The Lewin Group’s Elisabeth Lewin is featured in an excellent article by Rachel Sokol at TechWeb about trends in online content.

“If you can’t find a show you like, you can, fairly easily, create your own show,” said Elisabeth Lewin, publisher of PodcastingNews.com, which offers tutorials on how to use services like Blogger or Feedburner to create and host podcasts. Sites like iPodder.org and iTunes.com are podcast clients that allow users to subscribe to every version of a specific podcast. Via these clients, each production of a show is automatically downloaded to a users’ hard drive or media player.

Lewin believes podcasting will keep growing until broadcasters look at podcasting first and radio as an afterthought. “Podcasts can make money from Internet distribution in addition to radio distribution,” she said.

Tags: ebusiness, internet, planning, podcasting, the future of media, trends

For several years, one of the hottest topics in ebusiness has been what will happen with online music.

A generation of young people has grown up downloading and listening to music through unauthorized services. The mainstream music industry has responded with lawsuits and anti file-sharing advertising campaigns. It’s left a lot of people wondering if the world of music and the Internet would ever get along.

Magnatune is an interesting new ebusiness that is taking its cues from the success of open source software distribution. Magnatune is applying ideas from the world of open source software development to the world of music. They are doing this by licensing music with a Creative Commons license that lets people freely copy and share songs over the Internet.

Offsite Link: New music service sings a different tune

Tags: creative commons, mp3, music, planning

There are three steps that anyone developing a website should take. Failing to follow these steps is a sure way to waste time and money and may even lead to an unsuccessful site.

These steps are:

• Setting goals for the site. Why are you building the site? There may be many reasons. Some of the reasons may overlap each other, and some may conflict with each other. Common reasons for building a site are: gaining exposure, selling products or services, and offering customer support. List all your reasons for putting up a site, and then condense them down to a short list of site goals.
• Determining your audience. Who do you want to attract? Your audience springs from your goals. For example, if the goal of your site is to sell products, you obviously want to determine the demographics of buyers. On the other hand, if your main goal is offering customer service, you know your audience is people that have purchased your product. When you determine your audience or audiences, don’t limit your vision by your offline experience.
• Determining the goals of your audience. What are visitors to your site looking for? It’s usually best to get this information straight from the source. Talk to the people that use your site, or that you expect to use your site. Some of their goals may be: finding the best deal on your product or service, getting information on these products and services, and getting customer service.

Often, site owners don’t take the time to set goals and determine their audience. This results in an unfocused site that meets no one’s expectations. Users come and can’t find what they want, while the site owners don’t get a good return on their investment. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ebusiness, planning, web design