DISQUS

It's funny your put user generated content sites in that list. We run a series of sites that feature user generated content. We monetize in a variety of ways. For us we are in the black and business is booming as companies are finding serialized user generated content is working very well in advertising campaigns. Don't count the user generated content sites out yet.

Ohh an we did not need any venture funding we are profitable and growing without someone's hooks in us.

As we have publicly stated we are one of the few podcasting companies that is completely in the black. While everyone is facing challenges we are very happy with the position we find ourselves today.

Our platform which we commercially license is doing great, the number of podcasters on ad deals will continue to grow in Q1 and our Podcast Hosting and Statistics service is seeing strong growth.

Our strategy has worked so far and I am highly optimistic that in 2009 we will end the year in positive territory. While we hate to see Podango exit the space like this life goes on and consolidation and closures will continue to happen .

The loss of Podango's services and innovative capabilities are a real blow to our tight-knit new media community and my entire team at RawVoice is sorry to see Podango in this position.

Podango President Douglas Smith has encouraged podcasters to immediately seek new hosting services to ensure they are not negatively impacted by the loss of Podango. We at RawVoice respect that immensely and have worked over the past 24 hours to put some tools in place to make the moved easier for the podcasters needing to move their shows on such short notice.

Actually, we've made it not only easy, but free. In addition to offering Podango podcasters an automated process to transfer files from Podango to the Blubrry network, the RawVoice team is giving Podango podcasters 30 days of free hosting. We will have more info on our blog at blog.blubrry.com

Todd Cochrane
CEO RawVoice

The team at RawVoice is sorry to read the news about Podango’s potential of ceasing operations before the end of the year. We believe competition is good and encourages innovation and efficiency. The loss of Podango’s services and innovative capabilities are a real loss to the new media community.

In response to the news my team has been working on a solution to help these media host move their media. We have been working throughout the night to develop a special script to help them. But their are some steps the podcasters can do at this very moment and we have posted those on our blog at blog.blubrry.com. In addition we will be offering 30 days free hosting to any podcaster that is inclined to move their show.

It is my hope that Podango finds a way to stay online.

Podcasting is not dead in fact Rawvoice / Blubrry and the podcasters we have on ad buys have had a banner year. As a company we are profitable and in great shape for 2009. Ad buys for Q1-2009 are on track to be as good as 2008 numbers. Our media hosting and publishing services are on track.

Podcasting is alive and well audience consumption continues to grow. While nothing is without challenge our company is well set to weather the economic storm.

While i feel bad for Podango you cannot give stuff awsy forever and survive. RawVoice stands ready to help any podcaster move there media onto our world class CDN and give them 30 days free media hosting to help them get moved.

Todd
CEO Rawvoice / Blubrry

To be honest with you I really hate that Qualified Investor crap. To be honest its a rule to keep the rich, rich and those that could afford to throw some investment money at startups out of the game. It drives me nuts..

I visited all of their websites as well and I kept a notepad handy. I figured out what 5 of them were actually about and the product they were introducing but Robert your right they all pretty much sucked.

While the standard on reporting has largely been in place since 2005, at least the standard we have been using since 2005 I think it is a good idea to get everyone on the same page.

While I am not sure if their is a wide disparity in reporting, I do know several companies follow the standard we have been using for some time. I know others do not. Regardless we will see if the group can agree to a standard.

In the end podcasters, sponsors and ultimately listeners need to benefit.

In the end no mater what standard they come up for in actual measurement. It will in the end boil down to audience engagement.

I have seen shows with 50k listeners per episode generate no ROI on an ad deal but yet a audience of 3000 that were on the same deal had audiences that engaged with the host create ROI that marketing people only dream about.

Thats what we do at RawVoice we focus on the engagement factor and leverage the audience size to keep our sponsors signing on quarter after quarter.

We will likely support the group time will tell what the end value will be.

RawVoice is the company behind Blubrry.com TechPodcasts.com and PodcastPromos.com not are we only social podcasting sites but we also do advertising media buys and act as agents for podcasters with over 500 podcasters today on media buys. So please include RawVoice in your Podcast Advertising Section.

You have some of our descriptions wrong but thanks for including us in the initial list.

We have simplified the codes at Blubrry they all are equal to the same discount one is used for hosting the other is for other products. But yes some shows not on blubrry have a variety of codes with a variety of discounts.

Some of RawVoice.com top podcasters are earning as much as $10,000 a month. Not bad for a single line of production done part time.

Companies like ours and others are making real differences in the space in helping podcasters monetize their shows.

The advertisers in the podcasting space currently understand the ROI they are getting on podcast advertising. We would not have advertisers renewing quarter after quarter unless they were having success in the space. With over 8 million monthly listener impressions under contract. We look forward to more podcast advertisers joining the fray as there is significant available inventory.

Podcasting continues to grow and with highly accurate listener metrics we hope media buyers take time to become educated on the medium.

Robert

Having been working advertising deals for video and audio for over a year now. What we are finding that even though the audiences are highly targeted and the content is really good many advertisers cannot get their brains unwrapped from the Radio and TV pay models.

It is generally pretty straight forward to get at least a $20.00 CPM but it is really tough to break above the $35.00 CPM rate. Those that are telling you they are getting higher than $35.00 on a consistent basis are in the minority.

My experience has been even when I have proposed flat rate deals the vendor always wants full blown demographic work ups, and also total viewership which they end up doing some second grade math on to come up with a Cost Per View. Then they model that into standard Cost Per Acquisition models. You can better believe the manager that signs that advertiisng insertion order is going to have scrutinized the potential return, and you are not going to get a sponsorship amount higher than their CPA models allow for if that is their business.

Suggestion you should take all of your video and produce a seperate audio only track and put that on a seperate feed. I think you may be suprised on the download number comparison. My stats show a nearly 20 to 1 ratio aka Audio gets downloaded 20 times more than the video does.

Some will contest this but I have a pretty wide spread of data to back that up. Most of us are working, and driving to work. Most do not have time at work unless you want to get fired nor in thier busy lives to dedicate attention to watching a long video, short clips 2-3 minutes sure but long videos no way. I would rather listen to the audio only while in the car and stuck in traffic.

The solution for you at this point it two fold compress the heck out of the video and go to a lower resolution and create a seperate Audio only clip.

Next join me in encouraging developers to incorporate BitTorrent in all automated download applications like Juice, or develop a new integrated rss aware download application that has BitTorrent built in natively that will help reduce the bandwidth cost.

Todd..

Thanks for all the grammar lessons folks. When your answering 500 messages a day that happens. Thanks to all of the supporters of the site. One thing to remember, we did this with no funding, and we all work day jobs.

Our Motto is simple:

"Podcasters do the Work, Podcasters get Paid"

We have a long way to go, and by no means do we want 25,000 podcast on the site. That was not the goal. Podcasters that want to help the site grow, can join and must agree to the simple terms for listing. Best thing of all no lock in.

The site is not a directory their are listing requirements for podcaster and thus we did not pull in 20,000 podcast feeds that was not the point as their is a business model for podcasters behind this site.

We are also a company that has built this while working our day jobs so with no funding we are building and adding features as fast as we can.

Thanks for the kind words Robert