The modern podcasting climate has changed considerably since its mainstream launch in 2005. Many podcasting giants have risen and fallen within the period but still the technology trundles on. The issue that many people have now is not maintaining a podcast, but actually creating one and successfully launching it.

When the iTunes Podcast store opened its gates in June 2005 the online world exploded with podcasting fever. It wasn’t too long before the technology caught the eyes of the big players within the old radio and television industry, from that point on independent podcasts were doomed.

The independent podcast circle used to be a buzzing pace full of enthusiasm and community. Perhaps I’m painting an idyllic image of the past, as one often tends to do with hindsight, but my point is valid nonetheless. There was talk of commercialising podcasts, in order to maintain them and break even, but making millions wasn’t on the agenda. There was a time when I was a big advocate against the commercialisation of podcasts, but that time has passed and I’ve joined the dark side. Commercialisation of podcasting has, if anything, improved the overall quality of content available.

Something changed after the Summer of 2005. Suddenly it became very hard to launch a podcast and gain the amount of an audience as one would have achieved in June. There wasn’t an issue of over-saturation of the market at all, the issue was that big corporate companies started to move in.

The BBC effectively killed independent podcasts when it started to regurgitate its own radio content. The BBC didn’t come up with new content for podcasts, they recycled the shit that came out of the mouth of Chris Moyles in the morning to turn it into what they called a podcast. “The Best of the Chris Moyles show” quickly became one of the biggest podcasts on the web, the BBC saw the success of this and soon began to recycle the rest of their shit from across their radio network. Soon the market was flooded by other broadcasters doing the same.

Take a look at the front page of the iTunes Podcast store today and you will not see a single independently produced podcast. It’s either crap recycled from the BBC, or other network providers, along with one or two “celebrities”. If fun, independent content is becoming hard to source from the world’s number one podcast store the industry is doomed.

Small little networks and communities used to exist that would serve as directories for independent shows, but they’ve long since died out. The Britcaster forums closed their doors way before I even found a slight moderate success with The Podzone. Mevio are no longer promoting the independent content that’s hosted on their network. They’re plugging the shows that they produce, they’re not even supporting the independent producers with promotion on their front page or channels.

If the big old media networks are tainting what was once hailed as he saviour of high quality entertaining content, what’s the next step? Podcasting was created by pioneers who were frustrated with the blatant commercialisation and dumbing down of mainstream content, it’s sad to see it go the same way as radio.

The only way that we shall see the continuation of podcasting and the saving of independent content within that is for a new network to be built. A united front against all of the shit and trollop that is being pushed out and into our ears by old media companies. If there is one thing that could possibly save podcasting, it’s Twitter. Someone just needs to come up with a way to make the two work together.

We need a community, a new directory, a fantastic piece of software and integration that will save the independent podcast industry before it really is too late.

Chris Leydon.

Recently I’ve spent a lot of time working on my new online portfolio. Back in Nobember I bought the domain name chrisleydon.tv with the intent of turning it into an entertainment channel. A channel that would have been full of blogs, video shows and short films. Whilst this is a long term dream, something I want Keyone Productions to be able to achieve, I realised that it wasn’t something that was plausable for chrisleydon.tv at the present time.

An online entertainment channel requires constant updating with fresh content. It requires time and love, two things which I can’t give to such a project at this current moment in time. I needed to come up with another use for my domain.

Over the past two months and the holiday season, many ideas and concepts have come and gone. The concept that I settled on was to turn chrisleydon.tv into a place for my portfolio. I could have done this through a page on my blog, but I decided that it was wise to have a completely seperate and independant site for this project.

The design of the portfolio was something that was crucial. I wanted as much space as possible for a widescreen flash video player, but I also wanted incredible ease of use. After a few mockups in Photoshop I settled on the final design that is currently being used, the next step was to code the site.

I’ve dabbled with web design and coding in the past, as regular blog readers will know, however this is my most ambitious web project to date. To save on loading pages I wanted everything to be on one page. For accessibility reasons I didn’t want the entire site to be flash based. I required a system whereby the user click on a video to play and it plays in the central video player. From past experiences I knew that this was plausable with little hard work. Such a system is put into use on the Mevio website, as well as the new Podzone site (coded by Owen Jones).

The problem with using the systems from Mevio and The Podzone is that both of those sites run off a content management system, something which I didn’t want to use. As I’m not the most fantastic coder in the world I needed a little help with Javascript, so I reached out into the Twitter community. Sam Starling, student and web coder, replied to my message and created a demo with a walkthrough. This enabled me to code my project with ease, whilst learning how it all worked. I am forever indebted to him for this.

My portfolio, as it stands, contains some of my best work from over the past year and a half. It will continue to be updated with more work as it appears. No doubt that Project New York will play a crucial part in it. That’s the story of my online portfolio. Should you want to check it out, head on over to www.chrisleydon.tv.

Chris Leydon.

[See post to watch Flash video]

[See post to watch Flash video]

Blogging can be a chore at times. This is not the post that I originally intended to write this evening, however, how were you to know that until now?

A new type of Podcasting network is being launched by a young entrepreneur, Lewis King. Citrus 7 Media promises to deliver clean, fresh new media podcasts 7 days a week. Although it’s early stages and the project hasn’t hit the public yet, I can tell that it’s going to create some waves in the industry.

Podcasting companies, such as Mevio or Revision 3, are fantastic; however, they all seem to have their avoidable faults. They’re too focused on commercialisation, making a profit, and not on the actual content itself. Now whilst content may be king on some other podcasting networks (such as the Teen Podcasters Network) the lack of production values lets the overall presentation down. There needs to be a middle ground, great looking and sounding content with substance. That is what Citrus 7 Media aims to create.

Now, sceptics would have probably worked out by now that I have some sort of vested interest in Citrus 7 Media; this is not wholly untrue. I personally am fed up and frustrated with the ways that certain podcasting companies carry out their business. I, once again, want to see producers creating great content for the love of doing so. This did happen, and was a regular occurrence, during the early stages of podcasting; this practice seems to have faded away. I want to see Citrus 7 Media succeed because I want great fresh high quality content.

I have already become involved with Citrus 7 Media, more or less from the off. I’m excited to see the kind of buzz that this small network can produce. All one has to do is look at the Twitter results for “Citrus 7″ to see what I mean. My role, so far, in this budding venture, has been to create the Citrus 7 Media ident; the animation of the network logo that will play before a show (See video above). I have also been reviving my old concept of a video production show; a show based around teaching the basics of video production, in a fun way.

Vidproquo will be THE video show for any wannabe video producer. The show will advise, inform and entertain… most of all it will be fresh high quality content. Filming for the first season is due to commence in December. The introduction video for Vidproquo is above.

Citrus 7 Media promises to deliver fresh content 7 days a week, let’s see if it can live up to its promise when it launches sometime very soon.

Chris Leydon.

This is a post of two halves. I originally started to write this post back in September, a month later and I am finishing it. A lot can change in a month, as one shall find out.

September 27th, 2008.

That was a hectic past few weeks. Since my last blog post I’ve become a part-time intern for BTPodShow, filmed a pilot of Ask Dr Nick and moved back into Uni (amongst other things).

I thought that my time as the BTPodShow intern had come to an end but it seems that my contract will be extended. It should allow me to do less hours and work from wherever suits me. This is fantastic news! I really enjoyed my time as being part of the London team and I’m very happy with the possibility of continuing it.

BTPodShow & Mevio are re-branding themselves and re-entering the online entertainment market to take the field by storm. The companies have swung their attention to focus on creating high quality online video content in a typical channel form. The format change reflects the brand’s new competitors “YouTube” and “Revision3“.

October 19th, 2008.

Mevio’s “Channels” offer their users a way to watch online content they love, in a format that combines old and new media. The video above provides the best explanation of Mevio’s Channels, but I shall attempt to describe them now. Like classic media, you can watch the channel from start to beginning; but like new media you can jump in an out of the channel wherever you want to. Each channel has its own theme and host, who provide insightful links in between shows. All of this, combined with the fantastic content on offer, places Mevio as one of the best places to watch online content via the web.

Each channel, from my understanding, will have their own website. The Mevio channel with the most love and attention, at the moment, is TeXtra; which of course takes its name from the popular PodShow podcast of the same name. TeXtra is a combination of lots of high quality technology based show. New episodes of these shows are presented to you daily, by one of the enigmatic hosts. Check out the TeXtra channel over at www.mevio.com or www.textranetwork.com

Although this is a contradiction to one of my above statements, I am no longer the Mevio intern.  I received a message on Monday 13th October informing me that my services were no longer required. The Mevio finance department would not extend my contract. I’m not bitter about this fact, just slightly disappointed that I can no longer work with the fantastic team there. I loved my time as the BTPodShow Intern and I would love to work with everyone at BTPodShow and Mevio again; my offer will always stand.

Chris Leydon.

Yep, they’ve dropped the “Pod” from their name and the “Show” too, but that’s besides the point. There are rumours that MEVIO will be a video network, this has a slight truth to it. From what I can gather MEVIO will be more video orientated in nature but will still support and have audio shows.

This would be the point where I say that myself and The Podzone will still stick by MEVIO no matter what, and I’m sure I will, however I’ve just realised that my contract with PodShow UK expired 2 weeks ago. That’s a bit of a bummer, still here’s hoping that it gets renewed, I haven’t heard anything to say otherwise.

Chris Leydon.