The Evolution of Podcasting: Seven Key Changes Since 2005

What has really changed in podcasting since 2005? The podcast report, episode one at thepodcastreport.com one show hotline is 503-897-1290. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. All right, so Paul, what are you doing here? What is the podcast report, buddy? Well, look, the industry, the podcasting scene is seeing a crazy boost. There are just some big names and some big numbers in the podcasting space. And you know, the podcasting prognosticators could say things like podcasting never went away, podcasting never died. But the fact of the matter was the attention from both the industry people inside, people outside, the common folk, it just wasn't ever where it's at today. I've been part of podcasting since the beginning. I've been involved in front of the scenes, behind the scenes since nearly day one. And now the podcast reports can report on what's happening now in podcasting. Now, there are two audiences for this show. Number one is the podcast. If you are podcasting, I intend on bringing you stuff that will help you up your game and help you do better, reach more and make more the other audience for this podcast. Those of you who are thinking about getting into podcasting, because I've been doing this since 2005, because I've seen and helped in millions of downloads, dozens of run up the charts and all these things, I am here to give you a front and center row front seat to the next stage of podcasting. Now, the podcast Report is not a massive play. Not gonna be able to make it up the charts for millions of downloads or anything because of these two small audiences. But this is the audience I love. It's not a massive play, it is a deep one. Love this industry dearly. I have since day number one. Hopefully you'll see that here. So let's get straight to the topic. How has podcasting changed since 2005? I have seen seven very significant changes since 2005 when I got into this game that have really changed the podcasting world. If you understand these changes, you understand not only why it is so big these days and why so many people are enjoying it these days, and why we are seeing the growth we are seeing. But even more importantly and even more exciting, you're going to see what's coming next, what's coming in the future. So let's hit these. Number one should be obvious, but mass broadband. When I started this, a good chunk of us were still on dial up modems. A good chunk of us were still worried about our bandwidth and we. Well, now most of America has high speed Internet and downloading a media file, an audio file, a video file, quickly or streaming it is just doable. It's not just doable at our homes, it's doable in our phones and in our cars. And it's very, very, very cool. This has made it, well, let's face it, a lot easier to get the podcast. Now what's interesting with that, we've gotten better software. Itunes has integrated podcasting in quite nicely. The whole Apple infrastructure is there. Android, Google really hasn't done much to help podcasts, but there are some great products like Pocket Casts that make it really easy on the Android side of things. BlackBerry and Microsoft, all seven of the devices are, you know, they've got options as well. It's easier to get a podcast than it ever was before. It's easier to make a podcast than it ever was before. It's easier to sound better than it ever was before. Better software. Now the next thing is better tools. We have at our disposal things that help us make podcasts sound better, look better, play better, scream better than we could have even dreamed of when this thing started. I'll be exploring a number of these in future episodes of the podcast report, but know that it's got better. Number four, smartphone and tablet adoption. You know, when this started, I had a smartphone of sorts. I put that in quotes. It's funny, I get email every week or so from somebody who bought my original business podcasting bible and says, hey, Paul, I love your book, but you don't mention the iPhone. Well, when we started this, there wasn't a iPhone dimension. I had actually a Microsoft device and I was thrilled with it, but it was hardcore nerd action and just really wasn't ready for what was going on. Now my mom has a smartphone. And it's not just smartphones, it's tablets. You know, we have everything from, you know, the iPad, which of course has a huge market share. But we've got these $30 and $40, you know, Android devices that we can pick up at Walmart. We've got color Kindles and color Nooks at the around $99 stage. Tablets are huge. It's going faster than laptops. SM, of course, getting bigger and bigger. More Americans own a smartphone than don't the 18 to 26 demographic. It's like in the 80 percentile. It's crazy, this adoption with the broadband that comes with it. Boy, now we understand why podcasting is happening. Finally. Not finally. Number five, the cultural embrace. Big names are podcasting, and not just big names in terms of celebrities and big names in terms of people who are doing it, but people who have embraced it. I mean, wow. The way public radio has embraced it, the way sports has embraced it, the way different industries has embraced podcasting has just been so exciting. There's a call to embrace. It's no longer for nerds. It's a way to get your content. And that has helped us out. Now, the last two, number six and seven things that we got over, things that we got around, these are important. For those of you who have been there since the beginning, you'll admit that we have outlived the fad stage. There was a time when people said, yeah, this is going to go away. Yeah, this doesn't have a long shelf life. Yeah, this isn't going to. Well, we've outlived that. It's no longer a fad. It's a game. It's the game. It's part of what's going on. If you look inside of recent announcements from Apple, let's face it, the fact that PBS public radio is going to be coming in over your iPhone through iTunes radio, we are seeing this channel, we are seeing this vehicle as legitimate. We're past the fad. Companies are pouring a lot of money into it, and it's very exciting. And then finally, number seven, this one's near and dear to my heart. We are, and this is my term, but we're over the monetization madness. And yes, the monetization madness, believe it or not, at the beginning of this industry, at the beginning of all this, there was this debate, there was this cry, is it okay to make money from podcasting? Is it okay to monetize this? Should we keep it pure? Is it possible to monetize it? Well, yes, it's always been possible to monetize it. It's always impossible to see revenue from it, but there is this madness associated with it, as if it was some sort of sacred ground that the capitalists could not jump on board. No, no, no, my friends, we have jumped on board and we are doing a tremendous job. Many of the monetization Mad Men and Mad Women are gone, and many of them have actually jumped on board and are seeing revenue as well. And this has been great for podcasting because when you don't have to podcast at 2 o' clock in the morning anymore, after your day job, you can actually do it as your job. The game changes and we are over the monetization madness. So one more time the seven and then we'll close off the show. Number one was mass broad. We're able to get our stuff quick. Better software for consumption and for production, better tools for consumption and production, smartphone and tablet adoption, the cultural embrace, the fact that we've outlived the fad stage and the fact that we are finally over the monetization madness. There we go. It's how it's all changed since 2005. Now we're going to close this up at a couple things for you. If you would like the mind map and the transcript from this episode, you can go ahead and text and EP1 as in episode one go ahead and text EP1 to 503-897-1290. That's 503-897-1290. If you are out of the country and or cannot text, go ahead and just call us on the show hotline at 503-897-1290 and we will get you both the mind map and the transcript of this show. In addition, if you'd like to leave a comment about this show, you can call the same number, 503-897-1290 and leave us some voicemail. We'd love to do that. This is the podcasting report. You'll be able to listen in all of the big podcast directories. We'll get this in itunes first and we'll make it out to the others very, very quickly. Do subscribe to the podcast report. One of the big powerful elements of podcast and one of the things that it's sad some of even the big games forget this and boy, the money lost as a result is just a silly little thing. But when you subscribe to the podcast report, every time a new episode comes out, it will automatically come to you. You don't have to come to my website. You don't have to be online. When I'm online on Twitter, you don't have to wait for this thing to pop up in your social fe. No, it'll come automatically to device. So please subscribe, be you on itunes or any of the other networks. Now at the end of the show, we're going to do two things and we're gonna do this every episode. We're gonna do time sensitive issues. I expect these episodes to stay up for a long time as one of the great things of podcasting. So when we wait till the end of the show to speak to things that might be time sensitive and I do have one big time sensitive issue. On June 24th at 6pm Pacific and 9pm Eastern, I am doing what is called the Big Broadcast. You can find out more about that@paulculligan.com Big Again, that is on June 24, 2014. If you catch this after that fact, there'll be some information about the replay. We'll be chatting about podcasting, some tools, some really, really cool things that are happening in that space. If you can get in before that, go ahead and give us a visit. If you get in after that, we'll have information about the replay, but we'll leave that here at the end. That's it for time sensitive. Let's take off. You've been listening to the Podcast report at the Podcast Report. This is episode number one. If you want more, go ahead and visit the podcastreport.com you want to find us on Twitter we are@the PodcastReport.com Twitter Facebook we are at the PodcastReport.com Facebook. You can guess where all of the other social products are. This is Paul Culligan. This is the Podcast report Episode one. I am so pleased to have this in the can. Talk to you soon. See you at the next one. Bye.