Apple filed a patent January 9 that describes a method for automatically creating customized podcast mashups from various podcasts.
Here’s the Abstract on the Patent from Apple
Improved techniques to facilitate generation, management and delivery of personalized media items for users are disclosed. Users are able to influence or control content within a media item being personalized. In one embodiment, personalized media items are podcasts. Users are able to influence or control the content in or with a podcast. In other words, a podcast can be created in accordance with a user’s needs or specifications so that the content within a podcast is customized or personalized for the user.
What Apple is proposing is allowing users to sample/ take portions of multiple podcasts that meet their interests, and download a combined podcast that includes the specified extracts requested. Think like an RSS reader where you get bits from multiple sites, but in audio.
In the image above, the user would pick content from a list, and that content would then be combined in the single podcast.
From the patent application again:
Besides the predetermined categories shown in FIG. 4C, the dialog screen 480 includes a custom button 482. Upon selection of the custom button 482, a user can be assisted with another dialog screen to create a category of content, namely, media content, that is to be included within the custom podcast. For example, in the case of sports, the user may desire to create a category that is specific to their interests. For example, the user may request to receive sports highlights from the weekend during the NFL season regarding specific teams or teams in the Eastern division. As another example, the user may desire to receive statistics regarding games played during the past week in the NFL.
Where it gets more interesting is the way the data is retrieved. The natural assumption is that this aggregates short form podcasts (which it will do as well), but the patent talks about stored podcast characteristics, which may tie-in with Apple’s patent for “Podmaps.” A Podmap is not unlike a sitemap, but obviously for audio, and would specify what was in a podcast when. In theory this new patent could extract audio from a larger podcast per the specs in the Podmap and place that audio in a new custom podcast besides material from other podcasts.
It’s a neat idea, but sampling data from an audio track would bypass things like preroll advertising in a podcast which may undermine the blossoming podcast advertising market. That said if this was to take off, what we would more likely see is more short form niche content that includes the ads, and possibly a downturn in longer podcasts; one hour long interviews don’t make for great sampling in a combined customized podcast as Apple is proposing with this patent.
Some interesting new figures have been released by eMarketer today that shows that podcasts are taking off in both traffic and revenue, and the outlook is even better again.
The general view on podcasting is that it had been passed by as video became the hot vertical, particularly as earlier iPod’s gave way to new players that supported video as well as audio. These figures would suggest that there’s a lot of growth still to be had in the podcasting sector.
According to eMarketer, the total podcast audience in the United States was 18.5 million in 2007 and will rise to 65 million in 2012. “Active listeners” (defined as people who download more than one podcast) were 6.5 million in 2007 and expected to be 25 million in 2012.
The revenue figures will bring a smile to any VC firm with investments in the sector. Advertising in 2007 hit $165 million and is expected to grow to $435 million in 2012.
One interesting aside was eMarketer attributing the growth to podcasts being promoted by the mainstream media. What they didn’t add is that many of the top lists globally on iTunes today also have a strong presence from those very sources; while greater awareness of podcasting is growing the overall market for podcasts, the mainstream media is taking a big slice of the pie.
Famous blogger Robert Scoble will be leaving his current job at PodTech in mid January, he says. He will likely be joining Fast Company to start Fast Company TV.
Scoble was with PodTech for just a year and a half. He was previously at Microsoft and acted as their unofficial spokesperson.
Scoble isn’t saying if he’ll continue to use the same format as his current show, ScobleShow, where he interviews entrepreneurs daily. Another big question is whether his sponsor, Seagate, will follow him to Fast Company. It’s rumored Seagate is paying a massive fee to sponsor the show.
This is another blow for PodTech, which has already lost its founding CEO and is nearly out of money. The company has run through $7.5 million in funding. They are rumored to be closing on another million or so in bridge financing. But they’re very, very close to the deadpool.
Fake Steve Jobs aka Daniel Lyons has written that he’s heard that PodTech will be closing up shop with an announcement imminent.
We can’t confirm the rumor although I have pinged Robert Scoble asking him to comment. If we get a response we’ll publish it.
PodTech has taken $7.5 million over two rounds led by US Venture Partners and Venrock Associates.
Rumors of major problems at PodTech surfaced in July and were followed by founder and CEO John Furrier departing the company in August. PodTech is best known for its production and hosting of videoes by Robert Scoble, and for corporate work. The dry nature of PodTech productions was described by Michael Arrington so eloquently when he said “90% of Podtech content is just slightly more entertaining than watching paint dry.”
Update: Robert Scoble is denying the rumors on Twitter claiming that it’s a “hatchet job” by PodTech’s competitors, although has yet to issue a formal denial aside from commenting on this post suggesting that it’s all bullsh*t.
Update 2: Scoble writes on Twitter that PodTech is “restructuring its business and refocusing its resources”…some big changes on the way, but no deadpool for PodTech yet.
Former Six Apart Europe head and well known French Web 2.0 entrepreneur Loic Lemeur relocated to San Francisco recently to build a new startup, and thanks to Robert Scoble we now know what it is: “video Twitter.”
Lemeur himself is documenting his startup every day on YouTube here. It’s not riveting content but listening to a non-American view on building a startup is refreshing at times.
Scoble also notes in the same post that Podtech has some big news coming up; one rumor doing the rounds is that Podtech video’s will be syndicated on some form of television station, presumably a cable one. Podtech competitor Podshow recently started distributing shows via TiVo.
We’ve all known that blog search engine Technorati and videocasting site PodTech weren’t doing particularlywell: that both companies were conducting CEO searches. But today the bloodletting became real.
PodTech CEO John Furrier is out. James McCormick, the COO, steps up to the CEO position. The company also announced that 1938 Media is no longer partnering with them, which is a real loss.
Technorati is a bit more complicated. Dave Sifry, the founder, is no longer CEO. And surprisingly, he is no longer an employee with the Company at all. And no one is replacing him yet.
Sifry said previously that he’d stay with the company: “I expect to resume a more active role in product development.” Today the message was the opposite: “I would go ahead and transition to the board exclusively.”
Teresa Malo, CFO, Dorion Carroll Vice President of Engineering and Derek Gordon, Vice President of Marketing, now jointly run the company.
Sifry’s last blog post as CEO of the company was representative of his entire tenure - vague and cold. Layoffs also occurred today but Sifry didn’t mention them until the end. The blog post sort of went like this:
me….me…me…and oh yeah we layed off eight people.
Sifry also refers to himself as a “great leader” in the fourth paragraph of his post.
How about a different approach? Perhaps a blog post lamenting the layoffs and the disruption in people’s lives would have been in order. And then an ending saying that he takes responsibility for the problems which led to this and will be stepping down, too.
To be fair to Dave, some people who’ve worked with him say he cares a lot about the wellbeing of his employees, and will go above and beyond the norm for them when needed. That side of him doesn’t come out very well in his blog posts. But writing an “I’m leaving” post is certainly difficult to do. I’m not saying I think the post was entirely appropriate, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to some extent.
Update:David Dalka thinks Technorati’s Google SEO tactics may have accelerated Sifry’s departure. And it does look like the Technorati traffic party has ended - Technorati no longer shows up in the search results for the terms I mentioned in that post.
So Podtech is apparently unhappy with the post I wrote last evening - What’s Really Going On With Podtech? First Podtech subsequeCEO John Furrier emailed me repeatedly this morning asking for changes, then later Robert Scoble wrote on Twitter that much of my post was incorrect. It may well be incorrect, but it is certainly what I believe to be true after the extensive research I did on the company.
This is a post that Podtech pleaded with me to write, to counter the massive negative publicity they’ve been getting around the blogosphere. I agreed to write after two phone conversations with Furrier and some independent digging suggested that the whole story was not being told.
Much of Furrier and I talked about in our two conversation was off record at his request. But if Scoble, and executive with the company, is going to publicly state that the post is inaccurate I’m not sure its appropriate for me to keep that information non-public. Also, I’ve kept most of my personal opinions about Podtech to myself so far. I haven’t for example, said that I personally find 90% of Podtech content just slightly more entertaining than watching paint dry.
I stand by my opinion that Podtech is on the right track by focusing on aggregating third party content under its Flash player and advertising network and moving away from the highly-competitive content creation game. I assume that’s what they are focusing on, since John told me that repeatedly.
I write stuff how I see it, which is not always what the companies involved want to see. Never confuse TechCrunch with your PR or marketing team. And if your messaging isn’t clear, don’t shoot the messenger. Clean up your own mess first.
There have been a number of reports that silicon valley based Podtech is literally falling apart. I spoke to Podtech CEO John Furrier and asked him how many of the rumors are true. While he certainly fed me a certain amount of spin, the company has at least a few signs of life.
Podtech raised what was at the time a large series A round of funding - $5.5 million in March 2006. They were then largely focused on creating audio content only - interviews with entrepreneurs and paid “infomercial” type corporate podcasts. They quickly moved into video, hired Robert Scoble away from Microsoft, and got serious about producing a lot of content.
Fast forward to the Spring of 2007. They started to hit a lot of competition in the video space, Furrier says. Instead of creating yet more content, the company started letting some content-focused employees go, and refocused on syndicating third party stuff under the guidance of Steve Gillmor, their new VP of Creative Development. Talent like Loren Feldman at 1938 Media and National Banana came on board and began using Podtech’s Flash player in exchange for guaranteed advertising revenue. There are lots of other shows as well - see the right sidebar of their site.
All employees are encouraged to spend some of their time creating content, as Robert Scoble does with Scoble Show. Other than that, Furrier says, the company is out of the content creation business.
But Podtech needed a second round of financing…and they couldn’t convince a new investor to come in at current traffic levels and revenues. Two weeks ago existing investors US Venture Partners and Venrock Associates invested another $2 million in the company at the same valuation as the first round. Between revenues and the new capital, Furrier says they are good for a few more months.
Furrier is also looking for a new CEO for the company. Some rumors suggest that this was one of the requirements that Podtech’s venture capitalists put on the new round of capital. Furrier says it was his idea to do this, and that the company is at a stage where it needs a different kind of leader. He’ll stay on as President of the company, he says.
Their new model, which finds and signs talent for guaranteed revenue, and then aggregates sites to advertisers, is a good one. They need to continue to cut staff and get their burn rate very low - they will effectively become a production house and ad sales team for their partners. If they can complete the transition before they run out of cash, Podtech could still have a bright future ahead of it.
It looks like recently funded PodTech.net has hired Microsoft’s Robert Scoble, who writes one of the most popular blogs, and he’ll be moving from Washington to Silicon Valley.
I spoke to Robert briefly a few minutes ago. His on the record comments were “No comment for now. I’ll be posting shortly.” His off the record comments were, well, off the record. Congratulations to both John Furrier, the founder of PodTech, and Robert.
This is a bigger blow to Microsoft than will be apparent at first. Robert was responsible for much of the positive press around Microsoft. He put a very human face on Microsoft, and did much to get people to take a new look at the long hated company. I’m not sure Microsoft could replace him, or if they will even try.
Dave Winer, a long time friend of Scoble’s, just wrote a long post about his decision to leave Microsoft. He says “A person like Scoble can have enormous influence just by adopting some very simple ideas.” I agree. I missed the dinner last night that Dave mentioned because I was in Las Vegas for the eBay Live conference. Sounds like it was a good one.
PodTech is a wonderful set of podcast interviews that is updated very frequently and features top tech celebrities (recent podcasts include interviews with Robert Scoble, Dave Hornick, John Markoff, Chris Anderson, and others).
What got our attention is the sheer quality (not to mention quality) of people John is interviewing, and how quickly his new venture took off. After just two weeks, PodTech saw over 66,000 visitors, over 21,000 audio plays and 9,000 MP3 downloads (Link). Not bad for a site with no marketing other than word of mouth.
In their own words, “I’m putting up my podcasting site called PodTech.net - it’s a podcasting InfoTalk series dedicated to being a timeshifted radio program about Silicon Valley in the new syndicated world of timeshifted media. Some people say that Silicon Valley is losing its influence. My take is that Silicon Valley is just changing. My show is designed to produce Information about Silicon Valley via podcasting and blogs and push it to the world and then recycle a community back to Silicon Valley. Yes Silicon Valley is changing …but it’s increasing its’ influence because it’s now virtual and syndicated!”
It’s one of our top-10 podcasts and we understand from John that his list of upcoming shows will blow us away. Stay tuned…
Audio Links:
According to eMarketer, the total podcast audience in the United States was 18.5 million in 2007 and will rise to 65 million in 2012. “Active listeners” (defined as people who download more than one podcast) were 6.5 million in 2007 and expected to be 25 million in 2012.
We’ve all known that blog search engine 
