Hidden Frequency

How HTML5 Will Save Podcasting and Make it a Billion-Dollar Market

For all its promise, podcasting is still a niche form of content on the web. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into trying to make this a more profitable medium, but the end result is that in 2010 just a handful of players are just getting by. Its popularity is growing for sure, but not in the dramatic way we’re used to seeing with the web.

Andrew Mayne is publisher of WeirdThings.com and founder of Blurbtastic.com. His personal website can be found at AndrewMayne.com.

My Apple Predictions (updated)

1. Yes to the iPod Touch with FaceTime rumor. I’d expect a $299 price for the Touch with the cameras and the retina display. $199 iPod Touch gets faster processor, more memory and retina display. Maybe an iPod with 3G. That would be revolutionary too. You can own and Android and an iPhone.

This was the obvious one. I was surprised that Apple was able to release it at $229. The lack of the 5MP camera explains it.

2. Yes to the iPod Nano going touch screen. I think it’ll be easier to navigate than some people think.

Yep.

3. Apple TV gets apps (like games and Netflix). Think about an AppleTV that runs apps - many of them free games supported by iAds. Game changer. I think casual gaming is a much bigger market than X-Box and PS3 and Wii games.

Well, we got a Netflix app… In retrospect it makes more sense that we’ll see an app enabled AppleTV in a January event when Apple can tell developers how many of them are out there. I think…

4. I don’t see a $99 Apple TV if it has that cool magic trackpad. Maybe a $149 Apple TV that’s ram based and comes with a magic remote. Maybe a $99 Apple TV that you control with your iPod or iPhone.

No trackpad. I think we’ll see that with an AppleTV that does apps. It’ll need an input device like that. Maybe a remote that flips over to a trackpad on the other side.

Although the iPod app for the AppleTV does have this function…

5. The biggest news regardless of price will be Apple TV with apps. This is what the public will focus on. Forget the tech pundits. This is the device that makes it the last mile. The iMac is the desktop. The iPhone and iPod are in your pocket outside. The iPad is in your bedroom and around the house. Apple TV is your living. The only thing left is implants.

The app-focused Apple TV is Apple’s new approach to their “hobby” and the reason they don’t take Google TV seriously.

Technically, this is what people were talking about…the lack of apps. I underestimated how big of a deal this would be. I think Apple wants to just sell a streaming AppleTV for now and then move up to apps like they did the iPhone.

The really big deal is AirPlay. That’s the killer feature that didn’t get enough attention. Forgetting everything else, a $99 box that lets you show what’s on your iPhone or iPad on the big screen. This is huge.

This Christmas will be about 3 things: iPod, iPad and Apple TV.

Duh.

Andrew Mayne is founder of Blurbtastic.com and publisher of WeirdThings.com. His personal website can be found at AndrewMayne.com.

Apple’s iAd will probably not destroy life on this planet as we know it

Before the even the first iAd has been served, panic over Apple’s iAd platform has begun. Dave Johnson at BNet has decided that the mere suggestion of it is reason enough to switch phones right away (BNet). He fears that because it functions at the “platform level”, it’ll be too easy to put ads into every app in the App Store - even the paid ones.

He’s making a very strange assumption I can’t quite wrap my head around.

Right now, any app developer can put ads into their applications free or paid. The lack of an Apple ad revenue system isn’t holding them back. Market forces are what guides each developer’s decision. Want to put ads into a $3.99 image retouching application? Go for it. Think people won’t complain? Guess again. There are plenty of other applications in the App Store that would be happy to sell you an ad free version.

Johnson’s fear implies a misunderstanding about how markets work. Since the decision to put ads into each application is made by the developers and not Steve Jobs, there’s not a whole lot of coercison going on by Apple. Don’t want an application that uses ads on your iPhone? Don’t install it. Given the growth of the App Store, you’re likely going to find another app that’s more suited to what you want.

What the iAd solution will do is create a solid business model for developers to launch apps, get wide exposure and create two revenue streams: One for ad supported versions and one for ad-free paid upgrades. This means we’re going to see even more apps coming into the App Store, many from developers that want to focus on writing great apps you’ll want to buy and/or keep using. This is good for everyone.

The other focus of his argument is that the ads will take up too much space on the small screen. He says, “It’s like iPhone OS 4 is able to shrink the size of your iPhone’s screen without your permission.” This is such an odd statement. Again it implies that the decision to implement ads in an application is made by Apple and not the developer. Every internet browser and every OS ever created has had this same ability. The choice to crowd your screen has been always been up to the content creators and the consumer, as it should be.

Mr. Johnson says, “Apple has found a way to turn their mighty iPhone into a ghetto of banner ads and reduced usability.”

That’s a choice each content creator will have to make for themselves. In Mr. Johnson’s case he’s made that decision for his own BNet site by putting up his own pop-up ad in the middle of the page that arguably turns it into it’s own “ghetto” of “reduced usability”.

I’m not knocking his choice to do that. Content needs to get paid. I just wish that he would be a little more understanding that other forms of content also need to find ways to get paid. And at least Apple’s iAd solution is a little more tastefully done.

For more commentary check out Daring Fireball’s promise to “mark” Johnson’s words about the ubiquity of iAds in paid applications in the future: Daring Fireball

The Unofficial Apple Weblog, one of my favorite Apple news sites has some interesting comments (and a really not cool headline): TUAW

Counterintuitive: Why Murdoch’s overpriced Wall Street Journal iPad subscription may be a stroke of genius

When the Wall Street Journal iPad app hit the Apple app store most people including myself were taken aback by the price for the actual subscription. Priced higher than the print version and web version combined, it didn’t seem to make any sense. Add to that the fact that the subscription based app also includes ads. An overpriced subscription app that isn’t ad free? What’s the deal with that? But after thinking about it, it makes sense. It may in fact be genius.

The WSJ is different than other papers. It has a specialized content aimed at a specific audience. A generally affluent audience that puts a high value on information. While many of us appreciate the content the WSJ has, few of us actually subscribe to it. For Rupert Murdoch, we’re a lost cause. While a cheaper subscription might entice more people to subscribe, that’s not his goal. Murdoch doesn’t want a lot of people paying a little. He’d rather have a few people paying through the nose. While that may seem counterintuitive, it makes sense when you think about why the iPad version also includes advertising. That’s the whole purpose of the high price: Murdoch wants to attract high income subscribers (think $200,000 or more a year). He can then turn around and sell advertising at a ridiculously high CPM.

Companies that lease jets or offer CEO head hunting services aren’t interested in advertising to $30,000 a year just out of college graphic designers. They want viewers who can afford their high cost services. Ads for services like that can run in the hundreds of dollars per CPM.

By creating a pricey iPad app, the WSJ has created a way for the very affluent to self identify themselves and given Murdoch one of the most prized audiences in all of advertising.

Time will tell if it works. It’ll be interesting to find out.

Is Apple’s iAd the biggest thing since Google Search?

The Apple iPhone OS 4.0 announcement was a big deal. So big that people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around it. The real story isn’t about Apple shutting out Adobe development tools. It’s not even blessed multi-tasking on the iPhone. It’s Apple’s vision for advertising in apps via iAd.

“So what?” Is the response from a lot of people. While we already had in app advertising before, we haven’t had the Steve Jobs version of it. He and his team at Apple are very thoughtful people. They have a vision. They just told it to us. It’s a very, very big vision.

Imagine I told you back in 2000 that I was going to monetize web pages by putting little text ads on them ad putting text ads next to search results for those pages. Very few people thought this was going to be big. Those that really believed it put their money behind Google and made a fortune

Here in 2010 we’re amidst another game changing event. This time Apple wants to be at the forefront of this revolution. Apple wants to do for applications what Google did for monetizing the web.

In Apple’s vision a developer doesn’t have to worry about advertising or monetizing their work. Create a great application. Put iAd into it and upload it into the app store. Apple takes care of making it discoverable and profitable from there.

To be sure, a closed system has its downside. However the upside makes it more than worthwhile for an independent developer like myself. I’d go bankrupt on Google AdWords trying to attract the volume of customers that the App Store store gives me for free (well, 30% of gross).

iAd takes that a step further. With a built in ad model I can start making $.99 applications into free ones and put them into the hands of more people. Lots of more people…

By doing to applications what Google did to web content, Apple’s vision could change the fundamental economics of computing.

As a content producer it’s helpful to think differently about how you might monetize what you produce in a world where people are getting more and more of their content from within apps.

Podcasting, blogging and just about every other form of content have a new opportunity to create a successful business model because of this. A free app based on an iAd supported ad platform in an ecosystem that encourages in app purchase and upgrades is an exciting thing. How would you leverage it?

Sidenote: Don’t think for a second that Google is going to sit still. Expect an announcement about their own platform soon. The question is how well do they understand the app ecosystem? The Android App store isn’t an encouraging sign, but they’re smart and they learn.

5 steps to identifying your niche

Before my foray into publishing, the first niche I tried to exploit had mixed results. When I was in high school I decided I wanted to become a professional magician. There are many different directions a magician can take. There’s the general performer who does shows locally for parties and special events. There are close-up magicians that work in restaurants and private parties. Then there are trade show magicians who specialize in working with large companies that can make as much as the CEO’s they’re hired to entertain. I decided on performing big stage illusions; so the obvious choice at the time was to work on cruise ships. Living in Fort Lauderdale made that an easy choice. I got off to an excellent start. At least I thought so.

Although I had chosen a specific niche that seemed to lead to where I wanted to go, I was less than passionate about it. It took me a while to learn that I could create my own niche based upon the things I was passionate about. You may have discovered that some of your ambitions aren’t all they can be. If the problem isn’t your work ethic, then it’s likely you need to consider changing your direction or approach.

Looking at your combination of interests and skills, you want to find one that looks interesting from every angle. For me, magic was fun; working on a cruise ship was not. I would have been better suited finding a way that I could have tied performing magic with one of my interests.

Generally, your niche is a market based upon your interest. Although video editing is an interest of mine, it’s really more of a skill. I have a generalized view of the industry and the technology, but I don’t keep up with it anywhere near the level I do my interests in science and entertainment. I’d be pretty bored focusing my energy on mainly reading video journals and software manuals.

If my interest was magic and my skill was creating magic tricks, I could have just kept on being a regular magician. I also could have done more work for other magicians as a creative advisor. However, my interest in magic was small compared to my interest in marketing. Marketing products based upon my skill was a better fit. Marketing my ideas worked out really well.

Your niche starts with your best fit. If you have an interest in scuba diving, somewhere between the factory where the tanks are made and the reef where the fish live there’s a great opportunity for you to apply one or more of your skills. If you’re looking to create a product or service that deals with your interest, look for a market where your skill has value.

I tried lots of different kinds of writing before I wrote my first magic book. When I was in a position where I had to find a niche where I could actually make money, I had to identify a market that I already had the skills for. This is a very important point: I didn’t choose a market that I wanted to have skills in. I chose one where my existing skills were already in demand.

A big mistake people make is they choose an interest and pursue it without any skills. I had few skills as a marketer, but my skills as an inventor were enough for me to base my interest in marketing upon. Rather than try to develop some skill you don’t possess, look closely at the skills you already have. Those are your best shots at being successful in that interest.

Another point to remember is that even two successful people in similar positions in similar fields might have very different interests and skills. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both the heads of high tech companies. Whereas Bill Gates interest in competition and business drives his skills in computing, Steve Jobs passion for thinking different and creating whole solutions is driven by his skills as a forward and detailed thinker. Gates went for market share. Jobs went for creating the best products in the world. Both companies succeeded in ways that reflect their founder’s passions.

Your niche is either a place where you have a highly specialized skill that can be put to use, or an interest that you are willing to devote yourself full time to pursue. If you like horses, are you prepared to read every equestrian book and magazine you can get your hands on? Are you willing to learn basic zoology to better understand how they work on the inside? You don’t have to be an expert on the whole field. You just need to zero into a level where your skills become very useful and your interest will be fully committed. This is where you find your value.

Sometimes you need to change the direction of how your interests affect your skills. Sometimes you need to change the direction in which you apply them. When I went from a magician to someone who wrote about magic, I changed my market from people who want to see magic shows, to people who want to perform them. This is a 180-degree turn around. Where before I was focused on keeping secrets, I now became focused on sharing them.

You might be an excellent car salesperson but hate sales. You might want to consider what I did and flip your direction. If you have a skill in some form of communication, you might make a great sales trainer. Your niche is now sales training and not cars. Or you might create buyer’s guides for car shoppers. There could be any number of opportunities that your skills can help you with.

Your niche is the place within an interest your skills have maximum potential. The stronger the interest, and the stronger the skill, the greater the chance of success. If you’re still having difficulty, you probably need to add a third element. Someone whose interest is entertainment and skill is acting is going to be in the same “niche” as about a million other people. Focus.

Here are the important points to remember:

1. Your niche is the place where your interests and your skills meet and create value
2. Your market is where your skills have the most need
3. Choose skills you already possess
4. Focus to find your niche
5. When in doubt, consider the other direction


Have any questions or comments? Email me at andrew@andrewmayne.com

Are Google fans too cheap to pay for anything?

Does Google=Free?
I consider myself a Google fan. And my reluctance to actually buy anything from them makes me wonder if I just keep looking to them like the rich kid down the street we’re all nice to because he keeps trying to buy our friendship.

I love many of the things Google produces. I even own a small amount of Google stock. I think Google has collected some of the smartest people on the planet and is changing our world in ways that few have ever done before. Yet, I think despite the things that Google does well, there’s one thing it’s not so successful at: Actually selling things to fans of the Google brand. Apple fans get excited about what Apple is going to sell them. Google fans get excited by what Google is going to give them for free.

I’m not talking about AdSense and AdWords. Those are primarily business to business services. I’m talking about the things Google has tried to sell directly to end users where we give cash to Google: Google Video, pay-per-view movies on YouTube, the Nexus One and to a degree Android apps.

What does Google mean to people? To most people it’s not “Do no evil”. To them Google means “free”. Our first experience with Google was as a great search engine with minimal advertisement that was free to use. Services like free Google Calendar and free Gmail expanded on that.

Because of this, Google is known to the larger public as the company that gives you free stuff that’s supported by advertising you’re free ignore.

Then Google tried launching things that cost money (not counting B2B stuff). After the failure of Google Video (which featured paid content) they bought YouTube and went back to a free content model for video for a while.

I think the way people interact with Google and what they expect might be a reason that even though Android phones are very popular in general, the Google name is why Android applications don’t sell anywhere nearly as well as iPhone apps do according to developers.

I’m totally willing to be convinced that Google can be a brand people buy stuff from. But here are some example cases that say otherwise:



Google Video
We don’t need to do much analysis here. Google made a very big noise when they launched this platform to sell TV shows and movies. Not many people wanted to buy episodes of Deep Space 9 or Charlie Rose from there and it lost to iTunes and Bit Torrent. The meh design of it didn’t help either. Now it’s a search engine for video



YouTube (pay per view)
Recently Google tried an experiment when it offered Sundance feature films like The Cove as pay-per-view downloads on YouTube (Wired). How badly did it fare? The entire slate of films took in only $10,709 during the 10 day period (NY Times). Google says it was “happy” with the outcome. Kind of like the AppleTV is a “hobby” for Apple.

Google backers try to dismiss the effort by saying the movies were too indie and the project was under marketed. The problem with that is The Cove had a lot of buzz going into it and the whole enterprise had the biggest online marketer in the world behind it. This either says the Google machine isn’t very good for selling things (which I find hard to believe) or the Google brand isn’t something we want to pay for. We go to YouTube to watch stuff for free.

In my own experience with Google AdWords trying to push my own DVD’s I found that a person typing “Andrew Mayne DVD” into Google search was far more likely to be looking for a torrent of the DVD than actually a place to buy it. Then is symptom of an ecosystem where people expect everything to be free.



Google Checkout
Launched four years ago, Google’s effort to compete with PayPal has been disappointing. While more of a business service, its front end is faced towards consumers. Even after trying various ploys to get merchants to use Google Checkout, it still has negligible market share. PayPal gets 30 times the traffic. If it weren’t for the fact that Google Checkout is already 4 years old and you know, owned by Google, it’d be easy to make excuses for it. Crunchbase on Google Checkout

I would love for Checkout to be a much stronger contender. As an online vendor I’m not comfortable with PayPal being my own practical option. Yet I’m not willing to take the Checkout plunge myself. Nor are a lot of other people. I don’t think it’s a trust issue. I just think when we see the “Google” name we don’t feel like reaching reaching for our credit cards.

Making matters more vexing, Paul Boutin at VentureBeat.com writes that part of the problem with Android app purchasing (see below) is Google Checkout: Why so few paid Android Apps?



The Google Nexus One
Every Nexus One user I’ve talked to loves their phone. By all accounts it’s a worthy phone to compete with the iPhone. However, even an Apple fanboy like me is confused by the rather low sales figures for the phone. 135,000 in 74 days? This is scary for two reasons. The first is that it indicates that the Google brand isn’t nearly as strong as many thought - at least as a brand you actually buy things from. The second reason is that it questions the use of Google as an end to end marketing solution. Google has put a large amount of effort into selling the Nexus One. Type “phone” into a Google search and it’s the first sponsored link. For weeks it was the sponsored video on the YouTube homepage and popped up in Gmail. Check out Chris Matyszczyk at CNET’s observations on that: CNET

Unfortunately that synergy didn’t move the needle very much. The Droid sold over one million phones in that same amount of time and put Android in ten times as many hands as the Nexus One did. There are a number of mitigating factors like timing, televisions ads, etc. But none of them adequately explain the sad sales figures for the Nexus One. An article at Design by Gravity insists that Google’s overmarketing and underselling are all working according to plan. I think otherwise.

I have a couple theories. One is just the fact the Google=Free to most people and actually *buying* a product from Google is a very alien concept to most of us. The other theory is that this perception exacerbated the problem when Google wanted to sell an expensive consumer device.

Prior to the launch of the Google Nexus One there was a lot buzz about a potential Google branded phone. Some of this speculation even put Apple fans to shame. Even BusinessWeek speculated that a Google Phone might be free. But don’t blame rumormongers for starting that. The seed of a free phone was planted by Google CEO Eric Schimdt back in 2006 when actually said that mobile phones should be free (MSNBC). Now he was talking about a far off distant time when mobile advertising rates would cover those costs; but who would know better than Google when that time would come? Who better to make it happen?

When Google’s first branded phone actually arrived it was a bit of a letdown for people who were expecting a free or even heavily discounted phone. The fact that it cost $400 more than a (subsidized) iPhone was like finding out Santa was going to invoice you for Christmas presents.

Many were expecting a revolutionary phone and business model. What they got was a solid iPhone competitor and less revolutionary business model. Google’s excitement that you could buy it online directly from them wasn’t as groundbreaking to the rest of us.

Given the fact that Verizon sold a heck of a lot more Android phones than Google did, it seems safe to say that Google may not have the edge on actually selling the platform.

Google fans were expecting Google to bring the Google=Free to smart phones. When they failed to do that, their fans failed to show up.



The Android experience
Giving away the (again free) Android OS to phone makers was a great way to create a Google friendly mobile platform for their advertisers and offer up competition to Apple that Microsoft and others weren’t able to deliver. Trying to replicate the entire iPhone experience however is problematic: As someone who wants to sell something I’m much more excited by Apple fans than Google fans. So far it looks like Android users are only into free apps. 98.9% of Android downloads are free apps

There is of course a large community of people who use jailbroken iPhones to run cracked iPhone games and apps. But as a percentage of iPhone users it’s miniscule. The entire iPhone experience works well enough that it’s easier to buy the game for $.99. How many iPhone app developers do you hear crying about lost revenue to piracy?

It’s also interesting to note that when we routinely hear about iPhone publishers having million-dollar months in the App store PC World, it’s cause for celebration in the Android community when someone cracks $15,000. Android is new to the game compared to the iPhone and developer revenues will go up. More apps in the Android market will help and as the number of Android users edges closer to iPhone users it will become more lucrative for developers. However I doubt we’ll ever see parity with the iPhone.

As the Android platform matures and Google phones get into the hands of more law abiding citizens as opposed to bit torrent-prone early adapters it’ll be a solid place to make money; provided the OS fragmentation and hardware variability doesn’t screw things up too much.

The danger for that market from a developer’s perspective is that Android’s openness makes it very easy to pirate. And the tools for doing that are only going to become more ubiquitous. Given the current problems with the Android Market (only certain phones see certain apps, the carriers can restrict what’s available, etc.) more and more people might start choosing to go elsewhere to get apps - sites like Pirate Bay.

Another question we don’t have an answer to is what happens to the Android handset if the iPhone goes unlocked to a specific carrier? A big part of the adoption of Android is because of AT&T and people being locked into other carriers. Most of my Android using friends bought the phones because they couldn’t or didn’t want to go to AT&T.

Because Apple makes money from actually selling phones they have a lot more invested in marketing, developing and keeping users happy then Google does from a product they give away for free (except the Nexus One - but they even undermarketed that).

The fight between Apple and Google to buy mobile advertiser AdMob is a sign that both of them see a big future for ad supported applications. As a developer I have to wonder if Google thinks that’s the only future for mobile applications?


Will Google always equal free?
Soon I’ll have to spring for a larger Gmail account. I’ve said for years I’d love to pay for a better YouTube experience. I’d even pay for Google Voice if I actually used it. I’d also pay for machine translation and a host of other things Google does pretty well.

I think service by service Google will change its perception to a brand that you buy some things from. But it won’t be a quick path. I also think core fans of Google will either complain or not show up whenever Google tries to actually charge them for something.

Until then I’m convinced that for the Google faithful Google=Free.


If you have some counter examples or think I’m overlooking something, you can email me at: andrew@andrewmayne.com