March 1st, 2006, 4:34 pm
Podbop.org: podcasting music events
Hmmm. If I ran a company that published listings of local entertainment events, I would immediately hire a smart in-house programmer to build me a product similar to podbop.org.
Overview of features
Type in your city. Hit enter.
Check out a page full of upcoming concerts … AND mp3s that you can play (easily) from your browser
Subscribe to the podcast feed, and get *individual songs* downloaded to your iTunes. Each track is clearly labeled, so if I was out jogging (ok, that’s theoretical), I could easily check my track and plan to go to the show
Why this is smart, and why an entertainment-oriented newspaper would be smart to copy it
It’s easy. It’s convenient. It’s cool.
Podbop skirts the legality of files issues by only linking to mp3s already published online.
This project is dynamic; relying on user-contributed content. Instead of manually uploading mp3 files (and tracking down pesky legal releases), this site is a mash up of events feeds and music files that users enter into the database. As the database of songs grow, the site will become infinitely more useful. As it becomes infinitely more useful, the more likely it is to have lots of participation from the public.
Why this is cool
Sweet. Free music=awesome.
Free music + upcoming shows = stuff to do; awesome!
Democratic, baby! Local bands can gain new audiences in a snap.
(Link via Snarkmarket)
March 2nd, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Why copy it at all? That entertainment-oriented newspaper could just as easily:
Post events it knows about to the EVDB (Eventful) event database that Podbop uses.
Enter local bands into the Podbop artists database. Or tell the bands where to go in order to do it themselves.
Link to the local Podbop podcast.
Or is that oversimplifying?
March 2nd, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Hey Chad …
Well, if the goal was only to make sure that folks in your town had access to something cool like this, yes, posting content to this site would be the answer.
Unfortunately, most entertainment-oriented newspapers have bills to pay and brands to protect.
Let’s say I become an avid podbop.org listener - so much so that I don’t even bother reading the listings in my local events-oriented newspaper anymore to find out about shows. Podbop.org - because it offers me music in an on-demand format - would replace my traditional media. Displacement of this nature is great for the consumer, but really bad for the media company, which would lose out on two levels:
* losing its brand as the in-the-know destination, making it harder for the entertainment-oriented newspaper to innovate in the future
* and losing out on traffic (and resultant ad revenue), because its readers/users were heading out to podbop.org instead.
At any rate, that’s how I’m looking at it. What do you think?
November 13th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Hey gorgeous- hope all well! Will email you more privately soon.
London trucking, Campbell adaption winging way to you.
Lol,
Johnny x