The IT Conversations website will be shutting down at the end of 2012. All of our programs will continue to be available online for free. For more information, please see Executive Director Doug Kaye's blog post.
See the detailed description of our mission.
We operate two tiers: a collection of curated channels and a grassroots team of producers known as PodCorps.org. Within the scope and topics of our channels, The Conversations Network accepts high-quality recordings of spoken-word events, handles all post-production chores, and publishes the presentations as MP3 files (podcasts) for free downloading and streaming by the public.
For events that fall outside the guidelines of our curated channels, producers can add their events to our database, which we then use to locate someone to record audio or video from our all-volunteer worldwide staff of PodCorps.org.
Yes, if you submit your event to PodCorps.org and we can find one more more volunteers. For events published on our curated channels, however, that is your responsibility. Most curated-channel events are recorded by the same audio-visual contractor that provides the live public-address services. Make sure you read our Audio Submission Guidelines and ask your contractor to read them as well.
For our curated channels, beyond your cost of professionally recording your event, the costs of editing, post-production, hosting and content delivery are funded by underwriting sponsorships and memberships. The Conversations Network is a lot like public radio in this regard. We will work together to locate the underwriters for the coverage of your event.
Nothing. The Conversations Network is free to all visitors. Paid membership, which supports our operations and infrastructure, is optional.
It varies greatly, but our rule of thumb is to expect 100x as many listeners as you have attendees at your in-person event. For example, if 400 people attend your event, you might have 40,000 unique individuals listen to the audio from that event. The most popular programs on IT Conversations, our flagship channel, have been downloaded more than 200,000 times. The average is approximately 25,000 downloads per program on that channel. Yes, the in-person attendance represents only 1% of the total number of people you will ultimately influence.
What will your net income be from the sale of recordings after you cover your expenses? Maybe a few thousand dollars? Maybe far less? Compare that to the benefits of extending your audience by perhaps 100x at no additional cost once you've recorded your event. And consider the value of having the best sessions from your event available online when it comes time to ramp-up registrations for next-year's event.
This is the question we're asked more often than any other. The answer is No, and here are the reasons why:
Only for our curated channels, not for recordings made via PodCorps.org. Our mission is to publish events that otherwise would not be available to the public. So if you're going to post your recordings elsewhere, our limited resources will be put to better use publishing other events that need our help more. You must agree not to publish competitive on-demand audio of the sessions covered by The Conversations Network, and not to allow any third party to do so.
Only for content published on our curated channels. We have a standard agreement which is available upon request. We have continuously updated the contract to meet the needs of a wide range of events.
Very little. Once we sign an agreement, you'll put us in touch with your event-planning staff, your webmaster (to cross-promote our web sites), and your audio/visual contractor. Our producers will take care of everything else.
If you make the recordings, you own them. Because we invest a great deal in post-production, The Conversations Network owns the rights to our derivative versions published on our curated channels.
We only publish programs that are educational, inspirational and entertaining. We also have exacting broadcast-quality standards for audio. One way our engineers and producers maintain our high standards of quality is by rejecting any session that doesn't make the grade. Don't be surprised, therefore, if not all of your event's presentations appear on our network. Any sessions we choose not to publish are exempt from our requirement for exclusivity, so you're free to publish them elsewhere.
Chances are your existing releases already cover publishing audio on the Internet, but if not we can provide the one-page agreement you will need.