The conclusion of yesterdays piece on BTPodshow: The How and Why. If you’re looking for the podcasts, they’re at the end of this piece.
Delivering the content
Another major advantage for PodShow is the delivery of their content to consumers. PodShow majors on audio content, which is not too difficult to deliver over the average broadband connection. The story changes when many people are watching on-demand video content. Getting this type of content delivered smoothly across the network has always been a headache. This only multiplies when the majority of the content moves from predominately audio to video.
When I put this forward to BT’s Patterson, his answer was revealing, “Increasingly you’ll see the QoS (Quality of Service) layer being important.”
BT will be able to make sure that the content on BTPodShow will be able to be delivered without a hitch. Content from other sites without a close relationship with the network owner might not be so fortunate, and the viewers/listeners of their content might get bumpier delivery.
Don’t Bloggers and Podcasters hate big brands?
While there will be many of the current podcasters that will reject the idea of posting their content on something as corporate as a site with a BT moniker, they only make up about 5% of the population of the potential customers for this.
BT understand and acknowledge this. BT is a generalist, so they aren’t interested in the 5%, it’s the 95% of the remaining population that interests them.
Will it succeed?
With BT huge reach, it’s hard to imagine that this service won’t become familiar to the UK public, especially as we understand there’s a considerable advertising budget assigned to it. As to whether they’ll take it to their hearts and use it as they repository of choice is quite another matter.
The call for UK content has gone out – they call it the ‘UnDition’ and they say that they’ve “been inundated with great content, and some really crappy stuff too that is simply hilarious.”
Looking at the site as we publish this piece, there’s very little content on the UK site. The four pieces that are currently publicly viewable … how shall we put it … leave room for the UK talent to shine.
The deal with BT can’t have hindred Podshow raising $15m dollars from VCs at the end of September.
We assume the big advertising push won’t hit the UK public until there’s quality to show.
Recorded podcast interviews
Gavin Patterson, group managing director, consumer division and group marketing, BT
Adam Curry, President and Co-founder, PodShow
Ron Bloom, CEO and Co-founder, PodShow