I don’t understand the charm of podcasting. I clicked the Pajamas Media teaser at right and thought, hm, that could be an interesting blog post. And I got this link.
But I don’t want to hear talking heads, even if they’re bloggers. I want text. I can read faster than you can talk, and I’m not interested in the inside-baseball interchanges of panel discussions.
Get to the point, blogger, and go through the hard work of composing your thoughts in writing. Don’t covet other peoples’ media. To me, podcasting is just poor man’s broadcasting, which isn’t to say it can’t be worthwhile; and I recognize where it may be going. But am I the only one not charmed?
Or is it just that I’m so stationery and everyone else is moving around all the time with an iPod in his ear?
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I think I sorta-kinda get the idea. I can see how it would be good for those times when you might be listening to talk radio, like while driving or doing some other activity where you can’t have a computer or other visual media device (err…a book, I mean…) in front of you. I’d imagine that it’s also good for discussions, as written transcripts don’t always capture the full essence of the conversation. Lastly…some folks just aren’t any good at writing. Record your thoughts into a microphone, upload it, and boom, there you go.
That said, I prefer reading to listening.
Podcasts work for me when I can listen to them while I work, kinda like talk radio. If I have to watch them in order to extract the content in full, they don’t work.
I’m definitely more visual than auditory and take in info much better if I read it than if I hear it.
Podcasting is okay for multi-tasking, I guess, but it doesn’t provide any real added value for me.
If the PJMedia podcast is not your cup of tea, try Lileks’ Diner or Glenn and Helens podcast. For ‘poor man’s broadcasting’, they’re a lot more entertaining and informative than anything I’ve ever heard on the radio, and not just talking heads. The interviews that Glenn and Helen do are extremely interesting, like the recent one with Vernor Vinge (talking about the Singularity).
Podcasting works best for me for music. There’s one called Coverville that I just love. (Though the guy still talks too much.)
I like it for multitasking – like when I’m working and can’t read blogs – but I’m otherwise unimpressed.
Like you, I can read a lot faster than people talk – so it’s not an efficient way for me to get information.
I love podcasting, and do a number of them myself, including an audio-book version of my novel, but the key here is that podcasting and blogging are not competitors here. You seem to be asking, “why podcast when you can blog?” But would you ask “Why would you have a radio show or a TV show when you could have a newspaper?” They are different mediums with different strengths and comparing the two on only one level is not the appropriate comparison, I think.
When the intent is to simply convey information and opinion in a complex but comprehensible way, there is not really any advantage to audio versus text.
But audio can, as some have mentioned, allow people to listen in other circumstances, such as in the car or while working on something else.
Further, audio can provide an increased level of intimacy and personality over simple text.
Of course, this comes from someone who has drunk the kool-aid so to speak.
I plan to do some podcasting, but I want to capture stories in the teller’s own words and voice.
I understand by reading better than by listening. I find that when I have to listen to something my mind wanders too much and I loose the thread of the discussion and have to go back and re-listen to it. I’ve tried several of Glenn and Helen’s podcasts and even the interesting ones can’t hold my attention for very long. I have the same problem with television and movies, they just cannot ever occupy my mind enough. Reading is definitely the way to go for me, especially with complex subject matter — I can re-read a paragraph half a dozen times in the same space of time it would take to back up an audio to find the correct time index and re-listen. Plus text is more patient with my slow thinking processes, it just sits there and waits for me to understand. :)
I’m okay with podcasts, but I can’t see myself doing it. What I like to do is download them at night and queue them up while at the day job, where it won’t arouse the network group’s ire.
But only light fluffy ones – if it’s information dense I’d rather read.
I’m with you Ron. I don’t see the deal here. I’d much prefer to see something in writing than hear the voices.
(I hear enough voices as it is! ;-) )
I can read faster than you can talk
You know, that’s a damn good point. I think the same thing more and more lately. Getting news via text from the Net is far more efficient than radio, TV or podcast. I can receive the same information at least three times as fast.
Video-blogging—as long as it’s not just talking heads—does have potential. But to reach the potential, the same “production quality” that goes into good TV or film is going to be required. A vidcam mounted on your PC monitor isn’t going to hack it!
I think it will really push for group v-blogging or v-blog aggregators to take advantage of all the people who happen to be at the right place with their cameras in hand. There’s no assignment desk to send people out to cover breaking news, so a portal that makes it easy to put up and view the videos could make a real success of it.
The various “viral video” sites (like YouTube)have too much junk on them to be effective for news video, though as repositories I guess they’d be okay.
I like Firefly’s podcasting, because I like the music, I like the essays, I like the information being “filtered” for me. They read the essays out for me, they choose it, and I don’t have to go to their forums to search around and use my time up which I can do other things with. Multicasting basically, is the benefit of podcasting. I can listen to the podcast, and do other things on the computer. To get the information the podcast would provide for me, I’d have to spend hours and hours looking up the Firefly forums and reading the threads, and omg.
Besides, there is a very real human component when you hear the human voice. One of teh reasons conservative radio has succeded I think, people just want to “hear” a living human being talk that agrees with them or is interested in the same things that they are. Dean here, may be a little bit of a loner in this aspect if he so dislikes others talking.
Sorry, Dean didn’t write this. Was Ron.
Dean, well I find Lair’s 100 word podcast very interesting for several reasons. First of I have to write 100 words of creepy fiction (Lair’s orders) a day and even better I have to read it every day. I have been approached by a couple of voice over agents after a friend played a 100 word for them. Never mind the fact that it allows me to stretch my vocal cords daily. The podcast is even attracting advertising at this point.
Podcasting depends on the quality of the production as well as the compelling nature of the content. Pajamas’ podcasts need to improve in both areas, but give them time.
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