My new Favorite Podcast - The Peter Anthony Holder Stuph File Podcast

I've been a Peter Anthony Holder fan for quite a while. His show, on the air for a couple of decades at least in Toronto and Montreal has been a mainstay of late night radio, and of course available online recently as well.

Peter has great guests, some famous, like the Bionic Woman, Lindsey Wagner, and some not so famous yet very interesting as well. He also mixes in a great blend of strange and interesting news, as well as news of interest to pretty much anyone who reads this blog.

I've even been a guest a couple of times, despite being neither famous nor universally heralded as interesting, not even by my wife and kids.

Peter's show has suddenly disappeared from the airwaves, but is available online as a podcast. He's free to be totally creative now with no radio station strings attached! To most of us not in radio wave range, his disappearing from the airwaves is about as interesting as out podiatrist disappearing from the yellow pages, but unfortunately it also means there is no corporate entity paying him.

Nonetheless (have I ever used this word before?), his show rocks, No surprise, he's a seasoned professional.

Episode one with Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation fame) is great.

I'm listening to them all. Click here to check them out (or of course iTunes works too).

The first time I was on Peter's show, it was pretty funny as my wife kept insisting it would probably be in French, and my French, at least French Canadian, it is not so good me.

Anyways, check it out and feel free to report back.

Be a Community Magnet, Live Long and Prosper

Jason Van Order has his first in a series on videos on how to become a Community Magnet, something he's accomplished through social media, especially podcasting.

I met Jason at the original Podcamp a few years ago, where he invited me to a  panel on podcast consulting, and since he is a Community Magnet, he keep popping up everywhere and everyone seems to know him and think highly of him as I do. His great book, Promoting Your Podcast: The Ultimate Guide to Building an Audience of Raving Fans, also helps, although he got the book contract AFTER he became well known -- he didn't go chasing it.

This is the first in a series of his Community Magnet videos, and I plan on watching them all!

Business Blogging and Business Podcasting Radio Interviews Archived

My Business Blogging and Business Podcasting interviews on The Bauer Pauer Hauer (VoiceAmerica radio) are archived and available for listening.

I had a couple of great talks with Roger Bauer!

Roger is also the co-creater of The SEO Bible, a "full featured program designed to teach ANYONE the skills needed     to bring any website from worst to first in the search engine rankings" which comes with free lifetime updates.

I haven't seen it yet, but can say that Roger really knows his stuff.

Ted on Blogging/Podcasting VoiceAmerica

I'm, on the Bauer Pauer Hauer talking about podcasting today, 2PM Eastern US Time on VoiceAmerica Business.

Last week Roger and I spoke about Business Blogging and you can listen to the archive here.

Of course I'll also be mentioning my free ebook too:
Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life
Download and share if you haven't yet.

Roger's SMB Consulting blog is well worth a read too

Holy Podcast Metrics Batman!

Holy Podcast Metrics Batman!
Wow. One full time employee, no external funding (that means money), no IT department obvious:

Check out these Podcast Network Stats for just Augut 2007:

Unique readers: almost half a million!
Downloads: 697,362
Page Views: Over 6.5 million!

Yes, they're profitable. Full story here.
Podcast metric, smetrics -- they're doing well!

Offline Events for Online Communities -- Manic Mommys

Any popular online community, whether anchored by a bulletin board, podcast, blog, or something else, creates a community.

Online communities can often benefit by meeting offline as well.

For example, I often post and basically hang out on the Mark Squires wine bulletin board, and have gotten together a few times with fellow members for offline events (where we eat and drink and make merry).

It makes sense that popular podcasts and blogs might have real world gatherings too, and that's exactly what the Manic Mommies podcast duo, Erin and Kristin, are planning:

A Manic Mommies Escape on November 9 - 11th in Newport, RI
If I were a working mom I'd consider going. Hmm, maybe I could cover the event as a reporter -- as press :) Hopefully the Manic Mommies will let us all know how it goes.

I can't recall any other podcasts or blogs that have offline gatherings of their communities, but I sure it'll be a growing trend. And I'm not surprised that Manic Mommies Erin and Kristin are leading the way.

3 Entreprenurial Uses of Podcasting

From my interview with Entrepreneur Magazine:

1) Start a podcast to promote your business. The key here is to provide valuable information to your target market, NOT marketing messages.

2) Advertise or sponsor podcasts that reach your target market. Ignore traditional mass media metrics: do you want 100,000 remotely interested listeners or 1000 passionate people, many of whom spend significant money? Podcasts reach passionate people.

A very few examples:
Want to reach serious oenophiles? GrapeRadio.com
Serious bicycle racers? TheFredcast.com
Working mothers with no time? ManicMommies.com

3) Start a podcast and attempt to explicitly make money from it, much like traditional mass media, e.g. newspapers, radio stations, and TV. This is the toughest of all and the most likely to fail, although it has the most mind share.

One successful example is Mommycast.com -- two "Mommy's" bringing in six figures, maybe seven by now, in their spare time.

Colors effect on success online -- Techvertising podcast

How color can effect success in blogs and Web sites, Techvertising podcast episode II

Yes, colors matter. They can matter a lot.

It's not just that you want your blog/Web site to look professional, but small color changes can cause significant changes in user actions.

For example, my BizBlogPlus newsletter signup (in the upper left hand corner, sign up if you haven't please!) used to have two words of the text in red to stand out. Well, one night I changed it to green, thinking "red=stop" but "green=go", and signups immediately doubled!!!

(I've changed it since to something that's working even better, as confirmed though testing.)

See what Jeremy, I, and especially Color Goddess Suzy have to say about color.

Web Statistics and Metrics: Ted podcasts

Check out Web Statistics and Metrics, Episode One of the Techvertising Q and A podcast.

Yes, I've started podcasting again -- this time at Techvertising with Suzy Massey of Phoenix Massey Studio and Jeremy Bloom, the King of Techvertising.

We answer questions about doing business online - Marketing, Advertising, Internet & more, and yes, you can send in questions.

So, stop by, listen, take your shoes off and stay a while. Leave a comment too, so we know you're listening without having to check our stats!

B2B Podcasting (Business to Business)

B2B podcasting info -- in podcast format of course, at Dianna Huff's MarCom Strategist.

Dianna and had a great talk discussing B2B, Business to Business, podcasting, including issues like:

• Can business-to-business (B2B) companies use podcasting to help sell widgets and/or generate sales leads?
• What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of B2B podcasting?
• How do you begin a podcasting campaign?
• Is it ok to repurpose existing content?
• Once you start podcasting, do you have to do it continually, or can you develop a few podcasts and then stop?