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Meetup, November 11, 2008: Celebrity UFO Crashes

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

A great time was had by all tonight. Our monthly meetup was back at Pyramid Alehouse, and it was just like old times. Great, wide-ranging discussion; a lot of food for thought, chased down by some smooth Pyramid Porter.

If you were at the Pyramid tonight, please leave your name and URL (if any) and any links or comments that you’d like to share by clicking on the EasyEdit button, below, or by leaving a comment.

(Note that you’ll have to register as a user on the blog, then come back to this page in order to leave your comment. Sorry for the extra steps, but at least you’ll only have to register once.)

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September Meetup: Sites and Services

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

This month we had a casual conversation about the various sites, services and communities that we are using in our daily lives. To summarize portions of the conversation in no particularly organized manner: Facebook is the preferred community; Myspace is out. Twitter is a useful tool if you are paying attention to interesting people. There wasn’t a lot of familiarity with Jaiku and Pownce. LinkedIn is handy and not overly taxing to use. FeedDemon and Newsgator are popular blog readers amongst the group.

Some prefer Daily Motion as an alternative to YouTube.We also discussed indie music download sites that have unique business models. Songslide lets the buyer set the price and Amie Street starts the price of tracks low, but the price increases as the track becomes more popular. This is just a sampling of the conversation that was had and, of course, fine food, beer, and soda never hinder a good time. Thanks to those who attended and shared your insights:

Next month we will likely be discussing the Podcast and New Media Expo, so give us a shout if you’re heading down to Ontario.

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June ’07 SPN Meetup – Brainstorming & Link Swapping

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Ugh. Could I be any more of a slacker in getting these Meetup notes posted? Mandy even made it easy on me by taking notes.

Well, apologies all ’round to Paolo, Harry, Matt, Pakio, Luke, Leif, James, Mandy, and Omaha Sternberg (hands down the best name in podcasting). Travis and I really appreciate that y’all came out to join us for another fun evening of chatting, consuming, and camaraderie.

As usual, the discussion ranged all over the place. Paolo had some questions for the group about how to promote a new project he’s working on. Suggestions for sites he should check out flew fast and furious, and Mandy did a great job of writing them all down. So, I know this is kind of random, but check out the following list of cool conferences, sites, and services:

Someone also mentioned Elizabeth’s Podcasting News, but I couldn’t find a link. If someone could leave that in the comments section, I’d be much obliged.

Thanks again, and see you in July. (Which is already here! Yikes!)

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April ’07 SPN Meetup – What We Did On Spring Break

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

Thanks to all who came out to last night’s Meetup at Pyramid Ale House. We had a very relaxed, low-key discussion. So relaxed and low-key, in fact, that I completely failed to take any kind of attendance. I’ll try to remember everyone who came, but please forgive me if I forget someone. (Or, feel free to leave a comment to remind me.) Let’s see… Regulars who showed up last night included Travis (natch), Leif, Weave, Luke, Andrew, and yours truly. Newbies included Harry, Nick, Sam, and Dan. As always, the talk was as satisfying as the food and beer. Hope to see y’all there in May!

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Portable Media, Podcasting and User Generated Content

Thursday, January 11th, 2007

Chris and Steve

Thanks to all who came out to the 2007 Meetup at Microsoft Studios. The Meetup ran from 7pm to 10:00pm and featured a panel discussion on “Portable Media, Podcasting, and User Generated Content”. The Panelists were Steve Mack (author of Streaming Media Bible and Podcasting Bible) and Chris Pirillo Lockergnome, Gnomedex, The Chris Pirillo Show).

For those who could not be there in person, the podcast is available below. Additionally, Monica Guzman posted a great summary of the meetup on her Seattle Post-Intelligencer Net Native blog. Have fun podcasting and we’ll see you at the February meetup!

Audience

 
 Seattle Podcasting Network January Meetup [69:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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SPN Spends Election Night at Fisher Communications

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Fisher
The Seattle Podcasting Network and Meetup had the opportunity to visit Fisher Communications this week. The event was on November 7th (election night), so the news room was buzzing with activity. Our tour, lead by Don LaCombe and Stuart Hitchner, was very interesting given that we were able to see a lot of the election night coverage from behind the scenes. We spent about twenty minutes in the production control room during the evening news watching the talented KOMO team put together a show packed with election and flood coverage. Then we rolled into the Northwest Afternoon Studio, followed by the insert studios at Fisher Pathways. After that, it was on to the Heleport. The group was able to check out the helicopter and walk around it on the catwalk suspended six stories above the Plaza. On a side note, located in the shadow of the Space Needle, the Fisher Plaza Heleport offers a tremendous view of the city! When we came in off of the roof, we went down and visited the news room; which was buzzing with activity as the election results were coming in. Finally, we ended the tour with a brief stop in the news Studio, where we tried out the anchor desk and took advantage of a photo opportunity with Dan Lewis and Kathy Goertzen. Thanks to the great folks at Fisher for the experience!
NewsRoom
Attendees Included:

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The October Meetup Feeds the Experience Economy

Friday, October 6th, 2006

Thanks to all who attended the Seattle Podcasting Meetup in October. With many of us freshly back from the Podcast and Portable Media Expo, there was a lot to talk about. Additionally, Buzz and Mike were recently at
“Demo” and had observations to share from that event as well.

Attendees included:

Everyone enjoyed the expo in Ontario, California and seemed to take away different things. Ricardo believes that there is a lot of opportunity right now to offer consultation and education in the podcasting space. Leif really enjoyed the hobbiest track at the expo and was re-energized by Dave Slusher’s session on doing it for love. Would you podcast if your audience was small or non-existent? Don’t get overly caught up in sticking to your show format or building brand and remember why you’re doing it – for the love.
Phillip noted a presentation on podcast demographics concluded that many of the early podcast listeners have dialed into a handful of favorites, and no longer look for new podcasts. I confirmed that my podcast listening habits have followed that trend. However, I also shared a story about how I was recently having trouble with the sync between my aggregator and my device so I clicked on a random podcast for testing purposes. Later, I found the new content on my device and gave it a listen. To my surprise, it was a great show and I am now a regular listener of that podcast (incidentally, that podcast is The Cranky Middle Manager Show). The experience got me back into the experimenting mode. Mike Chimed in that pluggd is definitely looking at content discovery and helping to expose new podcasts to listeners.
After our discussions about the conference, Buzz brought up the notion of the “experience economy.” As our material possessions grow more reliable and have longer life spans, more and more of our income will be spent on experiences. Luke agreed and offered up the fact that the video game industry is in the forefront of catering to the experience economy. Andrew asserted that PRWeb works hard to provide news in ways that the consumer wishes to experience it. According to Andrew, “You have to be narrow in who you want to reach out to, starting with the headline.” Depending on your personality type, you will want to interact with information in different ways. An analytical person may be right at home with data heavy material or downloadable PDF files, while a creative type would often prefer to receive photos or audio interviews.
There was a lot of other stimulating conversation at the meeting, but it wouldn’t be fair to those who attended if I shared it all here :) . I look forward to seeing you at the November meetup; until then, happy Podcasting!

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September ’06 Seattle Podcaster Meetup – Zug Cam

Sunday, September 17th, 2006

Bryan ZugThe September Meetup of Seattle Podcasters was held on Tuesday the 5th at the Pyramid Alehouse in Seattle. Our guest speaker was Bryan Zug of eLearningSkinny.com and the Lucille Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Bryan joined us virtually, through the magic of the Sightspeed videoconferencing software.

Despite some technical challenges with our video chat setup, Bryan laid the groundwork for a lively and freewheeling discussion about informal learning, the current state of new media tools, and the challenges of introducing podcasting and blogging into a traditional corporate setting. Bryan’s notes from his talk, including links to a number of screencasting tools are available here.

Thanks to Bryan and everyone who came out on the day after Labor Day to make it a great meetup! In attendance were:

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July ’06 Seattle Podcaster Meetup – We get Pluggd in

Sunday, July 16th, 2006

We welcomed several newcomers and lots of old friends to the July Meetup of Seattle Podcasters at the Pyramid Alehouse in Seattle.

In attendance were:

 
 SPN July Meetup [22:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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June ’06 Seattle Podcaster Meetup – We all got promoted!

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

The June Meetup of Seattle Podcasters saw a few newcomers and lots of the regulars gather at the Pyramid Alehouse in Seattle. We gathered upstairs for food, drink, camaraderie, and a very informative and useful roundtable discussion about how to promote a podcast.

Due to a technical snafu, we won’t have our own podcast of the discussion, but the following are rough notes from the conversation. We invite any other attendees to fill in any gaps or expand on any points made below.

Thanks to everyone who came out last night. The full list of attendees follows the notes from the roundtable.

Promoting Your Podcast

  • Luke didn’t find that a t-shirt giveaway generated any significant interest.
  • Rob is is part of the Tech Podcast Network. Being a part of a network is very helpful, because you’re in a big pool of podcasts, and this makes it more convenient for advertisers. Another advantage: commonality of stat tracking. Money earned is on a percentage of your distribution on an aggregate basis.
  • Kiptronic is a marketplace/service that matches podcasts & advertisers. There’s also a promo exchange program, so podcasters can promote each others’ shows.
  • Leif suggested: post on forums; stir up controversy; interview someone well-known (authors are often eager to talk about their books); interview other podcasters; do an intercast (two podcasters doing one podcast)
  • Do supplemental content for other podcasters (like “Ask Leo“). You could be helping other podcasters by providing material for their show. Distribution possibilities: send it directly to them; set up a feed just for promos; put it in your main feed
  • Stephen suggested having a brief promo that’s easy to find on your home page. This should help the new visitor understand why they would want to listen to your podcast. (He said that the promo is the most-downloaded file on the site.
  • Podcasters are generally benefiting from multiple distribution methods – RSS, and iTunes, and downloading directly from the site – rather than just one.
  • Hook people in when they’re on the website, or listening to your podcast. You have a limited time to capture their attention, so be conscious of reinforcing who you are, where to find you, and what your podcast is about.
  • It can help to have a specific name that’s likely to show up in a search for the topic. Perhaps the name of your topic is also in the title of your podcast.
  • Luke has a game for download at his site. That helps to drive traffic to his podcast.
  • Have album art. Jeff’s podcast starts with the letter A and has album art, so his podcast shows up at the top of the iTunes search window.
  • Pick a narrow segment of the population to talk to. Slice off your narrow piece of the long tail.
  • If your audience is less technically sophisticated, keep the language simple, and keep the geeky talk to a minimum.
  • MySpace is a great way to get traffic, and for your audience to communicate to each other about your podcast.
  • Know your audience. Who are they? Where do they hang out? How do they speak? Think about this and use this information to direct your marketing & publicity efforts.
  • Is your audience ready for a podcast on its own terms, or is it a value-add, on top of another content delivery method?
  • Jeff is considering taking flyers to pagan bookstores. Get the word out to your community in whatever way works.
  • Put RSS links & iTunes links on your site. Do everything you can to make it easy for your audience to find you and subscribe.
  • If you publish your feed with Feedburner, take advantage of their package of “chicklets” – small promotional/functional badges – so that you don’t need to clutter up your web page.
  • Be a good community member – contribute to forums, comment on blogs, show that you have something to add to the conversation.
  • You may be able to swing press credentials to certain events, especially while podcasting is still so new.

    • In attendance were:

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