Podcasts: A rant
This is a rant. I'm using hyperbole and writing it combatatively for effect, but there's a serious point I want to make in here.
Here is some advice for people who make podcasts: Stop making podcasts.
If I'm reading an article on-line, there are many things I take for granted. I can skip the banner at the top, and that pointless crap about who's writing it and what blog it is (no-one cares about that). I can skim through the text to find the interesting parts, or go back to read something I didn't get the first time round, with no effort at all. I can read it at work during my lunch break, where my PC has no sound. I can forward it to someone else secure in the knowledge that they won't have any problems reading it. I can carry on listening to music or a rifftrax of a film without interruption while I read it. If Syd comes up to me to ask what should we have for dinner, I can stop reading, answer, and turn back as naturally as breathing. It's easy to select parts of it to paste in somewhere else. There might be hyperlinks right in the text; additional information is just a centre-click away. Informative section headings stand out and are trivial to navigate to.
None of that is true of a podcast.
To be fair, there are some subjects where audio is necessary; recording of actual play of games, for example. But if you're doing an interview, a review or an informative discussion and you choose to make it an audio file, you fail. It's an inherently inferior medium for those tasks.
There are accessibility issues, too: screen-readers are a lot more effective than automatic transcription engines.
When I follow what looks like an interesting link and it takes me a podcast, my first thought is not 'Wow! We are living in the future! Someone is using the full power of modern technology to make life awesome!'. My first thought is 'Here is a clown who thinks my time isn't worth anything.'. I can read an article in a fraction of the time it takes to listen to it. If you insist that I listen to what you want to convey, I think you are trying to waste my time. Now, you may want to say 'Entitled much? They're giving you something for free', and that's true as far as it goes. However, if someone came to your birthday party and said 'I've got you a present, but you have to stand in the corner facing the wall for ten minutes before I give it to you' you would think they were crazy. You'd be right. If it's worth my time to listen to, it's worth your time to write it down.
Another tip: Most people don't have pleasant speaking voices. Odds are you don't. Hide your shame.
You might think that transcribing the podcast fully might make me a happy bunny. It's an improvement, certainly, but still not good enough. If you had a discussion on an interesting topic with someone and wrote it up as a proper article, you'd have something that was a) shorter, b) better and c) had taken you less time to create than recording, editing and transcribing audio. Record yourself reading it out and make that available too, if it makes you happy.
What it boils down is what you are trying to do with your podcast. If you just want to horse about with microphone and a few of your mates, don't let me stop you. On the other hand, if you actually want to impart information to other human beings, throw your microphone away and start typing.
Here is some advice for people who make podcasts: Stop making podcasts.
If I'm reading an article on-line, there are many things I take for granted. I can skip the banner at the top, and that pointless crap about who's writing it and what blog it is (no-one cares about that). I can skim through the text to find the interesting parts, or go back to read something I didn't get the first time round, with no effort at all. I can read it at work during my lunch break, where my PC has no sound. I can forward it to someone else secure in the knowledge that they won't have any problems reading it. I can carry on listening to music or a rifftrax of a film without interruption while I read it. If Syd comes up to me to ask what should we have for dinner, I can stop reading, answer, and turn back as naturally as breathing. It's easy to select parts of it to paste in somewhere else. There might be hyperlinks right in the text; additional information is just a centre-click away. Informative section headings stand out and are trivial to navigate to.
None of that is true of a podcast.
To be fair, there are some subjects where audio is necessary; recording of actual play of games, for example. But if you're doing an interview, a review or an informative discussion and you choose to make it an audio file, you fail. It's an inherently inferior medium for those tasks.
There are accessibility issues, too: screen-readers are a lot more effective than automatic transcription engines.
When I follow what looks like an interesting link and it takes me a podcast, my first thought is not 'Wow! We are living in the future! Someone is using the full power of modern technology to make life awesome!'. My first thought is 'Here is a clown who thinks my time isn't worth anything.'. I can read an article in a fraction of the time it takes to listen to it. If you insist that I listen to what you want to convey, I think you are trying to waste my time. Now, you may want to say 'Entitled much? They're giving you something for free', and that's true as far as it goes. However, if someone came to your birthday party and said 'I've got you a present, but you have to stand in the corner facing the wall for ten minutes before I give it to you' you would think they were crazy. You'd be right. If it's worth my time to listen to, it's worth your time to write it down.
Another tip: Most people don't have pleasant speaking voices. Odds are you don't. Hide your shame.
You might think that transcribing the podcast fully might make me a happy bunny. It's an improvement, certainly, but still not good enough. If you had a discussion on an interesting topic with someone and wrote it up as a proper article, you'd have something that was a) shorter, b) better and c) had taken you less time to create than recording, editing and transcribing audio. Record yourself reading it out and make that available too, if it makes you happy.
What it boils down is what you are trying to do with your podcast. If you just want to horse about with microphone and a few of your mates, don't let me stop you. On the other hand, if you actually want to impart information to other human beings, throw your microphone away and start typing.