Podcast Length? It's all about Content vs Value

If your instinct is to escort the women and children into a cultural lifeboat whenever American Idol comes on, you've missed something! The new media world isn't about the content you like or don't like. It isn't about content at all. It's about CHOICE. Choices can be taken or dismissed in an instant. And unlike the life boats on the Titanic, there's always another one just microseconds away.

You can bet your Aunt Gertrude's high button shoes that the on-line realm represents choice of content in a bewildering variety of manifestations. Furthermore, the nature of choice isn't limited to what you choose to read or hear or see, it has expanded to include anything you or anyone else wants to say or portray or ejacualte into space.

So what? Well, so begins our true entrance into the marketplace of ideas.

The coin of this realm is not content. It is value. And the tricky part is that the marketplace, not the author, determines the value of your ideas. If the market doesn't want what you're selling, you'll go home empty. So think of your on-line project as a hit song. It needs a hook and some production value to give it life.

My survey of podcasts leads me to conclude that most are poorly produced and too long to support the value they contain. Or as we used to say in radio, "It's a five minute song with a two minute idea." The market is currently determining the proper length of an on-line program. My guess is that you can go on forever if you're absolutley fascinating. If not, you'd better aim lower. Three to Five minutes is a long time in any broadcast medium. That's why hit songs have genrerally fallen into that time frame for over 100 years.

We've created a podcast series called, "The Five Minute Media Manager". We hope to explain (in five minutes or less) our strategies for (rss) publishing. We'll explain ways in which you can quickly engage and satisfy the needs of the open market. Our strategy is to create on-line programs that subscribers choose because they are easy to consume and have above average value to them. If this sounds like a good idea to you, contact us today.