A Pause for Pod-flection
I posted my first podcast 28 days ago at the iTunes Music Store. Since then I have added seven more to The Barclay Show and another nine to the Mile High Pod Chronicles. I have begun to think in podcast, listening to sounds that might make good background, imagining that I am taping a conversation and trying to weed out ums and ahs, plotting my next two or three episodes, and counting the hours until I get my hands on a new M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96, the digital recorder that will considerably crank up the quality of my audio.
Steve Borsch, who has a great blog and podcast called Connect the Dots, noted recently that there are about 24 million blogs in the U.S. and only 15,000 podcast episodes available. Darren Barefoot, another sage whose blog I follow, posted a sensible wait-a-minute consideration of podcasting, in which he suggested it won't see the same growth as blogs. I think Darren is right that the podcasting learning curve is much steeper than the gentle ascent available through Blogger or any of the other blog platforms. But wouldn't that be easy to fix? I can imagine buying a Pentax Optio camera with software on a CD that enables you to take the SD card with a photo and recording on it and with a couple of clicks of your mouse have it posted to iTunes and other pod purveyors. It's still not everyone's cup of chai to turn on a microphone and start speaking, but likewise it wasn't the most natural thing to confront a blank screen and type words that in seconds can be found via Google by a stranger in Finland. Yet 24 million people are doing it.
All I can say is that I'm hooked. I see podcasting as a new art form, and I feel like one of the first few thousand Neanderthals who figured out you could create images of bison on the walls of caves.
As compared with blogging, podcasting is more time-intensive for the audience. You can't scan 20 podcasts while you are checking your e-mail or talking on the phone, the way you can check in with your Bloglines feeds. But by the same token, you can't read blogs when you're jogging or driving in the car. This morning I took Steve Borsch with me on my walk to a meeting and enjoyed a podcast that included his reverent recitation of this quote from Winston Churchill:
"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."
Steve Borsch, who has a great blog and podcast called Connect the Dots, noted recently that there are about 24 million blogs in the U.S. and only 15,000 podcast episodes available. Darren Barefoot, another sage whose blog I follow, posted a sensible wait-a-minute consideration of podcasting, in which he suggested it won't see the same growth as blogs. I think Darren is right that the podcasting learning curve is much steeper than the gentle ascent available through Blogger or any of the other blog platforms. But wouldn't that be easy to fix? I can imagine buying a Pentax Optio camera with software on a CD that enables you to take the SD card with a photo and recording on it and with a couple of clicks of your mouse have it posted to iTunes and other pod purveyors. It's still not everyone's cup of chai to turn on a microphone and start speaking, but likewise it wasn't the most natural thing to confront a blank screen and type words that in seconds can be found via Google by a stranger in Finland. Yet 24 million people are doing it.
All I can say is that I'm hooked. I see podcasting as a new art form, and I feel like one of the first few thousand Neanderthals who figured out you could create images of bison on the walls of caves.
As compared with blogging, podcasting is more time-intensive for the audience. You can't scan 20 podcasts while you are checking your e-mail or talking on the phone, the way you can check in with your Bloglines feeds. But by the same token, you can't read blogs when you're jogging or driving in the car. This morning I took Steve Borsch with me on my walk to a meeting and enjoyed a podcast that included his reverent recitation of this quote from Winston Churchill:
"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."
Monday, January 09, 2006
