PodPress 8.8.1 has been released.  According to the PodPress listing in the WordPress plugin directory, version 8.8.1 is a maintenance release to make podPress compatible with the post revisions feature introduced in WordPress 2.6.

Social media services like Twitter have become the new real-time Internet communications channel.  Twitter has been used for crisis communications, breaking news, discussions on issues and the promotion of products and services. Companies that adopt Twitter as a communications tool reveal a lot about their commitment to communications and their desire to connect with and relate to their audience.  Like traditional media, what they don’t say is as telling as what you do say — it’s just that the Internet amplifies those signals.

Publishing giant, Random House joined Twitter on April 11, 2008.  Their bio claims that they are the “World’s Largest English Trade Publisher”.  They haven’t issued a single Twitter update (that’s right, ZERO updates) to their awaiting audience of 577 followers (amazingly large given they’ve done nothing), and they aren’t following anyone.  That, despite a healthy number of references to Random House in Twitter.  Sadly, Random House would look a lot better if they hadn’t opened the account at all.

Little Brown Books may not be as big as Random House, but they have a vibrant community and conversation on the go.  Their follower:following ratio is almost even (2640:2655) and they’ve issued 865 updates since they joined Twitter on July 28, 2008.  Unfortunately, and perhaps due to their Twitter success, they’ve been unable to keep up with the conversation and following a recent call for input on their upcoming newsletter, failed to acknowledge a number of responses.

Social networking is an amazingly inexpensive communications tool and a fantastic way to reach out to your audience.  However, it is a commitment which carries with it a public declaration.  As marketing and communications becomes more rooted in the digital world, companies will be judged by their actions and inactions using, among other things, tools like Twitter.

Digital technology has forced many industries to rethink their business models. Unfortunately, many industries are steeped in tradition and find it hard to evolve. It takes bands like Radiohead and the The Barenaked Ladies to show that things can be done differently and successfully in the music industry. The book publishing industry has its visionaries as well.

Neil Gaiman has become a rock star not just because of his books, not just because of his movies, not just because he’s become an icon of science fiction culture, not just because he won the Newbery Award for The Graveyard Book two days ago. Neil is a rock star because he embraced social media long before most of us and he’s good at it. In fact, he’s changing an industry with it.

I had the privilege of speaking with Neil about some of the cool things he’s doing to connect with his fans and promote his books. Besides the fascinating writing on his amazingly popular blog (it’s actually more of an online journal since he doesn’t allow comments), Neil keeps his legions of fans up to date on Twitter. Yesterday afternoon he had 13,478 followers. At the time of this post he has 15,888 followers. According to Neil, he’s been gaining about 1,000 new Twitter followers each day for the last week.

It gets more amazing. Neil convinced his publishers to post videos of him reading The Graveyard Book online — for free. If watching him read the book doesn’t appeal to you, you can browse the book online.

Neil Gaiman is helping to redefine the publishing industry on the terms of the social web. Because they’re listening to him, Harper Collins is on the cutting edge.

You can hear my interview with Neil on the Just One More Book!! children’s book podcast. I’m hoping that we’ll have a chance to interview Neil, again, to discuss the overall impact of these initiatives.

Photo from Neil Gaiman’s Twitter feed.

Over the last few months I’ve become aware of several cases in which people produced audio using Levelator and SoundSoap together.  The results were not particularly good.  More significantly, in some cases, people charged for their audio production work.

Let’s examine the tools and what they do.

Levelator is a free tool created to simplify the process of increasing audio levels for recordings that captured very little signal (the foreground audio you want to hear such as a person speaking or a musical instrument).  It was created by the The Conversations Network (TCN) to make life easier for the average podcaster by eliminating the need to learn how to produce audio.  TCN recognized that most people who get into amateur podcasting don’t have an interest in understanding compressors, limiters and normalizers — much less do they have the time to learn how to use them.  They just want to publish their podcast.

Simplicity is the key to the Levelator.  A user drags a file to the application and it decides the best way to increase the audio levels.  The problem is that when Levelator amplifies an audio signal, it also amplifies audio noise, some of which may not be obvious in the source recording.  So, if you have a refrigerator running in the room in which you delivered a masterful monologue, the listener is likely to hear as much from your fridge as they will from you.

For the average podcaster, that’s fine and I respect that.  Someone who bills for their audio production services should be delivering value to their client by using the right tools for the job.  This is not about someone “whose eyes have never stung from the sweet sweat of a hard day’s work” (thank you Michael Bluth), this is about being honest and realistic about the work you do and the necessary tools to do it.  Sometimes, audio level problems can be improved by tweaking the EQ; perhaps some compression or limiting could be applied.  Using a paint roller to do quarter-inch detail work is the wrong approach.  Levelator takes away the guess-work and the flexibility and the results can demonstrate that.

As the name suggests, SoundSoap is for cleaning up your audio.  It’s been designed to help reduce (maybe even remove) unwanted noise (such as hums, hisses, rumbles…), clicks and crackles from a recording.  SoundSoap has also been designed for simplicity.  The user plays a section of audio that has the noise print with no signal (e.g. the ambient noise of the room when noone is speaking) and SoundSoap determines how to best reduce that noise from the recording, even when someone begins to speak.  Then, presto, you get a better signal-to-noise ratio in your audio.

I use SoundSoap on occassion and find that in many circustances it does a fantastic job — though I often find myself dialing back the amount of noise reduction and threshold it auto-selects for me, and tweaking some other settings.

So, consider a situation where you have a recording noisey enough to merit SoundSoap and quiet enough to need something like Levelator.  Imagine what Levelator will do to the recording, including constantly fluctuating the ratios of signal and noise.  Think about which order these two tools could be applied and the effects of either order.  While both strive to increase signal over noise, these tools are not necessarily complementary and anyone who produces audio for money should not put that much trust in automation.

When I think about the monetization discussions that have been taking place on the Canadian Podcast Buffet over the last few weeks, this stands out as another example of someone who asked the question “how can I make money from podcasting?” without asking themselves if they have something unique to offer and the capability to deliver it.

The world of social and new media reached a new plateau, yesterday, when CNN teamed up with Facebook, Cisco and Microsoft to deliver CNN Live, a live and social experience that the entire world got caught up in.

From my small home office in Ottawa, I felt as though I was truly a part of two major events in world history: the inauguration of the most charismatic, inspiring and deserving man as the President of the United States, and the creation of an environment that harnesses collective energy to build a collaborative and interactive news experience.  Both take an inclusive approach to building a new world.  It’s hard to say which of these have done more to define Barak Obama as a leader of the world, not just President of the United States.

In his speech, Barak Obama delivered a powerful message “to the leaders of the world”.  He said “you will be judged by what you build, not by what you destroy”.  It’s a message that applies to everyone, really; world leaders, world citizens, corporations, etc… And true to that message, the team of CNN, Facebook, Cisco and Microsoft built something new.  They used technology to propel the feeling of community in the news world. I felt as American as I’m ever going to be.  I also felt Canadian, Spanish, French, Afghan, etc… I really felt like a citizen of the world, all from my seat.

That small collection of technology companies won’t need to advertise to me any longer.  They were guests of my house, yesterday, as I was a guest of theirs.  They didn’t pontificate to me from my television screen, they invited me to participate — in text and video — with my computer.  I became addicted to that level of engagement very quickly.

Many people will argue that television news died, yesterday.  I argue that television news was redefined.  Besides, not everyone has a computer with a decent Internet connection.

It was a “Pow! Right Between the Eyes” moment if there ever was one.

There’s a great quote attributed to famed New York Yankees catcher, Yogi Berra. Actually, there are many (to which he responded “I never said half the things I said”).  He said “Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded”.

Since many are free and easy to use, social media tools make it easy to create new gathering places.  Many communities have taken advantage of this and have established strong and active communities on specific areas of interest.  I belong to several of these.  More significantly, I find it easy to abandon some of these communities because, at some point, they all go through the same misguided effort to reach as many people as they can and in the process, spread themselves too thin.

“Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too fractured.”

The communities typically started by a group of established bloggers and/or podcasters deciding to create a common gathering place to discuss, socialize and even coordinate.  It usually started with a closed forum of some sort, perhaps a Yahoo! group or Google group.  Then Facebook came along and some eager member of the community would create a Facebook group.  Everyone joined the new site meaning they now had two places to go.  The community began to slowly fracture as those that preferred the new and exciting tool (Facebook) exiled from the forum.  When Ning came along, someone created a group in that site.  Again, each member of the community created a profile in Ning and tested it out.  And, again, a small number of people that preferred Ning established permanent residence there.  Then came Community Portal pages, Facebook Fan Pages, Wikis, Twitter, Jaiku, Plaxo, Plurk, etc…

At their core, all of the tools serve a common purpose and boast common functionality. So, why do we spread ourselves out so thin? Why do successful bloggers and podcasters re-establish their community gathering places all over?

Social media enthusiasts live in a bizarre paradox in which they must appeal to as many people as possible and still work to centralize the digital relationships and conversation so that any single person can manage to stay on top of the discussion. Fracturing the community means a lot of cross-posting between sites, lost conversations and chasing rathing than engaging.

Many companies that want to adopt social media internally or externally struggle with the same issue.  They want the shiny new toys, they want to look like their agile and that they embrace the technology so they adopt every tool imaginable.  The result is that noone knows where to go so noone goes anywhere.

UPDATE (this part somehow didn’t make it to the post): I’m a member of a community that is going through this struggle right now.  Among my concerns is that while this exploration into new sites may exciting and open new possibilities, it sends a very fractured message to the members of the community.  On one hand, shaking things up can reinvigorate things, but it can also be the beginning of a weakening of the foundation.

It’s time to start looking at feature enhancements for a number of WordPress sites I run.

To date I’ve been happy with the plugins I use, which include:

• Enhanced WP-ContactForm
• FriendsRoll
• PodPress
• Sociable
• Subscribe to Comments
• Viper’s Video Quicktags

I’ve been thinking about adding a captcha plugin to my one of my sites.  John Wiseman suggested wp-ReCAPTCHA, though I wasn’t convinced that he’s crazy about the idea of adding captcha functionality.

Rob Blatt insisted that Meet your Commenters is a must have.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with WP2.7, yet.

Which WP plugins are your favourites, must-haves and stay-away-froms?

I’ve been one of the many voices expressing concern about the longevity of the PodPress, the incredible podcasting plugin many of us WordPress users have adopted because of its powerful features and ease of use.

It’s been easy to worry about the plugin.  Some time has past since the last update (code or even news of plans), and, more obviously, the disappearance of the support forums following a SPAM attack.

I spoke with PodPress creator Dan Kuykendall, yesterday.  Dan has been busy with work and his new dual-role as both a techie and CEO and hasn’t been able to attend to PodPress on a day-to-day basis.  He did say that he’s working on a new release and expects to put some time into the coding during the holidays later this month.

So, if you’re a PodPress user, hang in there!

In a blog entry published on September 25, Dave Fleet offered a great summary of his experience with different types of audience engagement based on how he shares his ideas (see Different Types of Engagement).

Partly to bring attention to his post, partly to show that older content maintains relevance over time and partly to prove that short posts can also get trackbacks, I’m posting about his post on my blog.

There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power;
not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.
–Woodrow Wilson

Don’t be too quick to dismiss this post on the grounds that it relates to the children’s book industry.  While the children’s book industry is not typically viewed as a beacon of things to come, there is a lot that can be learned from how the publishing houses have come to depend on a web of communities.

I had suspected that the trend of influence was shifting towards people  (typically enthusiasts, not industry rollers) who have been successful in building strong online communities around literacy and children’s books.  New web sites and social networks are appearing regularly and they, too, show signs of strength.  Meanwhile, review space in newspapers is drying up which means fewer professional reviewers.  Publicity and promotion is changing fast and the publishing companies are finding it difficult to keep up.

It’s an industry with a broken economic model — not helped by the proliferation of big box stores that focus on staples and front books for a significant fee.  Independent book stores have become largely marginalized by their warehouse-like cousins, surviving predominantly on their ability to actually know the product they’re selling and catering to niches.  And before you start writing your protest songs, we also need to recognize that the big box stores have actually helped increase book sales (even if the margins have shrunk like crazy).

Publishing companies, publicists and agents have been gradually migrating to the social web.  It may be too little too late.  That is, many of them (if not the industry as a whole) are discovering that they have to throw themselves at the mercy of the communities and micro-celebrities of the (dare I use the term) Kidlitosphere.

By the way, the Kidlitosphere is the name adopted by a community of bloggers and podcasters that focuses on children’s and young adult books.  It includes children’s book enthusiasts (some parents, some not), librarians, educators, authors, illustrators and more.

THE SOCIAL WEB

Let’s be clear about something, the social web isn’t about a static webpage and an online bookstore.  I know that’s obvious to many people and companies.  I also know that there are many people and companies that don’t get that.  They also don’t understand that the web is more about real relationships and community than it is about technology.

TECHNOLOGY

During the Kidlit08 conference in Portland, Oregon this past weekend (more posts about the conference), one author announced that her editor told her to setup a MySpace page.  As the story goes, neither the editor nor the author knew why or how, or what should make up the page, just that it was a good idea.  So, the author went about setting up a MySpace page for herself, a page that the publishing company deems as necessary though will likely not include any mention of in any published book (I admit this may have changed: last year I learned that some publishing companies refuse to include links to authors’ or illustrators’ personal sites in their published books; that is, sites the publisher has no control over).

The editor didn’t make a communications, public relations, publicity or promotion decision.  The editor made a technology decision.  Technology is merely a channel and its application must be learned and understood.

Eventually, the author received a couple of contacts as a result of her MySpace page.  If something sticks around long enough, people are bound to find out about it.  Having a place for people to go to is all well and fine, but you also need to go to them.  Hence, Social Web.

COMMUNITY

As it turns out, the primary (perhaps exclusive) reason the Kidlitosphere needs the publishing companies is because they produce books.  Full stop.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
–Woodrow Wilson

Meanwhile, the bloggers and podcasters are doing more than just publishing meaningful book reviews that aren’t limited by word count, airtime or day of the week; they’re conducting insightful interviews with newcomers and celebrity book creators and they’ve organized the Cybils, an annual book award broken down into several categories that has earned a great deal of respect from the industry.  The nominations for the third annual Cybil Awards begin this fall.

The innovative ways of promoting literacy and great children’s books don’t stop there.  One section of the Kidlitosphere has organized itself for something called Blog Tours in which an author is selected to be featured on group of blog sites in a coordinated effort that ensures unique interviews on different subject areas.  One author at this year’s conference noted that the Kidlitosphere’s book tours are better organized, more insightful and more fun than the half-hearted efforts by her publishing house (which suffered from, among other things, the same interview conducted on several sites selected by the publisher).

All that and the Kidlitosphere has its own conference!

One author that I spoke with at the conference told me that the publishing industry is in peril and the Kidlitosphere on the cutting edge.  He explained that publishing houses don’t have the knowledge, money or people it takes to make things work online for a commercial interest.  Perhaps most significant is that authors and illustrators have more direct and more affordable (potentially free) access to the kind of publicity publishing houses can’t offer.

As airtime in major print publications and broadcast media dries up, the importance of the Kidlitosphere with its passion, coordination and innovation has been amplified.  The community of communities has done it right.

RELATIONSHIPS

You may have noticed that what I’m describing is something that began because of the passion of many people and has inadvertantly become an incredibly important public relations and marketing network for the children’s book industry.  It wasn’t organized that way.  Not intentionally, anyway.  It became that.  It became that because of the relationships that were formed within the community and the dedication of the individuals.

If you’ve always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.
–Charles Kettering

I suspect this is a difficult shift for the publishing industry.  Post-secondary marketing an PR programs haven’t taught social networking in a global space and the industry has a time honoured process for promoting its books through traditional channels.  Never before have they had to put their trust in people outside of the industry or rely so heavily on their own authors and illustrators to promote their books.

Some of the Kidlitospherians will share stories of pushy publicists that approach them to tell them how the industry works and how the Kidlitosphere will do a review or interview for the publishing company.  Some authors will regularly inquire when the book they sent a few months earlier will be reviewed.

On the other hand, I know of one Kidlitter that lists the Boston Red Sox as one of her interests and received a handwritten note attached to a book from one publicist — “Go Sox, Go!”.

The Kidlitters do things their own way, the way they know how; with passion and authenticity and the innovative use of community and technology.  That’s why the Kidlitosphere has become a community of power.