November 23, 2005

Wiki Out Loud: Wikipedia Entries on Audio

A few nights ago I was at the office and the ol’ brain was fried. I decide to take a couple of hours “off” and record some Wikipedia entries on audio. It was kind of fun. Here were my reasons for doing this:

1. I learned about some cool new stuff while reading. For instance, did you know that JFK, Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died on the same day (November 22nd, 1963)?

2. I thought that having some Wikipedia entries on audio would be a cool resource for visually impaired people, non-native English speakers, etc.

3. We probably won’t do a lot of these but I thought that by kicking some off maybe some other people (whose narrating voices are a lot better than mine!) would be encouraged to do this and after a while a good chunk of Wikipedia would be available on audio.

I recorded six entries and we put them up on the site yesterday. Here they are:

Big Science
C. S. Lewis
Creative Commons
Digg
The Long Tail
Web 2.0

After putting these up I noticed that there is a similar project already in the works called Spoken Wikipedia. It looks like they have a couple hundred entries including some rather eclectic ones like “Gumball machine” and the “Don and Drew Show” (um, isn’t that supposed to “Dawn”???). The rationale for doing the Spoken Wikipedia project was similar to ours. Here’s what they say:

* Spoken articles make wikipedia content available to those who can understand English but cannot read.
* With spoken articles, users can listen to Wikipedia articles while they perform tasks that preclude reading, but not concentration (such as biking, running, doing housework, etc). It is presently difficult to find high-quality audio content that entertains and educates like spoken featured articles do.
* Blind users can of course use screen readers, but no matter how good the computer voices are, they will never be as pleasant as a human vocal performance.
* Non native English speakers, and those that don’t speak it at all, can have a valuable learning tool. Having a large number of examples of how words are pronounced can be important. In addition, being able to hear how words are pronounced and read them at the same time offers two simultaneous learning styles, auditory and visual, for potentially faster learning.
* Some may find it easier to concentrate on reading an article while listening to it, especially in an environment with distracting sounds (with the use of headphones).

Anyway, the more the merrier as far as educational audio content goes. I don’t really know whether to link to our audio titles from Wikipedia or not. I don’t want to step on any toes. And I probably should contribute my entries to the Spoken Wikipedia project as well although they use the OGG file format which I find to be a bit of a pain in the ass (although I understand why they use it).

So I hope you enjoy the audio entries and can put up with my occasional stumbles through names and tough-to-pronounce words. We’ll probably do some more from time to time. I do think that an “audio encyclopedia” would be a great resource and there doesn’t seem to be a better place to start than Wikipedia given its open licensing. If you’ve got other thoughts on the matter feel free to ping me at suggestions@learnoutloud.com.

Have a great weekend everyone!

November 21, 2005

Podcast Round-up

We’ve added a lot of cool new podcasts to the site and I wanted to direct your attention to a few of them:

The BayCHI Podcast – Interesting sessions with technology leaders recorded by BayCHI, the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of ACM SIGCHI. I listened to the recent episodes with Doug Kaye (09/13/2005) and “Are You Ready for Web 2.0?” (08/09/2005) and highly enjoyed both.

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders – A weekly seminar series on entrepreneurship out of Stanford. The session/interview with the founder of Trilogy Software was one of the most engaging podcast episodes I’ve ever listened to.

Stanford on iTunes – More good stuff from Stanford. These aren’t technically podcasts (there no RSS feeds) but there is definitely some good content here.

If you have any suggestions for other good educational, entertaining and inspirational podcasts or other audio content please send us an e-mail at suggestions@learnoutloud.com and let us know. We have 540 podcasts in our Podcast Directory and 548 titles in our Free Audio and Video Directory and we’re shooting for 1,000+ in each within a few months. We’d love your help in getting there!

November 20, 2005

New iPods: Micro, Pequeno and Invisa

The iPod Nano and Video iPod are now obsolete! Funny sketch from last night’s Saturday Night Live:

http://section3.net/stevejobs_SNL/

🙂

November 19, 2005

Educational, Entertaining and Inspirational

I just listened to a great session with Doug Kaye over on the BayCHI podcast where he talks about the new Conversations Network that he’s putting together. During the session he talks about the type of content they are looking for and says that it must be “educational, entertaining and inspirational.” He then goes on to say that he’ll take “two out of three” and that the most important of those three is inspiration.

Well they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so I’m going to borrow Doug’s terminology because it precisely fits the criteria we’ve established for listing content on LearnOutLoud.com. We want content that both uplifts and informs and at the same time is very enjoyable to listen to.

To educate.

That’s our mission.

(By the way, mark my words. What Doug is doing with the Conversations Network will change the world. It’s going to be so much fun to watch and to be involved.)

November 18, 2005

Bono Out Loud

I’ve been a huge fan of U2 since I was back in middle school and it’s been fun to see them grow and evolve over the years. What makes the band special for me is the message behind the music, a message of hope mixed with an urgent call for social activism. I’ve gotten a chance to see them in concert a few times this year and it’s an amazing experience. Really tough to put into words for those who haven’t been to a show.

Anyway, Rolling Stone just published an interview with Bono as a podcast. As far as I know this is one of the first times they’ve done something like this. Very, very cool. We’ve put this up on our site and here’s the link:

Bono: The Rolling Stone Interview Podcast

I cruised around a bit tonight to see what other Bono audio material I could find and found another great interview that was posted as part of the Back Story Podcast from the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s in three parts and you can access it from the following link:

Chronicle Podcasts: Back Story Podcast

I also came across an interview with Bono that we already had up on the site. Haven’t listened to it yet but I’ll definitely check it out soon:

TimesTalks: Bono

Last but not least I’ll have to throw in a couple of links to U2 podcasts. Haven’t listened to these yet but if you’re a big nut like I am you may want to check them out:

The @U2 Podcast
U2Source.com – U2Chatcast

Quick reminder: If you haven’t join the One Campaign yet please do so. If we all do our part our generation can be the one that makes history by making poverty history.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

November 18, 2005

How to “Rent” Audio CD’s from Amazon.com for under $10

I just caught this post from “Robert”, a prolific poster over on iLounge.com. Do note Robert’s disclaimer that in order for this to be legal you need to completely erase the digital file before you sell the used CDs. As long as you do this then you are completely legitimate.

How to “Rent” Audio CD’s from Amazon.com for under $10

A little bit of a pain but not a bad way to inexpensively listen to audio books. Of course, we would appreciate your business so feel free to buy your new CDs from us and then go to Amazon to sell them. 🙂

November 16, 2005

How to Become an Audio Learning Junkie, Part One

A bunch of people have asked for it so I think it’s time I finally produced. It’s time to write the definitive guide to audio learning. The thought of sitting down in front of Microsoft Word and cranking it out bored me so instead I’m going to blog about it in a bunch of installments and then once it’s done we’ll wrap it, put a bow on it and post it in the articles section of our site.

Why Audio Learning?

Let’s start with the most basic and most important question: Why should you learn on audio? For me the answer is pretty easy. I truly feel that how you spend your “dead time” is one of the most important factors in becoming successful and achieving your goals. Sure, you can listen to boring talk radio on your drive to work or pop in that CD you’ve heard 100 times before. But the minute you start to view drive time as learning time everything changes.

A while back I blogged about something from Brian Tracy’s newsletter. It’s so good that it bears repeating here:

Your mind is your most precious asset. You must be continually working to increase the quality of your thinking. One of the best ways is to turn driving time into learning time. Listen to educational audio cassettes in your car. The average driver according to the American Automobile Association, drives 12,000 to 25,000 miles each year, spending 500 to 1000 hours that you spend each year in your car. That is the equivalent of 12 1/2 to 25 forty-hour weeks. This is the same as two full university semesters spent behind the wheel of your car each year.

If you did nothing but use that traveling time as learning time, this decision alone could make you one of the best educated people of your generation. Many people have gone from rags to riches simply by listening to audio programs as they drive to and from work.

So for me that’s the main reason why I love audio learning. Books that I never thought I would listen to. Languages that I never thought I’d learn. Ideas that I never thought I’d be exposed to. All of that is now at my fingertips and the best part is that it doesn’t need to take up one additional second of my day.

What Can I Learn?

Another common question. The answer? Just about anything. Certain things work better with audio. There’s no doubt about that. At the top of my list are foreign language titles. We have a tremendous selection on our site and some of the ones you’ll definitely want to check out include titles from Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone and Transparent Language. The goal of becoming bilingual one day used to seem daunting to me. It no longer is. I fully expect to become fluent in at least one, if not two, or maybe even three, additional languages at some point in my life. It’s not easy but it certainly is easier with programs like this that you can listen to while commuting, exercising, etc.

Next up? University courses. There’s an amazing amount of college and university-level material available on audio. On the best sources of this material are courses from The Teaching Company. If you’ve never listened to a Teaching Company lecture you are in for a real treat. Remember that one great professor you had back in college? Well The Teaching Company scours the country looking for professors like that and makes a high-quality recording of one of their courses. Very, very cool.

I could go on and on but let me offer just one more area of content for your enjoyment and educational advancement. That’s the area of self-development. Chances are that regardless of who you are there is an aspect of your life that you are looking to get better in. Maybe it’s your diet or your spirituality or your relationships. Audio learning offers you a tremendous way to “work on” this aspect of your life without having to take additional time out of your day.

Someone looking to improve their diet could check out Andrew Weil’s The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating or Tony Robbins’ Living Health. Folks looking for spiritual guidance may find it in an audio book from Wayne Dyer or C. S. Lewis. People seeking better relationships could listen a book like The Relationship Cure or Marianne Williamson’s classic A Return To Love.

There is SO much to learn on audio it’s unbelievable. This article isn’t going to be a sales pitch but do check out our Catalog where you can find almost 10,000 different audio learning resources.

OK, I’m Sold. Where Do I Start?

Good, you’ve joined the Audio Learning Revolution. Welcome aboard! The first thing to figure out is where and how you are going to listen to your stuff. For starters let’s pick the obvious time that people have to audio learn: your morning commute. Remember when that used to be a time of drudgery? When your options were limited to bad talk radio, commercials or more bad talk radio (check out this link for a humorous take on those options)?

Those days are over. Audio learning allows you to not only not hate your commute. After a while you actually start to enjoy it. Many of the friends and family that I’ve turned on to audio learning now can’t imagine their lives without it.

So what do you do if you want to turn your vehicle into a “university on wheels?” Well for starters let’s look at your options for mobile learning:

1. Cassette Players – Cassettes are going the way of the dinosaur but many vehicles still have cassette players. There are a couple of cool things about cassettes. For starters, they have a self-bookmarking feature built-in in that you’ll always be able to pick up right where you left off. That’s nice for the times when you want to move your learning from the car to some other place. In addition, cassettes are fairly easy to find at libraries because most libraries have stockpiles of them and they aren’t in as high of demand any more.

The downsides of cassettes? For starters they are bulky. Carrying around a mountain of cassette tapes where you go with is not exactly a good time. In addition, a lot of newer material isn’t even being produced on cassette.

2. CD Players – OK, now you’ve joined the 21st century. Virtually every vehicle being sold these days has a CD player. That’s one of the main reasons that the majority of audio learning content is still sold on CD despite the tremendous growth in the popularity of portable mp3 players. Just about every audio learning title produced these days is available on CD.

I only have two issues with CDs. First, they are also bulky. Not as bad as cassettes but still not ideal (as we’ll see in a minute). Second, they don’t have a bookmarking capability. If I want to listen to part of a CD when I workout in the morning and the remainder when I drive to work I have to write down the track I left off on. Not very elegant. While CDs are currently ubiquitous, they are slowly losing ground to…

3. Portable Audio Players – The iPod Revolution is definitely upon us. You can’t swing a dead cat on a university campus these days without hitting someone wearing those sleek white headphones. Over 30 million iPods have been sold to date and with the holidays approaching and red hot iPod Nanos and Video iPods available, that number is likely jump significantly.

Portable audio players represent the future of audio learning because they allow you to pack an amazing amount of content on a very small device (have you seen the new Nano, they’re crazy small!). In addition, you can bookmark files, speed up or slow down the content and much more. Plus, you can listen to podcasts. (What are podcasts you ask? Check out our article Introduction To Podcasting for the low-down.)

Yes, portable audio players are an audio learning junkie’s dream. I got my iPod Mini abou a year and a half ago and I literally could not imagine life without it. There is just one bit of difficulty though. For many people, getting the iPod (or any other portable media device) to play friendly with a vehicle isn’t always a piece of cake.

I’m going to do the unthinkable and leave you hanging in suspense on that one. When I return we’ll run down the ways to hook your portable media player to your vehicle, talk about the various services, software and companies that are out there to enable audio learning, discuss file formats and what they mean to you and cover some ways to save money. Stay tuned! (Or just get subscribed.)

November 16, 2005

Headphones Redux

A little while back I blogged about my quest to find the perfect headphones to run with. I ended up getting the Shure E2c headphones and the Sony MDR-A34L headphones. I have to admit, I’m happy with both decisions.

The Sony pair is good for running. They are pretty basic but they don’t pop out of my ears at all which is the main thing you’re looking for when you’re out for a jog. They are also entirely plastic so sweat isn’t much of a problem. The only downside is that the cord is bit on the shortish and lightish side so it bounces around a lot when you run. It’s more of an annoyance than anything else though. I would recommend these to runners looking for a basic pair of headphones that gets the job done.

As for the Shure headphones, at first I thought I would hate them but now it turns out that I love them. The first few days they were a pain in the ass. They didn’t stay in my ears and just felt weird. But after a few days they “adjusted” and now I love them. I haven’t tried to run with them yet, in part because they cancel a bunch of noise (minor safety hazard) and in part because I think sweat would junk up the earpieces. But I do love them for walking around outside because they block out traffic noise and allow you to listen to stuff at a much lower volume.

Long story short, both of these sets of headphones are great for other fellow audio learning junkies. While it’s still tough to beat the white iPod headphones for style these definitely offer more in the way of functionality.

November 14, 2005

Audio books can be a great learning tool

Nothing we haven’t said before but a good article nonetheless. 🙂

Audio books can be a great learning tool

November 14, 2005

E-Magazine #6 – November 11th, 2005

New Online Store – Get a Free $5 Gift Certificate

Well, we’ve been working long and hard on it but
we’re proud to announce that our online
store is officially up and running. Currently,
we’re selling about 1,800 audio books on CD and
cassette. Very shortly we’ll add DVDs and
downloadable digital audio and video to the mix. We
would like to be your one-stop destination for all
of your audio and video learning needs.

So what’s in it for you? Well here are some
reasons why we think you’ll love shopping at
LearnOutLoud.com:

• Discounted prices – Most of our
  titles are at least 20% off the suggested retail price.
• Easy and secure shopping experience –
  We’ve made it very easy to find what you are looking
  for and we’ve given you all the information (e.g.,
  abridged vs. unabridged and # of CDs/cassettes) you
  need to make an informed buying decision. Plus, we
  utilize 128-bit encryption and other technology to
  keep your data private and secure.
• Real customer service – Unlike many
  online retailers we offer both e-mail customer
  service and a 1-800 number (1-800-550-6070) for you
  to call.
• 5-5-5 – LearnOutLoud.com is committed to
  5-5-5 which means we give 5% of our pre-tax profits
  to charity, 5% of employee paid time off for
  volunteering and 5% of company equity to a
  charitable foundation.

We would like to invite you to check out our
store with a very special offer. We’ll give you a
$5 gift certificate for your first order! This gift
certificate spends like cash and there is no minimum
you have to spend to use the GC. All you have to do
to claim your $5 gift
certificate is send an e-mail to newstore@learnoutloud.com.
So get your gift certificate today and start
shopping. With the holidays coming audiobooks make
perfect gifts for friends and relatives. Stock up
today!

LearnOutLoud.com
Online Store

Free iPod Nano

Do you want one of those sleek new iPod Nanos?
In just a couple of weeks we’ll be giving one
away. Although we’ve had a fair amount of people
register to win it hasn’t been a ton. Bottom line?
Enter today and you have a really good chance at
winning a free Nano! It’s incredibly easy to enter
the contest. Just do one of these two things:

Register
for our site and post a message in our forums.
-OR-
Post a link to LearnOutLoud from your website or
blog and send an e-mail to linked@learnoutloud.com
to let us know you linked to us.

And if you do both of these you’ll have double
the chance to win!

So don’t miss out. Make sure to register now for
your chance to win the hot new Nano! (Full contest
details available here.)

Over 500 Titles in Our Free Audio and Video Directory

We’ve mentioned our Free
Audio and Video Directory in our newsletter
before but we wanted to bring it up again as we hit
the 500+ mark last week. We’ve added a lot of
really cool new stuff so if you haven’t checked it
out in a while (or haven’t checked it out at all!)
you may want to stop by. Here’s a sampling of some
of the stuff we’ve recently added:

MIT
Lectures – Links to over 100 free video lectures
from MIT including ones from Jack
Welch, Michael
Dell and Noam
Chomsky
Vega
Science Trust – Links to 40 free video lectures
on subjects like nanotechnology and physics
American
Memory from the Library of Congress – Some
amazing projects including Voices
from the Days of Slavery and the September
11th, 2001 Documentary Project
Free Sermons from Sermon
Index and SermonAudio.com
– We’ve posted links to sermons from people like Billy
Graham and Billy
Sunday

This is only scratching the surface of what we
have in the directory. Check it out today at https://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video

Two New Titles from LearnOutLoud.com

We’re happy to announce two brand new titles for
sale on
our site. These are the first that we’ve produced
here at LearnOutLoud.com.

If you’re an advertising professional or if you
have a business that advertises, you’ll want to
check out Bill Grady’s seminar How
You Can Create Advertising That Really Works.
This seminar is guaranteed to help you build a
stronger and more profitable advertising program.
It’s available on 2 CDs for $15.95 (a downloadable
version will be available soon).

If you’re looking to build wealth and find
financial independence, The
Science of Getting Rich
is a must listen. This book was written by Wallace
Wattles, is narrated by Brian Johnson and is a
classic in the field of self development. A
downloadable version of this one is coming soon as
well.

Two Cool New Articles: Seth’s Tutorial & Gandhi Out Loud

We’ve been feverishly writing new content for you
here at LearnOutLoud.com.

Seth just wrapped up a great tutorial on audio
recording that helps make it easy to understand. If
you’re contemplating getting into podcasting or
trying to record your own audio book this is a perfect
primer.

How
to Begin Home Recording: Level I

Jon wrote the first in an upcoming series of “Out
Loud” articles. This series will cover audio and
video material available for great leaders and
historical figures. The first articles in the Out
Loud series covers India’s Mahatma Gandhi. Look for
more of these in the near future.

Gandhi Out Loud

Latest Resources and Blog Posts

Resources:

• 
  Zondervan Publisher Page
• C.
  S. Lewis Author Page

BlogOutLoud.com:

• Stanford
  Lectures on iTunes
• The
  State of Podcasting
• How
  to Subscribe to Our Blog

Visit our blog at:
www.BlogOutLoud.com.

Register and
participate in the
LearnOutLoud.com Forums.

Coming Soon!

Our new program LearnDirect is in the works and
we should have some more details in our next
newsletter. Stay tuned!