Thursday 1 March 2012

On length and access:

An hour long show isn't too long. Not if it's good. Many shows we listen to or watch are around an hour in length. But getting people to listen to an hour show is hard. We are always reluctant to give our time to something unknown. I understand that. I'm the same. But the issue isn't the time. The issue is the unknown.

And also the effort. If you aren't someone who listens to podcasts already it seems like it will take great efforts to do so. It is a new thing to consider, a new system or process to learn. And there are lots of different media that you already know your way around. That you've already integrated into your life.

But just because you love those flavours doesn't mean you won't love a new one. And they aren't as hard to taste (or rather to access and integrate) as you think.

Getting Better Acquainted is worth listening to. It's a flavour worth tasting. It isn't the only longform podcast worth sampling but it's not a bad one to start with. I recommend other longform conversation based podcasts via the GBA twitter stream as well as posting about the show.

This are the ways you can get Getting Better Acquainted:

You can stream it straight on your computer or mobile. You can do this by clicking play on soundcloud or on Facebook. You can download an mp3 of an episode directly by clicking on download if you want to listen to it later or on a different device.

You can subscribe to it on iTunes. Which means (in theory) that iTunes will keep an eye out and download the episodes when they come out. If you have an iPhone it will download them straight to your pocket. You can also transfer the mp3's to other mp3 players with a tiny bit more hassle. iTunes is unreliable but it is comprehensive and relatively hassle free if you are an iTunes user.

The best way I have found of consuming podcasts is through The Stitcher Smart Radio App. It's FREE. You download it onto your smartphone and then tell it which podcasts you want to stream. And it's done. Many radio shows are available as podcasts so with stitcher you can create your own streaming radio station to carry around in your pocket, made from both established radio programmes that are released on BBC or NPR and independent podcasts. The downside is that some podcasts and radio shows aren't on Stitcher yet. The upside is that a lot of them are. And significantly GBA certainly is.

There are many other ways you can get GBA but they are all much more complicated than the ones listed above. If any of them are the best way for you to consume podcasts then you'll already know how to do it.

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