All About Podcasts
Podcasts are a fairly new and efficient way for people to get information published in an easy to digest way. They can be listened to on the go and provide a hands-free way for listeners to learn more about whatever the topic is that they choose to listen to that day. Especially for listeners who are on-the-go, podcasts can be the most efficient way to make the most of a drive. Unlike videos or books, a podcast doesn’t require the full and undivided attention of the person utilizing the available content.
For the agriculture industry, podcasts open many new doors for farmers and ranchers. The ability to share newfound knowledge through audio recordings could change the way the agriculture industry learns. New technologies could spread much quicker not only for farmers and ranchers, but the entirety of the industry.
Future of Agriculture Podcast
The Future of Agriculture podcast is recorded and hosted by Tim Hammerich. The blog has currently posted 242 episodes with a wide variety of content. The podcast is split into five categories: blockchain, sustainability at scale, agriculture technology, agriculture entrepreneurship and food security. The goal of the podcast is to provide one spot for “valuable information, content, and interviews with industry leaders through the agricultural space!”
The podcast website isn’t the easiest to navigate, but it does feature a description of each episode that lists out who is being interviewed, their position or job title, a brief glimpse into the goal of the episode, and finally, a few key quotes that have been pulled from the audio clip and written below. After the last pull quote, the description has links to each of the Future of Agriculture social media accounts, as well as a prompt to subscribe, leave feedback, and share to friends on the listener’s own social media platforms. Some of these descriptions also have links to other helpful resources. While this isn’t super helpful if you’re listening in the car, it is the easiest way for the podcast producer to provide background information that the reader may need to further understand the episode’s topic.
Room for Growth
It is clear from their podcast website that the Future of Agriculture podcast is successful. With 210 published episodes, it’s definitely gained some traction. However, the website isn’t perfect.
When users navigate to the podcasting page, it automatically displays the most recent episode with a brief description of what is discussed. With black and grey graphics, the design does the podcast no favors. It is boring and doesn’t draw readers in. Since the podcast is usually streamed in an audio only version, this isn’t the biggest deal but when putting Future of Agriculture’s podcasting website next to competitors, there’s a clear winner.
It isn’t clear until you reach the bottom of the podcast website that it isn’t their main website. There is then a link to the Future of Agriculture main website which features many stories about agriculture, a newsletter, and even tabs at the top that tie together stories based on different topics. Even with the eye-catching front page, it is still very unclear what exactly Future of Agriculture is. It’s not until a user clicks on the ‘About’ tab that it is stated that it is a podcast and blog about agricultural innovation. The about page also leads to another website called AgGrad. It is very unclear how they are all related and overall, all of the sites are a little difficult to navigate.
What is AgGrad?
AgGrad is a website founded by Tim Hammerich. It features the same blog mentioned above as well as links to the Future of Agriculture podcast. It also has resources for recent college graduates looking for a career in the agriculture industry. These resources range from e-books to career fairs to networking events. It also has a page where they live stream interviews with people within the agriculture industry and discuss a variety of topics and issues in agriculture. The bottom of that page is the only location throughout the three websites where contact information could be found. AgGrad seems to be the most put together of the sites. It binds together multiple aspects of new media that have been produced by Tim Hammerich: podcasts, e-books and the blog.
Future of Agriculture Innovation
The Future of Agriculture platform makes great strides towards being a great new media educational platform. Although there is room for growth in the design aspect, the content featured on the websites is relevant and fresh. AgGrad can also be found on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. There is not a lot of uniformity across their accounts on all of these platforms, but simply having an account on each makes them more versatile and discoverable than many of their competitors. The variety of topics that are discussed on their podcast also makes them an easy to discover company. They also do a good job of adding photos and phrases to their blog that tie the stories together without just repeating them in a different format. Future of Agriculture shows innovation the could be a glimpse into what the future of virtually educating the agriculture industry will look like.
Abigayle Huntress
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