by cameron | May 30, 2007 | Podcast, Uncategorized
80% of Podcast Listeners Seek Out Products They Hear About (from SearchEngineWatch)
As reported in the Guardian, a survey of over 300 U.K. podcast users done by Chrysalis Radio’s download division found that 80% of those surveyed indicated that they would be more likely to seek out products and services after hearing about them.
Before rushing out to promote products via podcasts, it should be noted that the most popular subjects for audio downloads are books and films (not search engine marketing, surprise), and 55% of listeners seek out podcasts on entertainment topics. Electronic goods and gadgets are good targets, for 49% of listeners downloaded podcasts about gadgets and electronic goods.
The survey also found that podcasts have an underexploited social component inasmuch as 90% of those surveyed said they would consider forwarding audio shows to friends. Podcasters not already doing so should consider adding social bookmarking to their show’s landing pages.
Confirmed by the survey is that podcasts are in a time-shifting medium. 75% of listeners listen at their convenience not during live show times and a similar number listen while away from home. While listening on an MP3 player or mobile phone (50%), podcast fans are engaged in exercise (10%), traveling on public transportation (20%) or doing housework (12%). Podcast listeners are dedicated listeners with 25% listening for up to two hours a day, but they are time-challenged, and a third of the time do not listen to their entire downloads. This suggests that if you want to make a point in your podcast, make it early since you may not get a chance to be heard if you wait until the end.
by cameron | May 24, 2007 | energy, energy debate, Podcast, science, science vs religion
Rod Adams, host of TPN’s Atomic Show, joins me today to talk about nuclear energy vs solar and religion vs science.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | May 23, 2007 | Podcast
Today I ask you – what is it going to take for you to get off the bench?
And wish my dead dad a happy 58th birthday.
Here’s a link to the post on The Age and here’s a link to the J. Paul Getty book I mention.
by cameron | May 17, 2007 | Podcast, science, singularity, technology, transhumanism
Forgive me Father – it’s been at least two weeks since my last podcast.
I figured you guys needed some time to digest my last run of shows. Ready for more yet?
Another show on the coming of the technological singularity today. My guest is Eliezer Yudkowsky, co-founder and research fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in California.
I have been aware of Eli for ten years or more. He was featured fairly prominently in Damien Broderick’s book The Spike and was a contributor to Natasha Vita-More’s Extropian mailing list in the mid to late Nineties.
An autodidact prodigy, Eliezer wrote the first version of his Singularity “call to arms”, Staring Into The Singularity, at the age of 15 and has been re-working it continually since then.
On this episode I’ve tried to capture Eliezer’s vision for the different forms that the Singularity might take, the timelines for it, and his motivations for trying to make it happen as soon as possible.
I hope you enjoy it.
If you want to hear more interviews about The Singularity or AI, try these previous episodes of G’Day World:
Dr Aubrey de Grey
Ray Kurzweil
Roger Williams
Dr Ben Goertzel
by cameron | May 1, 2007 | Podcast, Uncategorized
Wow. I just had one of those whooooooo moments, when the world spins. I was reading Brook Turner’s article on George Miller from last week’s Australian Financial Review magazine. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I admire George. MAD MAX and MAD MAX II are obviously the greatest Australian films ever made and two of the greatest films ever made full stop. On top of that, I’ve always admired Miller’s auteurness, the way he has avoided the Hollywood system, followed his own vision, done it his way. That appeals to the rebel in me.
So just imagine when I read these paragraphs in the article:
“Miller’s first big eureka moment came when he attended a lecture by the maverick American thinker and polymath Buckminster Fuller at university in the late sixties.”
And then, a few paragraphs later…
“Miller’s second great epiphany came when he heard the American writer Joseph Campbell speak on a rainy night in Santa Monica after he had made MM (Mad Max).”
Again, anyone who knows me well knows that Joseph Campbell has been a major influence on my thinking for 20 years. And recently I have been obsessed with Fuller. So weird. I also know that my friend Peter Ellyard has been heavily influenced by both of them as well. As, I guess, have lots of people. It’s just weird when you find out that someone you’ve admired for a long time has had very similar influences to yourself. If the article had said he was also a fan of Napoleon, I probably would have choked on my cereal.
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Rage Against the Machine reunites! It might have only been for a one-off concert but we can only hope that the boys will put the band back together. God knows we need them now more than ever. I am a HUGE fan of RAtM. I haven’t heard that kind of anger or genuine passion in music since they left us 7 years ago (can it really be that long??). Even Lou and Bruce can only summon a fraction of the heat and intensity of Zack. And now you do what they told ya….
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I said to a friend of mine today “I was watching a great speech by Vint Cerf today”. The friend replied “Should I know who that is?”.
This person is a webmaster for a pretty big company. When I explained that Vint is the co-inventor of the internet, the friend replied “Does that have anything to do with the term “surfing” the internet?”
Which lead me to think…
Vint Cerf has to be (with Bob Kahn) perhaps the most successful inventor in history, certainly if you measure the success of an inventor as ‘adoption of the invention over time’. Since they invented the internet in 1973, it has grown to over one billion customers. Even Microsoft doesn’t have that many customers. If you stop the average person in the middle of any street anywhere in the world and ask them “Have you heard of the internet?”, I think the response rate will be pretty high, even if they aren’t fortunate enough yet to be a ‘user’. However, I wonder – if you ask the same person “Who is Vint Cerf?”, they probably won’t be able to answer you. I wonder how that feels? I should get him onto the show and ask him. I’ve been watching this speech he recently gave to Hungarian “TV University” and he comes across as a nice guy, a regular human being. Can you even begin to imagine the impact he has had on the future of the human race? Bucky Fuller would have loved the internet. Talk about being a future maker!
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The Silverlight demo that Microsoft announced last night at MIX07 is pretty cool. Sean Alexander, the product manager, is coming on the G’Day World this week or maybe next to talk to us about it in more depth.
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I was getting very excited last night about the HUGE increase in audience to my Napoleon podcast during April (400%) until I got the full TPN stats today. It looks like we’ve had a few very naughty people trying to DOS my servers during the month. Fortunately they failed but in the process they completely screwed my stats. Either that or it’s innocent and someone inadvertently tried to download a couple of our shows tens of thousands of times over a couple of days. Either way, it’s ruined my day.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick and the folks at Splashcast today launched their new application which looks like a very cool media player. Unfortunately, they have chosen to brand it “MyPodcastNetwork”. Obviously I have issues with that. So I have sent them an email requesting a discussion immediately. Hopefully we can resolve this in a polite fashion.
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