March 24, 2025

20 Years of LearnOutLoud.com

Hard to believe it has been 20 years since we officially launched LearnOutLoud.com back in March of 2005! It’s been quite a journey in the world of audio and video learning since then. Back in 2005, I was still popping CDs and cassettes into my car to listen to the latest “books on tape” available. The Apple iPod was in its infancy and I was connecting my iPod up to my laptop to get the audiobooks I downloaded from Audible.com onto my device. It would be another 5 years until I got my first iPhone (3GS I think it was).

When we launched, the term podcast was hardly known, as podcasts didn’t show up in Apple iTunes until June of 2005. We started our very first podcast back in March of 2005 called the Audio Learning Revolution Podcast where we attempted to be audio learning DJs playing samples highlighting various audio books. YouTube had just been launched in February of 2005, so the online video revolution was just getting started.

For many years we sold audio books, first on CD and cassette, and then on MP3 audio download for your iPods and iPhones. When Amazon Purchased Audible for $300 million in 2008, they really escalated the marketing and technology of digital audio books and eliminated most of the audio book retailer competition. After years of declining sales, we decided to stop selling audio book downloads in 2018 and now we just link to Audible on Amazon for about 70,000 Audio Books on Download. Now we stay alive through advertising and affiliate revenue.

In August of 2005, we launched the Internet’s First Directory of Educational and Self-Development Podcasts. It’s been amazing to see podcasting take off over the past two decades, and we now feature over 5,000 of the best podcasts you can learn from in our LearnOutLoud.com Podcast Directory.

And in late 2005, we launched one of the most popular sections of our site which is our LearnOutLoud.com Free Audio & Video Directory. This section features free audio books, courses, documentaries, talks, interviews, speeches, and many other great free audio and video learning resources. Over the course of 20 years, the free directory has grown to over 12,000 titles.

And in 20 years, we’ve certainly learned a lot! Our love for audio & video learning started by listening to audio programs from publishers like The Great Courses, Nightingale-Conant, and Sounds True. While working at LearnOutLoud, we’ve listened to and reviewed thousands of audio books, lectures, podcasts, courses, documentaries, and so much more. We’ve seen great audio & video learning resources come and go as the World Wide Web ebbs and flows.

Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen the Internet change a lot, some for better and some for worse. In the early days, we were scouring the web to look for any new audio books, podcasts, and videos to feature. Now there’s an unbelievable glut of audio and video you can learn from: 4 million podcasts, 14 billion YouTube videos, and 500,000 audio books on Audible. While the technology and sheer amount of educational audio & video has changed significantly, our mission to showcase the best audio & video learning content on the web hasn’t changed much. We’re still searching the web to try to find the best audio & video resources out there that you can learn from.