This post wraps up my three-part interview with Podaddies CEO Nate Pagel (shown here with CTO and co-founder Robert Boyle.) If you haven't read the first two installments, be sure to check them out first (Part 1, Part 2.)
Greg Verdino: You’ve been working in and around online video since the mid-90s, which makes you a grizzled veteran. What do you consider the biggest differences between then and now?
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Nate Pagel: I’m not grizzled, though I suppose I am a veteran. If we really want to go way back I did my senior high school thesis project on video – it was a mashup of Leave it to Beaver and The Iliad called Leave it to Achilles -- a decade before that, but let’s not go that far back… What’s gotten better? Hard drive storage space, ubiquity of high bandwidth connections, everyone having a video camera, better codecs (smaller files with better video quality), those kids becoming adults, and the quick movement of the internet as a place for media - going from text to graphics to audio and video just a little faster than we historically went from books to radio to TV. Not necessarily in that order – but notice how few folks in advertising talk about that first one on the list. And I think it is crucial to do so. TiVo revolutionized TV and shook up TV advertising. As the web gets shaken, not stirred, with downloadable media – we already have a solution. Drink up! Advertising follows media consumption, Podaddies is part of that trend.
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GV: You’re both an artist and a business person – how has that dichotomy shaped your vision for Podaddies?
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NP: Part of my artwork is truly independent video production. The stuff has been shown all over the world in galleries, museums and festivals. I’ve been lucky enough to have tens of thousands of people watch and interact with the content, and I’ve learned a lot in the process. The first podcasts were from independents. I wanted to allow those folks to be compensated for their efforts, so I created Podaddies. Then we grew up, but we still very much do that. For one partner, a video aggregator called Blip.tv, we share the revenue pretty equally between the network, Blip and their users who have their own shows and want advertising. I think that’s really cool and simply has not happened before in history at this level. Some of these content creators can quit their day jobs and to what they do best – and what they truly want to do. And I’m proud to be a part of the new machinery that enables that to happen. I also happen to think that art and business is not a dichotomy. I’ve always been both and see them as (almost) equally as creative. I was lucky to grow up believing that there didn't have to be a wall between the two. I think the (at times) disparate ways of creation and problem solving can inform each other. Advertising in particular has a history of mixing the two. Well, good advertising does.
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GV: Anything else you’d like to add – anything I didn’t touch upon that you were hoping to discuss
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NP: Web based display (banner) ads are, 12 years later, still evolving at a rapid pace with behavioral and contextual targeting, expandable and other new formats, and engagement metrics. Video online JUST exploded and is continuing to do so. Hence advertising in this sector has a lot of innovation coming. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but Podaddies does make the promise that we will do our best to innovate while creating standards (that are easy to buy), to target so that ads are relevant while providing reach, and to educate the agency business so that we can all move forward with better advertising. Doing all this is better for everyone in the value chain: advertisers get better results, agencies understand the medium and engagement, publishers make money and expand their viewership – and last but certainly never least – the viewers enjoy a greater choice of better content with relevant, non-invasive advertising.
