2nd September, 2004
Audio
Two audio themed things to mention today:
First off, get your butt on over to Scenestars and check out this track by Baz Luhrman. It’s a spoken-word kinda dealy that starts out a bit slow but really hits home as the reader gives some solid advice regarding life. Make sure you listen (and I do mean listen) to the track in it’s entirety before forming an opinion of it.
Second, Maciej Ceglowski over at Idle Words has some interesting things to say regarding audio blogging (for a text version of his rant, head here). He argues that audio blogging is a waste of time (can’t skim, takes longer to listen than to read) and is impractical for existing search engines as well as being inaccessible to people with hearing problems or who don’t speak your language well. While I see his point in general, I have to disagree with him on several points.
First, the idea that because audio blogging discriminates against some people it is thus an inferior medium is rather silly. Pure text blogging does the same for people who have vision problems or who cannot read your language.
Second, I really take issue with his idea that because speaking is slower than reading, it is a waste of time. There are so many components to speech – the voice inflections, the passion and other subtle cues our brain subconciously picks up on – how can you possibly express those things with just words?. The simple way a speech is delivered can turn a dry read into a moving moment you remember for the rest of your life. True, some talented writers can express these things in text alone, but they are few and far between (and I’d argue that the majority of bloggers in the world don’t have this talent). Of course, on the flip side, there are few people who really know how to speak as well. My suggestion to those of you exploring audio blogging: go ahead and keep doing it. If your spoken word sucks, just as if what you’re writing sucks, you’ll hear about it. Same thing goes if your stuff is good. That’s how blogs work.
Posted at 8:00 am | Comment (0)
