Community Guy – Jake McKee

iTunes, Podcasting, and Paranoia

Steve raises a good point: Apple isn’t Long Tail friendly to podcasters.

Maybe I’m just feeling a little paranoid this evening, but honestly, I’m beginning to wonder these days if Apple isn’t actively trying to push out the small time podcasters. Apple either launched a basic to the point of simply bad strategy, or a brilliantly executed ass kick to the amateurs. Over the last few weeks since iTunes 4.9 launched, the home page of the iTunes Music Store Podcasts pages have transformed to include far more "professional" podcasts than non-professional. If this trend continues, we’ll have to really dig soon to find anything that’s not from a major network.



Think about what Apple hasn’t done, and give me your feedback – are they horrid strategists or are they brilliantly evil bastards?

• Poorly designed RSS extensions
• A spec document for those new extensions that is barely one step above the back of a cocktail napkin
• A total lack of feedback system for the RSS feed submission in iTMS
• A total lack of a feedback system for the "Report a problem" process in iTMS
• An unclear, and non-transparent system of MP3 caching
• A non-existent explanation of what the update schedule/process is
• A non-existent explanation of what the content moderation process is

Now, if Apple’s goal is to simple focus in on a handful of the largest content providers (i.e. networks and studios, for instance), why bother building all those things? After all, with only a handful of large content providers, they’d likely have account execs and tech teams assigned to each. Making updates and changes could be made instantly with a call from the content provider’s account exec to the Apple account exec.



But here’s the real point of doing this – you can get professionals to pay for placement. Right now, Apple only makes indirect money off of the podcasting phenomenon through the theoretical increase of iPod sales inspired by a desire to jump on the podcast wagon.



Amateur podcasters aren’t going to pay for placement within iTMS, but CBS might. Or Weblogs, Inc. might.



Who knows, maybe I’m just being paranoid, but can you blame me? Apple has always treated the enthusiast community like shit, why would they stop now?

Always more to the story

I’ve blogged a great deal about the Kryptonite story here on ths blog. I’ve even interviewed their PR person via email and have had an ongoing dialogue with her since.



We’ve talked about a number of things related to the Kryptonite blogging story, but mainly our conversations have focused on "the rest of the story". You see, as the saying goes, every story has three sides: your side, my side, and reality.



Over on the Robert Scoble/Shel Israel Naked Conversations blog, there’s an ongoing discussion about the inclusion of the Kryptonite story in Chapter 10 of their upcoming book on blogging. Apparently, the only research that Israel and Scoble did was the internet version of the story.



Much to her credit, Kryptonite PR person Donna Tocci has been actively engaging the authors, and has even posted a comment on this blog entry. Good for her. Interestingly there’s much more to her side of the story they Kryptonite has ever gotten credit for, especially from me.

Much like the kids game "Telephone", this story has gotten incredibly distorted over time, and as you can see from the comments, many people are simply not interested in learning the truth or even more facts about it. They’re concern, or perhaps interest, is to continue using Kryptonite as a punching bag.  Never mind the fact that they’ve happily replaced more than 350,000 locks at this point, no matter how old. Never mind the fact that Master Lock and other Kryptonite competitors have had less than marginal responses to this industry-wide problem. Never mind that Kryptonite shipped replacement locks to consumers before dealers. Never mind any of that because, damn it, we have our target and we’re sticking to it!



Now, don’t get me wrong. I stand by my original assessments that Tocci and Kryptonite didn’t clearly understand the blogosphere and to this day are still struggling to learn how to properly interact with this highly emotional group that’s nearly impossible to please. Tocci’s original reply to my interview questions were stuffy and old school PR-speak. But her recent comments in the Naked Conversation thread clearly show she’s learning and getting comfortable.



Personally, if I was in her position, I would have hired an expert like me 6 months ago (man do I sound egotistical!) to help guide and train them through this PR nightmare.



But to me, this case is as much about understanding the emotions of the blogosphere membership, as it is giving the "right" answers. You are simply never going to please the blogosphere, but you can navigate their waters without hitting a floating mine.

Ever worked in/around marketing?

Have you ever worked with marketers, in a marketing department, or on a marketing project?



No?



Then here’s video that’ll get you prepared. Educational, and fun!

Digg

Digg is a pretty cool site.

Check out the unofficial guide to the site.

Modders vs. Hackers

PC games, and even many console games these days are often modded – meaning that smart folks from around the world take the original game as a starting point and modify it into something different. Sometimes these changes are slight, sometimes they create nearly entirely new games.



Up until last week, game companies loved modders – they’re the reason that games continue to sell years after their launch, when newer, better games have come along.



But looks like Take Two, the owner of Rockstar Games, creator of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is trying to throw modders under the bus to save their own asses. It was discovered last week that Rockstar programmers had left in code on th master discs that showed "graphic" sex between two of the characters. This code wasn’t accessible by normal gameplay, but with a mod, could be seen. Wired has an article about the background, and the political manuevering about it.

What’s most interesting is how Take Two is running so scared, so fast. This is the group that has produced not one, but three version of Grand Theft Auto, making it more violent and graphic each time. You’d think that these guys are honestly worried about the politicans.

This is the best part though – not only are you going to try to lock out hackers (which wee all know works SO well….), you’re going to also go after the symbotic businesses that help your games continue to sell years later. Genius.



And it’s Sunday, and I’m in a good mood, so I don’t even want to start on the politic idiocy here.

Give great service

I just came across this blog post about one person’s views on giving great customer service. It’s a good read.



I’m off to D.C. for the weekend for my grandmother’s 80th birthday party and some sightseeing. Should be a great time. See you on Tuesday!

Continuing iTunes Podcast Saga

We’re opening day 17 of not having my podcast feed listed in iTunes 4.9. Came across an article similar to my previous entry regarding the iTunes problems.



And apparently, my concern with the iTunes launch is just whining. That’s OK., that’s what the Internet is for, right?? Sad that this blogger has decided to give up quality customer service…

Fan Films

Came across an article today about fan films and their growing place in the world of film.

Still no iTunes love

Well, it’s been 13 days now, and still no placement of the CommunityGuy.com podcast in the iTunes Music Store directory.



And no notification of status.



And no indication of when/if my podcast will be listed.



And no indication or notification of what might be holding up the process.



And nary a peep out of Apple on a wide range of questions and issues.



Just to recap, Apple launched iTunes 4.9, which included built-in support for managing podcasts, as well as integration of podcasts into the iTunes Music Store. Since the launch 14 days ago (yes, two weeks!), there have been a number of significant issues come up that Apple has yet to address, or give any sort of feedback on whatsoever. None. Nada.

• A marginal extension of the RSS standard, with little input or discussion with the development community. (Although it looks like there may have been some involvement outside of the single Adam Curry reference)
• Badly written, and perhaps mistake laden specification for the RSS extensions that has yet to be improved, expanded, or even clarified by Apple
• Feeds are being "hijacked", meaning that rather than display the actual RSS feed, Apple is displaying their version of it – which can mess with ad revenues for podcasters in a big way – which is particularly bad considering the cost of even a marginally successful podcast and the fact that most/many podcasts are free. It seems this may have gone away, maybe not. With Apple being completely absent from the discussion, we’ll never know.
  
• No clarification or transparency into the acceptance process to be listed in the iTunes Music Store
• A total lack of updates in the iTMS when the podcast RSS feed is updated – some podcasters (those who are lucky enough to make it into the directory) are only seeing some of the shows in their feeds show up, while others are updating their feeds daily, but only seeing some of the episodes show up in iTMS
• Absolutely no two-way communcation with people submitting podcasts to the directory about the status of the submission. Two-way communication here could mean anything from simply sending an email to people saying that they’re reviewing or a way to view the status or your place in the review queue within your account in the iTMS

I also have to laugh that there’s a review process in place here. Apple is willing to promote the hell out of the latest 50 Cent album, but is worried that podcasters might say something that’s over the line?



At the end of the day, Apple has the right to do whatever it is they feel is appropriate or best suited for the discussion. What bothers me is not their choices, however poor, it’s the lack of transparency. They’ve just added a significant reasons to buy an iPod to their list of reasons. That significant reason is built on the backs of quasi-volunteers. They have a duty and an obligation to treat those volunteers, those donaters, with respect.



I understand that Apple may have wanted to avoid mindless, endless discussion about the best way to develop things. Sometimes it’s a better plan to simply develop something (hopefully with the input of the community leaders, if not the community overall) and then launch it. But that’s only half of the process.



If you’re going to launch something or develop something designed to target or at least include a very specific niche audience without their input, you must be present and open for discussion when it launches. Apple’s problems haven’t come from their lack of initial input, it’s come from their total absenteeism. Had Apple made a single announcement, blog post, forum post, or mailing list post about the issue, even something like "We’re working on getting you answers, we’ll have them soon", I probably wouldn’t be writing this post right now.



Community work is simple – just treat your community like you’d want to be treated. I can’t imagine a developer or project manager inside of Apple who worked on iTunes 4.9 who would want to be treated the way they’re treating the community.

9 Days and counting…

I submitted my Community Guy podcast to the iTunes Music store to list in their directory 9 days ago. With not a peep out of them to date. No acceptance, no rejection, no explaination, nothing.



This botched launch continues to further irritate me. Still not a word from Apple on any of the outstanding issues with their horrid specification, the discussion of "feed hijacking", an insight into the process of how and why and when links get accepted, or an explaination of how or when podcasts in a feed are updated.



This is absolutely ridiculous.