Actor / comedian Joe Rogan has a penchant for the extreme. From daring contestants to chow down on ox testicles and jump off of buildings on Fear Factor to being a commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Rogan has created a throng of adoring fans attracted to the dominating, alpha-male persona that has propelled his hosting career since leaving the NBC sitcom Newsradio in 1999. But now, after years of in-your-face projects, Rogan just wants to be friends. On his blog this week, he recounted the creation of his famous fan hotline, saying that a Twitter direct message to friend and fellow comedian Doug Benson was accidentally released to all followers. When he went to change the number, Rogan answered a few of the phone calls he received and found some great fan interaction. The fan hotline was born.
It is this type of grassroots social interaction that has made Rogan one of the internet’s most popular podcasters and has driven his comedy career in between hosting gigs. His podcast is called the Joe Rogan Experience–an online radio show with celebrity guests, similar to Howard Stern–and has gotten so popular, the site was exceeding the bandwidth allowances with its previous host. As his new tour begins this week, Rogan has announced a partnership with Pittsburgh’s Wizzard Media to monetize his podcast and create an iPhone application so smartphone users won’t have to call the hotline to stay in touch. The iPhone app will help more than just fans. With a mapping feature, Rogan will be able to see not only fan contacts and downloads but the location the contacts are coming from, increasing the saleability of both advertising and booking.
“As a comedian, you want to know in which cities do you have the most listeners so you can figure out where you are going to go and have a gig,” says Wizzard VP of Podcaster Relations Rob Walch. “A lot of people like our service from the perspective that they can say ‘hey, I’m getting a huge amount of downloads from Duluth, Minnesota. Who would’ve thought?'”
With a successful software brand established 15 years ago, Wizzard started their podcasting solutions business in 2004, making them the first podcasting company in the world. Wizzard’s Libsyn Pro platform hosted 1.4 billion downloads last year, making them the largest podcast platform online. Their platform now boasts names like director Kevin Smith, producer Quincy Jones and singer Usher. But it’s not just celebrities who are getting in on the act. Professors at MIT are sharing research updates, Microsoft is communicating with customers and National Geographic is sharing stories from around the world, all via podcast.
“We are really focused now on creating these apps for podcasters, we have really kicked that off in earnest in the last few months and we are getting a lot of interest,” says Walch. “Even podcasters that don’t host with us can create an app and get the word out to their fans.”
Source: Rob Walch, Wizzard Media
Writer: John Steele
