More podcasts, please?

Picking up on a recent talks and events discussion topic over in our community, we’re also looking at how we deliver podcasts and videos online and I’d like to hear your views.

We’re planning to redevelop Archives Media Player as part of our website improvement.

We currently record and podcast most of the events held at Kew, including the regular Thursday talks delivered by our expert speakers, and the Writer of the month events. We also produce some content exclusively for online, for example, our Voices of the Armistice podcast series.

These, along with some videos, are all published free of charge online. They’re available on Archives Media Player, and also on other channels including:

    1. 1. Videos on our YouTube channel

  1. 2. Podcasts via iTunes store 1
  2. 3. Vimeo – a paltry three videos so far
  3. 4. RSS feedWe’ve also experimented with webinars (such as Meet the Keeper), where you can watch a speaker and interact with them in real time (more of which in future!).

So… a few questions

  1. Channels: which channel do you prefer and why?
  2. Content: are we providing the sort of content you want to listen to? Are there any gaps in our coverage?
  3. Delivery: If you’ve used Archives Media Player, what do you think works well? How would you improve it?
  4. Media: audio or video – any preference, or do you like both?

Do let me know what you think in comments below, or ask me a question on Twitter (@_allenemma). Also sign up if you’d be interested in helping us to test out different solutions.

Notes:

  1. 1. PS We know that our audio content is hugely popular. A quick glance at our digital trends for 2012 shows that 890,000 podcasts were downloaded last year, up from 175,000 in 2008. Early indications are that we’ll smash through 1 million downloads in 2013 – watch this space!

1 comments

  1. Alison Galligan says:

    I enjoy the podcasts currently & think the content is very good. My suggestion would be whether the file size could be smaller as it always takes much longer to download on i-tunes to my computer or phone than any other podcast i listen to of similar duration. Thanks

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