Audio and Podcasts

I recently commented that perhaps heat stroke was affecting a major tech blogger. Bing, bang, click! I don't monitor his feed anymore; no big deal. Sometimes it just makes sense to move on.

I probably monitor as many feeds as Scoble but so what? He could read more too but he has probably stopped reading more feeds than I ever have. I think it's likely that Robert has a low tolerance for feeds or podcasts that don't remain interesting when they originate from strangers or acquaintances. With friends, Robert Scoble is truly more accomodating and forgiving; it's a real measure of the man and I only got a glimpse of that when we spent some time together last February.

In the past few days, my belief system has been tested by another blogging and podcasting original, someone I've come to know fairly well. In a manner that took me by surprise because of its sudden graduality; I found myself stung by a calm and graceless piece on his moderately popular podcast. I was struck by how affected I was at the commentary I was hearing as I drove down the road. I felt chastened by the sense that I had even bothered to download the podcast.

And now I don't because I've stopped downloading from his feed and I've stopped listening. In the back of my mind I knew this was coming and I knew that he was losing an affinity for his listeners.

What I am discovering about my tolerance for opinion is that it should never be disguised by a belief that it is fully substantiated by fact. Opinion should be a sampling of the known and the surmised at a point in time. That makes opinion fungible and it allows regular folks to be able to grow, change and develop. Denying oneself of growth by not utilizing reason and education seems kind of lazy to me. Sure; you will never know everything, but that's hardly an excuse to not try to know more. The thing that really turns listeners on to podcasts is the opportunity to know more -- that's a real winner for audio. Visual media can do that too but the effort requires far more work because great visuals require great poetry and vice versa. That's a rare combination as we know from watching decades worth of TV and films.

Very few things are immutable -- maybe someday I'll even listen to that guy's podcast again -- but it's rarer than a lightning strike that you will get a chance to have a listener come back once they have stopped listening. It's okay to lose listeners by being uninteresting; people change. It's another thing altogether to lead them down a road of contempt and disrespect. If you didn't start podcasting, in part, for the listeners then please get out of the business. If you don't feel a growing respect for your listenership with every piece you produce then consider stamp collecting rather than podcasting. If you really want to know what a tree sounds like when it falls in the forest then don't be around... Your podcast is a crazy rant in the shower if you have no listeners and good listeners are not interested in crazy rants.

Victor Cajiao of the Typical Mac User podcast hosted a live Talkshoe edition of his podcast on New Year's Eve. The theme of the event was Apple predictions for 2007. I was privileged to take part in the conversation and would like to thank all of the participants for their positive contributions; it was a blast.

You can listen to or pick up the podcast here.

Here we go again with another Pew Internet Project data memo. These things get such wide spread hype on the web that I feel my voice may go unnoticed.

Still, I couldn't help but observe that the latest telephone poll indicates that 1% of respondents download podcasts daily yet the poll indicates a margin of error of 3.5% of the sample size of 972 adults.So let me get this right... Either nobody or at least 4.5% of all internet users will download a podcast today. Back when I learned statistics, drawing conclusions from sampled data that was within the margin of error was considered invalid. Perhaps I have mistaken the way they posted their error -- please show me I'm wrong if that is the case.

How about this nugget of information; "Some 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time." They mean ever. At least once. Not necessarily regularly...That's as statistically significant as asking whether you have ever taken public transit.

Could somebody please start asking the right questions?

How many listen to podcasts each day, week or month? How many listening hours are spent each day or week? How many store and listen later? How many stream?