I’m working at my branch office in downtown Conway again. An older white-haired gentleman just came up to me to talk about my iPod shuffle and to heft it in his hand (boggling at how inconsequentially light it is). We talked about iPods for a minute and I told him how I mostly listen to radio shows. He said “I’ve heard of those, what are they called? Something-casts?” I filled him in and gave him some URLs. He said that he’d heard of them and was curious to check them out. We also concurred that we don’t listen to the radio in our cars anymore, using cassette adapters to our various players instead. If 50s-ish gentlemen in a small obscure Southern town are willing to replace radio with podcasts, it might indeed be time for you radio pros to begin the process of panicking.
Podcasting Sinking In
Published by
Dave,
Had to chuckle. I stopped listening to radio around 13 August 2004 – the day Adam put up his first Daily Source Code. Or was it during the DNC when Dave Winer was posting audio enclosures to his blog? Anyhow, Don’t tell them, but EGC is now #1 on my podsquad. But there has been fallout. My wife says I’m more geeky than ever.
Later,
Bill (53 and counting)
Bill, thanks for the kind words and your poor judgement in ranking me #1. I hope your wife doesn’t hold me responsible. I’m sure all our wives think we are geekier than ever.
I’ll keep trying to reign in listeners here. Slowly but surely.
The best I’ve managed is to get my cousin’s kids’ “English as a second language” teacner hooked on “The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd” and “EGC”.
They attend a small capitalist, er, I mean, “christian” (yeah right), private elementary school of a few hundred students. So the whole school has the same English teacher! She downloads the episodes at night from home with iPodder (she uses Windows), and brings them to class the next day. They listen with headphones, sitting at the classroom computers where they do their spelling drill-and-practice sets.
The principal approved once she listened to a few episodes. The teacher is young, so she’s hip to new ideas, such as dating long haired computer nerds that use the word “hip” in casual conversation. 🙂 The youngsters definitely get it, though. They even want to make their own!
PJ Cabrera (mind perpetually stuck at 7, body age of 34)
Great to hear I have some age contemporaries listening to podcasts. I’ve only had my iPod Shuffle for 2 months or so, but since then no commercial radio plays in the car during my ~40-minute-one-way commute. If I forget to load up some new ones when I’ve listened to a Shuffle’s worth, I’ll listen to reruns.
Sorry, Dave, EGCast doesn’t get played in the car. I look forward eagerly enough to getting the next installment, and Nancy likes it, so we listen to you in the comfort of home, via the iTunes player. Kinda’ like gathering around the old Philco in days of yesteryear.
Keep up the good work.
–Ken–