Podcast Radios

With my laptop by my side I can drive down almost any given residential street and find a wireless connection. Depending on the level of security I most often can logon to the internet and surf. This got me thinking… I use iTunes to subscribe and download Podcasts. Podcasts are kind of like radio programs but instead of receiving the music or talk shows from the radio waves you download them from the internet. These downloads are great because you can listen to them whenever you like, unlike radio where you listen as you go.

So the great idea is this, a car radio with built-in wireless. As you drive around the car radio would pick up wireless signals and download the Podcasts you have subscribed to.

This car radio would obviously need more than just wireless. So the solution would be all in the face plate.

This car radio face plate would also be a portable MP3 player and could plug into a computer through USB. Using your favorite PC / Mac media app you would load up the player. Also using your media app you would subscribe to Podcasts.

Podcasts are uploaded on to servers at different time according to the shows schedules. So if you were on the road or walking around the block and found a wireless connection you could start down a Podcast instead of always having to connect to the PC / Mac.

Another feature you may consider for a car radio portable MP3 player with wireless would be voice recognition and an email reader. While you are driving around the player could say, “You have connection” where after that you could download a Podcast or have it grab your email. Later you could have the voice read your email or listen to your Podcasts.

Outside Volume Control

Noise canceling headphones are great. These headphones work best with outside noises like airplane engines and leaf blower type sounds. Some headphones have a volume devise attached to the cables so you could turn up and down the music.

I find ideas come from problems. Necessity in the mother of invention, I tell you. The problem is this, when you are riding in a car being anti-social listening to your music an interesting conversation always starts up. If you want to join in you have to pause your music and remove your headphones and jump in. Then it stops and you can listen to your music again. While listening you look around and see others talking. Sometimes it looks like someone has asked you a question or is talking about you and again you have to pause your music and remove the headphones.

My idea is this, an outside volume control so you could turn up or down the outside sounds. The noise canceling headphones use microphones to cancel the outside noise maybe they could also be used to turn up the outside noise in the event you want to listen to conversation without pausing the music.

The Video Podcast Agent

The Video Podcast Agent

There is already a trend in the uploading and sharing home videos on to sites like DailyMotion.com, Vimeo.com, Google Video and YouTube.com. Podcasts are plentiful and Video Podcasts are on the new frontier of the ipTV trend but bandwidth can be expensive. I have a new idea to solve the expensive bandwidth problem and make money with Video Podcasts.

In the late 1990’s there were a few new websites that gave people free online email. Sites like Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com and Rocketmail.com let early web surfers get there email anywhere they could find an internet connection. This service was free by slipping ads in and around the email space.

Create a Free Video Podcast website (Agent) maybe call it “Free Video Podcast” aka FVP. You would login and upload your Video Podcast to FVP (Agent). FVP would do a lot of the hard work automatically. Work like finding advertisers and submission to iTunes. Download numbers and viewer ratings could be tracked in a similar fashion to Amazon.com. As a Video Podcast grows in popularity 30 second ads could be place in the front and ends of the shows. This FVP (Free Video Podcast) website could share the revenues with the Video Podcasters content creators.

DiggNation (digg.com) plants ads in the front of their show and DigitalLife (dl.tv) has ads sandwiched in like show on TV. The FVP website / company could also sell ads across many different Video Podcasts.

The website Free Video Podcast would act as an agent finding advertisers and placing ads in on the Video Podcasts. The agent and content creator would share profit accordingly.

Internet Network Company

Since the networks (NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX) are slow to put content online to download I feel it is time that a new company is formed to create web only television shows. The company could start like Fox did in the 90's with a primetime line up each day consisting of 2 to 3 hours of shows to download. (Fox today has some of the best primetime shows with The Simpsons and 24) The shows would be available to download in the television style. For example a show will “air” or be ready for download at a given time and day then the viewers can download and watch the show at their convenience. The viewers could also subscribe to a show to automatically be downloaded every week. ITunes has created a place to find and download podcasts and vidcasts you can also subscribe so a very similar model exists. Most of these shows are website based, meaning the content comes from a website like CNet News, Slashdot Review and DiggNation. Other shows are stand alones and have websites like MySportsRadio.com and Photoshoptv.com.

I feel the podcast/vidcast space is ripe for a new company to form an internet podcast/vidcast network that solely creates news shows, sitcoms, reality shows and other content seen on television but at a higher quality from what is currently on the web now. The value of a company doing this is for cross advertising other shows and bulk ads run across many shows.

Maybe a car, cola, computer, soap, cereal, or other consumer product company will not advertise on a single podcast/vidcast show but maybe they will advertise across a group of shows delivered by a single company. Companies that may look and feel like the old broadcast companies but are really a company of the future.

The realities of podcasts/vidcasts are they will be less expensive than regular television shows. There are three components to podcasts/vidcasts, production, bandwidth and download count. The first two are the expense of making the podcasts/vidcasts and the last one is a rough count of viewers/subscribers. With broadcast/cable television there are more expenses with license airwaves, broadcast fees, they must fill the airwaves with 24 hour content and production costs.

A news show vidcast could be very different from their television/ cable counterparts. Let’s say you want to make a 24 hour news podcast/vidcast. Instead of recycling the news over and over like they do on Fox News or CNN, you can just make updates to news segments. It could be like Today’s News 1.0 and then Today’s News 2.0. The new version is only created when a significant amount of new information is collected and ready to present. Or add a new news story. The viewers to the news show could download only the news they want.

Sell it on Craigslist

Make a pilot of a show in Video Podcast form and sell it of Craigslist. If you have an idea for a TV show you can make a pilot very inexpensively as a Video Podcast show. Then post it online for people to view. After you’ve make the Video Podcast go to Craigslist and sell ad space. Two things will result from this. One, is many people will down load the show and an audience will start to form. If you show is entertaining. The second result is you may find someone or some company that will buy some ad space and help with bandwidth and production costs.

If you do not know what a Video Podcast is please visit my other Blog Video Podcast Review and visit iTunes. ITunes is the best and easiest place to find and download Video Podcasts.