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Top Floor Productions Hits The 100th Podcast

A Podcasting Success Story

It started as an experiment with a new medium, when Chris Marquardt began podcasting in April 2005. But when Apple's iTunes started to include podcasts in their directory, the number of regular listeners instantly went up to 5,000 overnight.

Marquardt's podcast, Digital Photograhy Tips from the Top Floor (TFTTF), is one of the leading independent podcasts about digital photography. Its listener base spans the whole planet with fans tuning in from all continents. The podcast even won the 2005 PodcastAward in the Education category which confirmed the show's production quality and good content that is delivered to the listeners for free, three times a week.

In the beginning, Marquardt, president of the Germany-based media production company Top Floor Productions, was very surprised about the quick growth of TFTTF. "Nothing prepared me for the rapid success of the show and my original plans were to do ten shows only," said Marquardt. "I thought everything about digital photography could be said within ten episodes. I couldn't have been more wrong about this, on February 22, the one-hundredth show will go online."

When asked about the secret of his success, Marquardt's answer is simple. "TFTTF has evolved over time by including more and more offerings and new segments that keep the listeners interested. Shortly after the first release of the show, I started to hand out assignments to the listeners, and when it came to the point that I answered over 20 fan mails per day, I decided to start a forum." This forum has now 1,500 registered members and over 29,000 posts and the community around TFTTF has become one of the friendliest ones in the online world. January saw the first listener get-together in London and there is another one planned for May, where members of the TFTTF community meet up to share their love of photography.

An online photo gallery, a listener-maintained knowledge base and the new Photoshop Corner segment that is on the show every Monday, complete the offering.

Even though the show has its fixed framework to allow it to be recognized instantly, every episode is different from the other ones. For example, in addition to the regular photography class type segments, TFTTF features interviews with professional photographers such as GABO, Tony Donaldson and Steven Georges. One of the listeners' favorite segments are the Sound-Seeing tours, where Marquardt takes the audience into the heart of the action. On his own photography assignments, he explains in detail his thought process and the technical details behind his photography.

"I am planning to release another podcast about digital audio production," said Marquardt. "For TFTTF, I do have a few things up my sleeve that will keep the show exciting and fun to listen to, but I cannot reveal any of them yet. My listeners know that I like to be secretive about things, I would even say that they have come to expect it from me. They like surprises."

For more information, visit http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com

This podcast is available via iTunes at
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73329429.

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   Top Floor Productions
   Tuebingen,    BW,    72072
   Germany
   011497071302462 (phone)
   011497071369617 (fax)
   info@topfloorproductions.de
   www.topfloorproductions.de