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A new way to find podcasts

If you’re using podcasts to get your message to prospective customers, you should know about a whole new way for people to find your content. A new podcast search engine offers a breakthrough that may make podcasts easier to find than ever.


Up until now, podcast search was no better than image search, which depends on searchers using the words around the image file, or the name of the file itself. The search engine does not know that it’s a picture of a zebra—it is counting on the image being named “zebra.gif” (for example). Podcasts, until now, were similarly second-class content, compared to first class Web pages (and blog entries) that can be found by entering any word found on that page.
A new search engine, PODZINGER, takes a new approach, using speech recognition technology to convert podcasts (or any audio) to text. Speech recognition software can “listen” to audio and identify most of the words spoken, converting it to plain computer text, the same as any Web page. Once converted, any text search engine can find that audio file based on any word spoken.
PODZINGER is a neat tool that can help you find podcasts, but search marketers are waiting for mainstream search engines to offer speech recognition—when Google and Yahoo! can perform this trick, the average searcher will start to find podcasts. The development will cause a huge increase in podcast usage. You may even see it happen this year.

Mike Moran

Mike Moran is a Converseon, an AI powered consumer intelligence technology and consulting firm. He is also a senior strategist for SoloSegment, a marketing automation software solutions and services firm. Mike also served as a member of the Board of Directors of SEMPO. Mike spent 30 years at IBM, rising to Distinguished Engineer, an executive-level technical position. Mike held various roles in his IBM career, including eight years at IBM’s customer-facing website, ibm.com, most recently as the Manager of ibm.com Web Experience, where he led 65 information architects, web designers, webmasters, programmers, and technical architects around the world. Mike's newest book is Outside-In Marketing with world-renowned author James Mathewson. He is co-author of the best-selling Search Engine Marketing, Inc. (with fellow search marketing expert Bill Hunt), now in its Third Edition. Mike is also the author of the acclaimed internet marketing book, Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules, named one of best business books of 2007 by the Miami Herald. Mike founded and writes for Biznology® and writes regularly for other blogs. In addition to Mike’s broad technical background, he holds an Advanced Certificate in Market Management Practice from the Royal UK Charter Institute of Marketing and is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He also teaches at Rutgers Business School. He was a Senior Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research and is now a Senior Fellow of The Conference Board. A Certified Speaking Professional, Mike regularly makes speaking appearances. Mike’s previous appearances include keynote speaking appearances worldwide

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