Scott Bourne ruled the room last night, doling out tasty podcasting morsels to a roomful of hungry Bizniks. I’ve seen Scott speak a few times now, and I have to say he was in rare form. If you want to see real passion, just ask Scott about Podcasting and stand back.
But my favorite part of the night was when Scott was talking about how to become successful as a podcaster. He said:
“The reason Rush Limbaugh is successful is because he takes a position and owns it. It’s a show. He used to do a left wing show, but it didn’t work, so now he does this. You want to be successful? Stand there, carry the flay and don’t wince. Hold your mud.”
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So unless you’ve been living under a rock (and a rock without internet access at that) you’ve undoubtedly heard that the wunderkinds at Google have decided to buy up internet sensation YouTube for 1.57 Billion in stock.
And you gotta wonder, why are those geniuses in California shelling out so much scratch for a site that hasn’t–and legally almost can’t–make money?
Well, one of my new Haddadisms is “Money can’t buy you success, only opportunity.”
And what Google is buying here is the opportunity to lead the charge as the internet becomes more and more of a video medium.
A while back I harped on about how happy I was that the 30 second commercial spot is dying a quick death. And I’m still happy about that. In fact I’m dancing right now in my chair (as I watch a downloaded copy of Battlestar Galactica commercial free).
But video is powerful.
And video that’s controlled by the user–video that a consumer can turn on and off as she wants and skip through for the content she really wants, whenever and wherever she wants is going to be one of the most powerful sales tools to come along in decades.
Google knows this. Google undoubtedly has a plan that’s going to be as powerful and revolutionary to the way direct marketers (and if you’re doing business in 2006, you should be a direct marketer) work as good old Adsense.
And personally I can’t wait to see what it is.
Later skaters.
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For years and years now I’ve been quietly (or not so quietly) suffering from horrible, debilitating back pain. I’ve tried everything from Chiropractors to jungle voodoo to heavy prescription pain killers with no great effect.
And then on Friday, some guy walked up to me after yoga and said “I think your legs are two different lengths.”
So I went home and measured. And wouldn’t you know it. There’s something like 3/4 of an inch difference between my right and left legs. I’m lopsided. And being lopsided? Well, that could well be the cause of all the pain I’ve been going through for the last 10 years or so.
So, is it a “good thing” that I’m deformed? Nahh. But I’m sure glad to find out now instead of plowing ahead with my life and doing more damage.
Which maybe just maybe has some sort of seed of a lesson about marketing.
Better to find out what pieces you have are hurting you early on. Better to get the bad news as quick as possible. And better to make those corrections that left you make big heaving piles of cash.
I’m off to the doc. Keep on keeping on.
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I’m in the middle of switching over to AWeber for my newsletter list management. As part of the process, I sent an email to my existing list asking them to confirm their subscription.
And wouldn’t you know it, sending out that email — which was more or less devoid of content — resulted in me getting a call about a new project.
So do email newsletters work for promoting your business? Yea. I’d say so.
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Whew. I got back from the Podcasting Expo on Sunday night, immediately crashed in my big foam bed and have spent all my waking hours since catching up on work, signing deals and blathering on with advice for clients.
And I’m still feeling haggard from three full days of Podcasty goodness. My favorite speaker?
That one’s easy. Paul Colligan blew the roof off the “Podcasting as a Business” hall with a one-hour sprint describing how you can turn podcasting into profits. The big secret? Use your podcast to sell your stuff, not someone else’s.
Now, granted, this won’t work for everybody (there are plenty of folks who don’t have anything to sell) but podcasting is really a information marketers dream. I’m deep into Paul’s “The Business Podcasting Bible” and will be sure to harp on about it here as soon as I finish.
Otherwise the conference was far more fun than any business event has a right to be. I already miss my “camp” friends and can’t wait to go again next year.
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