NRL News
Page 27
April 2009
Volume 36
Issue 5

Using Podcasts and Web Feeds to Get the Pro-Life Message Out
By Patrick McGee

Beginning last December, NRL News has run a series of stories on emerging informational technologies. Our initial emphasis has been on so-called “social networks” such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and the like.

This month we look at a couple of older web tools that you should utilize for your group’s web site to help get out your message: podcasting and web feeds. They remain effective in the web’s new social networking environment.

What Is Podcasting?

Quite simply, podcasting is creating an audio file and making it available online for other people to listen to at their leisure. Traditionally this is done in MP3 format, although other formats can be used as well. It’s sometimes compared to radio on demand. The great advantage is that listeners decide not only the content of the programming but also when they will listen to it.

Because of emerging technology, podcasting is easier than ever. There are now simple ways to subscribe to specific shows and have the audio files automatically downloaded to your computer and placed into your MP3 software and onto your MP3 player without any effort.

Podcasts are a good way to maintain/archive a speech or video. Primary uses for podcasting are radio shows and music. Historic Presidential speeches are another great example as well.

National Right to Life already uses podcasting. Pro-Life Perspective is NRL’s daily five-minute radio show. NRL creates the podcast which is available from the Pro-Life Perspective web site—www.prolifeperspective.com—or iTunes.

How Effective Is Podcasting?

* The most successful podcasts garner as many as two million downloads a month.

* People who regularly download podcasts download an average of one to three podcasts each week.

* More than 6% of U.S. adults, about nine million web users, have downloaded podcasts in the past 30 days.

* A significant portion, about 38%, said they are listening to radio less often as a result.

What Is a Web Feed (Also Called a News Feed, RSS Feed, or XML)?

A web feed works like an automated e-mail program, but no e-mail address is needed. The user subscribes to a particular web feed and thereafter receives updated contents every time an updating takes place. A “Feed Reader” is required for using web feeds. Readers are built into most current Internet browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

Web feeds are geared towards timely syndication, such as hyperlinks to press releases or urgent action alerts. They are also used to syndicate podcasts, headline news, sport scores, and the like. The two main web feed formats are RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and Atom.

How do you know a web site has a web feed? If it does, the feed icon turns orange. If you hit the on button on the browser toolbar, you become a subscriber to that web site’s feed.

How Effective Are Web Feeds?

Five percent of Internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich web sites as it is posted online. It is anticipated this will grow, now that Twitter can utilize this tool. Five percent of Internet users say they use feeds and 6% say they use podcasting. Research updated in June 2008 showed the U.S. had 11 million users of each.

How Can Web Feeds Help the Pro-Life Movement?

NRL uses feeds as an additional tool to get the word out. It is just another flavor to deliver the same information, thus catering to your web site user’s preference of receiving your information. We use it for “Today’s News & Views,” alerts, and to tell people when we have updated our web site.

Remember that while NRLC is the informational hub, it relies on individuals and chapters to organize and mobilize the grassroots. Consider asking pro-life members of your family, your pro-life friends, and community members for their e-mail addresses and ask them if they would like to be kept abreast of the most current pro-life news and information.

Encourage them to sign up for our “Today’s News & Views.” Make sure that you are empowering your local chapter to be a vehicle for change. In short, the web allows you to continue doing what you have always done but in a much more effective, faster, and cheaper manner. Instead of reaching hundreds quickly, consider reaching thousands faster.

One of the conclusions we might draw from the last elections is that many pro-abortion people interact with the Internet and pro-lifers receive the Internet. As grassroots we need to move to Internet interaction.

We have worked in the past with only the telephone, flyers, and word of mouth. Now we need to fully embrace the Internet.