Buffalo Wings and Toasted Ravioli

“Avoiding Unmitigated Disaster and Achieving Unlitigated Success”

Moderator: Denise Howell, of Bag & Baggage

Speakers: Jeff Henninger, Reed Smith LLP; Colette Vogele, Stanford Center for Internet & Society & co-author, Podcasting Legal Guide

Starting a podcast? Form a limited liability corporation. Register your podcast name as a trademark with the USPTO. Think about insurance against liability for libel, slander, defamation. Get written agreements on everything up front. Use lawyers judiciously. You don’t need a lawyer for any of the things mentioned above. When do you need a lawyer? When the potential loss to you exceeds the cost of hiring a lawyer. Also, when the other side has a lawyer.

Questions:

For universities, etc.: how do you make podcasts accessible for “508 compliance” under the Americans with Disabilities Act? (None of the panelists had an answer.)

Trademarking your name: will consumers be confused by the use? If your podcast is “ESLpod” (English as a Second Language), and someone else uses the “eslpod” as an acronym for something else, you may not be able to stop them.

Music in podcasts: What about a 30-second clip as background while you talk over it? The artist still owns the work. Despite the common myth, there is no “30-second rule” on fair use.

Is it prudent to get written releases for all interviewees? Yes, that’s the most prudent approach. The podcasting community is pretty young and non-litigious at this point; it’s a good idea to begin documenting your relationships with your partners, guests, etc.

Right of publicity: an individual has the right to control use of their name, likeness, and voice. There is some relief from liability if you are doing a journalistic-oriented podcast.

(Heads up: Colette Vogele will soon be doing a weekly podcast to answer these sorts of questions.)

“Amateur Means You Do It for Love”
Speaker: Dave Slusher, Evil Genius Chronicles and AmigoFish

This is the early days of a new medium. Surest sign of a charlatan: anyone who says “this is the right way to do it.”
“We need a business model.” That’s one of the LAST things you need: you really need a reason to get and keep going. The reason anyone picks up a guitar is because they enjoy it, not because they have a business model.
Against the “gold rush” mentality. What’s the core of why we do this?

Some questions to ask yourself at the beginning:

“Why start podcasting?” Creativity to burn; want to try new things; joy in self-expression. If you can be talked out of it, you should be talked out of it. The people who are good at creativity are the ones who can’t NOT do it. It’s not a matter of saying, “Oh, I’d like to write a novel if I had the time.” The creative ones make the commitment to do it. “Just the sheer coolness of it.”

“Why would you love doing it?” Pundits assume we’re all trying to get on the radio. Slusher has been on the radio. Podcasting lets him do all the things he couldn’t do on the radio (looser, don’t have to edit down to 29:00, can go with the flow of the moment, don’t have to worry about your language or the FCC). Pundits see it as a product you’re creating; Slusher sees it as a process you’re engaging in.

“Why would your audience love listening?” Audience will love what you do because your interests are aligned. Doesn’t require a huge audience to make it viable for the effort you put in. (How few listeners would you continue with? If nobody was listening, would you still do it?) Find your community of interest. There are a dozen knitting podcasts! If your podcast really, radically appeals to your audience, that may be enough to motivate them to pay for it. Nielson ratings don’t measure how much people care.

“What would make you stop doing it?” What would make you “podfade”? Is it a bad thing? Some go on a long hiatus and then come back. When do you have the “breakup talk” with yourself?

The second keynote speaker is Ron Moore, Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica.  They do a podcast to help promote the show.

The first email about the podcast: Sci-Fi.com is planning a “podcasting stunt” to promote the show.  Audio commentary for the episodes.  They chose to do 5 episodes.  Ron records them on minidisc and they are FedExed from his home in California to New York.  Feedback on the first few episodes: bad sound quality.  New rule: “the podcasts are not for whiners.”  That didn’t stop the whining, but the whiners were mocked and ridiculed in the forums.

At the beginning, he saw the podcast as just more work.  He had already tried to start a blog, but “my infrequently updated blog sits and mocks me on a daily basis.”  But now, the podcasts are fun.  Relaxing to sit and chat about the show; now he sees it as the final stage of producing an episode.  “Put the show to bed, give it a kiss goodnight, and that’s it.”  Commentary is fresh because it’s done the same week.  The show hasn’t been aired yet, so the commentary isn’t colored by audience response.  “I like this episode, and here’s why.”

In writing for TV, you’re never there when the audience sees the product.  The podcasts (and internet in general) are a good way to connect with the audience.  Better than focus groups.  (Focus group before BG aired said it was the worst show they had ever seen.)

Podcasting: no rules, no middle man; you get to have total control.  Potential for this medium is “pretty limitless.”

The first keynote address is being given by Leo Laporte, of This Week in Tech.

We’re all in this together.  It’s not about promoting one podcast or another; it’s about promoting podcasting as a whole.

Podcasting is not radio, and it’s not tv.  If you think it is, stop!

Monetizing: there are ways to monetize your podcasts, but we need to do so without the overwhelming presence of ads you find on radio and tv.

It’s not easy to measure your audience.  Podtracking stats are confusing and unreliable.  We have to promote the medium and grow the audience.  Lots of people have heard of podcasting but have no idea how to listen.  It’s a new medium; don’t copy the mistakes of the old media.  We can learn a lot from them, but avoid their mistakes.  It’s the dawn of a great new age.   New media do not spring up all the time.  Ultimately, this is THE medium–this is the way people want to be spoken to.

I arrived in Ontario, California yesterday around 7:00pm. I’m here for the Podcast and Portable Media Expo 2006. I missed last year’s Expo–actually, I had not started podcasting yet in September 2005–so I didn’t quite know what to expect. One thing I did expect–and was not disappointed–was to find lots of podcasters in the bar at the Marriott Ontario Airport Hotel. I ran into a few podcasters I already knew (Bruce Murray of The Zedcast, Julien of In Over Your Head, Leesa Barnes of Cubicle Divas) and met a few podcasters I’d long been a fan of (Bruce Ibbott of Coverville, Daryl Cognito of The Poddog Show). It also turns out that my room is next to the famous Keith and the Girl. My room is also, incidentally, next to both the interstate and the train tracks. It’s noisy.

It’s now 8:45 am and I’m waiting for the opening plenary session. We’re in a ballroom in the Ontario Convention Center, and looking around, I would estimate that the attendees are about 80% male, and about 95% white. The room setup is nice; the first four rows, reserved for laptop users, have long tables and powerstrips on the floor. Wi-fi is free.

More later.