Rex Hammock has published a brilliant series of posts on podcasting. In post #3 Rex lists the kinds of podcasts he’d pay podcasters for. It’s an interesting list. Here are some items from Rex’s list:
1. City tours (really, any kind of tours, including museums, historic battlefields, national parks, etc.)
2. Mash-up music-news programming: I’d pay for a version of a 30 minute program of business news each morning that had jock-jam-type music in the background playing at my jog pace.
3. Seminar sessions: I doubt I’m going to attend your $1,200 conference. But if it sounds compelling enough, I might pay you $100 to download each session a few minutes after it is finished.
4. MP3 books — self-publishing model: iTunes could, if they want to extend the long tail out long enough, become the Amazon.com of audio books — Amazon.com is trying to do that itself, however.
5. Motivational, self-help, weight-loss, exercise, how-to audio: This content is all over the place already…even on iTunes.
Rex’s point is well made – while podcasting, barely a year old, has set radio and publishing alight with start ups and existing players developing business models, there are many outside the traditional news and information fields who can create content to be podcast.
Businesses like newsagents can be an access point for downloading podcasts and paying the few cents for story, music and other content. We do this today in selling newspapers and magazines. we have the consumer connect. So, our place in this supply chain is logical. Plus many of us have the technology in our stores for such distribution.
Taking Rex’s thoughts and with the right economic model, accessing podcasts through newsagencies and under a strong national brand could bring a whole new range of consumers our way. I’d been thinking along the lines of newsagents offering music and video download but podcasts of all manner of things really opens the world.
As I’ve predicted before, podcasting will facilitate greater disaggregation – disconnecting stories from aggregators such as newspapers, magazines, television shows and radio shows. Podcasting will make the story the thing. People will pay fractional amounts for the story. And the new wave of devices coming out later this year will push the movement from audio to video.