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MSU student-run podcast site makes iTunes best of 2008 list
December 17, 2008 -- Carol Schmidt, MSU News
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| Daniel Schmidt, left, and Andy Adkins, right, two student producers of the "Terra: The Nature of Our World" website, say each day thousands of virtual visitors download free nature and science podcasts from the MSU-based site. Apple's iTunes store recently included Terra on its list of the Best of 2008. MSU photo by Kelly Gorham. |
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iTunes, Apple Computers popular digital media site, has named a Montana State University-based Website that allows free downloads of science and nature films to its Best of 2008 podcast list.
"Terra: The Nature of Our World," www.lifeonterra.com, a site maintained by graduate students in MSU's Science and Natural History filmmaking program, was named Apple iTunes Best Podcasts of 2008 in the classics category. Other winning podcasts in the category include "Meet the Press," "Sesame Street," Freeskier Magazine and "Hidden Universe," among others.
The iTunes designation is the latest in a number of awards that the Life on Terra Website has received in the past two years, according to Andy Adkins and Daniel Schmidt, graduate students in the Science and Natural History Filmmaking program and producers of the Terra site. A year ago Life on Terra won a Webby, which the New York Times calls the "Oscars of the Internet" in the best student on-line film and video category. Terra was also a finalist in the 2007 South by Southwest student category. Terra has also been a finalist for the Vloggy Award as well as at several wildlife film festivals throughout the world.
While the iTunes designation doesn't carry a statue or even a certificate, Adkins and Schmidt estimate that it will result in increased traffic to the Terra site.
"If you look, (Terra is) generally in the top 10 science video podcasts on the iTunes podcasts page," said Schmidt, a first-year graduate student from Salt Lake City. Prior to enrolling in the MSU program, Schmidt was involved in the earth sciences. "We are always ranked high in (iTunes) science and medicine category and always featured in a group of podcasts that they put on the main page. That's the reason we get a lot of hits. Apple seems to like us."
Indeed, each day nearly 7,000 virtual visitors from throughout the world download free science and nature documentaries from the site and there are an estimated 10,000 visitors a week to the site, Schmidt said. In all, more than 8 million podcasts have been downloaded since MSU graduate students began the site three years ago.
And while three years isn't a lot of time in chronological years, it is an eternity in podcast years, which is probably why Terra was included in the classic podcast category, said Adkins, a native of Oregon who also has an undergraduate degree in computer science.
Terra: The Nature on Our World was developed by one of the first classes to go through MSU's Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program, which is one of just two programs of its kind in the world. Students saw the site as a way to get student films out in the world, Adkins said. Soon, filmmakers from off the MSU campus offered their films for free as a way to get their work out in the world.
"Sometimes filmmakers make these as labors of love and the filmmakers just want someone to see them so they offer them to us," Adkins said. He said one filmmaker once said that Terra helped his film be seen by thousands of viewers rather than dozens. Terra's podcast topics range from the solar system to amphibians. Adkins said that students also sometimes approach filmmakers whose films they have seen in film festivals or heard about from word-of-mouth. For example, the most recent offering, the fourth in a series about migratory seabirds, came from Scotland.
"But a good portion (of the content) comes out of our program," Adkins said. "It's an outlet for our stuff."
And posting the films, which range from five to 30 minutes, on Terra podcasts does put the content out into the world.
"To me, this is significant because it shows that there is a demand and appreciation for the type of content that we provide," Adkins said. "It's an alternative to mainstream media, really. Thousands of people out there somewhere are creating a demand for (video) that they are not getting elsewhere."
That's a huge amount of traffic to a site that is operated in a tiny closet-sized viewing booth in MSU's Visual Communications Building on the MSU campus.
"We basically fit a computer and one chair in our office," Adkins said. "We can't both sit in there together."
Schmidt said the site operates on a shoestring. While maintaining the site takes a great deal of time, both believe Terra represents the direction of new media.
"It's exciting to be a part of it and not just hear about it in school," Adkins said. "There's a lot of chatter about that constantly in the world of film and TV -- that's everything changing. We're sort of right there in the middle of it, working through it."
Schmidt said that to view Terra's ranking on iTunes, the iTunes software should be downloaded on your computer, which can be done at http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewGenre?id=26 . Once at the iTunes store, click on iTunes 2008, then on podcasts. The classics section is on the far right column and the Terra site is located near the bottom.
Ronald Tobias, (406) 994-6227, tobias@montana.edu or Daniel Schmidt, danny@lifeonterra.com
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