibson on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I agree with your bounds on what constitutes non-conversation, but somewhere in between is conversation. Ten to fifteen comments is often quite interactive. There are also side conversations that can happen in those large comment streams you mention. I've particularly seen this in some buzz threads. Another small point of contention: you're using a term, publishing, which is increasingly becoming archaic. I tend to think of it as having been replaced by three distinct activities: Seth Grimes on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing Personally, I think "conversation" works quite nicely, but I'd guess I'd define "conversation" more expansively than you do. Actually, I kind of like the WordNet definition: "the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc." (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=conversation), which fits what we're doing on/with social media. In any case, I wouldn't get hung up on conversation/publication. Isn't the point that social media supports both back-and-f Dave Kellogg on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I love the McLuhan quote. If you read the comment streams on blogs, it's usually not a conversation. It's usually what an old boss of mine used to call "parallel independent conversations" which is very much in line with the notion of two-way publishing. Chris Dymond on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing Question for me is: is it sufficient and to the greatest benefit for legal frameworks to simply consider social media as publishing, or should they adapt to consider a new category - something like a 'permanent conversation'? In other words should it hold people accountable in the same way it does when the act of publishing and hence the motivations of the publisher are clear? Seems to me that the normative effect of maintaining that legal stance will be to force a change in behaviou Andrew on Farmville valued $1B More Than Twitter By The Smart Money The Microsoft deal with Facebook included an advertising deal--the $240M was for a share of the company and for the ad deal. Thus, saying they bought at a valuation of $15B is significantly inaccurate. Tom Foremski on Tech Giants Struggle With Copy And Paste... George, sarcasm sometimes gets lost in translation, my apologies. Daphne on Analysis: Could $GOOG Face Problems Outside Of China For Its Opposition To Chinese Government? The Chinese governement has this stigma attached to it, basically don't mess with them. If google is mad enough to take them on, I wouldn't put it past them buying google and sacking the moron who made the decision. George on Tech Giants Struggle With Copy And Paste... And that significant lead will result from...adding something Apple has already added? And that make sense to you? Steve "@PodcastSteve" Lubetkin on Dirty Little Secrets: Social Media Is Terrible At Promoting Products Tom, you and I are of the same mind on this. I am so tired of reading blogs or listening to podcasts or watching video embeds about social media people using social media to talk about social media. I really want to hear about specific business uses of social media. As I've said frequently, we need to remember that these tools are just communications channels, and we'll all be better off when we reach that day when it will sound really silly to hear a news headline like "Tom Foremski used Twi Tom Nocera on Analysis: Financial Times Says GOOG Has Detailed Plans To Close China Search An excellent analysis, Tom Foremski. I think there could be a great long term benefit for Google by its foray into China. By the timing of its very prominent presence there, coming during the great boom in Internet usage and awareness, Google's retreat, may become a kind of catalyst in the long term memories of tech savvy Chinese...the leaders of tomorrow. I forecast a triumphant return for Google one day, and it will be without the curse of censorship which only helps governments to contro Jonathan Mendez on Why Ad Networks And Exchanges Will Never Help Publishers Great post. I believe publishers can have advertising supported businesses. In fact I don't think that's debatable. First though they need better tools to leverage their audience data and their own ad matching systems. Essentially they need to build a new improved display channel. New pub controlled networks could then emerge that would crush the performance of what exists today. Then all the margin eating middle men would vanish and both ends of the transaction get yet more value from the m Tom Foremski on Is the Future Of News Dependent On The Generosity Of Billionaire Philanthropists? Eric, What's wrong with making a reasonable profit as a news organization? I agree with you that there is a race to the bottom going on because the econopmics of online news continue to worsen. At some point, we have to figure out how to reward news organizations doing a good job otherwise we are in serious trouble as a society. That's what I would like to see Mr Hellman's money go towards -- figuring out a solution to one of the most difficult problems we have. There's not   Silicon Valley Watcher--reporting on the business and culture of disruption. © Tom Foremski 2004 - 2009 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-noDerivs 2.5. Details of license.