Jon Hall, president of Linux International, is a passionate spokesman for the open source community and ideal. In this two-part interview, he speaks at length on the progress and challenges for open source, and on the need to recapture a purer vision of education.
Seriously.
First, an interview is basically text. Damn. Text. Do we need mp3s to share text?
Second, even if I’m on broadband, there is no need for me to download an mp3, open another application and listen an interview. And stopping to listen my music.
Third, last time I checked text was quotable, for example inside a blog. In theory it could be possible to make mp3s quotable, but is this worth the hassle?
Fourth, I’m not natively English speaking. While I can easily read and write English quite well, because I’m in contact with written English 24/7, things are different for spoken English (and much worse for English spoken by Americans or Irish people,sigh)… and I think I’m not the only non-native English speaker with this problem. So much for i18n.
So, please stop this stupid podcast s**tty fad and realize that cooler is not always better. Really. No flaming/trolling intended, I’m really angry at it.
(well, angry maybe is too much. But it’s annoying, really)
Well. If you have a portable mp3 player you can listen to it while you’re going home. I like podcasts.
My native language is not English. But I can listen to them pretty well.
It’s easier to give out mp3’s than to transcript.
Well in this case there is a transcript. The link’s right there under the links for the MP3s.
Not because I’m not interested (I am definitely!), but just because I am not keen on listening focused to someone talking, talking, talking.
If I would be able to read the text, I would. Because I could read it in the speed I like to. I also could only read the parts/questions I am interested in.
It’s sad this is only available as audio, although it is also neat to have this, if someone is interested in it.
If possible, transcriptions should be available for search-ability.
The more sensory information you can be exposed to, the more information you can get out of a certain message. You can observe other behavioural factors from someone if you’re on the spot. Behaviour is what you say (text), how you say it (audio), facial expressions and body language (video).
Ideally being there would be best, then video, then audio and finally text. Text has a great advantage if you are ignoring other sensory data, you can intake it really fast. Jon ‘maddog’ Hall is a great spokesman and there is more information in his voice such as speed and tone that you can interpret, adding more value to the plain words.
Personally, I have found that audio boosts what I perceive compared with text from 60% to 80%, and it is easier to remember, as you can associate a message with more emotion. This varies from person to person. As my routine includes a lot of audiocast-able listening time, I plan my week accordingly. Watching video-casts doesn’t fit well into the routine, and therefore it renders unproductive. The added information perception value doesn’t make up for the extra time needed to invest in watching messages in an appropriate environment.