Podango Shutters: What’s the Industry Effect?

I’m a bit late to the game on this one due to my blogging and Internet outage, but as you may be aware, well known podcasting network Podango has shuttered the site as of this evening.

Doug Smith, Podango’s President, sent out an email this morning reminding their producers and station directors of the need to back up their work as a result of the shuttering, but provided a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel for fans of the service:

Just last week we found out that a planned investment was delayed putting us in a financial situation where we will need to restructure through various strategic opportunities that are evolving. We expect at some point within the next month or so to relaunch under a different structure and possibly with a new owner.

I’ve actually spent a bit of time on the phone with Lee Gibbons, Podango’s CEO this weekend as well as others in the industry to get more background and information regarding the occurrence.  As it has been reported elsewhere, the closing of the network comes as a result of the tightening economy and the difficulty of content aggregators and producers to find sponsorship.

In speaking with Lee, I was able to clear up a little bit of the picture as to what the company is fated for. As you may remember, back in March, Podango hit the pages of Valleywag for allegedly not being able to pay some of their employees. I had received a similar tip from an ex-employee, who detailed a situation for Podango where they were looking to close an investment round, and as such were not able to pay employees. Gibbons, at the time, told me that the situation was overblown to a certain extent, and while they were looking for additional funding but denied being behind on paying their employees.

Lee also gave me some clues as to the eventual future for Podango.  Doug Smith is currently heading up the acquisition plans, but given the variety of asset types the company has in it’s arsenal, it’s very likely that they’ll be parted out to a number of different new organizations.

Podango Studios, which Pete Cashmore mentioned in October as being in danger of foreclosure due to an illness of the studio’s president, is being sold off for the raw equipment assets. The GigaVox ad serving engine is another asset that will be able to be sold separately or as a part of the integrated podcast serving mechanism they have built on AWS servers.

The ad sales team and the support staff are currently running in skeleton crew mode, but are another asset to the company that may seek other employment independently or could be sold as a unit, depending on how long the sale process drags out.

The bottom line is that Podango will probably not survive under the name Podango, but it’s assets (including the collection of producers and podcasts) will very likely live on under a different banner, though no one at this point is saying where (likely because it’s too early to tell).

What is the Impact on the Business of Podcasting?

My friend Jeffr0 expressed grave concern over Podango’s closure last week, and asked whether or his primary podcasting platform, TalkShoe, might be the next to go. I talked to Dave Nelson, TalkShoe’s CEO, this afternoon to address some of those concerns, which he allayed rather handily.

As I reported back in May, TalkShoe was rumored to have been seeking $5 million in new funding, which they apparently received November 12th (Dave confirmed the funding, not the amount, saying only that it was “substantial”).

Dave also mentioned that the company itself is going “great guns,” having tripled the amount of volume of production and engagement on the site, rising from 4 million minutes of audio produced last year to 12 million this year.

I asked him about his thoughts on Podango, specifically, since they too were big and rapidly growing, though not the biggest by any means, podcast hosting solution.

“I hate to see anyone fall out in this business,” said Nelson. “It is typical in any market, though, to see some fall out with and some go on to be leaders.  What happened here is fairly typical for what is still a new and exciting market.”

I spoke to Rob Walch from LibSyn/The Wizzard Network, who echoed these sentiments. Walch mentioned several other minor players in the business who had gone by the wayside in 2008, and echoed a lot of Dave Nelson’s sentiments.

“It’s a really tough environment,” said Walch. “There are a lot of good companies out there in normal times would make it but aren’t because of the economy and the public markets.”

Personally, I feel a bit of pain at the loss of Podango. They were one of the very early players, and one that I felt really got the business of podcasting, but due to being highly leveraged and running up against a tough economy, weren’t able to outlast the downturn.

I’ve met and worked with just about everyone on staff at Podango, from the developers on up to the executives, and I can personally attest to their solid business practices and generally amicable demeanor. It’s a shame that they’re going through such a tough time, but from one person suffering through unemployment to another, I say to them what has been said to me a few dozen times: “You guys are rockstars, you’ll all land on your feet.”

Regime Change at BlogTV

BlogTV, another of the many companies competing in the live streaming web video space with the likes of Mogulus, UStream and Stickam, has had a change of management.  CEO Guy Eliav has moved on from the company after having worked at the parent company Tapuz Group for nine years, according to a report from Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee.

If you read Hebrew, you can find Eliav’s farewell blog post here, which is a retrospective on his time at Tapuz Group, a gig that extended far past the originally planned three months.

He cites his move to work as CEO of Israeli TV web portal nana10 as simply the “right thing for me.”

CEO regime changes at live video startups are not uncommon.  Valleywag has chronicled the many CEOs at UStream. Similarly, when I was at SummerMash in Austin this year, in speaking with Aaron Novak, running things over at Stickam was no picnic either, though being owned outright and highly funded, they have a bit more degree of stability.

At any rate, while the spin NewTeeVee puts on the story, it makes it sound a lot like it’s related to economic pressures, but the impression I get from what I’m reading is that it was more about a change of scenery after a long stint at the same company.

Twitter Adds the Much-Needed Name Search

I really oughta be working on packing up the house right now, but a lot of interesting news tidbits keep dragging me back to the blogging window to post about them.  This one comes from Twitter’s Evan Williams:

We just launched a wacky new feature. You can now find people:http://twitter.com/search/u... Searches name field only. Rank by followers [number].

This isn’t, as with most Twitter features, an earth-shatteringly huge feature on the face of it. It is, however, something Twitter users have been looking for a long time.

It’s incredibly annoying to need to periodically import my GMail contact database to connect up with new friends on Twitter rather than as I think of it simply search up their name and click follow. This solves that issue.

FeedBurner Furthers Assimilates Into the Google Collective

Feedburner made their final post to their “Burning Questions” company blog today, and announced that all further updates will be made to the “Adsense for Feeds” blog. This signals an end of an era for FeedBurner, as they stop working as much on improved RSS functionality, and more on monetizing RSS feeds.

It’s also a bit ironic that this comes on the heels of discussion about the obsolescence of RSS as a technology, as it’s no longer “now” enough. A couple of days ago, Robert Scoble posted on the topic as he once again evangelized Twitter and FriendFeed as the real-time web and bemoaned how out of touch he’d be if he relied on RSS for the mainstay of his news delivery.

It’s also worthy of note that they’re just, as of recent, getting around to properly monetizing RSS feeds at Google as the technology is decades old in Internet years.

FunnyOrDie Funding Bumps Up Another $3 Million

FunnyOrDie, the comedy niche streaming video website that was made popular by Will Ferrell’s video “The Landlord,” and then made relevant again by Paris Hilton’s political commentary, has been reported on Reuter’s wire to have raised another $3 Million.

The funding round is their Series B, and comes from an “undisclosed investor,” and brings their total funding amount up to $18 million.

Neither Sequoia Capital, the leader of the $15 million Series A round, nor FunnyOrDie are making comments right now, so speculation as to what this $3 million actually is is running rampant.  Some reports are even saying that the $3M represents the 10% stake sold to HBO over the summer.

I’m sure we’ll hear more clarification in about six months – FunnyOrDie has a pretty consistent history of letting news leak and then finally clearing up the confusion about a half a year later.

ThePlanet and EdgeCast Partner Up

ThePlanet, a datacenter and leased server provider based here out of Dallas, has decided to go with well known CDN Edge Networks. The partnership was solidified so that ThePlanet could get into the CDN business – most of ThePlanet’s servers are in the Dallas area, and EdgeCast has presences worldwide.

I’ve actually known a lot of folks who worked for ThePlanet, and it’s an impressive facility (there’s a picture here of the entry to one of their datacenters).

EdgeCast also powers the CDN behind Mashable as well as dozens of other Web 2.0 and web based applications you read about in your daily tech news, as well as most of the news video you watch on sites like CNet and CBS.

The Roku Player Now Does Netflix in HD

This was on my list of things to get my wife for Christmas before finances got tight: the Roku player.

My wife is a Netflix addict.  She watches really bad horror movies constantly with their streaming service. Between the content on Netflix and the content on Hulu, there’s been very little reason for her to turn on the TV much this season.

Word comes now that the player is releasing support for HD resolution come first quarter of 2009.

With all the new content showing up there, this $100 investment is getting harder and harder not to make.