“Digg the iPhones, networking, and keeping published”

Most Apple addicts are eagerly awaiting the release non-Apple confirmed iPhone. In the Apple world this rumor has been swirling for quite a while. It’s even stale as rumors go but it recently has been heavily refueled by Kevin Rose of Digg by dropping some hot inside intel on YouTube. With Macworld happening in January who knows what is going to drop, but I’m sure that if Apple does release an iPhone it will be phenomenal. But you may know that I’m a bit bias in regards to Apple products.

Onto networking though. CM Creative recently became a member of Queen Street Studios, a local creative professional consortium. We also wrote an article for their quarterly newsletter. This is excellent for continuing being published in other forums and great exposure for our vid-casting pilot that will be released in January via our site and Podcast Plus (a new partner with CM Creative). Just wait and see.

There’s lots going on with CM Creative for the new year but for now I’ll leave you with the article as it is relevant for everyone.

CM

“Lights, camera, Podcast?”

The hottest term in technology these days is “Pod”. Perpetuated by Apple computer’s music-dominating gadget the iPod. If you’re on the periphery and you’ve only seen one here’s a quick primer.

Apple launched a new mp3 player into the technology field in 2001 called the iPod. The iPod’s simplicity of use the combined with Apple’s trademark standout design made it wildly popular. Apple also bundled the iPod with the iTunes program. iTunes began as an audio playback software designed like a jukebox but integrated to capitalize on the built in functions of a computer (searching, copying, renaming, etc.). iTunes is native to Macs but also works with Windows computers. Mp3 is an audio format for music and talk shows to be played on computers or some type of computer device.

Since its launch, iTunes has developed into the dominant online music-buying portal and has recently expanded into television shows and films. If you look around either you have an iPod or you know someone who, within one degree of separation, has one.

One of the many cool corollary online cultures that has risen with the popularity of iTunes is podcasting. Podcasting is very akin to radio broadcasting with a few critical differences. Podcasts are distributed via the Internet and they are created by anyone about anything. Typically podcasts most easily found through a direct link on the creators website or through listings on…you guessed it, the iTunes online store.

Now it did not take very long after audio podcasts were hitting the broadband data lines for video podcasting, also called vidcasts, to follow. After Apple’s QuickTime video format gave birth to a few new video codecs (a technical term referencing compression and decompression of data) the quality for online viewing of content was raised significantly and a new age of Internet broadcasting had arrived.

So now, in addition to downloading and listening to your favorite audio content, television shows or latest movie releases, you can create the content as well.

Yes. I did say that you can create your own audio or video podcast or both. That is the beauty of the Internet. And yes, it can be about absolutely anything.

So from a corporate angle you may want to do a weekly keynote message to your employees who are across a wide network, city, province, nation or the world. We, at CM Creative, shoot it, edit and polish and then publish it to the web. Your staff simply clicks a link to download and views it. Even better is that iTunes is setup to update itself when new content is posted so all your staff would need to do is launch the program and whenever your new message is posted, it is automatically downloaded. It also earmarks new content so you know when there are new downloads.

You could also have a new product vidcast that clients could subscribe to (in the same manner as your staff did) to describe new services, products or weekly sales. Do this regularly and you have a returning client base that is focused directly on you.

So video podcasting is on that leading edge but is falls inside of an accepted and popular format. The fit for you is that it adds another layer of depth and accessibility to your marketing plan. Its uniqueness is how it can be configured specifically to your needs and to the audience (your clients) without the constraints and costs of traditional broadcasting. Have a look and see how it and we can benefit you. I’ll be looking for your next show.

www.cmcreative.ca