Alex Bellinger of Audacious is moderating the Introduction to Podcasting and Video Podcasting panel, consisting of podcast practitioners Marc van Woudenberg, Nick Mailer, Lloyd Davis and Nathalie McDermott.



Lloyd Davis says "the power [to produce media] is now in the hands of people who are passionate", not dispassionate PR people. That's the same revolution that's always been promised by the internet in general, that was first realised for text-based communication in the popular consciousness by blogging and is now being advanced for time-based media in podcasting (subscription-based audio/video delivery to a computer or MP3 player).

His projects including ultra-fast event podcasting and theatre companies vidcasting the work that goes into staging a production. It's about disintermediating conduits like mainstream press and letting organisations and individuals engage directly with an audience, Davis says.

12.11 - Next up is Nick Mailer, founder of internet "plumbing" company Positive Internet, who notes today's conference is "a bit like the Antiques Roadshow - I'm sure everyone's fascinating by the social history of the stuff we're talking about, but everyone really wants to know how to make dosh from it all". Laughter

Nick's firm helped wire together The Guardian's Ricky Gervais comedy podcast - a bold, different step for a newspaper, and a feature that unexpectedly set records from the fledgling medium. The crowd is listening attentively to this Mailercast, in which Nick is saying "everyone wants to podcast" because "there is a great compunction to make one's ego available to the whole world". Is "compunction" a word? Alex Bellinger jests "blogging is for introverts, maybe podcasting is for egomaniacs".

12.28 - Van Woudenberg of Xolo.tv takes to the podium, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with "GO VLOG YOURSELF". That's "vlog", or "videoblog". He's showing a reel of personally-produced videos made using mobiles or DV cameras, shared using his website, and says this is "a new way of talking with your consumers". Marc says a lot of people in his native Netherlands are jumping on this bandwagon, producing online mediacasts, and expecting to get an automatic audience that never arrives - it's a matter of "not hiding behind your PR message [but] adjusting it to what's out there", "go down to their same level of conversation".

Marc is a great evagelist for this and maybe he's slightly uneasy at engaging with the corporate marketing end of things, Xolo.tv is so citizen-centric. The other big site that is supporting people-produced video distribution right now is YouTube s

12.37 - Q&A time. Bernhard asks the panel: "What if your boss is not Ricky Gervais but David Brent?"



That is, why let a staid 'ol manager podcast if he's not that interesting. Nick Mailer suggests the baby (boss) should have his bottle (distribution channel) anyway - if he's not interesting, he won't get an audience.

Mailer says anyone who jumps into this "should be very careful about the model they use" because Gervais, in switching his podcast from The Guardian to a pay-for service hosted on Audible, attracted a lot of hostility in the geek community, who hold podcasting dear and prize open, free content above the conventional media economy. That's interesting. It suggests there is always a tightrope to be walked.

12.55 - Nathalie advises companies interested in joining the party: "Be yourself" The more real it is, the better".

Alfie Dennen asks the panel what the big deal is about a medium he says is essentially just putting an mp3 file online. "Subscription and syndication", Lloyd Davis replies. Mailer adds that internet public radio dates to 1994 and says "there isn't much happening here that couldn't have been done in 1994 with Perl and a CGI script" - the tipping point, he says, is the broadband bandwidth and that podcasting is based on open technologies.


-- Rob