Buzz tests podcasting’s effectiveness

December 20, 2005 By

Buzz Bruggeman, CEO of ActiveWords did a podcast with Marc Orchant over the weekend and did a little test. At the 40 minute mark he made an offer just to see if anyone was listening. Turns out they were — in droves.

It’s interesting. Some of my bosses keep asking me to make my Channel 9 videos shorter. They think it’ll lead to a bigger audience. I keep telling them that I don’t really give a hoot about a bigger audience. I want to serve the passionate ones who care about something deeply.

I mean, who is nutty enough to watch an hour-long video about font technology, right? Well, the most passionate of all the computer users, that’s who. That’s who I want. Those are the people who change the world and tell their friends whether or not something is good or not.

I was just interviewed on Alex Williams podcast. I told him that’s why most executives don’t get blogging. I mean, look at my audience. It’s small and tiny when compared to the overall computer audience. But, if you’re talking about search, who would you rather talk to? The average person like my mom? Or Danny Sullivan, the guy who runs Search Engine Watch? I know which one I’d rather have.

And, yes, podcasting and videoblogging are going to be more important in 2006. Why? Cause how else am I going to show you what the new fonts in Windows Vista looks like without a video? How else are you going to hear the emotion Alex and I (or anyone, for that matter) has without hearing voices in a podcast?

Filed Under: Blog Tips, PodTech, Video
  • http://edico.blogspot.com/ Stefan Constantinescu

    damn straight, that font video rocked too, you even complained that you ran out of tape!

    benny hill really is the man, don’t listen to your superiors about C9, listen to the loyal fanbase and most importantly your heart.

  • http://edico.blogspot.com Stefan Constantinescu

    damn straight, that font video rocked too, you even complained that you ran out of tape!

    benny hill really is the man, don’t listen to your superiors about C9, listen to the loyal fanbase and most importantly your heart.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    benny hill? Heheh! Bill Hill, you mean.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    benny hill? Heheh! Bill Hill, you mean.

  • http://edico.blogspot.com/ Stefan Constantinescu

    whoops, yea that’s the name!

    too much egg nog ;)

  • http://edico.blogspot.com Stefan Constantinescu

    whoops, yea that’s the name!

    too much egg nog ;)

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    If WiMP had functional scrubbing, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Just skip over the parts you don’t like. But scrubbing in WiMP is PAINFUL so you never do it, and you sit there wishing the video was shorter.

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    If WiMP had functional scrubbing, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Just skip over the parts you don’t like. But scrubbing in WiMP is PAINFUL so you never do it, and you sit there wishing the video was shorter.

  • Jared Reisinger

    I loved the video on the new ClearType fonts too… and if you watch the videos time-compressed at around 1.4x speed, they are still quite intelligible, and you can get through an hour-long interview in only 42 minutes!

  • Jared Reisinger

    I loved the video on the new ClearType fonts too… and if you watch the videos time-compressed at around 1.4x speed, they are still quite intelligible, and you can get through an hour-long interview in only 42 minutes!

  • Christopher Coulter

    Some of my bosses keep asking me to make my Channel 9 videos shorter. They think it’ll lead to a bigger audience.

    You should listen to those bosses. 15 mins on font tech, would grab far more than an hour-long droning randomized blather. Video-editing, SFX, and scripting can give a hour’s worth of material in 15 mins, if you play it right. As stands now you limit yourself to the edge market already covered, going 15 min’z with real good productional tricks could get you mainstreamed. But of course, you don’t care about that, only tech geeky elites need apply.

    But you contradict yourself, you say Channel 9 is like giving a big conference speech as the numbers are high, but then you turn around and say you don’t care about numbers, it’s the “quality”.

    Call me when someone with an ounce of common-sense starts on the weed-eating marketing overhaul.

  • Christopher Coulter

    Some of my bosses keep asking me to make my Channel 9 videos shorter. They think it’ll lead to a bigger audience.

    You should listen to those bosses. 15 mins on font tech, would grab far more than an hour-long droning randomized blather. Video-editing, SFX, and scripting can give a hour’s worth of material in 15 mins, if you play it right. As stands now you limit yourself to the edge market already covered, going 15 min’z with real good productional tricks could get you mainstreamed. But of course, you don’t care about that, only tech geeky elites need apply.

    But you contradict yourself, you say Channel 9 is like giving a big conference speech as the numbers are high, but then you turn around and say you don’t care about numbers, it’s the “quality”.

    Call me when someone with an ounce of common-sense starts on the weed-eating marketing overhaul.

  • http://acidzebra.blogspot.com/ Michiel

    I still feel podcasting is like niche radio that will only leave a very small footnote in the history of the net.

    And vlogging? It might stand a tiny chance if global bandwidth improves A LOT, but I think it will fail for a different reason: Good (read noncrappy, watchable) video is REALLY HARD TO MAKE.

  • http://acidzebra.blogspot.com Michiel

    I still feel podcasting is like niche radio that will only leave a very small footnote in the history of the net.

    And vlogging? It might stand a tiny chance if global bandwidth improves A LOT, but I think it will fail for a different reason: Good (read noncrappy, watchable) video is REALLY HARD TO MAKE.

  • http://www.nyub.net/ MK

    > I still feel podcasting is like niche radio that will only leave a very small footnote in the history of the net.

    Maybe podcasting in itself won’t leave a massive footprint in the long run but it’s forcing radio and tv to re-examine the importance of on-demand content. THAT will be the big change over the next 3 years.

    The Ricky Gervais (The Office) show podcast on http://www.guardian.co.uk generated 100,000+ unique downloads over two weeks. If that’s not the start of a footprint, I don’t know what is.

  • http://www.nyub.net MK

    > I still feel podcasting is like niche radio that will only leave a very small footnote in the history of the net.

    Maybe podcasting in itself won’t leave a massive footprint in the long run but it’s forcing radio and tv to re-examine the importance of on-demand content. THAT will be the big change over the next 3 years.

    The Ricky Gervais (The Office) show podcast on http://www.guardian.co.uk generated 100,000+ unique downloads over two weeks. If that’s not the start of a footprint, I don’t know what is.

  • http://www.Lounsbery.com/ Walter Lounsbery

    Robert,

    Stay the course, man! If the execs want their own short attention span theater let them film and direct it themselves! OK, so they would outsource the filming and just claim directing credit…

    The CCR video was one of the best so far.

  • http://www.Lounsbery.com Walter Lounsbery

    Robert,

    Stay the course, man! If the execs want their own short attention span theater let them film and direct it themselves! OK, so they would outsource the filming and just claim directing credit…

    The CCR video was one of the best so far.

  • jojjo

    Shortening the videos would be a terrible mistake. When we finally get to meet all these interesting people we should get to here what they have to say, not just some snappy Powerpointized presentation. Plus, it usually takes 15 minutes or so for the interviewee to get really comfortable and interesting.

  • jojjo

    Shortening the videos would be a terrible mistake. When we finally get to meet all these interesting people we should get to here what they have to say, not just some snappy Powerpointized presentation. Plus, it usually takes 15 minutes or so for the interviewee to get really comfortable and interesting.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Christopher: Channel 9, even with its ultra-long videos, gets a lot of traffic. The Bill Hill one got, what 18,000 visits? Conferences like SXSW, Gnomedex, ETech, VSLive, VSConnections, PDC, get far less traffic than that all combined.

    But, now that I know long videos drive you nuts I’m definitely going to keep doing them! :-)

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Christopher: Channel 9, even with its ultra-long videos, gets a lot of traffic. The Bill Hill one got, what 18,000 visits? Conferences like SXSW, Gnomedex, ETech, VSLive, VSConnections, PDC, get far less traffic than that all combined.

    But, now that I know long videos drive you nuts I’m definitely going to keep doing them! :-)

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