Some Corporations Jump on Podcasting

Posted on December 12, 2005

The Baltimore Sun has an article about how several corporation are taking the early plunge in podcasting.

General Motors Corp., credited as one of the first corporate podcasters when it dipped its toe into the waters in February, records talk-radio-style episodes about its vehicles that were downloaded 75,000 times in August. Disneyland celebrated its 50th anniversary in May with a series recorded inside the park. Verizon Wireless issued one a few days ago to promote a cell phone that will, among other features, let you listen to podcasts.
International Business Machines Corp., which produces podcasts for investors about the future of trends, also set up a podcast-recording system for employee communication. And many media companies, from the BBC to ESPN to The Sun, have jumped on board for simple self-preservation.
"Companies are completely losing control of their messages, and the one way to get into the game is by blogging and podcasting," said Michael Wiley, GM's director of new media. "The companies that are early adopters stand tremendous opportunity to be the winners in the long run."

Some of the corporation podcast links listed include General Motors, John Hopkins, Purina, Disney, Whirlpool and Verizon Wireless. The article also wisely included the Baltimore Sun's own postcasts. One corporate podcast the article missed is Oracle's TechCasts which are discussed in a recent eWeek article. Corporations obviously have to be careful to keep their podcasts from sounding too much like marketing speak. Another risk is simply getting lost in the crowd.

One clever tactic taken by Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel who run the Across the Sound podcast is to list the topics, blogs and companies being discussed in a blog post about the podcast.