PodCastCon UK Report

Well that was fun! A whistle stop visit to London (the second in as many weeks) for PodCastCon, the first European (and probably the first in the world, but we’ll need to run that through a fact checker first methinks) Conference for Podcasters. It went well. Really well. Given that (a) this sort of thing hasn’t been done before and (b) because of that nobody was really sure what would be good topics to cover, there was a “next year we know exactly what we need to do” to get it right. Much like OpenTech 2004 influencing OpenTech 2005.

Now this is not a bad thing, I’d say that the presentation of the whole event, the guests, the speakers, and theattendees, the whole thing worked, so congratualtions to Paul, Adrian, Alex and Neil for having the vision., that got bigger of it’s own accord, that left them no choice but to step up to the plate and hit a home run. I’ll sum up the whole PodCastCon later, but for now, my thoughts on the sessions.

Neil Dixon as MC
For some reason he kept holding sheets of papers, and never really referred to him. Made it look horribly easy, but keeping these things on time and managing an audience Q and A sessions is not as easy at it looks. The public face throughout the day put everyone at ease, and kept us all happy. Cracking work!

BBC “Radio Podcasting” and Virgin Radio’s “Podcasting and Commercial Radio.”
so you have the grass roots podcasters, and you get the Mainstream Media to talk to them/. O you think there are going ot be fireworks? Not at the BBC guy… because we all love the BBC, and Radio 4 is a little treasure (and he inly took one question). But big bad Virgin Music with his evil playlisted songs that get stripped out… he doesn’t get it and he;s the point man for all the ills in the world. Which was a bit unfair, but I think James Cridland had half expected it, and gave as good as he got.

And while the whole issue of licenced music is a tricky one, I think that neither of the parties really addressed the big problem, that of what happenes whenpodcasting takes away a number of listeners to radio. How many people can a show afford to losoe before it hits the advertising revenue and starts a downward financial spiral? 1%? 2%? 5%? That’s where the danger is for mainstream in the next 2-3 years in my opinion.

And I had a very nice chat with James afterwards about where Virgin is taking some of their new DAB Music Stations, specifically to do with unsigned bands.

Podcast TecHnologies
Community and Educational Apps
I was networking during these one, so I’ll need to catch the podcast later.

Tartan Podcast (Podsafe Music Network)
Mark Hunter talks about why unsigned podcasts are great, provides the best analogy in a long time (“Is it Wallpaper or Art”) and generally points out why these music podcasts really work – and I’min agreement with pretty much all of it. A quick tour of the Podsafe Music Network promised much, but didn’t go much beyond how the front end worked to the end-user. Mark readily admits that he’s not up to speed on a lot of the issues, although most of the room seemed to not know that it existed, so it was pitched at the right level.

Richard Vobes Live
Simulacrum Live
Having live redcordings of podcasts is a good idea, and ensures some free publicity in the weeks leading up to PodCastCon, but it relies on a few things. Firstly that people like the shows in questions (I can listen to one of them in small doses, and the other just sounds like the worst excesses of the Steve Wright In The Afternoon Posse circa 1986), and that it would make interesting viewing for the audience. If the conference had two ‘streams’ of seminars – say the high level political and strategic stuff in one, and producing and making casts on another – then the later would have accomodated the ‘live’ shows very well. As it was, I felt that the hour taken up with these shows would have been better served with an “open table” debate and a panel of people across the Podcasting field, and another seminar (my suggestion – how to promote yourself). Definitly a point to discuss for the 2006 programme.

Legal Issues Facing Podcasting
Finishing off the seminar program was Paul Nicholls, who gave a whistle stop tour of the law and who it could affect podcasters. Bottom line? nobody knows, but the chances are you won’t have enough money to find out, so tread carefully!