The New Rules of Marketing & PR, 9th Edition

16Audio Content via Podcasting and Social Audio

The transformation from static audio downloads to radio station–like podcasts, which are much more valuable to listeners (and also more valuable as marketing vehicles for organizations), occurred because of three developments. The first was the ability to add audio feeds and notifications to Rich Site Summary (RSS, often called really simple syndication). This enables listeners who subscribe to an audio feed to download new updates soon after they are released. When audio content was liberated from the need for one large download and went instead to being offered as a series of continuous audio clips, the concept of sequential or episodic shows took off.

Hosts modeled their shows on radio, producing content on specific subjects catering to distinct audiences. But the podcasting business model is very different from broadcast radio. Radio spectrums can support only a finite number of stations, and radio signals have limited geographic range. To support the technical infrastructure of radio, broadcasters need large audiences and lots of advertising to pay the bills (or donors, in the case of public radio). Contrast that with internet audio podcasting, which is essentially free (except for minimal hosting fees and some cheap equipment). A podcast show reaches a potentially worldwide audience, enabling anyone both to listen to shows and to create them.

The second major development was the availability of those podcast feeds through ...