Hubspot, the nifty little service that helps you turn inbound links into customers and more by optimizing your marketing. They’ve set up a conference of some of the smartest marketers I know to help.
Here’s the deal. They have just 40 tickets left, so you want to hurry to get registered. Hubspot has been pretty awesome and given chelpixie.com a discount code to pass on to my readers that will get you $100 off the price of the conference. Just use code ‘8MCP1‘ when you register.
And shoot me an email, let me know you’ll be there cause I’d love to meet you!
Pandora faces closing the lid on it’s popular streaming radio service after the CRB, earlier this year, tripled the fees due to SoundExchange. Each time a streaming service plays a song they have to pay a small fee to Soundexchange. Soundexchange is deeply associated with the RIAA, who continuously acts like the bully on the playground. Making all the rules and taking your lunch money to boot.
Now the strain of those triple fees has hit internet stream radio and popular service Pandora is getting punched in the stomach enough times that it just might fall over soon. This weekend, the Washington Post reported that Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora Radio stated “We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision”.
I support 100% that artists make money from being played ANYWHERE. I know musicians who are struggling to keep up in the daily grind. I also know that there are a few who have passed along their music to Pandora so that new fans can be reached. I’ve also discovered new music over at Pandora and would hate to see them close their doors. I don’t think that anyone in internet radio objects to paying fees for playing songs, but suddenly requiring internet radio to pay 3x the fees that the did for streaming is unbelievable. Yet, it’s done.
Oh, and your regular AM and FM stations? They aren’t getting hit with the same outrageous fees. SoundExchange and RIAA are acting unfairly because they are scared of what internet radio is doing for independent artists at the same time being damn greedy with what shouldn’t primarily go to them, but to the artists that they “represent”. A lot of the time that money doesn’t reach the artist because Soundexchange “can’t find them“.
The only slim hope for Pandora lies with Rep. Howard L. Berman of California and his negotiations with Soundexchange and webcasters to come to an agreement on fees lower than those handed down last year.
The Washington Post also got a quote from Mike Huppe, general counsel for SoundExchange, “Our artists and copyright owners deserve to be fairly compensated for the blood and sweat that forms the core product of these businesses.” However, musicians only receive approximately $0.56 for a 10 song album.
Mr. Huppe, if you’re so concerned with the “blood and sweat” that goes into music creation, then maybe stop worrying about YOUR bottom line and support services who support musicians fairly.
It’s making me reanalyze the way I’ve been doing business with Google products the last 2 years. Sure it’s got shiny keyboard shortcuts and you can take it everywhere, but what good does that do me when I use it for EVERYTHING and have no backup in place. All of my mail filters into my Gmail account, from clients to Podcamp, from friends and family.
Not to mention when I first started using Google products I was a little concerned about them having access to everything I do within my business.
I have access to the files I’ve downloaded and thankfully keep my notes in Evernote (the best damn web app since gmail, hands down), but what to do.
What’s your backup solution? What will be after this shortage? Are you rethinking Google too?
32. No matter how good the alternatives are, Twitter is too sticky to go away (any time soon). They could drop the whale on a bus full of children, then bake their parents into meat-pies and people will still use Twitter over anything else.
There are so MANY more gems there too. Check it out!
This past weekend Podcamp Boston 3 rocked the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School. Thank all of you who attended, those who lent a helping hand, and those who taught others. Thank you to our sponsors who believe in what we do enough to put forth the pledge to help us put on this conference, that includes each of the attendees.
Huge thanks to Andrew Jankowich for helping out at the reg desk Saturday.
We had an 80% attendance rate, much better than last year’s 50%. 370 people total attended. Hopefully they learned a lot, met their goals of learning and sharing, and it will allow them to grow and DO in the next year.
Many times throughout the weekend, Chris Penn mentioned “do”. Doing. Achieving, reaching out and finding ways to make your real life community (no, not only your social media community) a better place. That maybe, by making your corner of the world a little better that will start something remarkable. If I reach out to help my community and you reach out to help your community and others follow in our footsteps who knows what changes that will affect. We’re seeing the beginning of that with Obama’s campaign. We want change, question is are we each willing to do our part to make it happen.
We have the tools. We have the power.
Did you meet your goals for learning? What will you do in the next year to make a difference?
It seems to be all conference in my world lately so I’ve not had a lot of time to post here. So much going on between the trip to Canada and then to Nashville. Podcamp Boston 3 ramped up in the last week and I’ve been crazy between work and organization issues for PCB. But now, I’m on the train to Boston and thought I’d take a moment to share some really cool things from the recent conferences I’ve attended.
Marketing Profs B2B Forum - This conference was awesome in it’s entirety. MarketingProfs put on a great showing. One of the most interesting and best conference I’ve attended so far. Yes, that counts Podcamp too. Why? I’ve been struggling with seeing myself for a long time. I work hard and try to help people as much as I possibly can. But I’ve also acquired knowledge, a huge amount of marketing knowledge and how to leverage that in social media. I attribute that to none other than Chris Penn, my mentor and friend. I often say he taught me how to fly after shoving me off a cliff. It was at that moment during the presentation where I realized I *can* fly on my own finally.
There are moments in life when you achieve knowledge and you cannot go back to not knowing these things. In that moment, I understood my abilities in marketing and my strengths, my knowledge and how extensive it is. It was powerful for me.
At PAB, I didn’t go to learn so much as go to be close some friends. I’ll admit. I learned all the same. I learned from the car ride down to Canada that I really enjoy listening to the banter between the Chris’. I learned that podcasting when you have something interesting to talk about and really know your stuff is fun and not scary. I learned that continuously meeting and setting goals for yourself makes you work harder and challenges you to change your thinking about the path you’re on. Julien, thanks for inspiring me to think about these goals in the last few weeks. It’s been an important moment in moving forward. The feeling that I got from MarketingProfs was re-enforced on the car ride back when I woke up to the results of the Chris’ talk. (Don’t fall asleep with these guys nearby. Fair warning.)
One of the most brilliant moments was Chris Brogan’s Jolt session in which he made it very clear that everyone’s time is precious. I’ll let you watch that for yourself below:
And after all of that I still wasn’t finished learning apparently because with Neil Gorman, you always learn something new. You should watch his video linked above. Okay? Don’t think about it, just do it. At one moment (not on that video), he forced us to put aside the toys and the distractions and for one moment look at everyone in the room, make that one connection with them that no one in the room will ever forget. It’s important in this day when we can turn on the computer and be connected to people across the world with a few clicks.
Don’t forget to make these very real, human connections. I know you won’t be able to put the equipment down completely, you are podcasters, that’s a given. That’s my advice for this weekend when you show up at Podcamp Boston 3. Make the connections, put yourself fully into being a part of the experience, because it’ll be over before you blink. If there’s someone you want to meet, make the time to talk with them. Learn, share and grow this weekend together. I look forward to meeting and talking with as many people as possible this weekend, because *you* are why I volunteer my time to this effort.
Michelle Wolverton is a virtual assistant catering to clients by handling time consuming tasks and enabling them to focus on doing their best work. Do you need a virtual assistant to help you save time in your day? Click here to see 100+ ways I can help you!
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Michelle Wolverton is a 
