I talked about ”podcasting” way back in December, and suggested it was an interesting technology/trend to watch. The technology showed up again in an entry earlier this month, as a rogue group of art lovers were creating and distributing their own audio guides to MoMA exhibits. Now, there are lots of reasons to pay even more attention.
In a nutshell, ”podcasting” combines a number of technologies that allow you to ”subscribe” to audio files on-line to play back on your personal audio player (iPod and such) or your computer. As content creators post new audio files (which can be interviews, monologues, music files, whatever), your computer automatically grabs them and adds them to your music player. It’s like listening to a portable radio, but where you decide what shows to hear, when to hear them, and how long you care to listen (some personal favorites include Tod Maffin’s How to Do Stuff and KCRW’s The Business).
So, why should you care now more than you did (or didn’t) last December? Several reasons:
- Podcasts are growing exponentially, much as weblogs did when they first started. Feedburner, an on-line company that supports and tracks news and audio feeds, listed 505 podcast sources back in November, now they list more than 6000.
- Podcasts are becoming easier to produce and distribute, so that a reasonably technologically aware individual on an arts organization’s staff could give it a go. You can have a basic set-up for about $300 (with an iPod, a voice recorder attachment like the iTalk, and an audio editing package like Garage Band).
- Radio stations around the world are starting to see the on-coming train, and distributing their radio content through podcasts as well as on-air (just check out KCRW in Santa Monica, or CBC Radio in Canada).
- Arts organizations and their patrons are starting to experiment with the technology, as well (check out the first steps of the Frist Center for Visual Arts, for example, or the Art Mobs site I’ve linked to before).
With all the pieces coming together, all that’s needed is a friendly and easy way for curious audiences to take advantage of these audio feeds. And that’s likely coming in July. Apple confirmed recently that the next version of iTunes (the free and popular audio jukebox program, already sitting on millions of computers) will support podcasting…making subscribing as easy as playing a song.
So what’s the potential for arts organizations? Here’s just a few ideas off the top of my head:
- A series of audio commentaries by a conductor, even including excerpts from upcoming performances;
- An audio guide for a museum that can’t afford the fancy equipment or production contracts required of official audio guides;
- Audio excerpts from theater rehearsals or monologues to draw patrons into an upcoming performance;
- Commissioned short audio theater works;
- A central place to post lots of audio program notes of major touring works or artists;
- Audio archives of conference keynotes or panel discussions, replacing the cumbersome and expensive audio cassettes or CDs…extending the reach and lifespan of a professional gathering;
- ”Day of show” commentary from the director or curator for patrons to listen to on their way to the event or exhibit;
- The list could go on and on.
I realize most arts organizations have plenty to do just to keep up with the traditional means of connecting to their audiences. But every now and then, a technology shows a promise and potential that’s worth at least an hour of your time to learn more about it. It would be wise to find that time before July. Here’s a place to start.
UPDATE OF 6/17/05: At least one source is now projecting the growth of podcasting: ”Some 60 million Americans will be listening to podcasts by 2010 and the demand for tools and services to create podcasts will reach US$400 million within the next year…”
This technology is awesome! Thanks for presenting it in such a non-threatening way! Reading your blog takes a few minutes. Following up on the resources you mention can take a whole day! If I haven’t said it lately, thank you for all that you do.
Thanks once again for excellent piece on podcasting.
If you may permit me to be a bit self-promotional, I would like to share what I have done with video podcasting and dance.
At first I was thinking about creating an audio podcast as part of my weblog for Salsa dancing: http://greatdance.com/salsablog/
But after thinking about it, I realized that it didn’t make a lot of sense since my weblog is about a visual art form. So I created a video podcast instead. A video podcast is the same as an audio podcast except, as you might expect, you watch videos instead of listen to audio programs.
For most performing arts, video podcasts offer some innovative possibilities. In my case, I deliver video of interviews, performances and social dancing that relate to Salsa.
There are two ways to access my video podcast. You can visit the Salsa TV page and watch videos:
http://greatdance.com/salsablog/archives/salsa_tv/
Or, you can subscribe to my Salsa TV newsfeed (called an RSS feed):
http://greatdance.com/salsablog/indexvideo.xml
To most, the above link for the Salsa TV RSS newsfeed will look like gibberish. But it allows you to automatically receive Salsa videos that can be saved to your computer for offline viewing when it is convenient for you. Or, you can even transfer the videos to a handheld device that supports the playback of videos.
So for example, if you use the FeedDemon (http://feeddemon.com/) software program, you can subscribe to the Salsa TV video podcast (and other audio and video podcasts) and automatically download videos to your computer.
Or you can download Doppler (http://dopplerradio.net/) a free newsreader that specifically allows you to subscribe to audio and/or video podcasts.
I’ll leave it there for now. I’m more than happy to write about how I created a video podcast if you think it’s helpful to your readers.
Best,
Doug Fox
http://greatdance.com
Very interesting! Thank you for keeping it in layman’s terms. I look forward to researching this more. The initial question that popped into my mind is related to symphonic music – wouldn’t there be “rights” issues if excerpts were used? It’s my understanding that this would be a big issue with the musicians if they weren’t paid for this – which, in most cases they wouldn’t be because that would make the whole project very costly. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
ANDREW RESPONDS: Cindy, you are correct about the copyright issues. There would need to be a specific agreement between the musicians and the organization to use their recorded performances (even rehearsals) this way. The same is true for any content you don’t own full rights to (like including an existing recording excerpt as your podcast’s theme song…which is a no no).
To avoid the troubles, I’d recommend beginning with only ‘talking heads’ (interviews, spoken commentary, and such). Even then, it would be important that all involved know how the content was to be distributed (if the Artistic Director spoke, he/she would also hold copyright in the spoken and recorded performance).
Sticky stuff, to be sure. For more details, see this useful overview of the legal issues:
http://www.collegebroadcasters.org/podcast.shtml
Great comment on the potential of podcasting!
My classical music podcast can be found at http://www.musicperspectives.com.
Within the next two seasons, orchestras and chamber music festivals should absolutly be podcasting preview shows and “artists backstage” type of shows. Its a great way for a listener who might be on the hedge about attending to get a heads up on what to expect for the concert, and its agreat way to pass on historical and other information about concert repertoire.
Concerning “rights” issues, many of the “fair use” conventions cover the use of recorded material presented in podcasts, as long as you are only using short clips. You really wouldn’t want to post an entire work in a podcast, because after hearing the entire piece, the listener would lose the motivation to attend the performance. Conductors, artists, the composer, and others associated with the performance should be the main focus of the pre-performance podcast.
Podcasting is just a new name for .MP3 files that have been around forever. The reason for this hyped up “growth” is just the repackaging of existing audio content that had always been on the internet–now it’s just being repackaged as “podcasting” which has little to do with Ipods either. I was playing audio and music on my generic Bestbuy .MP3 player probably 6 years ago. The only difference now is that there are more users and bandwidth now costs less than $1/gig where six years ago the same bandwidth was around $6/gig. Expect many of the popular Podcast sites to shut down once they see their first real hosting bill.
Even small radio stations at Shoutcast.com (that has been around for years) have trouble paying the bandwidth bills. These forcasts sound silly to me, especially when the technology is over 15 years old. I was distributing digital music for Amiga musicians on my BBS in the late 1980’s.
NOTE FROM ANDREW: Certainly MP3 audio files have been around for a while. However, podcasting combines that technology with content syndication (RSS feeds), so users can ‘subscribe’ to a series of audio files. Again, perhaps not revolutionary, but evolutionary.
Video podcasting is also opening up an adjunct venue for traditional visual artists to disseminate their work. I’ve been experimenting with creating movies of entire painting sessions, showing the creation of works start to finish:
http://www.jeffhayes.com/art/demo.asp
http://feeds.feedburner.com/StateOfTheArt