Casting Voices

On-line audio clips make the leap from entertainment to the corporate domain.

The Globe and Mail published an excellent article on July 6th, 2006 about how podcasting is now a strategy that has moved from the world of entertainment to the business realm.

CEOs are podcasting their messages, executives use podcasting to communicate to their departments, using podcasting as a tool for both boosting morale levels and for instruction. Podcasts are replacing internal memos, blogs, emails, and even trade shows.

The Globe and Mail interviewed Ron Clark, vice-president of Altana Pharma Inc. who uses podcasts on the company's intranet site to communicate with employees across Canada.

"Most people tune out of e-mails and voice-mails after a while," Mr. Clark said. Podcasting, he added "is just a different way, a fresh way, of communicating a message."

This article is just one example of corporate podcasting potential being realized.

Not to be left out, the vocal Robert Scoble, Microsoft's infamous corporate blogger, declared that podcasting is not a fad and anyone who says so should be fired from their place of work. The blogger, recently quit Microsoft and was set to move into his new office at PodTech.net, a Silicon Valley-based podcast producer.

Do you have a company podcast?

David

Apple's 6th generation iPod could be doing more than just playing your tunes, podcasts, or storing your pictures - it could be talking to you!

Here's an excerpt from an article written by Richard Gray of the Scotsman.com News. We thought you'd enjoy it!

"Not content with changing the world's music-listening habits, Apple has come up with another innovation: the talking iPod," Richard Gray writes for The Scotsman.

Gray writes, "A new generation of machines will use sophisticated software to convert the names of bands, albums and individual tracks into recognisable speech."

"The new iPod will tell you what it is about to play, removing the need for users to look at the screen while selecting music, and making the device safer and easier to use while driving, cycling or in badly-lit locations," Gray writes.

"Apple has flatly refused to comment on the design, but a patent lodged by the company in the United States makes clear the sixth generation of iPods will be able to convert those famous text menus into speech," Gray writes.

"The ingenious system will rely on home PC processing power and clever software. The computer being used to download tracks will analyse each album title, song name and artist and convert them into sound files. These will be loaded into the iPod, along with the song files," Gray writes.

"Users of the music players will still operate the Clickwheel as normal, but hear the names of songs and bands through their headphones," Gray writes.

Gray writes, "[The] Apple [patent application] says its system will break down words in a new way that makes it possible to pronounce perfectly even the most obscure song titles and artist names.

"It also proposes using 'voice talent" - such as famous actors - to make the speech more human and add in the celebrity factor," Gray writes. "The patent also proposes using different voice 'characteristics,' such as gender, for different sections of the iPod menus."

Read the full article here.

Apple has updated its categories for podcasts, and they are asking podcasters to update their feeds as soon as possible.

Apple hasn't suggested what will happen to existing podcasts that continue to use Apple's original categories, but podcasters listed at iTunes will want to update their feeds to avoid problems.

Apple's announcement:

Today we launched a revised set of categories for podcasts listed in the iTunes Music Store. We're sending you this email to let you know how to change your podcast feed to accommodate these changes. The revised categories and subcategories are listed at the bottom of this message. Please take the time to change your podcast feed as soon as possible. Please note that we will support the use of the old category names for the next few months, so there is no immediate deadline for making these changes. We will send another message before discontinuing support for the old category names.

When we read your RSS feed, we capture and store up to 3 category+subcategory pairs, and we use all of them to populate the browse lists that you see when you click the "Browse" link in the Music Store. However, the first category+subcategory pair listed in your feed is the most important, since it is the one listed as the Category field on your podcast page, and it is the only one used to map your podcast into the category feature pages.

Most of the old categories and subcategories are now automatically mapped to corresponding ones within the new system. For example, if your podcast was listed under "Arts & Entertainment > Photography", it will now appear under "Arts > Visual Arts." However, 3 categories have been removed and do not have a similar replacement: "International", "Talk Radio", and "Public Radio". Those categories overlapped with others in the old system, making some podcasts difficult to find. If one of these categories is listed as the first subject in your podcast feed, that category information will be ignored and the second category will be used to determine eligibility and placement in that feature page.

Changes to your categories may take 1-2 weeks from the time you edit your feed, so please review and add new category data as soon as possible to ensure your podcast is listed appropriately. New categories and subcategories that did not exist in the old browse structure will appear as podcasts are mapped to them.

For specific instructions on adding categories to your page, refer to the iTunes:category section of the technical spec. Note that the spec will be updated soon with new category data, but the format is the same:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/techspecs.html#_Toc526931682

The new categories and subcategories are listed below. Note that some of the new categories may not yet appear in the Music Store because they are not yet populated by podcasts.