PODCATS NEWS NOVEMBER 2007
GEORGE ELIOT PODCAST
The latest Podcats podcast was launched in Nuneaton on October 25th. This pair of podcasts has been made for Enjoy Warwickshire to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first of George Eliot's fiction. One follows a walk in the town centre and the other is a drive skirting the Arbury Estate where she was born and ending at Griff House where she grew up.
With the help of local historian and George Eliot fan, John Burton, the long time secretary of the George Eliot Fellowship Kathleen Adams and sixth formers of the King Edward VI college the two podcasts take us to many of the places she uses as settings in her first work of fiction 'Scenes of Clerical Life
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TALKING THE WALK WINS A SILVER "EXCELLENCE IN TOURISM" AWARD
Podcats won Silver in the Best Tourism Experience category of the West Midlands Excellence in Tourism Awards last week and we are chuffed to bits! It's for The Talking the Walk series which is made for Shakespeare Country - South Warwickshire Tourism's website.
The podcasts work on several levels (Warwick, Shipston on Stour and Southam have already been published with others in the pipeline including Stratford Upon Avon and Leamington Spa). They can be downloaded to an mp3 player and taken out with a map to listen to while doing the walk but their blend of history, gossip and banter also brings the town to life for 'armchair' visitors in front of their computers while they browse the website.
Shakespeare Country is delighted with the response they've seen to the podcasts on their site and are finding that people are browsing longer while listening to or downloading 'Talking the Walk'.
And they are great fun to make with local people showing a real love of their town in episodes that are built to last - we expect each 'walk' to give several years service and in the long run will serve as valuable aural history.
NATURE'S VOICE AND A WELL TRAVELLED FLASHMIC!
When Podcats signed up to make this series of magazine programmes for the RSPB the charity invested in their own HHB Flashmic. The Flashmic is an ingenious audio recorder with the recording technology built into the handle of the microphone. It can easily be tucked into an RSPB staff member's rucksack!
In the first five episodes their Flashmic has not only been out on the windswept Dales and interviewed the gamekeeper at Harewood House it has also been down on the newly restored wetlands of Otmoor near Oxford as well as sweating it out in the Sumatran rainforest!
Once back at base the audio can be sent via ftp to Podcats where the production is put together. This takes advantage of the fact that the RSPB's experts are out and about in the course of their normal work and while away from base they can gather audio which would be far to expensive to access if it meant sending a Podcats reporter. And that audio is in top quality wav format ... so no dodgy telephone lines!
It’s a collaboration that is going from strength to strength and Nature's Voice is regularly in iTunes' top twenty Science and Nature podcast charts.
PRECISION PODCASTING - PODCATS IN BUSINESS
One of the benefits of Podcasting and internet audio is that, not only do you have complete editorial control over your material, you can also target your information to your audience with precision!
Some podcasts are published to attract as many subscribers as possible - but business to business clients like Amdocs, know not only the companies but also the people in those companies who will be interested in what they have to say.
For this series Podcats worked with Amdocs and marketing experts Penknife Design and web designers Intuitiv to put together a highly specialised audio material relating to customer
self service. These could be downloaded from iTunes
or a dedicated Amdocs Web site. Amdocs also created supporting
content in the form of whitepapers, briefings and demonstrations which
could be downloaded along with the podcast.
Amdocs not only had a significant portion of the target audience
downloading the series but also received positive feedback from
customers regarding podcasts as a way of communicating information.
For Amdocs, using podcasts was a marketing win, helping to generate
valuable awareness and communicate key messages about their offerings
to an important and defined segment of their audience.