Online Video and Podcasts

I had a great conversation yesterday with Businessweek online editor John Byrne about how things are going on his site, particularly with his video and podcast offerings.  Much of our discussion will be printed in this upcoming week’s min’s b2b, and the rest will be published online at minonline.com/digital/ (behind the firewall).  For those of you who aren’t yet full-fledged minsiders, here are some of the points that were made:

• Just putting an executive in front of the camera and having them pontificate does not a great editorial product make.  What works?  Strategy, news reports, quick analysis, (and we’ll add product demos).
• The Web begs you to integrate different kinds of media to give the user a complete package.
• Integration, especially the kind of integration where advertisers in print push users to the content online, is the way to go.
• Invest time and money in training your editors.
• You need not create videos with top quality production values: sometimes down and dirty is best.
• Podcasts are still popular (and profitable).
• The key to a good podcast franchise (and the reason to do it) is subscribers.
• Your users will consume your media if you place it prominently on the home page.  People like audio and video: you just have to help them find it.