Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Lately I’ve become rather interested in podcasting. I’ve been listening to more and more podcasts, and I’ve been thinking, a little, about experimenting with podcasting myself. But for various reasons I’m not sure I want to take the plunge.

Some podcasts are really impressive. Grape Radio comes to mind. I almost never drink alcohol—a legacy of having grown up in a Southern Baptist family, I suppose—but I really enjoy Grape Radio. It’s quite well done. They provide a lot of information, and the production quality doesn’t distract from the content. I also enjoy this informative show about mobile telephones.

But many podcasts, I must admit, fail to wow me. Take for example the work of James Kendrick. His blog jkOnTheRun is superb; I visit it almost daily. I’ve learned a lot from him. He was a pioneer—perhaps the pioneer—in putting the Tablet PC version of Windows on a Sony U, and after reading his blog I followed him down that path. I admire his clear, focused writing and passion for his subjects. He provides a lot of valuable service to “the community” by bringing broader attention to all kinds of mobile technology developments. But his podcasts? Well, you know how people sometimes describe feeling let down when they meet a celebrity? Illusions can be dispelled. I’m afraid that’s the feeling I had listening to the Tablet PC Show and the Tech Addiction Show, two podcasts driven by James. I don’t mean he comes across as a bad guy; quite the contrary–he seems extremely nice, as are his habitual guests or co-hosts. But even though their podcasts have steadily gotten better, I still find listening to them much less enjoyable than surfing James’ blog.

Why is this? A few explanations come to mind. In large part I think it’s because I can skim a blog more easily than a podcast. With a blog, if I don’t have any interest in topic x I just skip reading about topic x beyond the headline. With podcasts it is harder to to surf like that. Listening to an audio file, you don’t easily know when the part you don’t care about will end and when parts you may care about will resume. Of course, you could read through the show notes and fast forward (James’ podcasts have excellent show notes, with road maps of what is discussed and links to additional resources). But the work that adds seems to tip the scales in terms of taxing my attention too much, whereas skimming through the text and graphics of traditional websites doesn’t feel unduly burdensome. Is this just because I’m accustomed to skimming text? Perhaps.

Another issue seems to be that content producers tend to include more extraneous material in podcasts than in textual blogs. When people talk (and most podcasts seem to simply be recorded conversations), more time is taken up with chit-chat, friendly joking and routine politeness. All that’s good. I’m a Southerner after all. We are often more polite to random strangers on the street than some Yankees are to prospective customers. But the quotient of substantive information, relative to time, seems to go down in some podcasts because of these social conventions. Conversely, when people write, they don’t include as much off-message dross. (So, young podcaster, sound friendly and conversational when you record your podcast, but consider leaving out much of the friendly banter you might intone in normal face-to-face interactions).

Another reason for the higher signal-to-noise ratio in blogs compared to podcasts may simply be that it takes less time to edit text than sound files. I read comfortably much faster than I can listen comfortably, and editing a podcast must require listening over and over. People like James who are busy with a gazillion things don’t have time to edit their podcasts up to the quality level they routinely achieve in written work.

Whatever the reasons, I find I strongly prefer blogs with traditional text and graphics to podcasts. (At least most of the time; maybe I will love putting selected podcasts on my MP3 player to listen to when I’m driving or exercising?)

And yet, I realize that for decades I’ve gotten most of my daily news by listing to NPR radio broadcasts. There are lots of things I like about listening to NPR. They do thoughtful work. They cover lots of interesting stuff that is outside the narrow ambit of my key obsessions (China, IT, law). Thus I learn a lot from NPR. (Some complain that NPR’s political biases are too left-leaning. I often disagree with specific people they interview—yesterday some moron talking about US immigration policy had me barking back at the radio—but generally I don’t perceive any out-of-kilter bias that angers me, even though I think of myself as center-right in terms of my economic views).

Why do I like NPR so much yet sometimes feel so annoyed with podcasts? Perhaps it has something to do with the scope of content and who picks that content. One key attribute of the radio is that I can listen to it in the background. I listen while I’m showering, dressing, puttering about the house, driving—even while surfing the web. I find it harder to listen to podcasts this way. Maybe that’s because I have been more active in picking what I hear with podcasts. With NPR, I don’t worry if my attention fades in and out because I expect to listen passively, but with podcasts I have picked the thing, so it’s like renting a movie—I feel more obligated to pay attention and consequently get more annoyed if my attention isn’t richly rewarded.

Also, NPR provides richly edited soundscapes, not mere audio transcriptions. Most podcasts aren’t that highly polished. Again, a lone blogger may have time to edit a textual posting but not have time to edit and compile sound recordings. It’s like shooting home video—yes, you could edit footage on your computer and burn a DVD, but who’s got the time?

These issues will likely affect whether podcasting becomes more mainstream.

With regard to producing podcasts, that’s led me to thinking about digital recording. To podcast, one must have digital sound files, right? Should I record these through my Palm Treo 650? A Pocket PC? One of my existing laptops? A new Tablet PC? What about those little voice recorders you see? Or perhaps I need something more professional?

In trying to sort this out, and in thinking about what a big role radio has played in my life, I found this good site called Transom. It’s full of advice for people wanting to try their hand at reporting and producing NPR-style audio segments. If I do dabble in podcasting, “NPR style” will be my goal.

Does the world need something styled like This American Life but about stock market regulation in China? That could redefine the narrow part of narrow-casting.