Kiptronic, an ad marketplace for the podcasting industry, and IODA, the Independent Online Distribution Alliance, have announced a partnership to help promote artists and record labels via podcasts. Kiptronic will provide a customized version of the Kiptronic Podcast Marketplace for use by IODA and its alliance of more than 2,700 independent record labels, covering over individual 600,000 artist tracks.

IODA members will be able to use the Kiptronic technology to create geo-targeted promotional campaigns for its artists. For example, a band currently touring cities in the Midwestern U.S. could use the Kiptronic Podcast Marketplace to deliver a promotional message about specific concert dates and locations, embedded in popular podcasts, to specific Midwest metro areas in advance of an upcoming concert.

Kiptronic’s multimedia ad insertion technology allows the podcasting community to add sponsorships to their content, while providing advertisers with a central exchange where they can connect with topical podcasts of interest. The Kiptronic Podcast Marketplace, tailored for use by IODA, provides an open approach to developing promotional campaigns that can be location- and time-specific to coincide with band appearances.

“Using Kiptronic, IODA will enable its clients to deliver targeted promotional messages to specific audiences that will be receptive” said Jonathan Cobb, founder and Chief Executive of Kiptronic.

On Monday, Chicago Public Radio will introduce a This American Life podcast.

Starting Monday, October 16, each show will be available to podcast subscribers on the Monday following its national broadcast. After seven days, the shows wil migrate to the program’s online archives.
The price for downloads of these archived shows is $0.95 cents per show. Each is available at Audible.com and at the iTunes Store.

This American Life will continue offering free streaming of past shows.

Ira Glass, host and creator of This American Life, announces the podcast launch on this weekend’s program, broadcast to an estimated audience of 1.7 million listeners nationwide.

“We’ve wanted to offer free podcasts for a while,” says Glass. “And we’re excited to see how they do. We hope they introduce the show to an audience that maybe isn’t tuning into public radio just yet.”

Qloud (pronounced “cloud”) today launched a public beta of its search service and iTunes plug-in.

Qloud uses media player plug-ins to provide the listener data that powers Qloud’s search. In the Qloud service, users can then search through this information, and can do so in multiple ways:

• music preference (how much it is played, how highly it is rated):
• demographics (what the age, gender, location of the listeners is); and
• category (how the music is tagged).

For example, one could search for the most played tracks with the tag “workout.” But users can also go further by seeking, for example, tracks most tagged ‘workout’ and ‘hiphop’ by women in New York aged 20-30.

“Qloud will do for music discovery what Google has done for web discovery,” claims Toby Murdock, co-founder of Qloud. “Users prefer the control and immediate gratification that the search experience provides. Qloud now offers that for music, and our unique approach makes the search results accurate and satisfying to music lovers around the world.”

ViewSonic today launched its droolworthy ViewDock VX1945wm and VX2245wm LCD displays with iPod dock integration, letting users view video podcasts, movie downloads and other iPod video content in widescreen.

“The ViewDock displays modernize the desktop by letting users view iPod content 65 times larger than on their iPod screens,” according to the company.
The 19-inch VX1945wm and 22-inch VX2245wm combine an LCD display with an iPod docking station, four USB 2.0 ports, an 8-in-1 card reader, a microphone, stereo speakers and a subwoofer in a silver and high gloss black widescreen display.

The ViewDock Series also features integrated speakers, 5ms response times and 700:1 (typ) contrast ratio. Both displays have a wide, 16:10 aspect ratio with the VX2245wm featuring a 1680×1050 resolution and a 1440×900 resolution is available on the VX1945wm.

blinkx, a leading video search engine, today unveiled an updated site featuring “video walls”, a new interface for Internet video that combines the ‘sit back and watch’ element of traditional television with the interactive experience of searching and watching video online.

Users will also be able to embed topical video walls in to Web pages and blogs.

“People are much better at understanding information visually, so we redesigned blinkx.tv to display video in a way that’s both efficient and compelling to the eye,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CTO, blinkx. “We’ve transformed the way we present the results to users. Video should be delivered visually, not as a text-based list of results.”

Blinkx, a developer of video search technology, and Microsoft have inked a deal to use Blinkx techology to enable video searches at MSN and Live.com.

“We will be the single biggest video search engine on the Web,” said Suranga Chandratillake, Blinkx co-founder and chief technology officer.

Blinkx’s technology already powers video search on a variety of sites, including AOL, Lycos and Times Online.

Microsoft has agreed to pay Blinkx a licensing fee based on how much use visitors to Microsoft Web sites make of the Blinkx search system.

“It could mean from zero to millions of dollars,” Chandratillake said of the potential value of the Microsoft deal to Blinkx.

Blinkx uses voice recognition, image and contextual analysis to help it index video. As a result, it can index videos based on content, not just titles or meta information.

via Washington Post

After a 6 month trial, the BBC are shelving the Ouch! podcast, a show that takes an irreverent look at disabilities.

Fans of the show can sign a petition to help save the show.

According to presenter Liz Carr, “The podcast has been a resounding success. It filled a gaping hole in disability entertainment… This is our first taste of disability/crip radio and we want more, not less!”

Former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon got her start in video podcasting via an ad at Craigslist.

These recent help wanted listings might not be similar opportunities, but stranger things have happened.

Bikini Model

Model for an outdoor viral video ad to be shown on YouTube and Podcast. Blogger a plus. Spaloo is looking for a vivacious woman to pose in a bikini in front of a fountain downtown. Two hours modeling work $50.00 total and 10 dvds. Model release and possible Catholic parody involved.

Drag Queen Model

Drag Queen Model for an outdoor viral video ad to be shown on YouTube, Podcast and Bingo Night in San Francisco. Blogger a plus. Two hours modeling work $50.00 total and 5 dvds.

Note that bikini models get 10 dvds, but drag queens only get 5.

Pregnant Women

Are you pregnant? Do you love to talk about being pregnant? PregTASTIC is a weekly podcast (online radio) for pregnant women, by pregnant women. Many of our podcasters are having their babies and we are looking for pregnant women to fill their seats. The pay is $25 hr.

Belkin has introduced SportCommand for iPod, a wireless fabric remote that lets you control your music or podcasts while keeping your iPod protected.

The SportCommand is designed to be used for outdoor activities, such as snowboarding, mountain biking, and hiking. It has controls for play/pause, next/previous track and volume.
The band retails for $79.99, and will be shipping in November in North America, with launches in Asia, Europe, and Australia to follow shortly.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) is using iTunes U, Apple’s educational podcast service, to provide new content by McGraw-Hill Higher Education as part of a pilot program. The University is testing using McGraw-Hill’s rich-media educational content to engage students in new ways.

This initiative also is giving students the opportunity to directly participate in the development of the next generation of the digital content through research conducted in the pilot classrooms.

Kevin Strang, an instructor for physiology, said, “Having the new McGraw-Hill material available through iTunes U allowed me to enhance my course lectures with my lecture recording as well as textbook animations of core concepts.”