EuroMac Podcast

One of the casualties of 2006 was the EuroMac Podcast I'd made a rod for my own back by making the pre and post production process much too long and involved. The increased effort required to keep ScreenCastsOnline going and giving it the attention it needed to become my main source of income meant something had to give and the EuroMac was put to bed temporarily. There is still the need for a European perspective on the Mac scene so I haven't completely abandoned the idea of resurrecting the EuroMac some day but not in the near future. However..... There is something in the pipeline that isn't as time consuming as creating my own show each week and yet will still give me the opportunity to reach out to a larger audience with my take on the Mac scene in Europe. Expect an announcement in the next week or so!

Technorati Tags: Apple, podcasts, apple, mac, ScreenCastsOnline, osx, Europe

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Shameless Self Promotion - Plug #1

Despite being the shy and retiring type, last month was pretty busy with respect to promotion for the ScreenCastsOnline service. As well as the ScobleShow (still to be published but on its way!) I was asked to do several other interviews which are now starting to appear on the web. So here's the first! I've been following Paul Colligans blog Paul Colligans blog for a few months now. Paul is a well known Internet Marketing Guru with a special interest in Podcasting as a Business and the Monetisation of Podcasts. He also has a number of Podcasts including Podcast Tools and Profitable Podcasting. When Paul switched over to the Mac, I sent him a complementary Premium Extra! membership which he accepted and found to be really helpful during the transition from Mac to PC, so much so that he also got his wife involved in using the ScreenCasts to learn iLife! We exchanged some emails and he was blown away by the business model I had put together. That resulted in a brief mention of ScreenCastsOnline in his recent book The Business Podcasting Bible. I managed to meet with Paul during the Podcast and Portable Media Expo and we had a great conversation on all things related to podcasting as a business. The result of that was Paul invited me to appear on his Profitable Podcasting podcast to talk about my experiences of setting up and transitioning ScreenCastsOnline from a hobby podcast to it being my sole source of income and supporting me and my family! The interview is about 30 minutes long and can be found here. My thanks to Paul for the exposure and the chance to appear on his podcast. PS The project I mention at the end of the interview is still in its infancy but if you want to sign up to get more details as they are available, there is a web page with some more information at http://www.buildasubscriptionpodcast.com

Technorati Tags: podcasttools, podcasthosting, Podcast Expo, Premium Podcasting, Subscription Tools, Podcast Expo 2006, Business Podcasting Bible, ScreenCasts, ScreenCastsOnline, podcast infrastructure, subscription podcast, business podcasting

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Email Broken?

The more I use email to communicate with the ScreenCastsOnline audience, the more I realise just how powerful a medium it is! Paul Colligan blogged yesterday about his frustration with people who keep stating that email is dead...

Email marketing ain’t dead - and I’m not talking Spam - I’m talking legitimate relationships made with people who ask to be updated by email because that channel works best for them.

Email marketing ain’t dead - and I’m not talking Spam.... at Paul Colligans Blog

Despite having a podcast with reasonable audience figures, I decided to not just rely on my RSS feeds to communicate with my audience. RSS feeds are great but if the viewer stops viewing for any length of time,  iTunes will kindly stop downloading my show. If there is a problem with my feed, I have no means of communicating with the audience. As this is my livelihood, it's not a good place to be! So I started building a couple of email lists a few months ago - one for my Extra! membership and one for the free feed. These are opt-in lists - absolutely no spam and people have to confirm membership. The Extra! membership list has over 80% adoption but this is to be expected as these are my paying members and are fully engaged with ScreenCastsOnline. The list for viewers of the free show is much less but building up day on day. I treat both lists with respect and use them to add value to the overall ScreenCastsOnline experience. Only recently, I started a weekly newsletter to both lists that "follows up" each weekly show with supplementary material and additional hints and tips. It takes me a couple of hours to put together but the feedback has been tremendous. But the reason for this post was to re-emphasise Pauls point that email is certainly not broken in all cases. Only last night, I decided to throw together a quick and dirty survey for ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members to get some feedback on recent developments and looking for new ideas for the future direction of ScreenCastsOnline. I sent a link for the web based survey to the Extra! email list with a covering note. Immediately after sending the email, I made the survey live and then completed the survey myself to test it. Two or three minutes later, I'd finished the survey and logged on to check the results from the single session I'd created. My jaw nearly hit the desk when I realised in that two or three minute period, 27 people had received the email, clicked the link and completed the survey. Amazing! Now approx 8 hours later, 74% of the emails have been opened and 30% of the readers have kindly completed the survey. The results are an eye opener and I've got enough data to spend the next few days analysing the results to make ScreenCastsOnline a much better service. Yes, email can be a pain but handled correctly, is an absolutely indispensable method of communication. PS I'll be looking at setting up email lists and other mechanisms that go towards "Building a Subscription Podcast" in the new year. If you'd like a sneak peak of what I'm planning, check out http://www.buildasubscriptionpodcast.com/. This is just a marker page but guess what, you can sign up for the mailing list and I'll keep you in the loop as things progress. Technorati Tags: podcasttools, podcasthosting, Premium Podcasting, Subscription Membership, Podcast Expo 2006, Business Podcasting Bible, podcast infrastructure, subscription podcast, business podcasting

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ScobleShow !!

I got a really interesting email over the weekend that came completely out of the blue! Robert Scoble (ex-Microsoft blogger and now host of Podtechs ScobleShow ) is in the UK for various speaking engagements and visits. Jan Kabili (of Photoshoponline.tv) suggested to Robert that he look me up when in the UK to talk about ScreenCastsOnline. I met Jan at the Podcast Expo back in September and prior to that gave her some hints and tips on screencasting to help get Photoshoponline.tv off the ground. Obviously, one good turn deserves another, so thanks Jan! The upshot is I'm travelling down to the Online Information conference in London tomorrow where Robert is speaking and we'll record a session for the ScobleShow. I'll be taking my MacBook pro and will probably give a demo on screencasting and talk about ScreenCastsOnline. I might even make some announcements on a new venture I'm planning for the New Year. Say hello if you're at the conference or keep an eye open for the ScobleShow. I'll post a link once it gets aired.

Technorati Tags: Podcast Expo 2006, ScreenCasts, mac, ScreenCastsOnline, scoble, scobleshow

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MacVoices Interview Published

Chuck Joiner has just emailed me to let me know that the interview I did with him last week is now live. Cool! I'm not that used to giving interviews but Chuck has a real knack of putting you at your ease. It didn't help that my new audio rig caused a echo back to Chuck via Skype so we had a few false starts but I'm pretty pleased with how it went. I only noticed one blooper and that's where I described the iPod version as mpeg2 and I should have said mpeg4! Check it out and see what you think. Link to MacVoices dedicated page Warning - The above link contains a mugshot of my good self. You click at your own risk! By the way, the link to the offer for the Mac Users Group is here, well I figure if you read my blog then you deserve the discount too!

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