Saturday, 9 July 2005
Podcasting Rocks!
I was in the car today for 10+ hours with my family and I took the opportunity to download a couple of podcasts to see what all the buzz was about. I listened to Steve Rubel, Steve Jobs, Chris Pirillo & Ponzi, Code Sermon and Other World News.
Overall I was very impressed. In general, the production quality is much lower than commercial radio, for example - this is to be expected. The amazing thing is the content itself. Steve Rubel doesn't sound like an A-List Blogger - he sounds like a really smart guy who is genuine and sincere and is stumbling and experimenting in this neat new medium. In other words, he sounds like any of us. Suprisingly, it's the underproduced nature of his podcast that gives it sincerity and credibility. Reminds me of listening to tapes of indy bands in college, you know "real" music - not the stuff the record companies wanted you to hear.
Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement address is amazing and powerful - and short (about 15 minutes). This is the best motivational 15 minutes you'll have this year. YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS!
My wife and I listened to Chris and Ponzi telling the story of how they met through Match.com. My wife and I also met through Match. We identified with Chris and Ponzi and laughed at ourselves in the process. I felt a deep connection with this couple. I can relate to them, identify with them more than I have even been able to with hyper-produced commercial on-air talent.
Code Sermon is weird and fun but wouldn't play all the way through on my iPod. It's some guy evangelising good coding practices to organ music. I think I would really enjoy this in small doses if not for the technical difficulties.
Other Word News is a reasonably professional sounding radio-like mystery/sci-fi serial in the vein of Mystery Theater or some such. The web site crashes Firefox on my iBook but the program is fun. The quality and effort of the program is impressive.
The suprising thing to me was that when I dumped a bunch of these things into my iPod and hit play, it sounded like my own personal readio station because they all played one after the other without me having to click anything. I knew that this was how it was going to work but I didn't realize how seamlessly randomly assembled content like this would flow together. For the first time I really got micromedia.
During our vacation I'll be learning how to use the new iTunes podcasting feature. I may never listen to broadcast radio again.
Overall I was very impressed. In general, the production quality is much lower than commercial radio, for example - this is to be expected. The amazing thing is the content itself. Steve Rubel doesn't sound like an A-List Blogger - he sounds like a really smart guy who is genuine and sincere and is stumbling and experimenting in this neat new medium. In other words, he sounds like any of us. Suprisingly, it's the underproduced nature of his podcast that gives it sincerity and credibility. Reminds me of listening to tapes of indy bands in college, you know "real" music - not the stuff the record companies wanted you to hear.
Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement address is amazing and powerful - and short (about 15 minutes). This is the best motivational 15 minutes you'll have this year. YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS!
My wife and I listened to Chris and Ponzi telling the story of how they met through Match.com. My wife and I also met through Match. We identified with Chris and Ponzi and laughed at ourselves in the process. I felt a deep connection with this couple. I can relate to them, identify with them more than I have even been able to with hyper-produced commercial on-air talent.
Code Sermon is weird and fun but wouldn't play all the way through on my iPod. It's some guy evangelising good coding practices to organ music. I think I would really enjoy this in small doses if not for the technical difficulties.
Other Word News is a reasonably professional sounding radio-like mystery/sci-fi serial in the vein of Mystery Theater or some such. The web site crashes Firefox on my iBook but the program is fun. The quality and effort of the program is impressive.
The suprising thing to me was that when I dumped a bunch of these things into my iPod and hit play, it sounded like my own personal readio station because they all played one after the other without me having to click anything. I knew that this was how it was going to work but I didn't realize how seamlessly randomly assembled content like this would flow together. For the first time I really got micromedia.
During our vacation I'll be learning how to use the new iTunes podcasting feature. I may never listen to broadcast radio again.
Posted by at 12:02 AM in Podcasting
