As a podcast listener and occasional guest on shows like Shut Up We’re Talking and Witty Ranter, I have a mild vested interest in podcasting.

So it was with some interest that I read about a company called VoloMedia that was granted a patent last week for “method for providing episodic media content.”  Or, as it has been immediately spun, podcasting.

A detailed account is posted over at Ars Technica.

If you deliver episodic content over the internet, they believe they own you.  Podcasts are part of it, but VoloMedia is aiming for anybody delivering episodic content as downloads.

Of course, this is going to cause some controversy.

I have to imagine that those involved with creating RSS are going to have a few words to say on the subject.

And then there is Sun Microsystems, now owned by Oracle, who it is claimed invented podcasting starting with work done back in 1999.

And, frankly, there has been podcast-like technology in progress for well over a decade.

How soon before Adam Curry speaks out on the subject?

Myself, I suspect that this will amount to very little in the end.  Prior art will nip this in the bud.

We’ll see if I come to regret that opinion.

We’re trying a little something different here, so bear with us. A lot of stuff happened this week, and rather than putting it all in a blog post, Liz and I decided to sit down for a video chat to wrap up the biggest stories. It’s a bit more conversational than an article and allowed us to veer off topic, make a few jokes and have some fun in the process.

This is our first attempt, so be gentle (it’s DIY!). We’ll get better the more we do them and include things like “microphones” and “lights.” But for now, sit back, relax and listen to Liz and I discuss VoloMedia’s controversial patent, what’s going on with Akamai, and we even do a little JK Wedding-inspired dance.

Updated with clarification from VoloMedia: VoloMedia announced today that it has been awarded what it called the “patent for podcasting.” According to the press announcement, patent number 7,568,213, titled “Method for Providing Episodic Media,” covers:

“…the fundamental mechanisms of podcasting, including providing consumer subscription to a show, automatically downloading media to a computer, prioritizing downloads, providing users with status indication, deleting episodes, and synchronizing episodes to a portable media device.”

Language from the patent claims can be found after the jump, or you can visit the USPTO site for more details.

When asked during a phone interview whether VoloMedia believes competitors are infringing on the patent and whether or not the company plans on enforcing it, founder Murgesh Navar declined to answer, saying only, “We’re not talking about violation or litigation.”

The only specifics Navar did share was that actual content creators wouldn’t be impacted, and that delivery mechanisms other than a PC (such as a set-top box) would fall under this patent. UPDATE: When asked about iTunes, where many people get their podcasts, Navar indicated VoloMedia is in talks with Apple (s AAPL) and TV networks, among others, “about growing the business and market.”

VoloMedia, which used be called Podbridge, filed for this particular patent in November 2003 — a time, Navar said, before it was obvious that people would download episodic content such as podcasts.

The patent award couldn’t have come at a better time for the company. It let go of its entire sales team last month to focus on its ad-serving technology. When we reported that story, Navar told us that venture capital term sheets were “imminent,” but when asked about the company’s funding situation for this post, Navar said that there was no update.

VoloMedia has admitted to being open to some kind of merger or acquisition, and trumpeting the fact that it’s been awarded a patent for “podcasting” could certainly be one way to drum up interest in the company.

At this point, we’ll have to see if any potential suitors bite, and whether VoloMedia will bare its teeth and use this patent to take bites out of the podcast market.

Here’s what the patent claims:

1. A method for providing episodic media, the method comprising: providing a user with access to a channel dedicated to episodic media, wherein the episodic media provided over the channel is pre-defined into one or more episodes by a remote publisher of the episodic media; receiving a subscription request to the channel dedicated to the episodic media from the user; automatically downloading updated episodic media associated with the channel dedicated to the episodic media to a computing device associated with the user in accordance with the subscription request upon availability of the updated episodic media, the automatic download occurring without further user interaction; and providing the user with: an indication of a maximum available channel depth, the channel depth indicating a size of episodic media yet to be downloaded from the channel and size of episodic media already downloaded from the channel, the channel depth being specified in playtime or storage resources, and the ability to modify the channel depth by deleting selected episodic media content, thereby overriding the previously configured channel depth.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically providing the user with an indication of the availability of updated episodic media via the channel dedicated to the episodic media in accordance with the subscription request.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising synchronizing the updated episodic media automatically downloaded to the computing device associated with the user with a portable computing device communicatively coupled to the computing device associated with the user.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein synchronization of the updated episodic media automatically occurs in response to a predetermined user setting.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein synchronization of the updated episodic media occurs in response to a request received from the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the updated episodic media is made available to users not associated with the computing device over a local area network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatic download is further based on a priority assigned to the channel.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the channel dedicated to the episodic media is reduced in size during synchronization in order to fit available cache storage within the portable device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the channel dedicated to the episodic media is modified in size by removing one or more episodes of episodic media.

Last week we wrote about troubles at VoloMedia — the company hasn’t yet raised the funding it’s been seeking for a while, and got rid of its ad sales unit to focus exclusively on technology development. But at least it’s not treading water; Volo has just announced two product updates, both integrations with Google (s GOOG) products. First, compatibility with DoubleClick DART — so DART publishers can use their existing ad management platform for portable media as well. (This is something that Volo competitor Kiptronic, which just got bought by Limelight Networks (s LLNW), already had.) And secondly, publisher access to iTunes (s AAPL) data within Google Analytics via a plug-in downloaded by podcast listeners.

VoloMedia laid off its sales team last week and plans to focus on its ad serving technology for downloaded media. The move came at nearly exactly the same time as competitor Kiptronic was bought by Limelight Networks (s LLNW) last Wednesday and Thursday.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based VoloMedia reached a crossroads when it failed to raise a new round of funding (though that could still happen), and Silicon Valley Bank called in a bridge loan, say multiple sources. “We are open to M&A,” VoloMedia founder Murgesh Navar told us today. He also said venture capital term sheets are “imminent” and disputed the fact that there ever was a bridge loan.

Former employees spoke of mismanagement and problems with execution. Their accounts of how many employees would stay with the company differ from Navar’s, but according to everyone involved an engineering team of somewhere between eight and 16 will remain, led by Navar.

VoloMedia, which had previously been called Podbridge, had raised at least $22 million in funding from investors including Sutter Hill Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Worldview Technology Partners and Leader Ventures.

Competitor Kiptronic made a similar decision to drop ad sales, subsequently integrated with DoubleClick’s DART (s GOOG), something VoloMedia has yet to do. Limelight did not disclose the price of Kiptronic, but it’s not said to be much more than the $9 million the startup had raised.

Dynamically served advertising into downloaded media is a tough nut to crack, and with the changes in store for these two companies it’s not clear who will be around to monetize podcasts. From early on we had been skeptical that VoloMedia’s approach to measuring offline media use via plug-ins would be effective, given it didn’t give consumers much of an incentive to download additional software just to listen or watch their content. Later an enhanced version of the VoloMedia plug-in added social features to iTunes (s AAPL). Meanwhile, the market for premium streaming video has only grown, while podcasting has gone out of fashion.

Obama Holds Video Town Hall; in yet another online first, Obama streams comments on the economy, answering public questions including some submitted by web video. (Whitehouse.gov)

General Services Administration Signs Up With YouTube, Other Video Sites; after ironing out terms of service agreements, federal agencies can now use video-sharing sites while meeting their legal requirements. (Federal Computer Week)

ABC News Taps VoloMedia; network will measure and monetize podcasts such as Nightline, World News with Charlie Gibson and Good Morning America. (release)

Global Gaming Partners with 5min; online gaming community to get tips, insight and strategy videos relevant to niche gaming culture. (MediaWeek)

Hulu Gets UK TV Shows; video site to get such shows as Peep Show and Queer as Folk and will only be available to viewers in the U.S. (paidContent) Since we’re talking international here, Justin.tv’s audience is now bigger than Hulu’s… on a global basis (but Hulu’s only available in the U.S.). (TechCrunch)

Reveille and Grape Nuts Launch The Guy’s Manual; 50 episode web series on MSN.com offers advice to men on “how to get things done.” (TVWeek)

Gotuit Uses Metadata for Mashup Tool; firm lets media companies use metadata to define where clips start and stop eliminating the need to enter a video edit bay. (Contentinople)

In the first of our educational series for B2B publishers and marketers, Jeff Karnes, who heads up marketing and products at VoloMedia, argues that we quickly need to forget the myth that podcasting is just about audio.

Podcasting myths: it’s just audio

Whilst podcasting started as audio with shows such as Adam Curry’s “Daily Source Code” ramblings and a whole host of amateurs publishing podcast stories of their lives, those were the days when an iPod meant audio only.

Podcasting has come a long way since then. Not only is it more video, it is also more professional and includes some of the best online content available. They range from shows specifically made-for-podcast, to repurposed broadcast TV, and radio content.

The future’s video

Video podcasting has been growing much faster than audio although audio is still highly popular. Over 10 billion podcasts were downloaded in 2008, and a lot of that growth was fuelled by professional content and by the advent of video in iTunes.

Wikipedia’s definition of podcasting illustrates that in addition to serving as a wrapper for video and audio files, it is a very powerful distribution mechanism for content, and a great way for consumers to enjoy and subscribe to programming.

Wider reach

RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) is the most widely used of the syndication protocols for podcasting and offers many benefits.

For publishers, it’s a superior way to define and package their media (RSS includes a metadata framework) while creating an automatic syndication strategy to allow content to follow the users, whether they are getting updates on a website or subscribing through iTunes (or other aggregators such as TVersity) and then playing on a  portable device.

For users, the benefits include subscription (i.e. receiving automated updates to your favourite shows), taking content to-go, viewing on-demand, viewing off-line – basically giving full control over the consumption experience as the content is downloaded. Think TiVo for the web.

Examples

But, let’s come back to the audio-only myth. A great way to quickly dispel this notion is to simply visit the iTunes Podcasting library. And not too long ago, the iTunes podcasting team added video and audio as top level categories.

Titles such as MSNBC, Comedy Central, VH1, The Onion, Oprah, HBO, Revision3, G4, Disney, Slate and NextNewNetworks make content avaible for free. And in the audio section there are even more titles from publishers such as LearnOutLoud, HowStuffWorks, CBS, Personal Life Media and QuickAndDirty. The list goes on.

Dispel the myth

It’s time to dispel the historical myth and embrace the full meaning for podcasting, which includes video. The podcasting resurgence is upon us, and this time, we’ll make sure to give it its proper due!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Making Online Publishing Pay: Part II (businessmedia.co.uk)
• Podcasting Hacks Tips and Tools for Blogging Out Loud Hacks (blogstuffnow.com)

Part II: Downloadable Media

More and more B2B publishers are using a multimedia approach to engage their audiences, whether it’s video (ComputerWeekly.com) or audio (www.nmapodcast.co.uk) that sits alongside their written content.

As consumers of information we like these alternative ways of keeping ourselves up to date with content from our favourite publishers. With the success of these new mediums in line with the development of smart phones, the consumption of media has become more fragmented to suit our needs.

Sources of inspiration

Think about the different methods you have used to access the internet? This morning I woke up and decided to read www.hipmojo.com on my Blackberry to wake me up! After a hard hit of business media for breakfast (!) I left my flat and went to the office where in between new business proposals, I checked out Seth Godin’s blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com) to see what words of wisdom he had for me today.

The point here is that our journey into the online world has changed because of the portability of the devices we use everyday. Now we find the content that is most relevant to us – just like this blog for you – and consume it across many forms of technology whether it be a laptop, iPod or smart phone.

Turning this into opportunity

For advertisers and publishers this produces a whole series of challenges. More importantly, for us business media entrepreneurs it means there are a whole series of opportunities out there.

Recently we spoke to Jeff Karnes VP of marketing and products at VoloMedia (www.volomedia.com ). He explained how VoloMedia is making the most of the portable media market in the USA and providing publishers with a one-stop-monetisation-shop.

“VoloMedia helps publishers measure and monetise their downloadable content with technology for advertising and reporting. We then offer a one-stop shop with our advertising sales force that is able to educate and speak directly to agencies and advertisers as to the value and opportunities surrounding video and audio podcasting.”

Already VoloMedia can offer advertisers ten content categories across which to advertise and can target specific podcasts if an advertiser requests. Most campaigns are billed on a cost per thousand (CPM) basis. VoloMedia is able to offer advertisers greater reach than traditional online formats because they can track activity from the PC all the way to portable devices whether this device is online or offline. And the technology that powers their ad platform can report accountable, ROI focused data.

According to Karnes: “we can measure the entire download progression from a request and partial download, to a completed and played download. We can also report whether this content was played on the PC or the device.”

Revolutionary

VoloMedia has several patents pending on this technology and claim to be the only company in the USA that can track device level metrics for podcasts. To track whether this content was played on the PC or device such as an iPod or iPhone, they ask consumers to opt in and download a one time and light-weight iTunes plugin. This plugin provides end user benefits with features enabling e-mail to friends, bookmarking the content via social networking sites whilst also encouraging more content consumption or driving traffic to the publisher’s site. This interactivity is available all from within the iTunes video podcasting player, for the first time. Along with the consumer benefits, another purpose of this add on is to anonymously record content usage and demographic data. Based upon preliminary data (the 2.0 version recently launched last October), there is a better than 80 per cent opt in rate making available the majority of key metrics that advertisers want to see.

As a package this offering is quite compelling for the advertiser and their client list backs this up; Timex, Chase, US Air Force and Boeing.

Takeaways for the UK

So why is this important for us in the UK? For two reasons:

1. When the USA moves first, the UK tends to follow. That’s why this site is gaining interest and forging strong relationships with our US counterparts in online media.
2. Tracking and accountability gives the advertiser more data, thus increasing the value of publisher assets.

Resources

For those of you that use podcasts and are looking at monetising them, we recommend you take a look at the Association for Downloadable Media (www.downloadablemedia.org). They have some good information and tips on best practice that you will find useful.

Tune in next time for our next episode of Making Online Publishing Pay Part 3: Video

Related articles by Zemanta

• RssPlayer: A Better Podcast Client for Your iPhone (readwriteweb.com)

For those who follow my blog know that I’ve been a big proponent of social media, but the problem is results and measurement.  Airforce is doing something innovative with their agency and Volomedia.  I really like this announcement from G4 and Volomedia.  Volomedia has signed up a big publisher and a big advertiser to insert ads in portable media and video.  The best part is that it work on ITunes and the Iphone.  I’ve talked about this before around how iTunes (and IPhone) now has a business (revenue) model.

Comcast’s G4 cable television network and Web site G4tv.com have begun working with VoloMedia to insert ads into the 300 podcast videos distributed monthly through about 23 feeds. The ad network began placing ads for the media giant last month, targeting young gamers.The U.S. Air Force placed the first ads in G4’s podcasts: Attack of the Show, X-Play, and Game Trailers. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based VoloMedia’s new vertical business, Video Game Podcast, supported the ad campaign created by GSD&M Idea City, the advertising agency for the Air Force.

What Does This Mean?  Why is this important?

Vertical media works.  The trend is away from individual sites or blogs but instead to ‘blanket the vertical’  with brand messaging.  In turn effective reach in a vertical hits enough critical mass that brand equity translates.  Said another way the most effective way to leverage things like blogs and podcasts is to ‘buy’ the vertical.  The dynamics of social networking and social media create an opportunity to hit alot of people in the affinity group.  What’s even cooler about this announcement is not only reach but measurement. This is a good move by the Airforce to get a vertical – here it’s gaming as the ‘contextual’ proxy for audience affinity.  It’s a no brainer that gamers are their target audience, but instead of going for silo’d conversion, Airforce is going for blanket coverage in the vertical or affinity group.

I predict this is the way the world will go very quickly.  Vertical media advertising.  This is a great program for brand advertising, and it has measurement.  I am sure it will be a success.

VoloMedia, which provides advertising and reporting solutions for portable video and audio from the PC to devices such as iPods and iPhones, today announced Ringtales as the latest content partner to adopt the VoloMedia iTunes plug-in, extending the value of their popular podcasts by measuring ad consumption in their content wherever it is downloaded.

Ringtales is the publisher of “Dilbert,” recently selected by iTunes as one of the best video podcasts for 2008, and other popular podcasts such as “The New Yorker Animated Cartoons.” In addition to adopting the VoloMedia iTunes plug-in, Ringtales is driving consumer subscription and showcasing the “Dilbert” podcast to advertisers through a microsite located at www.volomedia.com/volocast/landing/dilbert. By integrating VoloMedia’s iTunes plug-in, Ringtales enhances the audience reach, tracking, measurement, monetization, and reporting of their podcasts whether consumed on PCs or iPods and iPhones.

Plug-in for iTunes is the best way to measure success on anything from ITunes or the web. What’s interesting to me is that plug-ins are being validated by big publishers/broadcasters. This is an indictment of the state of the online video metrics market. No one really has a great solution on podcasts and video in the market unless they have a plug-in or deploy a flash client.

I think that we’ll see plug-ins become more standard as publishers/broadcasters look to monetize their content and more importantly for advertisers to pay higher CPMs for targeted conversion.

I’ve been seeing a massive awareness around Mobile Media. The obvious example driving this is the iPhone. Apple saw the iPhone’s market share triple over the past year, capturing 12.9 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, according to a new Gartner analysis.  For the quarter ending September 30, iPhones accounted for 3.4 percent of the market in 2007. That figure was more than 3x higher on the same day in 2008. The future of Mobile Media is now upon us.

Nokia is the leader worldwide in smartphone sales, with 42.4 percent of the market. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion comes in second with 15.9 percent. In North America, Apple is in second place behind RIM, with iPhones accounting for over a quarter of all smartphones.  Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza also noted that this quarter marked the first time iPhone sales exceeded those of Windows Mobile devices; that’s pretty astonishing when you consider how many flavors of WM handsets are out there.

I recently sat down with the core management team at Volomedia to talk about to the Apple revolution, online media and advertising – mobile media. Brian Steel and Murgesh Navar shed some light on what’s going on. There are a slew of interviews here (enjoy).

I do want to highlight my talk with the Founder of Volomedia Murgesh Navar who talks about the current situation and the vision of how all of this plays out.

Click Here To Play Podcast with Murgesh Navar Founder of Volomedia

Blip.tv today started offering its creators a way to insert dynamic ads into video podcasts distributed through iTunes.

Blip isn’t the first company to offer such a service. VoloMedia and Kiptronic both insert ads into QuickTime videos.

The news was announced at a Beet.TV Online Video Summit in New York this morning. These podcast-friendly ads use DoubleClick’s DART platform, but can only support clickthrough when the viewer is watching video within iTunes on a computer. Ads inserted into videos won’t be clickable when watched on other devices like an iPod or an Apple TV.

The ads are dynamic, so they can be updated to reflect new campaigns or targeted to reach particular audiences. Examples of ads can be found here and here (both launch iTunes).

Blip says it distributes more than 37,000 actively updated web shows and that it served more than 51 million videos in September. CEO Mike Hudack told the panel today that 15 to 18 percent of its traffic comes from downloads, most of that through iTunes. Video podcast advertising on iTunes is available to blip.tv users immediately, but only works with ads sold directly by creators or blip (not ad networks).

Disclosure: VoloMedia advertises on the GigaOM network, and NewTeeVee uses blip for video hosting.

I love Blip.tv, but the latest Techcrunch post should be titled – Blip.tv catches up with the rest of the pack in video insertion.

This isn’t innovation but a necessity for Blip.tv who has been behind the curve in innovation on the adverstising side. This is a me-too announcement. One thing that is true about the story is that iTunes throws off tons of traffic. ITunes and podcasts are mainstream – call it portable media or downloadable media (whatever) – it’s big numbers. Blip.tv isn’t the only solution and it is far from the best.

This isn’t a big story because others have this technology like Castfire, Wizzard.TV, and Volomedia. In fact Volomedia has the most advanced solution in that it can insert and track ads from when you’re not connected. For that most sought after and most advanced solution it does require a plug-in.

Blip.tv isn’t really doing anything new here but it does give them a needed revenue stream. Blip.tv has done a great job in hosting videos for the “long tail” sector of online video of independent video bloggers. Now they can make money for their long tail providers.

What is interesting is that you have companies, like Volomedia, Wizzard, and now Blip, who can provide reach for advertisers.

Metrics: Lets hope the metrics can be there. That is the biggest challenge from Blip is the metrics. The ad insertion is trivial.

I will ask around to get a feel for the reaction among Blip content creators and update this post…

Update: Peter Kafka was looking for the Cypus video of Mike Hudack (it was taken down) but I found this version and remix that was no doubt posted on Techcrunch using Blip.tv – remixed to music by Internet star, comedian, and celebrity Loren Feldman of 1938media.com. He changed the music to Highway to Hell – very fitting.

Update: NewTeeVee has a story and clarifies that the solution only works on the computer version of iTunes. There is no portable or mobile metric. That makes sense now.

Update: In the comments below a virtual discussion is going on between me and Mike Hudack who is being very transparent (like they always have been in the past – kudos to Mike).  I would like to turn this into a ‘virual panel discussion’ on the topic because of the quality of the comments.  I will ping Volomedia and Kiptronic to respond.

Downloadable media or portable media is a very small group of companies so maybe we could get some collaboration and information – we need metrics because it’s clear that the market for downloadable media, podcasts, portable media is mainstream (no one debates that just look at iTunes and overall web video performance lately).  We do need to get a solution that works for users and advertisers so that the funding for more content can be realized.  Thanks Mike for commenting.

VoloMedia today announced a new version of its plug-in that introduces social features to video podcasts played in iTunes. It’s a nifty little product that gives users some value from downloading VoloMedia’s plug-in, whose main purpose is to manage ad insertion and deliver metrics to the podcast publisher. Now users will be able to treat iTunes video more like web video, by emailing it to their friends and sharing it on sites like Digg and Delicious.

But that little boost of a feature won’t attract hordes of users (especially this user, since the plug-in is only available for Windows). It’s more important that VoloMedia attract publishers who can persuade their audiences to download the plug-in (the tools still work, but in much more limited fashion, without the plug-in). Right now its marquee customers are Fox News and MSNBC. The company has also invested in a sales team, which has brought in big advertiser names like Pepsi.

The iTunes plug-in builds on VoloMedia’s support of Flash and Adobe Media Player, which is important since streaming video is so much more popular than downloaded media at this point (multiple estimates put the portion of U.S. Internet users who have tried podcasts at a third). The cool thing about podcast watchers and listeners, though, is that they are much more tuned in; their deliberate use of the media (subscribing via RSS, etc.) leads them to 68 percent unaided awareness of brands advertised in podcasts, according to a study by Podtrac and TNS. By contrast, the industry benchmark for unaided brand awareness for streaming video is 21 percent, and for television, 10 percent. But on the downside, there’s also that whole economic-downturn-reducing-advertising-spending thing.

Disclosure: VoloMedia advertises on the GigaOM network.

Update: Just emailed Jeff Karnes VP Marketing and Products at Volomedia and he says a press release will be out shortly. He confirmed the story that was broke by adweek and mediaweek.

Update 2: Here is a screenshot of ITunes having Sharing functionality – very flash like – I wonder if this is a direction that Quicktime will go…Hmmm Notice the share features on this screenshot from Volomedia’s new plug in. The site to view the plug in is here.

Podcasting or Downloadable Media is mainstream no debate there, but how do you make money? That has been the question from day one.

“Follow the money?” Not on Apple ITunes. It’s more like “follow the metrics” which until today didn’t exist on ITunes.

Content and applications are in demand for portable devices just look at the success of ITunes Store and the App Store. People are downloading more stuff day in and day out.

Apple ITunes has hundreds of millions of downloads and yet the only business model is for the premium content. Apple ITunes which gave independent content developers massive distribution also led to its less than stellar monetization capabilities. Podcasting now called downloadable media has been very successful. Yet advertising uptake has been slow. Metrics on the user consumption has been lacking.

The ITunes benefits which made Podcastings mainstream is also contributing to it’s lack of money making capability. Said another way there is no online advertising business model for podcasting on iTunes. Why?

ITunes has been hampered by two major problems: 1) user interactivity and 2) advertising friendly capabilities and metrics. Outside of ITunes subscription model for music, movies, and TV shows, ITunes has no business model for podcasting content developers. Until now.

Volomedia announces a new platform features that upgrades Apple ITunes user experience and gives advertisers a solution for metrics and ROI.

On the users side Volomedia is bringing sharing and recommedations to the ITunes (iphone) platform. On the advertising side Volomedia has the metrics that enable budgets to be set with ROI in mind.

These two major advances that enable a business model in ITunes for podcasting and downloadable media. Volomedia is announcing that they are providing the solution for advertisers that can give deep metrics on when downloadable media has been downloaded and more importantly played.

The biggest requests that every content developer is asked from advertisers are “how do you know when something was listened online and offline (portable ipod or iphone)?” and “how do advertisers get the right advertisement in context to the programs that are consumed?”. Volomedia solves this problem.

Volomedia announces that they are offering a plug-in for ITunes that offers advertisers the ability to get the right metrics and serve the right ad to users.

New Trend – Download Something For Good Content

Volomedia will be riding a new trend of late that shows that users will download a utility to get access to good content. We are seeing that today as users download a client app or small plug-in to get access to either higher quality (HD) content or mainstream content. Users want good content and will download something like a plug in. If you look at the success of new players like Hulu and some P2P networks they all have plug-ins or user apps. More evidence that we are in a downloadable society look at the success of the Apple App Store.

Money talks: Online advertisers want to get access to this mainstream downloadable media market, and they are demanding metrics. Volomedia’s plug-in will generate more dollars to content developers because it closes the loop on the “right” metric – a user subscribed to content actually watched or listened to it. This benefit alone will create a boom for content developers.

The fact is plug-ins works especially in tough economic times. Money (online advertising) funds content and more money will enable more content development and unlock the premium content from the big producers. Look at the recent Saturday Night Live success of the Palin skit. The recent success has carried over to their entire program lineup. One skit designed for being portable and pervasive has created a big business benefit for the entire NBC SNL site and content base.

Apple ITunes never innovated on a business model for podcasting. Today Apple ITunes and downloadable media is getting a major upgrade from Volomedia. I predicet that Volomedia’s solution will be welcomed with open arms by advertisers.

The old saying goes follow the money… and the money (aka online advertising) has been demanding metrics.. So maybe we should say “follow the metrics”.

Adobe – Adobe Press Room: For immediate release
With Adobe Media Player, we’re bringing viewers and content owners closer together, with an experience that doesn’t constrain them by platform or proprietary software application

(découvert chez VoloMedia)