The BlogTalkRadio Blog

Looking back at April 2008 shows us we’re still growing strong. In addition to all the conversations we’ve facilitated, we continue to add content to The Long Tail and provide a breadth and depth of content you’d be hard pressed to find housed on any other site. With over 70 categories and thousands of hosts, BlogTalkRadio is feeding the beast in record numbers. Take a look at these stats, for April:

• 11,000 shows broadcast and archived
• A total of 2.99 million listeners in April
• 2,700 different hosts completed at least one show
• 67,000 unique shows listened to in April
• 87,000 unique shows in long tail

I find it interesting that 77% of the shows produced since we launched BlogTalkRadio were listened to at least one time in April.

Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory, for example, predicts that demand for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores is potentially as big as for those that are. Take a look at the graph from Anderson’s site below.

The red part are the big hits, the top sellers. The orange part of the graph is the Long Tail, the niches, which the theory says is where the new growth is coming from now and will continue in the future. BlogTalkRadio and its hosts continue to add powerful, fresh content to those niche audiences. BlogTalkRadio is out to prove the Long Tail theory, that demand for content not available in your traditional media channels will be as big or bigger than what you can find on them. Our continued progress in this arena should be of interest to potential business partners and advertisers who want to capitalize on this growing demand for niche content - as well as our audiences who want that relevant information.

We’d love to hear from you; join the conversation.

Alan Levy, CEO

For those of you that have followed BlogTalkRadio, the story of how I came up with the idea was told.

When I was growing up in Seaford, Long Island my dad was in the dry cleaning business. He and my uncle owned a few dry cleaning stores located in Manhattan. The store my dad spent most of his time (and life) at was just adjacent to Lincoln Center on W. 64^th in Manhattan.

During my adolescent years, I used to take the train from our house in long island to help my dad out in his store. I would sweep up, tag and bag clothes and my favorite job…..delivering the dry cleaning. In those days, getting a dollar or two dollar tip from the wealthy NYC customers was big stuff, especially for a 14 year old kid in the 70’s.

ABC TV studios was located adjacent to the apartment building where my dad’s store was located. Some of his customers were Sam Donaldson, Geraldo Rivera, Barbara Walters and many other ABC personalities. If I was lucky enough I used to deliver dry cleaning to some of these TV personalities. It was exciting stuff!!

Yesterday, with great help from Marisol at Middleberg Communications, our excellent PR agency, we were able to secure a TV spot on ABC News Now called Money Matters for BlogTalkRadio (video below):

Host and BlogTalkRadio fitness director Peter K joined me on the 5 minute piece. I was pleased with how the clip came out and as a follower of BlogTalkRadio, you will notice that the anchor on the broadcast sounds just like the British lady which proceeds every one of our broadcasts.

So here I was standing outside my father’s dry cleaning store just having been broadcast on a major TV network, the network where I used to deliver dry cleaning. This is the first time I had seen my dad’s store in perhaps 20 years. Of course, I had to pop my head into the store and tell the non English speaking Korean owners that 30 years ago my dad owned this store. They had no clue what I was talking about, but they did smile a lot.

Peter took this picture of me in front of Lincoln Plaza Valet. I felt my dad everywhere yesterday afternoon. As I looked around the store, as I walked into the ABC building and as I sat in front of the camera answering the question…”What inspired you to create BlogTalkRadio?”

Thanks Dad.

BlogTalkRadio continues to change perspectives. Whether it’s how people look at radio, the Internet, or that staple of the American home: the phone.

Yesterday’s Portfolio’s piece on BlogTalkRadio has also changed a few perspectives about me.

Martin Varsavsky is a fellow entrepreneur and founder of numerous companies. I was an accountant in NYC twenty years ago when Martin asked me to join him to be CFO at Viatel. He gave me an opportunity to change the direction of my career.

Today Martin wrote a post about BlogTalkRadio and his changing views:

…my view of Alan Levy changed when I saw how he could successfully blend old style telephony with an exciting new format and the result is BlogTalkRadio. This week I was going to write an elaborate article in order to explain how is it that BlogTalkRadio democratizes the talk radio format using the internet and telephones and makes it available for all but I found out that Conde Nast Portfolio saved me from doing the research. Here’s a great article summarizing BlogTalkRadio.

Martin himself is a visionary entrepreneur who has founded many companies. His current project is FON, whose mission is to make WiFi universal and free by creating a unified global community of members who share WiFi. It’s already the world’s largest WiFi community.

I’ve always said I’m not your typical web 2.0 CEO. I’m not in the age range and I didn’t grow up with the Internet. Again, I’m changing perspectives on what people expect from a web 2.0 company. But I have a vision where everyone can join the conversation and have a voice that can be heard worldwide. And this citizen broadcasting network, BlogTalkRadio, is that vision that’s changing perspectives across the business, radio and Internet worlds.

Martin saw something in me that I perhaps not seen in myself. His confidence in me twenty years ago will always be appreciated.

Alan Levy
CEO
www.blogtalkradio.com

2007 was the year BlogTalkRadio became a new medium. It was an exceptional year for us. Listenership steadily increased, we relaunched the site with new features, thousands of hosts continued to sign up and bring on top notch guests and the buzz is building. We ended the year with a bang and an inspiring Reuters article that spread like wildfire.

Is BlogTalkRadio a new medium? I say undoubtedly yes!! In fact, not only has BlogTalkRadio proven to be an effective new medium smack center in the world of blogging, podcasting, broadcasting and social media, I would argue that BlogTalkRadio is the fastest growing creator of original content anywhere; on the web or off. I know that’s a pretty bold statement for a website only 16 months old and barely noticed by the blogger “intelligentsia” in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, except Robert Scoble, who has been a friend.

Please consider the following:

1. Since inception we have produced over 46,000 broadcasts all of which are maintained in our program guides and available for consumption. We produced 6,600 shows in December 2007 and yesterday January 10^th, 315 shows were broadcast live.
2. In December 2007, 2 million shows were listened to either live or on demand. Our content is available on our site, on our hosts blogs, all over myspace and Facebook, and throughout the web. We have also begun to syndicate our content to Reciva, podcast directories like Podcast.com and many others. We expect to syndicate much of our content to terrestrial radio stations throughout the country in 2008.
3. The content that comes into the network continues to amaze me. Just before the new year Brad Pitt, Arianna Huffington and Mike Huckabee appeared on BlogTalkRadio. This week alone, Yoko Ono, Jon Voight, Steve Forbes just to name a few. Please keep in mind that we do not have a booking department. All of the notable guests that have graced this network have been introduced by our thousands of active citizen broadcasters. Here is a list of notable guests who have appeared on BlogTalkRadio.
4. We are approaching 200,000 daily RSS feeds a day hitting our site, pulling blog posts and audio files. This number has quadrupled since we launched our redesigned site at the end of September.
5. There is no easier platform or technology on the web which can be used to create audio content where the publisher can use any type of phone, which is broadcast live, can accommodate unlimited listeners and archivable.
6. As noted in a recent article in publishers weekly, we are creating “stations” and other private label solutions for major companies such as publishers, on-line communities, media companies, etc.

Last night as I was surfing the web, I came across a post by Heather Hobson at Trendhunter Magazine, which was entitled “Rebirth of Radio.” I enjoy seeing blog posts that recognize the power of and help spread the word about this truly special medium.

Finally, I want to thank our thousands of hosts and millions of listeners for helping to build BlogTalkRadio into what it is today. In 2006 we pieced together three words and created BlogTalkRadio. In 2007, BlogTalkRadio became a viable medium. Any guesses what 2008 will bring? Please let me know your thoughts.

Alan

Yesterday BlogTalkRadio archived it’s 40,000th show. Forty thousand! That’s a big day for us and our hosts. When you think that we started in September of 2006 with zero shows, that’s quite a milestone. And one worth posting about.

And we couldn’t do it without you, our outstanding hosts, who use this platform as a way to share your messages and touch the lives of others.

Forty-thousand episodes broadcast through the BlogTalkRadio site into the hearts and minds of listeners all across the globe. It took 15 months to reach that number from zero. But it won’t take us long to archive another 40,000 shows at this rate.

What a great ride we’ve been on and I look forward to our continued growth and success. As CEO, I’m proud of our team for their support and our hosts who continue to generate outstanding content every single day. To another forty-thousand shows…

Alan Levy
CEO

On this Thanksgiving h0liday, I wanted to give a word of thanks to everyone associated with BlogTalkRadio.

First, I would like to extend my thanks to our employees, each and everyone of them. They include Bob, Rob, John H, Lisa, Amy, Ed, Shaun, Frank, Luke, John S., Christie, Shannon, Hilary, Loren, Zach, Josh, Adina, Duvid,Nikki and Amanda. I have never worked with a more dedicated group of people who share one common goal which is to help our hosts and listeners get the most out of their experience on BTR.

I also want to extend thanks to our thousands of hosts who take the time and energy to create their own content, many of you every week, some of you on a daily basis. A word of thanks also needs to go out to the entire BTR community, for participating in this new medium. Without our hosts and listeners, BlogTalkRadio would not exist.

Bob and I launched this network just over one year ago with no hosts, no content and no listeners. Since our launch, our network has produced more than 35,000 episodes covering almost every topic imaginable. Our “amateur” radio hosts have delivered possibly the broadest and most diverse list of notable guests on any medium. Truly inspiring!!

Finally, those that know me and interact with me understand that I believe that this platform has the potential to enhance the lives of thousands and possibly millions of people all over the world. Now that is a noble cause worth fighting for.

Alan

We launched BlogTalkRadio just over one year ago and we have been thrilled with our progress. In July 2006, Mike Arrington’s Techcrunch wrote;

“Will a significant number of text bloggers want to go live by voice through a service like this? I’m not sure they will, but if they do BlogTalkRadio looks like a good service. It’s certainly trying to cross some barriers into easy multi-media self production - and make it live. In cases where the two media are integrated well this could be very cool.”

In a little more than one year, we have broadcast 34,000 segments produced by thousands of hosts/publishers. BlogTalkRadio, the Citizen Broadcast Network has accumulated some of the best content on the web or off. Notable guests have included John McCain, Oliver Stone, Jennifer Hudson, Wesley Clark, Brian DePalma, Robert Scoble, Omar Minaya, etc. The list goes on and on.

Later this month, in a beta test, we will begin monetizing our platform by inserting audio ads into the archived broadcasts. We will also be serving our own banner ads. We will release details later this week, on how, what, when and where.

With thousands of active hosts, close to 250 new live shows produced each day, there are plenty of advertising opportunities on the network. Check out our popular shows, our featured shows and our robust category listings. Anyone interesting is learning more about advertising on our network or seeking sponsorship opportunities please contact advertising@blogtalkradio.com.

We welcome everyone to join the conversation.

Alan
CEO

This week, on October 22 and October 23, John C. Havens has been broadcasting interviews live from Sun Microsystems’ Startup Camp in NYC.

John has been conducting interviews through out the two-day conference, which has been sponsored by Sun Microsystems. Previously John spoke with Ian Murdock on New Media Havens about Startup Camp.

The archived recordings of the live broadcasts can be heard on Sun’s profile page on BlogTalkRadio.

We are excited to be working with Sun on live streaming the event. By incorporating the BlogTalkRadio technology into their own website and leveraging the remote functionality our platform offers, Sun and their partners have been able to extend the audience for their important messages and product releases.

BlogTalkRadio is all about “the conversation” and building community and we welcome Sun into the BlogTalkRadio community.

Alan Levy, CEO