Wednesday, September 29, 2004


Wholly Unconvinced by Audioblogging


…or, as Mr. Pilgrim wrote, “blogging becoming an inaccessible, google-hostile bandwidth hog”

I can see where being able to take a few blogposts with you on your morning jog or plugged into the car radio during your morning commute might appeal, but I think there are better ways to spend that precious ear-time.

Otherwise, though, I find audioblog posts completely useless and annoying.

They’re attention-greedy

I can skim a written blog post, even a long one, in a few seconds and get a pretty good idea of what it’s on about. If it really tickles my fancy, I can sit down, read it in depth, and maybe even comment on it or link to it in a couple of minutes.

Audio posts are impossible to quickly review. If a person posts a 10 minute audio blog entry, to really get anything from it (meaning: to be able to comment on it meaningfully), you have to listen to the whole thing in sequence. Most people are lousy public speakers (myself included). They repeat themselves, they stumble over words, they clear their throats too much, they cough in your ear, they lose the plot and start to babble, whatever.

Stop it. You’re being greedy with the most precious resource the modern plugged-in person has these days: time.

Search-engine hostile

Not much to explain here. Search engines don’t index the sound of you harumphing and tapping your pen on your keyboard. Next.

Feedback hostile

Admittedly probably not much of an issue for the typical soapboxer, but taking part in conversational blogging (comments, trackbacks, Technorati follow-fu) relies on people having convenient chunks of text to quote, link to, and refute. Exactly how does anyone link to that bit during minute 17 of your audio post (after the donut sprinkles fall on the microphone but before the sound of your cat knocking over your spittoon) where you make some technical point that definitely, positively needs refuting?

I had many more words written for this post, but then I read Maciej Cegłowski’s audioblogging manifesto, which covered most of the salient points, so, unlike a lot of audiobloggers, I’m going to be brief and respect your time.

addendum: Coincidentally, today’s word of the day is “harangue”. Heh.

:: Dave Walker 08:12 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

:: [/opinion/technology]
:: tags:

:: Comments (5)

Comments:

ssp wrote:

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And if people really want to listen to blog entries there's this AppleScript application (the name of which I forgot) which takes posts form NNW runs them through Macintalk (actually UnicodeChecker first, which I why I heard of it to begin with) and then puts them into iTunes/on your iPod.

It may sound funny but it looks like the best of both worlds. (And you should be able to increase the reading speed with that :)
ssp wrote:

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I see you seem to be using Apple's iTMS promotion program. Is that really any good? I only noticed because the links are eliminated from your page because of the wonderful PithHelmet because of this (and because my custom style sheet to signal iTMS links didn't catch them).
d.w. wrote:

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Well, I doubt I'll make a cent, but it does at least give me an idea of how many people click through when I link to a song. In theory, I could make my own purchases through those links and save a few pennies.
Randy Charles Morin wrote:

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What I don't understand, is why someone would pay $300 USD for a digital walkman (iPod). If I did pay $300 for such a device, I would be podcasting. Nevertheless, it's a waste of $300. I burn 50 cent CDs full of audio crap and listen to those during the drive into work (but not very often). Also, the Radio in my car is standard (effectively free) ;)
d.w. wrote:

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If you listen to a lot of music on the go, it actually makes a lot more sense (convenience-wise) than burning CDs. CDs are actually pretty crap as a portable audio format. If you were designing an audio format with walking, jogging, and automotive use in mind, you probably wouldn’t settle on 5 inch spinning metallized discs read by a laser - the power consumption is horrible, they skip at the slightest provocation, and they require you to change discs far too often (unsafe when driving) etc. I burn discs for the car, but it’s a wasteful process, really — you end up with dozens of single use disks littering the car unlabeled, crunching under things, etc.

There’s something liberating about being able to carry your entire collection (for people with smaller collections) or at least a substantial part of it on a little box the size of a pack of playing cards. Considering the money people drop on things that are even less useful (jewelry, anyone?) I don’t consider the investment too ridiculous. They’re great for audiobooks, too — listen to a full book on a car trip without changing media.

Besides, the iTunes/iPod software/hardware integration is like a master class for engineers on how consumer-friendly development should work.



Your education begins where what is called your education is over.