Speaking of Podcasting...

After discussing podcasting again in class on Thursday, and getting our feet wet with garageband, I was feeling a little bit intimidated and technologically "unsavvy" you could say. I don't have a mac, so I haven't really gotten a chance to play with it other than in class, but while doing some internet searching I came across this twelve year old, Nicholas Montgo, who has produced a successful podcast and even gets a share of revenue from advertisements! So I'm thinking, maybe this won't be so bad...



Nicholas started Blastr.tv, which is a live podcasts that deals with issues concerning tech news, gagdets, youtube videos,etc. Because it is a live show, he is able to interact directly with his listeners as they call in and contribute their own opinions or questions. He also gives some good advice to people who are interested in starting their own podcast, which focuses on the importance of content first, over making money because if the content is good then the rest will fall into place.

This is just another strong example of how podcasting can be beneficial and get an average person some recognition among millions of users. Because he has started so young, I think that he success can only grow from this point.

Now I just need to tackle this garage band thing...and consider getting a mac maybe...

From Podcast to Published

After discussing podcasts in class today, I decided to do a search of my own and came across this interesting article. Scott Sigler is a podcaster turned published author after podcasting his novels free of charge to the public. After gaining circulation and popularity, his podcasts caught the attention of Crown Books, who offered him a publishing contract.

This just goes to show one of the many opportunities that podcasts have to offer. After reading the chapter on podcasts in "The New Influencers," I was surprised to find how many people found unexpected success in podcasting when really only meaning to play around with it, like the mommycasters and the HT guys, etc.

He has also used a lot of social media outlets like myspace and facebook to promote his book. "I do several promotional videos around the book, like book trailers, and those are up on the pages and so are the audio trailers for my books. So as soon as people stumble onto my page, they’re getting exposed to what the podcast sounds like, getting exposed to the story, they’ll see the video, and it makes it really easy for them to communicate and interact with me"- Scott Sigler.

What I thought was really neat about this is that it is different from buying a book because you don't get to have the whole thing at once. Listeners had to wait every week for the next chapter, which is probably what made a lot of them keep returning. His book "Infected" has also picked up by Crown Books, and I think that he is a perfect example of how podcasts can work in our favor.