Suppose you were building an empire of great online communications technologies. You’d probably have your eyes on Feedburner, right? Do you have Google’s money? Google does, and according to reports it has taken your $100-million idea.

It’s an obvious fit and you can read a good analysis of the deal on Paul Colligan’s blog.

Authors: Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian
Published: 2006 Morgan James Publishing
ISBN: 1933596376 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

While some may argue that Podcasting is still too young to merit a “business bible”, the ambitious early adopters have been known to help explain and define the marketplace so the timing of their books will always be in question. Of greater concern is the accuracy of the facts and the nature of the vision.

Paul and Alex definitely have a good view of the Podcast marketplace and they open The Business Podcasting Bible with a solid discussion on what defines Podcasting. From page one they challenge the reader to think holistically about any Podcasting strategy, business or otherwise. In fact, I feel that this book has the strongest philosophical discussion on Podcast production and consumption to date — almost to the point that I questioned if the book’s title was accurate.

The Bible is a great introduction to Podcast-based business and marketing strategies, and definitely inspires exploration and innovation. There is discussion on both direct and indirect models of monetization, and the authors set the stage for further analysis of the use of Podcasts to market organizations and thought leadership. I believe that the “Podosphere” is just too oversaturated to seduce the kinds of sponsorship and advertising dollars that the early adopters had envisioned.

The authors encourage the reader to question the various elements of the decision to Podcast. The most important of these questions is ‘why?’ and ‘when?’, and the book guides you through the thought process.

If I could change one thing about the book it would be to turn the sidepanel discussions (some of which carry on for several pages thus forcing the reader to backtrack) into full-page panels.

Paul and Alex are clearly knowledgeable and excited about the power and flexibility of Podcasting. More importantly, they are very honest about its shortcomings. It is this combination that makes the book a great resource for anyone considering using a Podcast as a business or marketing (business OR personal) tool.

There is a great blog entry at Clique Communications about the history of Podcasting that seems to get the facts straight and delivers them in a sensible way.  If you’re going to PPME, this should be mandatory reading.

Source: Paul Colligan

Apple has decided that it owns the word Pod and it intends to use legal channels to formalize that claim.  For a company that was attempting to demonstrate leadership in the social media movement, it is going out of its way to prove otherwise.

I don’t know the legal system very well and I can’t begin to guess what Apple plans to do if it does win its claim on the word Pod.  I do have to wonder what will happen to everyone who has a Podcast, what kind of damages a dictionary publisher will be on the hook for, and if the RIAA will treat this as an attempt to reverse engineer the book and movie versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Source: Paul Colligan