November 13, 2005

Portable Media Expo, Day 2

Another great day yesterday at the Portable Media Expo. It’s amazing to see everyone so excited about the future for digital audio. Back almost two years ago when I started germinating the idea for what would become LearnOutLoud.com very few people were talking about spoken word audio. It was pretty much relegated to the backwaters of audio books and a budding, but still largely unknown, company called Audible.com.

Two years later spoken word audio is red hot and for good reason. I listened to an amazing keynote presentation today from Don Katz (the CEO and Founder of Audible.com) yesterday where he talked about the history of the spoken word. He mentioned that Plato and Aristotle were originally against text as they felt that it polluted the purest form of communication which was speech. He talked about how back a few centuries ago it was frowned upon to read silently.

Now we’re so accustomed to reading that people actually ask if it counts to listen to a book instead of reading it. Pretty bizarre when you consider that speech is the most ancient form of communication and the primary mode of communication throughout the majority of history. Don’s keynote was enlightening and if it becomes publicly available I will definitely post a link to it.

Later in the day I had a “full-body goosebump” experience while talking to Doug Kaye of IT Conversations. Doug has started a non-profit venture called The Conversations Network whose mission it is to record every live event around the world. Like IT Conversations which records many technology conferences and events, this group would record events in any of a number of areas including BioTech, Buiness, Politics and my personal favorite “ChangeTheWorld.” Mark my words. The Conversations Network will change the world. We will do all we can hear at LearnOutLoud to help.

Random shout-outs from yesterday go to Clay Cover and Dr. Greg Bolcer at Encryptanet, Sylvester Robertson at Cal State-San Bernadino and James Smith up in Olympia, Rodney Rumford over at podblaze, Emilie Cole from Audioluxe, Randy Dryburgh at Audioblog.com (very cool site, thanks for the T-shirt!) and Katie O’Shea at Chumbo Publishing (thanks for the software and how did I not realize you were from Minneapolis?).

Final thoughts on the Expo:

1. I’d go to something like this every week if I could. The energy was tremendous. The people were so much fun to talk to. The ideas that are being thrown about will literally change the world.

2. Hats off to the Bourquin brothers and everybody else who had a hand in pulling this off. It was unbelievable how well organized this event was. I expected some glitches or roughness around the edges. I’m sure there were some hiccups throughout the weekend but I didn’t see any during the two days I was there.

3. Digital media is an amazing space to be in right now. We are on the precipice of an era in which audio and video education of all shapes and forms will be available to anyone anywhere. That might mean a student in a developing country being able to watch lectures from UC-Berkeley or MIT. It might mean a travel-weary professional being able to stay at home with her husband and kids and listen to sessions from a conference rather than flying across the country to attend in person. It might mean someone growing up in China, Iraq or Afghanistan, learning English through podcasting and then using those skills to help form business relationships and better communication among nations. Or it simply might mean that that half hour you spend in traffic tomorrow morning will be a time of fulfillment and growth when in the past it’s been one of boredom and frustration.

Whatever it means it will mean that the world is a better place and we’re incredibly excited to be a part of it.

My all-time favorite rock group U2 is out on tour right now and there’s a part during the show where Bono offers a little fictional dialogue about how the rest of the band met The Edge, the group’s lead guitarist. He usually says something like the following (LINK):

“This,” he points stage left, “is the same sound as The Edge’s spaceship made when it arrived in the north of Dublin. Larry and myself and Adam just stood there and stared. A door opened and out came this astounding-looking man. Larry said: ‘Who are you?’ and he said: ‘I am The Edge.’ And Adam said: ‘Where are you from?’ and he said: ‘The future.’ And I said: ‘What’s it like?’ and he said: ‘It’s better!’

After attending the Portable Media Expo this weekend I feel like we got a chance to see the future. So if you want to ask me what the future is like my answer would be the same as the Edge’s answer.

It’s better.

November 11, 2005

Peter Drucker: 1909-2005

Peter Drucker, perhaps the most famous “management guru” in history, passed away today at the age of 95 (link to FT article). Drucker had an enormous impact on the business world and leaves a tremendous legacy. Here’s a brief bio of Drucker from Wikipedia:

Drucker, born in Vienna, Austria, moved to the United States in 1937. In 1943, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University as Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University.

He wrote about 30 books, the first in 1939, and from 1975 to 1995 was an editorial columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review. He continued to act as a consultant to businesses and non-profit organizations when he was in his nineties.

We have four Peter Drucker audio titles on LearnOutLoud. If you’re interesting in learning more about this man and his management theories, visit the following link:

Peter Drucker Audio Books

November 11, 2005

Portable Media Expo, Day 1

The gang and I just returned from Day One of the Portable Media Expo & Podcasting Conference. In some ways, it indeed did feel like the Woodstock of podcasting as Robert Walch of Podcast411 was quoted as saying in a recent Wired Magazine article. No doubt we witnessed some stuff today that will forever change the way that people consume media.

This morning we recorded a live podcast from the LA Podcasters booth. Kudos to Lance and the rest of the gang there for setting that up. It was fun to record with David and Seth for the first time and it turned out pretty well. We spent the rest of the day attending sessions, cruising exhibits and meeting some very cool people at some amazing companies.

First up, I want to give props to the people at Taldia. A while back I thought that it would be pretty neat for someone to be able to set up a customized list of stuff that you could list to during your commute. For example, let’s say that you had a commute of 25 minutes in the morning and wanted to listen to ten minutes of sports stories, five minutes of politics and ten minutes of your favorite podcast. You would be able to set up the service, go to sleep and wake up in the morning with that content pre-loaded to your iPod.

Well, after two years of development Taldia has pulled off something remarkably like what I had envisioned. It’s a cool little service and although there are still some things that I think could be improved it could catch on pretty quickly. They have a large content pool and a clean interface. The only thing they are missing is a good domain name. Perhaps I’ll be able to interest them in CustomCommute.com (a name I registered back when I had the idea)… 🙂

Next up, let’s talk about Audible.com. They launched their WordCast service at the Expo and it’s also quite impressive. Essentially it’s a platform for people looking to monetize podcasts, either through advertising or through an upfront fee. By being the first to market with this tool they’ve beaten others like Odeo and Podshow to the punch. Their reach and experience in the space makes this look like a category-killer. Kudos to those guys for doing another thing well.

A few more random shout-outs to some people I bumped into along the way today (in no particular order): Steve Sergeant with The Wildebeat, Limelight Networks, Mel Sparks at Clever Girl Pictures, the folks at Bitpass, Dave Sampson at MixMeister, Paul Colligan at PremiumPodcasting.com, Obadiah Greenberg with UC-Berkeley the gang at ioda and everyone else who I met today and can’t scrape up a URL for.

A few final thoughts:

-Adam Curry’s reception at the Podcasting Awards was a little subdued. I thought that was unfortunate. He has done so much for podcasting and should have received a standing ovation.

-Tim Bourquin who put the event on is an absolute class act. The first day of the conference went amazingly well especially since it was the first event of its type. A tip of the hat to Tim and everyone else involved for all of their hard work.

-The podcasting community is fun. It’s pretty rare to see such a diverse group of people at a conference ranging from hard core techies to brash entrepreneurs to inquisitive academics types and much more.

I can’t imagine having much more fun tomorrow but I’ll try. And I’ll be back with another report tomorrow night.

November 9, 2005

Stanford Lectures on iTunes

So I figured that since at least two people e-mailed me (thanks Dave and Brian!) separately today about the Stanford Lectures on iTunes I probably had better blog about it. 🙂 The market for academic podcast is exploding right now. At the start of the fall quarter/semester I was aware of probably two or three colleges and universities that were podcasting lectures. Now, according to a glance at Thomson’s academic podcast directory it appears that there are dozens. And this growth will only accelerate as professors have a few weeks off over the winter break and have some time to try to figure out what this whole podcasting thing is all about.

We’ve definitely only scratched the surface of this trend. It’s not too difficult to imagine a future in which virtually every college and university course is podcasted. But that begs a few questions. Are the lectures free or is there a charge for them? Are they open to the public or restricted to students of the school or people enrolled in the class? How will colleges and universities deal with the intellectual property issues surrounding audio (and most likely video in the not-too-distant future)? It’s going to be interesting to watch and I’m sure that there will be a wide spectrum of how universities will handle this ranging from those that take MIT’s apporach of putting as much out there for free as possible to colleges and universities that will be very protective of their content.

It also raises an interesting debate for us. Academic podcasts are a perfect inclusion for LearnOutLoud but at the rate they are coming online it’s almost impossible to put together a directory in-house. So we’re discussing creative ways that we can tie these podcasts in with our directoy which already offers some similar content include lectures from The Teaching Company and Barnes and Noble’s Portable Professor series. We would love to hear your suggestions. If you have some ideas for the best way for us to integrate this rapidly expanding world with our existing site please shoot an e-mail to suggestions@learnoutloud.com. Thanks!

November 8, 2005

LearnOutLoud’s Guide to Home Recording

If you’ve ever considered recording but felt prohibited by technology or lack of formal education, fear not! I have written a tutorial that gives novices a good overview of what it takes to start recording their own audio today. And by today, I mean literally within the next 24 hours. Don’t worry about spending thousands on expensive gear, these days all you need is a mic and a computer. This article covers the rudimentaries of finding a good mic, using recording software, making your audio content available for the net and more.

This first tutorial is designed for people with a budget in mind, so the cost of what I describe does not exceed $100. In the next few days I will provide another tutorial that covers the next level up in price. In the future I also plan on tackling mobile audio recording, the different kinds of microphones, what gear does what, post production techniques and more. Hopefully these how-to’s will be as educational for you as it is for me when I write them.

I took great pains to make everything as easy to follow as possible and I included pictures for visual reference. In the end I hope these tutorials inspire anyone that harbors an interest in recording their own audio. It’s fun, it’s easy and yes, it can even be cheap.

November 8, 2005

The State of Podcasting

So with the first birthday of podcasting is in our rear view mirror and the Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference just days away it’s a great time to assess the state of podcasting. It’s so hard to believe that something that seems such a big part of my daily life today (I probably average 1-2 hours of podcast listening each day) was hardly a blip on the radar a year ago.

Nicole Simon just posted a good article over on Corante summarizing her take on where things are at. For the most part I think she’s right on the map. I think that we’re at a stage with podcasting where many podcasters who jumped on the gravy train back in the spring and summer are starting to ponder whether podcasting is going to be a business for them or whether it will remain a hobby.

For those who want to turn it into a business there will have to be a clear path to revenue delineated soon. Ad insertion services like Fruitcast might offer one hope but it’ll be interesting to see how well that works. Podcast networks might prove to be another boon to the community. The recent acquisition of Weblogs, Inc. by AOL is a signal that while most individual podcasts and blogs might not have a ton of clout, by banding together a lot of value and power cna be created. Perhaps more podcasters will start charging for their podcast although it still hasn’t been shown that many people to the left of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity can get away with that. So we’ll see…

For those that are content to keep their podcast strictly at hobby level the key question will be whether they will have the wherewithall to keep it going. After all, a lot more goes into producing a good podcast than going into producing a good blog. And as podcasts in general become more professional that tends to raise the bar for all podcasts. My fear is that a lot of people will abandon their podcasts over the next several months leaving many of the directories with a ghost town-like feel due to all of the orphaned shows.

What will it take to keep this thing rolling on? Let me offer a few suggestions:

1. A solid revenue model soon – If there isn’t a good AdSense-ish type model in the next few months that allows the indie podcasters to start making a bit of money I think we’ll see a lot of people leave the game.

2. A general shift to higher quality podcasts – At first it was somewhat novel to be able to listen to some dude or dudette ramble on for an hour or so about mostly nothing because it was so unlike the pre-packaged crap on commercial radio. But that novelty is rapidly wearing off. It’s time to recognize the value of a well-produced, more concise podcast.

3. A “killer app” podcast – To this day there hasn’t really been a “Must Listen” podcast that has captured the attention of a large chunk of the podcast universe. Maybe the Source Code or Dawn & Drew but I think you could argue against either of those. I think there’s a good chance that something will soon hit the airwaves (I know…wrong word) that will knock peoples’ socks off. A podcast that’ll be on the front of USA Today or Time Magazine. I don’t know what it is yet but I’m waiting for that one podcast that gets a ton of podcast virgins to hop on board and start downloading shows.

There has been a lot of progress in the last few weeks. Yahoo’s new podcast directory is very cool and the whole market that’s opened up for video podcasting since the release of the video iPod presents some really amazing possibilities. So this week’s podcast conference should be a lot of fun.

We’ll be there representing LearnOutLoud and hoping to catch a glimpse of what the future holds. We’re incredibly excited about the potential for podcasting as an educational tool and think that the surface of that potentiality has hardly been scratched. These are fun times we live in no doubt. I’m sure that one day our kids and grandkids will enjoy reading stories about them. Scratch that. They’ll enjoy listening to stories about them.

November 3, 2005

C.S. Lewis Bio & Audio Books

We were finally able to put up a C.S. Lewis author page yesterday. It looks as though Lewis’ work will be seeing a resurgence thanks in no small part to the new film adaptation of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” that’s coming to us this Christmas from the director of Shrek. I’ve looked at the trailer and it has the potential to be a real children’s fantasy classic (I don’t know if it will top “Labyrinth” though). It certainly deserves to be made considering how well the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films have been doing. Besides that, Lewis and Tolkien were writing buddies so it’s high time that Lewis gets some of the limelight Tolkien has enjoyed recently.

In addition to writing the popular Narnia series, Lewis is also a primary modern voice in Christian philosophy. Books like “Mere Christianity“, “The Problem of Pain” and “The Screwtape Letters” are classics for anyone interested in exploring the fundamental beliefs that underpin Christianity. Lewis is also an exceptionally approachable author; his work is laced with a wit and humor that makes even the most serious subject matter seem less daunting. My first exposure to him was via the Screwtape Letters, and since then I’ve been privileged to read several of his non-fiction books. I whole-heartedly recommend them as essential texts for anyone interested in Christianity and faith in general.

So before you go watch the movie in December, take a look at what’s available by Lewis on Audio. Our good friend Nancy over here at LearnOutLoud has assembled everything currently available in audio format. You’ll find the whole Chronicles of Narnia series, every one of his Christian non-fiction books, and even special titles that are devoted to Lewis’ life and work. Feel free to share your thoughts in the LOL forums as well.

November 1, 2005

Christian Audio Book Publishers

There’s a lot of Christian book publishers and we’ve added three of them as publisher pages. Thomas Nelson Word, Zondervan, and Oasis Audio publish hundreds of audio bibles, Christian audio books, and audio books covering other topics like business and self development. Here’s the pages we’ve made for them:

www.learnoutloud.com/thomasnelsonword
www.learnoutloud.com/zondervan
www.learnoutloud.com/oasisaudio

And if you’re interested in finding more Christian audio books check out these publishers:

Mars Hill Audio
Creedence Communications
Multnomah Publishers
Tyndale House
Destiny Image
Baker Publishing Group

October 30, 2005

Speak With Me

I just came across a company tonight called Speak With Me that offers some pretty cool speech recognition software for vehicles. Here’s a sampling of what it allows you to do:

For the demo, Ajay controlled his stereo system verbally, changing songs, picking tracks, controlling volume, etc. The commands he used to do this were in absolutely plain English and varied considerably in structure. For instance, Ajay at one time said “go to track 3″. Another time he said “play for me another one bites the dust”. Later, “I would like to hear wonderful tonight by eric clapton. “louder”. “quieter”.

Pretty cool huh? Here’s a link to the entire article.

There are some neat ramifications here for audio learning. As more cars become “iPod-enabled” there becomes an increasing need for safety while driving. Fiddling with an iPod while you’re behind the wheel is a recipe for disaster. A product like the one that Speak With Me provides could be the magic bullet.

You gotta love technology!

October 28, 2005

Starting Fires

Caught this over on Brian Johnson’s blog:

“Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.”
~ William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Irish poet, playwright & mystic, winner of Nobel prize in 1923

If education is lighting a fire then we here at LearnOutLoud.com are pyromaniacs. 🙂

Have a great weekend everyone!

(By the way, if you get an extra few minutes this weekend wander on over to Brian’s author page and download some of his stuff. It’s really good. Lately I’ve been particularly digging Quotes on Action and Quotes on Courage. Did I mention that it’s free?)