When you sign up for a podcast produced through OPN, you’ll be put in contact with me, and we’ll work out a time for you or your designated spokesperson to be interviewed over the phone.  Podcasts from OPN will be approximately five minutes long, and will be fully produced, including a short introduction and intro and outro music.  When completed, the podcasts can be posted as part of an OPN podcast, and will also be included in the Online PR News iTunes “store”.  Clients will also receive a copy of the file that they can post on their own web site.

To listen to a sample OPN podcast, click play on the flash player below.  For more information on this offering, visit the Online PR News podcast page.

While you’re at it, if you haven’t joined the EndGame PR Facebook Page, I’d love to have you there as well!

The problem for satellite radio, however, is that Internet radio and podcasting are maturing and filling the space that satellite radio once owned. Not only is there similar content available out there, the vast majority of Internet radio sites and podcasts are free.  SIRIUS is trying to combat this with an iPhone app that will allow subscribers access to the company’s Internet audio on their iPhones.  This is a great idea, but it’s too little too late.

A couple of weeks ago I canceled the SIRIUS subscription I’ve had for five or six years, deciding to experiment with Internet radio sites.  I’ve landed on using Pandora for my office music listening, and it’s a wonderful free replacement with outstanding sound quality.  Meanwhile, I’ve already replaced the talk radio content with podcasts.  There’s no true replacement for the sports programming available through satellite radio (I may miss having all of the NFL games this fall .. we’ll see) but I couldn’t see spending nearly $13 per month for just the sports programming.  I haven’t looked around for it, but between podcasts and streaming audio and video from the NFL, I suspect I’ll be fine.

SIRIUS XM reported a narrower loss in the most recent fourth quarter than the one before, and also reported a growing subscriber base.  However, they recently had to reach out to angel funding to save them from going under.  Unfortunately I suspect that it’s inevitable that the company will go the way of the wind.  Much of the growth that SIRIUS is seeing is from people who buy new cars.  Many auto makers have agreements to provide satellite radio-equipped radios, and in most cases the new car purchaser gets a free year of the service.  However, more and more cars are also coming equipped with an audio jack for plugging in an iPod or other mp3 player.  And, as we all know from reading the news, fewer and fewer people are buying new cars right now due to the economy.

Visit EndGame PR’s Podcast Production page to sample the variety of shows we produce!

Read the eMarketer report here.

Read the Podcasting News story here.

Podango announced on December 26, 2008 that it would likely cease operations as of December 31.  It’s horrendous timing, as many people aren’t fully tuned in during the holiday season.  The site now says they’re on a “vacation”, but it’s unlikely they’re coming back from their holiday.  Given that the notice was only five days, many users of the service didn’t have time to secure alternate hosting.  Even if they did have time, they certainly didn’t have enough notice to let listeners know of a change.  Podango is now only offering RSS feed redirection.  Blubrry is, by the way, offering to help Podango users who have their files.

This is a great example of why it’s critical to own your hosting and do regular backups of everything.  This is still another reason NOT to host your blog at a free service like Blogger.  You don’t own the URL for your content, which means you can’t easily move it or redirect it.  Using services that do everything for you puts your properties in the hands of someone who doesn’t care about them anywhere near as much as you do.

Promotion Alert: EndGame PR offers podcast consultation through its BizPodz Productions service. If your business or organization wants to launch a podcast or needs help improving an existing one, please contact us!

Some other findings from the survey:

• Companies should use social networks to solve my problems (43%)
• Companies should solicit feedback on their products and services (41%)
• Companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand (37%)
• Companies should market to consumers (25%)

This survey illustrates that a website just isn’t enough these days.  Your website has to integrate social media like blogs, podcasts, and vidcasts.  Social media gives consumers a way to interact with the company in a way that simple email does not.  On top of that, they also want to be able to find executives on Facebook and LinkedIn.  Essentially, if your business doesn’t even have a website … you’re not a step behind where you should be, you’re actually two or three steps behind.

Note: Hat tip goes to Podcasting News for alerting me to this story.

While the number of dedicated podcast fans is up 300%, the technology’s steady adoption rate is closer to something like RSS’s, rather than the rocket-fast adoption of something like YouTube, which has a much lower barrier to entry.

This is great news to podcast producers who are chasing hard-to-find advertising dollars.  The study also said there doesn’t appear to be a difference in the gender of daily downloaders.

One interesting note is that this study only addressed those who time shift, or download podcasts to listen later. It did not quantify those who listen to audio presentations and podcasts online. If you added that population, the number of podcast listeners would likely be much higher.

Plug alert: If you’re interested in using podcasting to promote your business, please check out BizPodz, the podcast production service from EndGame Public Relations!