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May 2006 - Strategy Magazine
What next

Cell casts

by Annette Bourdeau
page 36

Advertisers have been buzzing about how to tap into podcasts for well over a year. Now, the tools to enable just that are starting to emerge.

Los Angeles-based Pod2Mobile recently launched software that lets people transfer podcasts to their cellphones for free. While the podcast RSS feed is being converted to work on the cell, the software is able to insert ads. Once the service is up and running, podcasters will be able to share the ad revenue based on number of hits, a la Google's AdSense.

"Ad agencies are interested because you can't just fling a podcast at someone - they're pulling it because they want it," explains Hal Bringman, Pod2Mobile co-founder. "Agencies have a lot of questions right now because we are so new. We're very open-minded about building customized packages."

The software works on most cells, as long as they have media players. "We built it for the most basic of handsets...[because] we want the biggest crowd possible," says Bringman.

Ads are currently limited to 15-20 seconds long, and Bringman says the ideal length to avoid annoying consumers is 10 seconds. Advertisers can build customized packages, and buy ad space on their choice of specific podcasts or podcast categories like entertainment, business and science. Advertisers can also buy random packages if they don't care which podcasts their ads make it into. Introductory package prices range from US$300 to US$600.

While at press time it was mostly smaller advertisers like online music store CD Baby that had signed on, Pod2Mobile was in talks with a major film studio interested in buying out every podcast category to promote a big upcoming release.

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