Aztec Media

The first example is Minyannville Publishing & Multimedia which provides small animated clips of business and other headline news to major sites like Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, AOL Money, and Fox Business News.  The main reason is their ability to offer fresh content that brings something new and different to these big sites so that their readership remains loyal. Independent content providers have a growing amount of leverage and opportunity to let their creative talents shine in front of many with those that focus on niches becoming hot commodities. More information for those that get the WSJ via an article entitled "Portals Think Small For The Latest News: Niche Sites Offer Access To Content As Gateways Battle Traffic Slippage."

The second, is from another newspaper article, this time from the Union-Tribune with an article entitled "Background-music provider puts shoppers in the mood."  What I liked about this article was that PlayNetwork leveraged the basics of what they know with audio as a purchasing tool into a bigger business that also enables their customers to tie into new media outlets like web video, podcasts, and other multimedia services.

The AztecMedia.net's TechNewsRadio show is part of the great FriendsInTech (FIT) group.  We have been doing special Christmas and Halloween productions since 2005.

The latest one is called "It's the Great Server Chuck and Kreg" and it was posted on 10/24/07.  It is family safe and only about 12 minutes long.

This year I volunteered to be part of the post production and helped with the mix down of scenes into the final version with Kevin Devin.

I learned some great lessons:

1. Work with the best people possible. The FIT team is giving, helpful, encouraging, insightful, and very talented. It makes the project very enjoyable and you'll have fun doing it.
2. I did all my editing of my parts (the outside scenes) in Audacity.  I didn't have any major problems or issues other than at times the scenes mix downs were very complicated with 24+ individual segments.  I ended up in situations like this to do 3 intermediate mixes with each one having ~8 individual segments.
3. Having a vast special effects (SFX) library of audio is very helpful. Using sites like freesound is good, but some of the royalty free material other FIT members had was very impressive.
4. When recording lines in a remote situation take at least three takes for each line.
5. It really helps if you can do your remote lines recording with another person saying the other lines around your lines.
6. Use a wiki to develop the first drafts of the script, but then migrate to a script writing tool for final production.
7. Scripts file names and titles within the document should have version numbers or clear dates on them so you know what you have is the most current one.
8. Tools like BIAS SoundSoap2 for cleaning up audio are pretty important if someone makes their recordings in a noisy environment.
9. All the spoken word parts of a production should be processed with the same RMS settings.  We also ended up running them in bulk through The Conversations Network's Levelator.
10. Using MP2 files for distribution during post production is very efficient and doesn't diminish quality.

There seems to be a lot of stuff going on, so I thought I'd do a quick list of things I'm tracking:

1. Treedia Labs has started a beta of Podcast.com.
2. Quick review at Gizmodo on the Elgato Turbo.264 Hardware H.264 Encoder.
3. Amazon MP3 has DRM free music for purchase.
4. Lifehacker on Gmail Mobile 1.5.
5. Bias has released Peak Pro XT audio production suite which includes SoundSoap Pro and Master Perfection Suite.
6. Sound Ideas has released a new version of their Podcasting Production Toolkit 2 with over 500 audio elements, music, and sound effects.
7. The October 2007 edition of Blogger & Podcaster magazine is out.

I think #1 is important because if the domain becomes a popular user site then it will be a great site to promote material.

I am interested in #2 because it could save time in post production for any video podcasts.

#3 is cool because I hate DRM solutions for most of new media.

I think #4 should be tracked to see what effect the new version has on consumption of new media products as they move from the web to email.  What does your content look like from RSS reader to a forwarded email that ends up on Gmail mobile?  Could you make it better?

I added #5 because not everyone is happy with Audacity.  Here is an option that might fit your style better.

The pointer to #6 is because you might want some new sounds in your library.

And you should check out #7 because it is full of great information.

PodCampSoCal audio sessions have been posted using Podango delivery and hosting services.

The conference was held Sept. 25, 2007 just before the Podcast & New Media Expo (PNME).

The Podcast & New Media Expo (PNME) 2007 slides from the "Getting Started With Audacity" session have been posted. 

Some notes:

• These slides are a PDF output from Apple's Keynote. 
• There is a QuickTime movie version of the presentation that will be posted soon but it will not have the audio recorded during the presentation sync'd in.  The movie version has all the screen casts used during the presentation.
• The audio for the presentation is still under the control of PNME. If you were a conference attendee then you should get a link to the audio as part of your conference fee. Ultimately the audio for all the sessions will get posted over the next 8-9 months to Gigavox Media's Podcast Academy channel.
• Sometime in the future, complete screen casts of each topic will be produced and posted.
• More information on the PNME Forums and previous AztecMedia.net post.

Feedback, comments, suggestions, etc. appreciated: sholden@aztecmedia.net.

Here is a first round of post New Media Expo (NME) 2007 pointers:

• Technorama's "Remember When Segment" from Computer History Museum
• Chuck Tomasi will co-write the 2nd edition of Podcasting For Dummies [video, farpoint media]
• Steve Riekeberg @ GeekCred is now a member of FriendsInTech.com
• Flickr Photos
• Friends In Tech Roundtable: audio and/or video

The new recently announced Apple iPods have apparently caused some pretty standard price reductions on a variety of MP3 players from several vendors.

For instance, the advertised price at many stores in the US for the 30-GB Microsoft Zune Digital Media Player is now $199.99.  And the San Disk 8-GB Sansa e280R MP3 player is now coming in as low as $129.99.

The new iPods are definitely pretty feature rich and will have a premium price for a while.

The marketplace continues to be dominated by Apple, and that will probably not change anytime in the near future even with the price drop/rebate that Apple is doing with the iPhone.

I will be presenting a 'Getting Started with Audacity' session at the 2007 Podcast & New Media Expo on Saturday, September 29 from 3:15-4:15 p.m.

This session will be very hands-on with the expectation that participants come prepared to follow along with their own laptops. 

If you have questions or comments about this session, then please check out the Forum @ Podcast & New Media Expo.

If you use a Macintosh for your audio and video production work flow, and need a straight forward tool to do file conversions, then I suggest checking out Monkey-Tools Sound Grinder 3.0.1.

The new version has some pretty compelling features, and it is a very inexpensive tool ($39) for converting WAV or AIFF files to MP3s with RMS leveling.

PC World for April 2007 had a round down of some current and near-future WI-FI enabled media players that competes with the Music Gremlin that I thought was interesting to note:

• SanDisk Sansa Connect with support for Zing
• iRiver (player name TBD) with support for Rhapsody
• Archos 604 Wi-Fi and the Archos 704 Wi-Fi
• Polaroid (player name TBD) with support for Polaroid's DEC1000 media server
• AOL (player name TBD) with support for Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo

The article also noted that Microsoft Zune has limited Wi-Fi features that could be opened up for more functionality.