Podcasting places

 A podcast series usually features one or more recurring hosts engaged in a discussion about a particular topic or current event. Discussion and content within a podcast can range from carefully scripted to completely improvised. Podcasts combine elaborate and artistic sound production with thematic concerns ranging from scientific research to journalism. Many podcast series provide an associated website with links and show notes, guest biographies, transcripts, additional resources, commentary, and even a community forum dedicated to discussing the show's content. 

I've found some success already

Adrian Lawrence on Anchor FM

Adrian Lawrence on Buzzsprout

The cost to the consumer is low. While many podcasts are free to download, some are underwritten by corporations or sponsored, with the inclusion of commercial advertisements. In other cases, a podcast could also be a business venture supported by some combination of a paid subscription model, advertising or product delivered after sale.

People are motivated to create a podcast for a number of reasons. The podcast producer, who is often the podcast host as well, may wish to express a personal passion, increase professional visibility, enter into a social network of influencers or influential ideas, cultivate a community of like-minded viewership, or put forward pedagogical or ideological ideas (possibly under philanthropic support).

 

 

Music platforms

Three sites I am trying out to push my podcasts are Soundcloud, bandcamp and mixcloud, these are all mainstream music sites, but have added podcasting sections so there is some potential for them, though I am not sure how useful these will be

Soundcloud

SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website based in Berlin that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio, as well as a DSP enabling listeners to stream audio. Started in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud has grown to be one of the largest music streaming services reaching over 175 million monthly users worldwide. SoundCloud offers both free and paid membership on the platform, available for desktop and mobile devices. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-868964379-643853291

Bandcamp

Artists and labels upload music to Bandcamp and control how they sell it, setting their own prices, offering fans the option to pay more and selling merchandise.

Fans are able to download their purchases or stream their music on the Bandcamp app/site only once or unlimited times by preserving the purchase voucher. They can also send purchased music as a gift, view lyrics, and save individual songs or albums to a wish list. Uploading music to Bandcamp is free, and the company takes a 15% cut of sales made from their website, which drops to 10% after an artist's sales surpass $5,000.

https://adrianlawrence.bandcamp.com/

Mixcloud

Here is my mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/highlandspring/

 

 

Patreon funding

 

Patreon is an American membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a commission of 5 to 12 percent of creators' monthly income, in addition to payment processing fees.

Patreon is used by you tube artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, adult content creators, and other categories of creators who post regularly online. It allows artists to receive funding directly from their fans, or patrons on a recurring basis or per work of art The company, started by a musician and developer Sam Yam in 2013, is based in San Francisco.

We are interesting to see our Patreon account performs you can find us here

https://www.patreon.com/adrianlawrence 

Its a way for people to help entrepreneurs and artists who would otherwise have a hard time raising funds.

Some interesting places

I've been spreading the word about our website this week, we now appear in a lot more places as a result of this promotional activity.

It really is time consuming and hard work, but really worthwhile when you see people visiting and making the most of our services.

This week I added a great blog post covering the new features on our site. Check our what is new at Reporting Accounts.

A key advance has been to see the launch of our firefox add-on this now means that it is easier than ever to search Reporting accounts without even needing to go via a search engine