1f3a 2007 · April · Andy White’s Old Blog

Archive for April, 2007

A nice example of repurposing

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Jason Van Orden has a great post on Blogging, Podcasting and RSS Basics. It’s actually a talk he did at Podcamp NYC. He did what I often advise my clients to do - recorded his presentation. Then he posted it on his site along with a PDF of the slides he used. This is powerful stuff - let me tell you why:-

  1. He did the work once and a room full of people benefited - now the whole world can benefit;
  2. Whenever anyone asks him about the basics of Blogging, Podcasting and RSS - he has a resource he can point them to;
  3. He can now use that recording in any number of ways - in a podcast, as an MP3 he sends to clients etc;
  4. People who never could have attended Podcamp NYC are now being exposed to Jason and his expertise.

Let me expand on that last point. Earlier this evening my Feed Reader flashed up at me to let me know about Jason’s post. Fifteen minutes later I was walking in the park listening to his session on my iPod. I wonder how many other people in the world were out there, running, driving, crashed out in their den, walking, gardening,…, etc and learning all about Podcasts, Blogs and RSS. Probably quite a few. And some of those will, at some time, require consultancy on podcasting and blogging - who will they think of first?

The motto? If you are an expert in ANY field, record your talks then syndicate or podcast them - and you too, can hit an audience you never would have hit otherwise. You’ll now have people running, walking, jogging, exercising, gardening, painting, decorating, sitting, knitting, at a time and place of their own choosing, being engaged by you.

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Using iTunes to organise your recordings

Friday, April 20th, 2007 2b
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As an avid producer of podcasts, I have for ages been trying to find a good way of organising my recordings. I needed to keep all my recordings together in a sensible directory structure AND a way of tagging, categorising and searching them.

I was getting to the point of writing some sort of recording content management system when it suddenly struck me - “Hang on, isn’t that what iTunes does?!” Doh!

So I’ve started an experiment. I downloaded iTunes onto the PC where I store all my recordings, interviews etc. Then I brought each recording into iTunes (File -> Add file to library). When you do this at least 5 cool things happen:-

  • The sound file gets copied into a sensible, non changing directory structure maintained by iTunes (ensure you have Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced tab, Keep iTunes Music Folder organised and Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library ticked);
  • You can now edit the information associated with each recording - right click on the recording and select Get Info. You can edit the title, year, and add a description among other things.
  • You can group clumps of recording together by assigning them an “album” - for example, if you were putting together a podcast series about Alien Abductions, you could put all you interviews and other recordings into an album called “Alien Abduction Recordings”.
  • You can use the search box in iTunes to find stuff - invaluable when you recording library gets really big. Top tip - put tags in the Composer field when you edit the info, this field is searched by the iTunes search box. So for example I did a recording the other day of a guy called Jim on the seafront at the Al Fresco cafe, my tags were “jim andy beach seafront al fresco”.
  • Another way of “tagging” is to use playlists. Make playlist of your top dozen or so “tags” and drag the relevant recordings into them - cool.

I’ll keep you posted on how my iTunes experiment is going.

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The nature of Engagement

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

Had a conversation this morning with a super chap that runs a pest control business. He had just given an animated and amusing 10 minute talk about his business - I have heard him do many of these talks. What made this talk a bit different was it’s conversational nature - it’s open honest approach combined with stories and anecdotes. Towards the end, James mentioned his business and how it was different from other pest control businesses - nothing too heavy - just a pleasantly subtle reminder for us to consider him above others. The main essence? The content was informative, entertaining and useful - just like a podcast should be.

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Internet Marketing #24: Spiders and Videos

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

Daniel talks about how web spiders operate and a couple of things we all need to be aware of and I talk to David White of weboptimiser.com about his cool use of videos.

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Listen Now:


icon for podpress  #24: Spiders and Videos [23:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Internet Marketing #23: Web 2.0 Revisited

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

For those of us still at odds with Web 2.0, Daniel puts us at ease. I interview Wiggly Wigglers creator Heather Gorringe about her pioneering adventures into the world of podcasting and how her business has benefited.

Listen Now:


icon for podpress  #23: Web 2.0 Revisited [20:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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