Aztec Media

The latest digital online version of Blogger And Podcaster magazine has been released. There is a lot of good articles, opinion pieces, and reviews worth checking out.

They have an interesting ad on page 6 for USA Today's "Introducing Blogger & Podcaster Guide".  Getting listed will cost $295 per week in the print addition and $195 per week for the online addition.  If you order before 9/30/07 there is a combo deal of $195 per week.

I continue to monitor the price changes in mainstream consumer advertisements for MP3 players. 

They haven't changed much in recent months until this week.

Some things I noticed:

• Office Depot: SanDisk 2-GB c250 for $50 plus Archos 4-GB 104 for $100.
• Circuit City: Creative Zen V Plus 4-GB for $100 plus Zune 30-GB for $230
• Fry's: San Disk 2-GB C150 for $40 (after rebate) and RCA Lyra 5-GB for $50

It is my prediction that as per GB costs for Flash MP3 players gets below $25, and per GB costs for hard drive players get near $7 that more people currently not on the mobile digital media band wagon will have less of a financial reason to stay out of the game.

This should help generate more people looking for podcast content. What do you think?

According to Future Tense Podcast there are now two organizations that have recently started up to help define how future advertising should be integrated into downloaded media like audio and video podcasts.

The groups are:

• Association of Downloadable Media
• Association of Podcasters and Online Media Producers

There are some interesting related comments from Eric Rice and Podcast Brothers.  I think the concept is good and something that should be monitored for those interested in taking advertising for their new media content.

There is also a very interesting thread related to this topic called "How To For New Media Makers" that has some interesting ideas worth digging into.

USA Today has an interesting article on how American Eagle Outfitters is planning on creating 'comedy' ads for their products in a 3 minute format for some TV shows, and then 'replay' them as content on the site in 5 minute formats.  A total of 12 episodes will be done.

The article also had some interesting stats on the current state of advertising, especially on the 12-25 year old demographic.

An article in the business section of the San Diego Union-Tribune for Sat., May 5, 2007 had a pretty detailed summary of the recent news that Microsoft & Yahoo are reportedly in close negotiation to work together to combat Google's online advertising leadership.

The article sited the following from a research firm called eMarketer that I thought was interesting.  In 2006, for everly $100 spent in online advertising: Google got $25, Yahoo got $18, and Microsoft got around $7.  In addition, eMarketer is projecting that in 2007 Google is poised to raise their take of that $100 spent to $32.  Wow!

On TWIT's Windows Weekly #17, Leo and Paul have a Q&A with David Caulton of the Microsoft Zune Team. It is a good podcast and after listening I came up with three things that Microsoft can do to promote the 'social' part of the Zune:

1. Integrated and rich support for audio and video podcasts on the Zune, but also in Vista and Windows XP operating systems.
2. Pick a partner like Star Bucks or Best Buy and create Zune media sharing outlets with Zune devices available from major content providers including citizen media to share from these outlets.
3. Release a toolkit like their Robots Studio 1.0 toolkit that lets people share to Zune devices via PCs.  Even with the crummy DRM, there might be a way to setup a non-expiring DRM public key infrastructure so you could share even podcasts or other citizen generated content via this method.

Just some ideas ...

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some interesting new media related business news.

Two of the major video podcasts have announced ad revenue details: AskANinja = $300,000 and Rocketboom = $247,000. 

Related to this is that Techcrunch is reporting that the podcasting advertising network Kiptronic has recently "closed a $4 million round of financing ... [from] ... investors include Blueprint Ventures and Prism VentureWorks."

Additionally, eMediaWire has news that TNC New Media (producer of the Podcast and Portable Media Expo) has sold their EndurancePlanet.com podcast and library of content to USA Triathlon.

More coverage from Paul Colligan on Ask A Ninja and Rocketboom.

Tee Morris (sci-fi author with many podcast books and co-author of Podcasting for Dummies) is assembling voices (including several members of FriendsInTech.com) from all over the world for his latest podiobook production -- Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword (press).

The launch date for  the first installment of the Billibub Baddings podcast is St. Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2007.

The podcast is free and available on iTunes, Podcast Pickle, Yahoo! Podcasts, Podiobooks, and other podcast directories.

This is my latest informal sampling of who is advertising on which podcasts based on what I have been listening to since the last post on this topic (#04) and today's date [1/11/07]:

• SlashdotReview (coverage of CES): Hatachi
• MacCast: Samson
• Technorama: Audible via FarPoint Media Group

If you know of others, or keep your own list; and would like to contribute to this kind of data analysis via transparent disclosure, then let me know at: sholden@pobox.com and I'll link you in.

I am still updating my Google spreadsheet that tracks advertised MP3 player prices especially in the U.S. Sunday newspaper advertising inserts. 

My main reason for doing this is that I'm curious if there could be trend related to MB/price ratios and the possibility of more podcast listeners because prices get down into the commodity level.

This past weekend (one week before Christmas) didn't seem to hold any major price changes that could be considered a trend. Some things I did note:

• Best Buy had some $10-30 gift cards available for some player purchases, but no major price breaks on Apple iPods, Zune, SanDisk, or Insignia players.
• Staples had a pretty good price for the SanDisk Sansa e280 and Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB