Article about podcasting
There is an interesting article about podcasting in the New York Times today. [The Battle For Eardrums Begins With Podcasts by Randall Stross] (If that link leads to the "archive" thing, get the article here.
One interesting thing about the article is that its publish date is July 3, 2005 (tomorrow). I didn't know newspapers could do that. Isn't that misleading? Is that acceptable journalistic practice?
Anyhow, it shed some light on the podcasting thing for me. If you remember, my whole initial issue with podcasting was not that I thought it was "retarded," but that I didn't really understand it. So I had a lot of questions, none which it seemed anyone had any answers to. If anything, my asking the questions served only to invoke mempocom's seething fury and unmitigated ire. As can be expected, this was so enjoyable that it in turn inspired me to step up the 'attack'. All-out-war!
After reading the article, here's what I think:
1. Any author who uses the word "portmanteau" is an obnoxious fucking asshole.
2. That said, it was otherwise a pretty good article. It addressed some questions I had (which we may have discussed but still weren't clear to me):
- Whether or not most of these 'podcasts' are just mic-in homemade speech recordings made by idiots with blogs, basically audio blogs. Answer: many are, but other types exist. Some with music, with all the attendant copyright/royalty issues. Others 'professionally' made.
- What about the annoyance of having to download these podcasts and transfer them all the time – Answer: there’s ‘podcatching’ software that does this automatically, as well as the new iTunes that integrates it.
- When does a person find time to listen to all this crap? – Answer: permanently implant the iPod earbuds.
- Who’s paying these podcasters? – Answer: Oh, sweet sweet dollar. Audible.com’s got a revolutionary idea.
- What’s in a title? "The Battle For Eardrums Begins With Podcasts"? WTF? What happened to good old radio? Didn't it begin there?
But I see now what the hype is all about. I also see that the "revolutionary" part of podcasting is NOT the podcasts itself, but the podCATCHING. The technology to MAKE podcasts (in a downloadble format) has been there for a least a decade, and never involved having to buy a mixer or a Shure mic. But the ability to have them autoupdate on your computer and media player is surely new. So not only is "podcasting" an unfortunate [new word formed by joining two others and combining their meanings] , they could have named this phenomenon "Castcatching" or something like that, and saved people a lot of confusion.
While I still don't know where an otherwise productive individual (even one who's ungainfully unemployed) is going to find time to listen to all these podcasts, other than during a work commute, I agree that there's potential there. Especially advertising potential. Oh, sweet sweet dollar.
"The Next Generation Of Radio"? OK, I'll give you that. Next generation of radio. Where do Sirius and XM fit in? Rant for another day.
One interesting thing about the article is that its publish date is July 3, 2005 (tomorrow). I didn't know newspapers could do that. Isn't that misleading? Is that acceptable journalistic practice?
Anyhow, it shed some light on the podcasting thing for me. If you remember, my whole initial issue with podcasting was not that I thought it was "retarded," but that I didn't really understand it. So I had a lot of questions, none which it seemed anyone had any answers to. If anything, my asking the questions served only to invoke mempocom's seething fury and unmitigated ire. As can be expected, this was so enjoyable that it in turn inspired me to step up the 'attack'. All-out-war!
After reading the article, here's what I think:
1. Any author who uses the word "portmanteau" is an obnoxious fucking asshole.
2. That said, it was otherwise a pretty good article. It addressed some questions I had (which we may have discussed but still weren't clear to me):
- Whether or not most of these 'podcasts' are just mic-in homemade speech recordings made by idiots with blogs, basically audio blogs. Answer: many are, but other types exist. Some with music, with all the attendant copyright/royalty issues. Others 'professionally' made.
- What about the annoyance of having to download these podcasts and transfer them all the time – Answer: there’s ‘podcatching’ software that does this automatically, as well as the new iTunes that integrates it.
- When does a person find time to listen to all this crap? – Answer: permanently implant the iPod earbuds.
- Who’s paying these podcasters? – Answer: Oh, sweet sweet dollar. Audible.com’s got a revolutionary idea.
- What’s in a title? "The Battle For Eardrums Begins With Podcasts"? WTF? What happened to good old radio? Didn't it begin there?
But I see now what the hype is all about. I also see that the "revolutionary" part of podcasting is NOT the podcasts itself, but the podCATCHING. The technology to MAKE podcasts (in a downloadble format) has been there for a least a decade, and never involved having to buy a mixer or a Shure mic. But the ability to have them autoupdate on your computer and media player is surely new. So not only is "podcasting" an unfortunate [new word formed by joining two others and combining their meanings] , they could have named this phenomenon "Castcatching" or something like that, and saved people a lot of confusion.
While I still don't know where an otherwise productive individual (even one who's ungainfully unemployed) is going to find time to listen to all these podcasts, other than during a work commute, I agree that there's potential there. Especially advertising potential. Oh, sweet sweet dollar.
"The Next Generation Of Radio"? OK, I'll give you that. Next generation of radio. Where do Sirius and XM fit in? Rant for another day.
posted by aki at
10:57 AM
1 Comments:
I am not going to make a podcast. However, you can probably get one of those text readers that will read out the text of the blog in a robotic voice (which is what my voice sounds like anyways) and record that - wait, I mean turn it into a podcast - and listen to THAT on the train.
And yeah, if you could avoid using my real name I would appreciate it. I mean, I feel kinda sheepish about asking, and maybe I'm overly paranoid, but it's a relatively uncommon name and it'll come up in a google search. And when I *do* want to get a job it would be nice if your request for me to "suck you" doesn't come up.
And ... yes, I really am unemployed. However, I like to refer to it as "job-eligible".
By
aki, at 9:20 PM
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