Greetings from the floor of the Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference! This morning’s keynote speakers included Jason Calcanis and Leo Laporte.
Calcanis, as you may know, founded Weblogs, Inc., which he recently sold to AOL for the tidy sum of $12 million. He presented what he felt to be the key areas of opportunity for making money in podcasting. What are those opportunities? It really boiled down to just two: Creating software that makes it extremely easy for people to create and publish podcasts (a big gap, currently); and creating good podcasts (i.e. having or hiring talent). Bottom line: If you have talent, you have an opportunity. If you don’t…
Leo Laporte is an author, radio personality, former host of TechTV’s The Screensavers and of course, a podcaster himself. He was extremely personable and very enthusiastic about podcasting, because it lets you talk about what you love — without being “owned” by a broadcaster. He felt that radio was dying, mainly because everything has become so homogenized and controlled by the two mega-corporations that control most radio stations. Podcasting provides the answer.
Laporte didn’t address the issue of a business model, instead taking a more philosophical approach. His felt you should do what you love, and the money will follow. He included with some practical advice for being relaxed, natural, and comfortable in your podcast, and knowing what your audience wants.
Laporte will be broadcasting live from the show tomorrow morning on KFI 640AM (available via online stream) and again for his podcast TWiT in the afternoon.
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