When I was asked if I would be interested in writing a guest entry for Business Blog Wire, I was both flattered and confused. The confusion stemmed from the fact that, if you were to go to my own blog, invisiblehandwriting.typepad.com, you would notice that I am hardly the world’s most prolific blogger. I’m OK with this though, because in my first entry, I mentioned that, although I think blogging is great, I wasn’t really convinced that I had anything to say, and certainly not enough to sustain a lot of new content. So, points for self-realization.
Easton discovered me, not through my blog, but through my podcast, The Invisible Hand. If the genesis of podcasting came from bloggers who realized that they could send audio files just as easily as text, then my show is an audio blog that consists almost entirely of guest bloggers. This is how I get around not having much to say, I let the guests do the heavy lifting. I see my job as just asking good questions and then staying out of the way. The show I did with Shel Israel on his and Robert Scoble’s book, “Naked Conversations” was a good example of this, and talking to Shel made me realize the power of blogs, but also presented me with a bit of a puzzle. Good blogs are authentic, well-written and updated frequently. My blog is what happens when your authentic self just doesn’t write very often. Whether it is well-written, I will leave you to judge.
This issue of self expression versus providing a venue for other voices does have a practical consequence, in my opinion. If I had a dime for every time I explained my show to someone only to have them come back and ask, “So, how are you making money off of this?”, I could answer that I was doing quite well on the dimes that question provided. Like a lot of other podcasters, I’ve had discussions with Audible, I’ve wrestled with subscriptions vs. advertising vs. the Joe Einstein strategy of using the podcast to establish myself as an expert. (the Joe Einstein title comes courtesy of Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, an amazing book coming out in May that I am prepping for and a book that should be the big “think” book of networked societies) I am not sure how the Hand will ever make money, but I do believe there is money to be made in podcasting by using the tools as a way to rethink how other individuals and organizations can put their messages out into the world. It would put the podcaster into more of a producer role than that of an auteur, but I think there is some money to be made there, hopefully enough that a podcaster can be both a producer and an auteur.
The great trick will be for podcasters to add a little more value than just producing a show for an organization that is little more than a long form radio advertisement that they could have produced 20 years ago if they had the inclination. Just as good business blogging presents an opportunity to speak with customers in a fresh and authentic way, good business podcasting should follow suit. Check back with me in a year and I’ll tell you if I was right.
If you have any questions about podcasting or just want to chew the digital fat, feel free to drop me a line at cgondek@theinvisiblehandpodcast.com. Keep downloading and listening.
Thanks for doing this guest post, Chris.
I especially liked what you said about the monetization of podcasting: "There is money to be made ... by using the tools as a way to rethink how other individuals and organizations can put their messages out into the world." I think the same principle applies to blogging. It's so easy for anyone to publish text, audio and even video to the Web nowadays, that in order to make real money off of doing so, one must learn how to use the tools of the trade more effectively than others.
I invite you and everyone else to check out Jon Watson's new Know More Media blog on the business of podcasting: BizPodcasting.com.
Posted by: Easton Ellsworth | March 27, 2006 9:55 PM | Permalink to Comment