Podcast Listening

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about podcasts. I suppose this has to do with the zeitgeist of quick and somewhat entertaining informative past-times that seem to be popular these days. Even in the second world, it seems that this new digital product is becoming more and more in vogue. Why is that though? 

I’m no expert in podcasts but I’ve noticed that more and more people start their own podcasts lately, partly as a way to voice their views to a large audience and partly as a revenue stream. The fact that some podcasters are celebrities of sorts, with the legendary Joe Rogan being an obvious example, definitely motivates folks to follow suit. Others find that since voice-to-text technology has matured enough (see the otter.ai data product if you need some convincing) so it won’t be long before podcasts are SEO-friendly and therefore a great way to create and display relevant content on a website, to make it more appealing to search engines. After all, it’s easier to speak on a mic about a topic than write about it, even if the more refined podcasts tend to have a script of sorts, even if it’s little more than a set of bullet points.  

What about the consumption of this content though? Well, as a long-time listener of podcast (from the time I was living in Seattle), I can attest to the usefulness of having something interesting to listen to while driving to and fro my workplace, or even when taking a walk to the park (or even an urban walk to a familiar area). Besides, who doesn’t have a phone these days that can play back audio files (even some old tech phones have this capacity)? Beyond that, there is also a plethora of apps that can play back the various episodes of your favorite podcast, be it through streaming them, or through a downloaded version of them. It makes little difference for the everyday Joe, though I personally find that having downloaded an episode gives me more of an incentive to listen to all of it and perhaps listen to it again in the future. Besides, some of these episodes may not be around if the podcast goes kaput!  

Podcasts are not the same as books or even good quality articles, since they cannot go into too much technical detail without putting off their audience. Still, they can be thought-provoking and interesting, inciting us to research a topic further or ponder upon it afterwards. Without being lengthy like audio books or very short like music tracks, they manage to provide some entertainment without making us feel guilty about it!  

What about you? What kind of podcasts do you find worthy of your time? 

Shameless self-promotion part: I recently launched my own podcast on Buzzsprout (one of the myriad podcast hosting platforms, which also is able to share its content with other podcast platforms, such as Spotify). It’s called Analytics & Privacy Podcast and it’s aimed to all sorts of people, though some episodes tend to go more on the technical side, at least to some extent. All episodes are around 20-25 minutes long and most of them contain a short sponsor message. Check it out when you have a moment: analyticsandprivacypodcast.buzzsprout.com and open.spotify.com/show/00SAOBdnEEcgFpdUNFhnAw Cheers!

PS - I recently discovered an interesting app designed for podcast and radio listening. It's called Podcast Addict and it's quite good. You can add whatever RSS feed you like to it to get your favorite podcast displayed on the app, for easier access to its episodes. The RSS feed for my podcast is feeds.buzzsprout.com/1930442.rss