December 26, 2016 archive

For Immediate Release #67: Let’s launch a startup!

Not much news of interest to communicators is reported over the holidays, so Ayelet Baron, Eden Spodek, and Brad Whitworth joined host Shel Holtz for a higher-level conversation on these topics:

  • Science kits from GE integrate with the Amazon Echo. How far can this kind of integration of cloud-based AI voice tech and real-world products go?
  • Mark Zuckerberg admits Facebook is a media company, albeit a new kind of media company. What might this mean for fake news (in the wake of a nuclear threat in response to a fake news story)?
  • Is creating a startup a realistic goal for your very first job?
  • How can companies attract young workers who are more inclined to try the startup path? (Is a 10-second Snap Spectacles video enough?)
  • Dan York reports on Facebook Live Audio.
  • Only about half of employees embrace their companies’ strategic narrative. Communicators have their work cut out for them.
  • A new report says companies in crisis should apologize quickly, but corporate cultures have to change before CEOs will take that step.
  • And speaking of corporate cultures, can they change enough to allow for whistleblowers and prevent suicide from overwork?

Connect with our panelists on Twitter at @ayeletb, @edenspodek, and @bradwhitworth.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR is recorded using Zencastr.

About today’s panel:

Ayelet Baron is the author of  “Our Journey To Corporate Sanity: Transformational Stories from the Frontiers of 21st Century,” published just last month. She is co-creator of CreatingIs LLC. Ayelet is passionate about ushering a new path for business as a force of good by helping 21st century leaders imagine what’s possible. She has been building community her entire life and believes trust, relationships and community are the new currencies for today’s human-to-human purpose and experience driven era. Author of Our Journey to Business Common Sense. She spent 15 years at Cisco Systems, most recently as Vice President  of Strategy, Innovation and Transformation for Cisco Systems Canada. Ayelet recently was honored with Watermark’s Women Who Make the Mark Award. She was an innovator in residence at Roche, working on the product development innovation leadership team designing and implementing a connected network strategy.

Eden Spodek, founder & CEO, Eden Spodek Inc. is an award-winning digital communications and social media marketing strategist with more than 25 years of experience on the client and agency side in several verticals. In 2010, she launched her own digital consultancy practice and is a blogger, podcaster and community leader. In 2015, she worked tirelessly on a successful Kickstarter campaign and has been invited to advise on others. Eden co-developed the Digital Strategy and Communications Management certificate program at University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. This week, Eden is hosting a free webinar, the A to Z Blueprint for Planning, Building and Launching a Crowdfunding Campaign. She’s an active participant in the digital community and was lead co-organizer of PodCamp Toronto for five years. A sought-after speaker, Eden is frequently invited to join panel discussions and speak at a variety of workshops and conferences. Eden is the co-host of the technology podcast, Ada’s Sisters.

Brad Whitworth, a communication coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, was most recently senior communication manager at Cisco Systems. Brad joined Cisco in 2007 and today leads integrated communication for the part of the company that builds partner ecosystems for new markets. Before Cisco, Brad led communication programs at HP, PeopleSoft and AAA. He earned undergraduate degrees in both journalism and speech at the University of Missouri and an MBA at Santa Clara University. A former broadcaster, Brad has made more than 300 presentations to executives, communicators, and university classes around the world. Brad has a long history with IABC, including serving as chairman of the international board and president of two local chapters. He is one of the authors of The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication.

The post FIR #67: Let’s launch a startup! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Will Facebook Live Audio be good for podcasting? So many questions…

Facebook live audio

Will "Facebook Live Audio" be good for podcasters? Will it help us engage with our audiences? Will it compete with SoundCloud and other similar platforms? Or will it pull people away from traditional podcasts to keep people within Facebook's shiny walls?

On December 20, Facebook announced the impending release of "Live Audio", initially with five partners and then "early next year" to more people. There's been a great amount of discussion but as of yet I've not learned of anyone who has seen/heard one of these new Live Audio events. Here is the info I've seen so far or can speculate on:

  • Users will be able to go live with audio in a similar way to going live with video.
  • Live audio content will go out in News Feed.
  • Listeners can ask questions and leave reactions in real-time during the live audio stream.
    • Presumably listeners will also be able to leave comments and reactions after the event is no longer live. Will Facebook differentiate as they do with comments to Live Video events? (Comments during the event have a red dot next to them.)
  • Facebook users can easily share the Live Audio streams to their own feeds and friends.
  • Listening will occur inside the Facebook mobile application. There will be an important distinction between iOS and Android listeners:
    • iOS users will only be able to listen while the Facebook app is open (and the phone is not locked). The users can continue browsing through Facebook while listening.
    • Android users will be able to listen in the background while using other apps.
    • To me this means that Facebook has not yet integrated with the audio interfaces within IoS that allow other apps to play in the background or on lock screens.
  • Techcrunch reports that Live Audio streams will have a limit of four hours in length.

As far as a motivation for launching Live Audio, Facebook mentions the feedback that some publishers prefer audio as a format. They also mention that some people are in areas where Internet connectivity is too low to support Live Video. Writing over on The Drum, Sean Larkin notes that Facebook needs new advertising formats and points to a recent study from The Trade Desk showing that advertisers are looking to increase their spending on audio advertising. Audio streaming and podcasts were highest rated in that survey.

In many ways this seems a logical extension of Facebook's desire to be THE place where people spend their time on the Internet. Given the explosive growth in interest in podcasts, it seems to me only logical for Facebook to try to bring some of that attention inside their walls.

Granted, it seems Facebook's initial focus is on the audio version of "live events" versus on podcasts. But to me podcasts are an obvious extention of this tool.

My Questions

Given that we can't see the Live Audio streams yet, or the tools to produce them, I find myself with the following questions:

  • Will users be notified with special "Dan York is live" kind of messages? (I suspect yes.)
  • Will Live Audio streams show up in the new "Live" tab in the mobile app? (as Live Video streams do now?)
  • What tools will be available for streaming audio? For instance, will there be anything to help with audio levels?
  • Presumably we will have to use the Facebook mobile app to stream the Live Audio streams. Will it be able to work with any other mobile apps?
  • Will we be able to bring in intros, outros, bumpers and other audio effects? Or will it truly be raw, live audio?
  • Will Live Audio streams also be accessible outside Facebook's walls to traditional podcasting apps? i.e. would there be a RSS feed that could go into iTunes? Or will it only work inside of Facebook?
  • Will Live Audio be a place to host a podcast? Or will it be another distribution channel?
  • Will Live Audio help spread the interest in podcasts and audio streams? Or will it impact the usage of traditional podcasting apps?
  • What will the impact be on SoundCloud? Many of us have found that platform useful for quick, fast podcasts.
  • And on a techie note, could you start out in Live Video and when connectivity drops, could you drop to Live Audio? Or will they be two separate event types that need to be started separately? (I suspect the latter.)

So many questions!

Given my interest in using SoundCloud for rapid creation and distribution of podcasts, I'll be curious to see how well Facebook Live Audio might work for podcasting. It might be good... it might be too constraining.

What do you think? Are you interested in Facebook Live Audio?


P.S. Another interesting aspect - over on The Verge, Casey Newton notes the potential of Live Audio for "witnessing" events: "Live audio of police confrontations might be less conspicuous, and thus easier, to broadcast than video streams."