Content on Demand

Recently I discovered podcasts. I mean I knew they existed a long time ago but it only recently that I have started to listen to them.

I was curious as to what kind of content there was to download and listen to so I went for a bit of a search. A lot of the casts that I listened to were nothing overly special, but what struck me was that it is nearly all just radio on demand.

As I started my foray into listening to podcast I was sceptical as I have never been a huge radio listener. Usually because I have such a vast music collection and/or the radio program that I want to listen to is on a station I can’t get or at a time I can’t listen to it.
The things about these podcasts is that I can listen to them when ever I want. Too busy doing work or going out to see a friend? No problem, just listen to it another time. Got half an hour to kill, travelling somewhere? Just listen to a podcast!

We are living in a world of content on demand, where we can get what we want when and how we want it. Our radio has become obsolete as we download our radio programs for listening when it suits us, we use magic boxes such as the TIVO to auto record live television at a high quality, we have our iPods which have our entire music collection stored in a tiny box so we are never without a soundtrack to our lives. Our websites are becoming more tailored to our preferences, news sites filtering articles for just the ones that might interest us. Where is it all going?

I have kind of scared myself writing this, I wonder if I am loosing the ability to watch/hear/read new things outside of my current interests. What have I missed out on though my self-indulgent highly-personalised media intake?

For example I don’t even know what is in the charts at the moment and for all I know there could be some really good music in there that I would really like (I doubt it, but…)

So this week is the start of a new resolve to try to be more explorative in what I listen to and watch and thus broadening my horizons.

Three kinds of bloggers

Quite a while ago I read a blog post http://www.kottke.org/remainder/06/04/10803.html by Greg Knauss who had been a guest blogger for two weeks on http://www.kottke.org
Around the same time several people had written their own articles on why and how we blog but this was the most concise.

“The theory: There are two kinds of bloggers, referential and experiential. Kottke is one. I, now two weeks too late in realizing this, am another.

The referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned elsewhere: Look at this. Referential bloggers are reporters, delivering pointers to and snippets of information, insight or entertainment happening out there, on the Intraweb. They can, and do, add their own information, insight and entertainment to the links they unearth -- extrapolations, juxtapositions, even lengthy and personal anecdotes -- but the outward direction of their focus remains their distinguishing feature.

The experiential blogger is inwardly directed, drawing entries from personal experience and opinion: How about this. They are storytellers (and/or bores), drawing whatever they have to offer from their own perspective. They can, and do, add links to supporting or explanatory information, even unique and undercited external sources. But their motivation, their impetus, comes from a desire to supply narrative, not reference it.

There's nothing here to imply that one type of blogger is better than the other. There are literally thousands -- OK, hundreds... OK, at least a dozen -- of both kinds that are valuable additions to the on-going conversation/food-fight/furry-cuddle that is the Internet. My point is that Jason Kottke is a very, very good referential blogger and I am a very, very bad one.”

While I very much agree with the above comments, I put it to you that there is a 3rd type of blogger, the newscast blogger. “Just so you know.” They are the people who have started up a blog without anything to blog about and so just inform people about their lives. Their posts are few and far between, often forgetting to post anything for months on end before doing a massive blog dump. Their friends check it occasionally to find out what is happening in the bloggers life. Very quickly these blogs get checked only by those who use feed burners and so check about a billion sites with one click. Usually the newscast blogger has referential and experiential blogger traits but primarily they tell the world what is happening to them one huge monthly blog dump at a time.

Self-reflection time: Looking back through my archives, I would say that I am the newscaster type, and when I can be bothered a referential blogger. Recently most of my posts are either B.dumps or posts linking to websites, programs or articles that I find and want to share. (For example this post!)

The problem is that most of my referential posts are quite boring to practically everyone else even if I find them really interesting. This then causes people to stop reading my boring and geeky post, and then they never see all the newscast posts.

In my opinion, the most interesting blogs are the experiential ones and I would like to be one myself. Its just my writing skills are a bit poor at the best of times (just ask my mum) which makes it a little tough. I will however try to blog a bit more regularly.

What kind of blogger are you?

Long update

Well, its been quite busy lately and haven’t really had the time to stop and think about having a good old blog so my apologies to Simon who is probably the only one who checks here regularly.

Lets wind back to Spring Harvest. I spent 10 days up in Skeggy pointing video cameras for the 11-14s age group. It was great fun, got to play with some very nice gear, met some famous (in Christian circles) people and met several important (well for me anyway) people. More on this later.
Anyway I got back from Spring Harvest and pretty much came straight back to Cambridge.

I got back with two whole weeks to finish off my dissertation and get it all handed in, so for two final weeks, that was pretty much all I have been doing. Hence no time to think about anything else. My apologies go out to all my housemates who have put up with me and my moaning these last two weeks.

Not long now before there is nothing else to do, lectures till the 21st May and then 2 exams with the last one on the 1st June.

Now going back to the important people I met at Spring Harvest. It was all decided way back before Easter now, but I needed to make it all official and sort several bits and pieces out before I told the world on here, but finally all (well most) can be revealed.

6 years ago I had been playing guitar for about a year and had a career goal to become a full time worship leader. It was gonna be sweet! I was asking people how they managed it and one guy (Alan Rose current Phatfish guitarist of the time) suggested that I went to Nexus Trust (http://www.nexustrust.co.uk/) . (yeah the college Joely Joel of http://joelyjoel.blogspot.com/ went to)
Sadly that never took off, I spent more time at the back of the concert hall than at the front and I found that I preferred it there. I was never going to end up being the big name worship leader at the next big Christian festival.
I went to college, took up Music Tech in my second year and then went on to uni to do more of the same.
Part way though my second year, while studying Optimal Phase Binning, I was considering a Masters. Good job the lecturer I wanted to study under left else that’s what I would be doing next.
Instead, as of September, I will be studying again, in Coventry, at Nexus, on their Live Sound Engineering course!

BANG! Now hands up all those who saw this one coming?
Anyone? Nope not me either.

There is a long story explaining it all but somehow I want to bring this story back to the important people I mentioned twice now.
They were all people from my future. Now before you get all excited and think that time travel has been invented, let me explain. The Big Top band on the third week of Skeggy and the live sound engineer in the Big Top were all lecturers from Nexus!
It was very strange to see them and know that soon they would be my teachers. What a long post just to mention something that was weird and sounded much cooler in my head but looks pretty dumb on paper/screen.

So, what is everyone else doing next?