When In-House Syndication Is Appropriate

Let's look at situations when an in-house syndication process is appropriate, and situations in which it's probably best to use some other form of communication.

Education

College and university professors have been some of the early adopters of podcasting for "serious" purposes. Professors or instructors can record lectures or special presentations to be downloaded by students. Distance learning and instruction in very large or over-enrolled classes can be presented to large numbers without over-burdening facilities.

Educational institutions are well positioned to limit access to class-related podcasts since so many pieces of information are already limited to students and keyed to authorization based on student ID numbers. A class website, with authentication required, can be the portal to all the online information supporting the class. The good news here is that practically no additional programming is required for the website; the simple XML code for the podcast can just be added to the page for the course, and a new educational function is in place.

Beyond colleges and universities, primary and secondary distance educational institutions as well as home-school support organizations can take advantage of podcasting to provide lectures to accompany the other materials they offer to students who can't take advantage of more conventional classrooms.

Customer Communications

Companies have long used conferences, newsletters, and websites to keep customers informed and inspire greater loyalty. Podcasting to an existing customer list, or to those customers who already have an authenticated login name on the customer support page of the corporate website, is a logical extension of these existing communications methods. With a podcast, the CEO's speech about new products or the company's new support strategies can be delivered directly to customers, rather than simply reported on in the customer-support newsletter.

Figure 10.1. Colleges and universities are beginning to recognize the possibilities of podcasting courses.

Podcasting can also increase the return on the investment a company makes in the customer meetings and conferences that take place each year. Company presentations and speeches are obvious subjects for podcasts, but customer interviews, question-and-answer sessions, and even sound-seeing tours of the exhibition hall or opening reception can add impact to podcasts on the conference.

One important factor to keep in mind (and we'll talk about this a bit more in a few pages) is that, while you can control who downloads your podcast, there's no real way to control who listens to it. Be careful about placing truly confidential information in a podcast, just as you'd be careful about putting confidential information in a newsletter.

Faith-based Organizations

Religious organizations have long embraced technology to help spread their message, and the podcast is another obvious tool for inspiring and educating people. Now, you might ask why such an organization would want to limit the listening audience for their message, but there may be many reasons for wanting listeners to register before subscribing to the podcast.

Figure 10.2. A secure podcast can complement other media activities for your customers.

One of the primary reasons for registering listeners of a faith-based podcast is to collect contact information for possible follow-up with additional information or support. Just as many churches and temples ask visitors for their name and address so that questions may be answered or offers of support made, the organizations may ask for registration and authentication for podcasts to enable follow-up after the content is received.

Another reason for registration and authentication might be to make content that is available only to individuals who support the organization or who have paid for a particular set of educational material. Many religious organizations have publishing arms that provide material to purchasers, and provide a podcast that must be subscribed to through financial support or other means recognized by the organization.

Political Organizations

Communicating with members and interested individuals is a constant challenge for political organizations. There are certainly plenty of opportunities for unregistered podcasts of a political nature (there are already lots of political podcasts), but an interest group or a political party may also want to communicate only with those it knows are sympathetic to its goals. A podcast can also be a way of bringing the direct words of a leader's speech to a large group of authenticated contributors or workers.

As with the podcasts from religious organizations, it may be that one of the reasons for requiring registration and authentication is to gather contact information for follow-up and future solicitation by email or paper mail. The key, as with all of the podcasts we talk about in this section, is to remember that you can control who downloads your podcast, but you can't control who listens to the podcastbe careful about precisely what information goes into the podcast you create.

Figure 10.3. Podcasts can be used to communicate political ideas.