Complement, Not Substitute

I got an iPod a little over a month ago and have been devouring podcasts at a pretty good clip, as anyone here who's read one my posts lately knows well. I usually listen to them in the car. I used to study with the TV on and holding a conversation with several people in the room and still managed to do ok. You could argue I could've done better if I would've focused a little more, but I managed. However, I've found that I can't really effectively write or read while listening to a vocal podcast, such as NPR: Science Friday. Conversely, I seem to be able to work a lot more effectively with just about any kind of music playing in the background. For some reason I can watch TV and read/write while following the show, unless I am subconsciously filling in the gaps or something.

Anyway, my point here is that I originally thought podcasts were a fad until I started listening to them. Once I started listening to them, I realized it could be a great medium, especially if you are trying to convey information best transmitted in an audio format (like, duh, sounds). At this point I also thought, ok, it's good for that niche, but why listen to something that could be put on a blog or website and still get the info? Sometimes listening to these shows are interesting even though it could be done just as well as a website. As I've discovered posting here, it's pretty tough to link to a podcast or tell you guys about what I heard on a podcast. Some of them are really nicely done and make it easy to listen to complex subjects. In fact some, like NPR: Science Friday are just skimmed off of currently existing radio shows. Others are a little rougher around the edges, but are done by knowledgeable amateurs who are getting better all the time.

Like Brandon says in the summary, you can find tons of niche topics you would never hear on the radio, such as This Week in Nuclear, The Atomic Show, or the Military History Podcast. However, just like listening to music on my iPod didn't stop me from listening to the radio, this won't either. It's nice to be able to play any music that I own anytime I want on my iPod, but sometimes you just want to listen to something and don't want to mess around with it, and sometimes radio provides that "tickle" factor of playing something unexpected that you like. Radio also has flash messages, like weather and news, and I don't own every single piece of good music out there...yet. I don't know how many times I've listened to the radio and heard something I wanted to rush home and buy, or an old favorite I'd forgotten about.

The web hasn't killed print media either...yet.

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