Archive for June 30th, 2010

Three years ago The Conversations Network launched the PodCorps.org website, a place to match producers with audio and video stringers around the world. Nearly 1,000 stringers have joined PodCorps.org, but the website has not achieved the kind of critical mass required to make it a success in anyone’s book. We have therefore decided to close the PodCorps.org website as of July 5, 2010.

The reason we failed to reach that critical mass is rather straightforward: We are spread too thin among multiple projects and didn’t commit the resources required for PodCorps.org’s success. The Conversations Network has a very small budget and depends entirely on volunteers. And while many people supported the concept by registering on the website, we were not able to recruit a volunteer team to manage and promote PodCorps.org.

I want to personally thank everyone who registered for their participation and support of the PodCorps.org concept. I only wish we had the resources to fulfill our side of the bargain. The Conversations Network’s other projects (SpokenWord.org and our proprietary podcast channels) get all of our attention and are doing quite well, but we need to accept our limitations in order to ensure our successful projects continue without distraction.

MEDIAmobz: An Introduction

For those of you in the video world, I want to use this opportunity to introduce a somehwat different alternative to PodCorps.org. We have a long standing friendship with a for-profit company called MEDIAmobz. They have a network of producers that provide video production services for the business market via partners such as Business Wire and Cisco. As PodCorps.org is closing, we thought you might want to sign up with MEDIAmobz as a way to find video production jobs around the world.

Dave Toole, founder and CEO of MEDIAmobz passed along this note:

“Thanks for considering joining our producer community at MEDIAmobz. We provide you free tools to post your video reels and links to your work to help market your capabilities to the business market. We have provided dozens of clients turn key video solutions for business story telling. We do not charge clients to post jobs and only charge a small fee when they have agreed to hire a production resource. We hope that we are able to help provide an easier way for clients to connect with creative resources to help them tell their story. Please have a look around and let us know what we can do to help you in providing your services.”

Public Media Opportunities

For those of you interested in public radio or TV in the U.S., here are some additional related sites you should check out:

• Public Media Corps (PMC)
• Public Radio Exchange (PRX.org)
• Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)
• Transom.org

Over the past two months we’ve been discussing the future of SpokenWord.org with our advisors, directors and members. We now have a new plan for SpokenWord.org and we need your help.

The web is awash with audio and video. There are great programs out there, but they’re just too hard to separate from the noise. We created SpokenWord.org because we wanted to help people locate the best podcasts, videos and slideshows. We got the basics right — topics and collections — but our homepage in particular isn’t discriminating enough. Literally every five minutes we display the latest programs in each topic, but they’re not filtered. There’s little sense of what’s worth watching or listening to as opposed to just being “new”.

What’s missing is the human touch. For example, I’ve recently become obsessed with photography, and I’ve been looking everywhere for the best podcasts and videos to help me learn more. Along the way I’ve had to work my way through all sorts of junk in order to find the good stuff. If only there were a photography guru who would take the time to find the best podcasts and individual episodes for me. That would be awesome.

So that’s what we’re doing in SpokenWord.org 2.0. We’re building a team of expert curators, each with his or her own specialty. These curators will find the very best audio and video programs and use SpokenWord.org to present them to you. These curators and their collections will be the primary feature of our website.

Is there a topic you’re particularly passionate and knowledgeable about? Would you be willing to share your expertise by maintaining a curated list of feeds and episodes for SpokenWord.org? Would you like to become one of our curators?

There’s no monetary compensation for your effort, but I think you’ll be rewarded by the appreciation you receive and the credibility you’ll gain within your niche. We’re going to work hard to spread the word about SpokenWord.org and our curators, and I think being the SpokenWord.org curator for a particular topic will eventually carry some real weight.

We’re still early in the process of implementing the website features to support this new concept. In fact, the concept itself is still evolving. If you’re interested either in becoming a curator or just participating in the discussion of how our curation system will function, please join the brand-new Google Group dedicated to SpokenWord.org curation.

We’ll soon have a way for you to formally apply to become a curator, but for now, joining the discussion is the best way to get involved.