The “Gigadango” (as I call it) software that creates mp3 files by dynamically taking wav files you’ve uploaded and “stitches” together will probably not fall off the face of the earth. The great thing is one of these files could be an advertisement. Then if you changed that section of the podcast chain, it would update all your back catalog. It was awesome.

I had an email exchange with Doug from Podango today. He said there are people who are interested in purchasing the technology that Podango originally purchased from Gigavox. He said it would be coming back as a paid service (after some enhancements are done to the system (like making it work – I was on show 62 and was surprised to see the system stopped uploading my shows 18 shows ago).

They are asking current users what they would pay for the system on a monthly basis.This is hard to answer as is this on a per show basis? Can I sign up and have multiple podcasts under one account? They should create a payment structure based on episodes (as I just moved 30 episodes I would pay to NOT have to do that again).

I would pay anywhere from $10-20 a month per show.

In a live call last night with Cliff Ravenscraft Michael Geohegan of Gigavox said they couldn’t do anything with the technology as they had indeed sold it to Podango. As he put it, “If you sell someone a car and they go out of business you don’t get the car back (Editor’s note: I’m paraphrasing). ”

The thing that makes me scratch my head and play arm chair quarterback, is if the software had been “enhanced” and Podango charged to use the service, could they have avoided this situation?

For anyone who purchases this technology I say make it Amazon S3 compatible and you will be a no brainer.

If you haven’t heard, Podango is gasping for air, and saying the chances of them making it 2009 are slim (so if you have hosting there, they are telling people to move it).  So it is with sadness I watch a podcast network go under. When I went to their site I think I know why. Their content was horrible. Now in the 5 minutes on the site I went to their “Podcast Mastery” channel. Of the 6 shows listed only 2 had one episode published in 2008. Here is the list

Podcast Uderground last published May 2008
Podonomoics last published July 2007
Podcast Planning last published April 2007
Profitable Podcasting last published October 2007
Podcast Tools last published April 2008
Kick My Apps – Mar 2007

The last one (Kick My Apps) had only ONE episode. How does a show get on a network with just one episode? Wasn’t the idea to find the best shows, group them together, and the sell advertisements across all of them? Who would advertise where the majority of shows have “Podfaded.”

In the meantime I am DEADLY afraid of losing their show builder lite technology (that they they purchased from Gigavox). While the system had its flaws, it was the only one of its type that the average podcaster could afford (free). I’ve been saying they should’ve taken that system and CHARGED for it. They were using Amazon S3 for the back end, so it wouldn’t take much to turn a profit. My hope is that Gigavox can now bring it back under their name when it used to work), and allow us to use it.

Now is podcasting dead? No. What we learned was:

There is no such thing as free hosting.
You can’t stay in business if you don’t charge for your service.
Content is king.
If you can’t charge for it becuase its broken, fix it so you can.
If you need to sell advertising, you need a sales staff.

It should be interesting as other networks (Mevio) are using the same business model (only slightly adapted to be more slanted towards affiliate marketing instead of actual sales ads). However, in this model if people don’t purchase the products, you don’t make money.

My best to Lee and Doug – two really nice guys.

2009 should be fun to watch. Podcasting is not dead for those who pay to have their communal house built on good content and communication with their audience. It’s still about relationships. You build the relationship with good content.

Looking back at 2008, there were some things that were working and some things that were disappointments

Today I was thinking about the things that didn’t go so well. Here are some of the things that went south in 2008.

Podpress was a great plugin. I never used all the features (as they often didn’t work). It added alot of versatility to your blog. When the new versions of Wordpress came out, it broke podpress. The good news is between blubrry powerpress and the good old old fashioned “audio player” plugin from 1 pixel I’ve been able to find satisfactory alternatives. From what I’ve heard in a few podcasts, Wordpress supplied the code to fix podpress to the people who support it, and they still haven’t updated their plugin.  I am actually implementing the 1 pixle player on my “Logical Weight Loss” podcast (www.logicalloss.com) and I am using the plugin to put a “subscribe in itunes” pre roll.

Mevio.  – thats all I can say. I have more potential going into 2009 using the company, but I can’t pay my bills with potential. Hopefully these are just growing pains on my way to “quitting my day job.”

My deepest disappointment was back in April of 2008 I had mentioned that the Podango Show Builder Lite tool had been broken (from what I understand it was fragile to start with). It works, but the automatic updating of advertising in your podcasts does not. Lee from Podango had commented on the post and I felt better knowing they were working on it. I sent an e-mail to Lee last week, but have not received an update (as its not been fixed).

I believe that this is a tool that some podcasters would pay for. For those that are doing affiliate marketing as an income this is a great tool (and let’s face it many of the “big” podcast networks are simply doing affiliate marketing). It would be great if the single podcaster had a tool that could dynamically create podcasts based on “pieces parts” that they upload. Then when one of the pieces parts is updated, the entire back catalog is updated. This was a great system on paper, and darn it I want one for Chritmas.

With systems like Amazon S3 for the back end, I’m not sure why this is not a reality yet. Can Doug Kaye and the folks at gigavox temporarily get in there and fix it? I know if you use Libsyn Pro they have a simliar system (but a little expensive for the average podcaster). There is a need here companies. There is a niche.

Santa, can you please send someone to fill it?