Today, I was a guest on Novell 's new radio show, CloudChasers . You can find the link to the conversation here. But rather than excite (bore?) you with all the details of what we discussed, instead I want to use this blog to discuss the marketing implications of a web-based radio show.

We produce CloudChasers in conjunction with our advertising agency, PJA Advertising and Marketing . It's a weekly 30-minute radio show that is syndicated to an Internet radio station, and also stored as a podcast. The point of CloudChasers is not to promote Novell products or solutions (in fact, during my appearance today, I didn't use the word “Novell” once). Rather, the show is designed to be an interactive discussion around cloud computing to help our audience members cut through the hype in the market.

What's interesting to me as a marketer about CloudChasers is that it is taking an old medium – radio – and repurposing it for a new one. At its most fundamental, talk radio is about two (or more) people discussing an interesting topic, with the freedom to explore avenues as they come up. It's a very organic form of communication, and it's why talk radio continues to be a popular medium today. The conversation is live, non-edited and goes where it wants to go.

Contrast the freedom of talk radio with the traditional form of internet audio – the webcast. With a webcast, you are limited by the content of the next slide. If the discussion goes an interesting direction, you can explore it briefly, but eventually you have to come back to the content on your slide, and the tone shifts from discussion to presentation. Webcasts are typically “produced” with fancy slides, and script to follow. A discussion is infinitely more interesting than a presentation.

The flip side of doing an internet radio discussion is that without slides, the audio needs to be absolutely impeccable. If all people are doing is listening, then the sound quality needs to be top-notch, without any popping or noise in the background. People are not distracted by slides, nor can you use the slides to help re-inforce your point if the audio fails, even for a moment.

When I showed up today at PJA, I expected to be led into a soundproof studio. Instead, I went to a conference room, and a couple minutes later, a single tech showed up with a mixing board, some studio-quality microphones and an Apple MacBook. When I asked about the total equipment (sans the MacBook), I was surprised to find out the total cost was under $2000. That means that professional quality audio is suddenly affordable. Not cheap, but affordable. This price point is truly a democratizing factor, making radio accessible to everyone.

All in all, I found my CloudChasers experience to be enjoyable. I really enjoyed my discussion with Dustin Amrheim from IBM (@damrheim) who is a technical evangelist for WebSphere. More importantly, I hope our listeners learned something, or were at the very least entertained for 30 minutes. And I remain optimistic and enthusiastic about using new forms of media to communicate with prospects, partners, customers, or just plain old “interested parties.” Too often as marketers we find one tool – like the webcast – and beat it to death again and again and again. But with affordable technology, and a little courage to try something different, we can find new ways to engage and educate, and even potentially drive a little demand.

Want to learn more about CloudChasers or internet talk radio? Join our LinkedIn Group here or listen to me on the radio here .