"Podcasts. Blogs. Vlogs. Porn-to-go. These new methods of delivery are rapidly becoming popular, thanks to the Video iPod, PSP and other portable devices," the seminar promoters proclaimed. "But it's more than just a new way to distribute content -- it's a brave new world where you can expand your marketing efforts and profit from easy-to-use publishing tools."
Judging by the seminar's attendance, this characterization seemed to strike a chord with the knowledge-hungry audience seeking to discover the opportunities presented by this "brave new world."
Moderated by AVN Online's Kathee Brewer, the seminar's panelists included Bart Myers from GUBA, Sam Sugar of SugarBank.com, Regina Lynn from Wired Magazine, Fleshbot.com's John D'Addario and Jack Mardack of profitLABINC, who all engaged in a lively overview of the key points involved in exploiting these next-generation technologies.
With all of the buzz surrounding Apple's recent introduction of the Video iPod, it was not surprising that discussion of this platform and its associated "podcast" content delivery mechanism dominated the seminar. As with all new technologies, there's always a lot of confusion about the basics, and the world of podcasting is no exception.
"Podcasting is a bit of a misnomer as you don't need an iPod to get it," Myers said. "It's simply an RSS feed that's available through iTunes."
The effective use of the technology was discussed, with the consensus being that its use as value-added content, rather than an "end all" product for stand-alone marketing, made more sense. The challenges in monetizing podcasts was also highlighted by a discussion of the fact that content available through RSS feeds keeps visitors from having to return to a website, hampering advertising and other sales methods that site owners have traditionally employed for revenue generation.
While much of the discussion surrounded the recent release of the Video iPod and the rush of many companies to provide adult content for it, this platform is not the only game in town. Beyond Microsoft's anticipated response to Apple's offering is Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) with its large, widescreen display, that according to some experts is not only a better platform for adult material, but one who's user demographics more strongly reflect the typical buyer of adult entertainment than do the demographics of a typical iPod user.
Still, with an estimated 40 million iTunes subscribers, offering content to such a large market makes more sense to some providers than does focusing on the needs of an estimated one million current PSP owners.
Technical considerations were also discussed, with the message coming across that there's a certain "geek level" required to implement quality podcasts. While audio-based podcasts require a higher level of technical sophistication than do text-based weblogs, for example, it's in the arena of video-based podcasts that the technical requirements become a major issue for consideration. The reason for this is because viewers will always compare the quality of the video with what they are used to seeing on television and in the movies. This is especially true when the viewer is being asked to pay to see the video.
Addressing the concerns of techno-phobes seeking an easy, relatively non-technical solution for content distribution, Sugar opined that "Blogging is great because it's text-based and anyone can do it," a sentiment that Myers echoed. "Setting up a blog is one of the easiest things you can do."
The technical aspects should be a secondary consideration to the content, however. "It's not about the tools you use to distribute your content, but about the content itself," Lynn said. "The strength of blogging is in the personalities of those doing it. It's not just tech; you need to be able to write." It is this quality, compelling text, and the interactivity that it encourages, that increases a website's "stickiness" and popularity Lynn asserted.
Blogging for human readers isn't the only use of the technology, however. Using blogs to garner targeted search engine traffic is another possibility, especially when spider-friendly techniques of presenting available content are employed.
"The benefit to the spider is having a new perspective on old content," Mardack said. "The trick is to come up with innovative combinations of existing materials rather than having to develop new materials."
D'Addario (as well as the other panelists) took exception to this idea, however, claiming that exclusive, original content was the key to getting traffic, to which Mardack countered that his blogs receive 90,000 daily unique visitors from Google. (You can learn more about Mardack's search engine friendly blogging approach here).
"If you can find a market for your output, that's good enough," Mardack said. "Everyone is going to blog; everyone is going to have a 'vote' -- and everyone is going to want to be paid for their vote." The only question that remains is exactly how everyone will be paid.
In the final analysis, most participants concurred that the best use for these technologies is as a marketing mechanism, promoting existing properties, rather than as content to be sold to subscribers.
