What the @#%$! Does THAT Mean?


What the @#%$! Does THAT Mean? Plain English About New Media #001: “New Media Types and Podcasting” copyright 2006 -all rights reserved- by Roberto Mighty, Founder and Head Geek/Creative Director, Celestial Media Feeling deluged lately? It’s no wonder. Nowadays, people are awash in electronic media. Streaming Video, Podcasts, Mp3’s, television, satellite radio, mobile handheld programming and iTunes (a brand name so powerful that it deserves a spot on this list of ‘media types’) impact willing--and unwilling --individuals from the moment they wake up in the morning until they vainly seek refuge by cowering in their beds at night. These and other “New Media” are the hot tools of communication. This toolset is good for distribution (podcasts, direct audio downloads, e-books, iTunes, video-on-demand); for promotion (streaming video, mobile handheld programming, satellite radio) and for marketing (email, interactive polling, direct download incentive offers, chat rooms, instant messaging, Buzz Agenting, Cool Hunting and Social Networking a lá MySpace and Facebook). Subscribe to this column here. Read our Current newsletter here. Audio Mp3 (8 minutes, fun to listen to) version of this column. Over the next several months, this column will attempt to sort out the various flavors of New Media. To start, let’s consider a very hot topic: *Podcasting. Music up: Outer Space theme Sound Effect: Terrified Screams No need to panic. First of all, some quick definitions:* A Podcast is (generally) a spoken word audio recording (but it can also include video, flash, and other types of media. More on this in a future column) that has been converted (compressed) into a download-friendly format (MP3 or AAC file), along with a brief text file (show notes) that describes the recording. Using special locater software (XML/RSS 2.0 or Atom), this audio file with accompanying text description is put on (uploaded to) the Web, where it is available for retrieval (downloading) by anyone who has an internet connection and the proper Podcatcher or Aggregator software (such as iTunes or Juice, formerly known as iPodder) installed on their PC or Mac computer or handheld media player. An iPod is an example of a handheld audio player, although one does not need an iPod to play a podcast. Once an audience member’s Podcatcher software finds your first Podcast, it automatically looks for (subscribes to) and downloads newer podcasts on a regular basis. Got it? Okay. Next topic: Quantum Physics. Music up: Outer Space theme Sound Effect: Louder Terrified Screams It may seem a little daunting at first, but if you re-read that paragraph a few times and listen to a few podcasts (search for podcasts on itunes, or on ipodder) you'll get the general idea.) My upcoming columns will delve more deeply into the why’s and wherefore’s of New Media and podcasting, including: - Who’s doing podcasts? - What content do people put into podcasts? - Should we do podcasts? - Who would our podcast audience be? - Can we do podcasts this in house, or should we outsource our podcast production? - Seven Steps to your first Podcast So, until my next column, live long and prosper - Roberto Roberto Mighty is Founder and Creative Director of Celestial Media, a multimedia production company. Email. Celestial Media’s multimedia studio creates, develops and produces original television, video, audio and new media for diverse organizations and institutions. Our webcast, consulting and multimedia projects include MIT, Zone Laboratories, HarperCollins Publishers, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and The Argosy Foundation. *BONUS TRIVIA QUESTION What was the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2005? Hint: Here were some of the runners-up: bird flu persistent vegetative state sudoku trans fat A randomly-chosen person who emails me with the correct answer gets his/her name mentioned in my next column. Whoopee! - RM ### Copyright 2006, Celestial Media. All rights reserved. This article is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, re-disseminated, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of Celestial Media.