Music rights remain one of the most confusing aspects of sharing songs online. Most musical artists, songwriters, record labels or some combination of all three hold the rights over songs determining how they can be used by other people. If you want to share music with other people on your blog or in a podcast, it gets really tricky because you might be violating someone’s rights (and be legally accountable for doing so) if you didn’t get permission first. IODA is trying to simplify this process by being the middleman for musicians who want to connect with blog and podcast audiences. The IODA PROMONET service is the clearinghouse for a library of songs available for sharing through blogs and podcasts. This isn’t some obscure archive of tracks either. IODA has approval for blogs and podcasts to share everything from Elton John, to Bach, to Kottonmouth Kings, to old school hip hop like Kool Keith and Doug E. Fresh. At the 2006 Portable Media Expo, Jake talked with Corey Denis of IODA about how PROMONET works. Jake asks about all the hypothetical scenarios, like playing music with ads, having a subscription fee, and when and where you can use the music, so you come away with a good idea where this music can be used without any repercussions.

• Greg Smith puts Podcasts on Your Phone with FeederReader
• John Federico On Digital Media
• Corey Dennis of IODA, Dermot Waters of CNN and Werner Vogels of Amazon at Gnomedex 6

There are a ton of companies trying to figure out creative ways to get podcasts on cell phones. From calling in and burning minutes, to streaming over your data plan, to downloading in proprietary formats, it seems that people have thought of everything. If you have a Windows Mobile phone, there’s one clear choice for downloading podcasts – FeederReader. The app is both a news aggregator and podcatcher with full support for downloading RSS enclosures of audio and video to a mobile phone. As long as you have a memory card with enough room, FeederReader can grab virtually anything. At Podcasting and Portable Media Expo 2006, the app received best of show. In this interview, Jake talks to Greg Smith, creator of FeederReader, about how the app works, what makes it go and why you should dump your iPod for a universal solution of cell phone and portable media player.

• Corey Denis of IODA on Sharing Music Online Legally
• John Federico On Digital Media
• Tagging Your Posts for Gnomedex
• OPML to RSS
• Is Gada.be for You?

Digital Media encompasses so many things at this point it’s hard to really pinpoint what the term describes. One place where you can regularly listen in on the discussion about all things digital is the On Digital Media podcast, which is a podcast all about technology, creation, distribution, consumption and monetization of all things falling under the blanket banner of “digital media”. Hosted by John Federico and Chia-Lin Simmons, two self-described marketing geeks who also happen to be heavily entrenched in the world of digital content delivery, On Digital Media tackles interesting issues in the online content space in every episode. You may also remember John from our interview at last year’s Portable Media Expo, where he talked about Audible’s new Wordcast service. In this conversation at the 2006 Portable Media Expo, Jake talks with John about On Digital Media, how he got started in digital media and some tips for people who want to make digital media.

• Corey Denis of IODA on Sharing Music Online Legally
• Greg Smith puts Podcasts on Your Phone with FeederReader
• Microsoft’s Zune Competes with Microsoft
• Rick Corteville of Organic on Rich Media Branding