I've just filled in the For Immediate Release survey. I don't suppose that Nev and Shel really care what an academic thinks - but did they really have to make me tick a box that was labelled "Non-communicator...."????
I didn't fill in "Anything else you want us to know? (Open-ended question; optional)" either - I don't suppose it is useful to know that I would prefer to FIR to be 45-minutes long so it fitted exactly (on a good day) my drive into work.
Deep down, this does reflect one of my reservations about podcasting - namely, when do I get chance to listen? My routine is to download and burn to a CD and stick into the car changer. The trouble is, unless I spend ages editing it, it is burnt as a single track and, if my journey ends before the podcast I have no way of fast forwarding to where I left off. So I don't hear many shopws to the end.
PS. Keep up the good work, H&H.
You could always buy an MP3 player, preferably an iPod, and have FIR synched to download through iTunes automatically.
All you would have to do then is connect the iPod to the computer every so often.
Posted by: Stephen | April 03, 2006 at 08:44 PM
Philip,
I am sure the "non-communicator" designation was not meant as a reflection of your actual skills :-)
I like the age categories, specifically the 55+ category that doesn't differentiate between someone in their mid-50s and someone who is in their 80s.
Posted by: Andrea Weckerle | April 03, 2006 at 08:49 PM
My first MP3 player was a state of the art Rio PMP300 which took six (short songs) and plugged into the pre-USB printer port! Yes, I have upgraded, but I don't always have the opportunity to use it - ie in the car...
Posted by: Philip Young | April 03, 2006 at 08:50 PM
Kind, Andrea, but Neville has seen me in action so... Anyway, I am about to start re-reading New Grub Street. Thanks.
Posted by: Philip Young | April 03, 2006 at 08:53 PM
Thanks for taking the survey, Philip. We definitely do want to know what an academic thinks! I knew we should have had more occupation-choices in that question ;)
Re show length, yes, we do want to know opinions about that, too. We've had anecdotal comments from listeners since we started, evenly divided views on that topic. I think the survey will give us very clear pointers in this area.
Andrea, re age choices, we didn't want to make this one of those questions that look like an exhaustive demographic questionnaire. Mind you, if the majority of respondents choose that age range, then we didn't give enough choice! But I don't think that'll be the case, certainly not by looking at the responses so far.
So thanks, all, for helping us!
Posted by: Neville Hobson | April 04, 2006 at 09:15 AM
This is one of the big stumbling blocks with podcasts at the moment. As you rightly point out, not all listeners listen via mp3 players or computers, although that's probably less of a concern as the CD dies a slow death and the in car MP3 player begins to become more common.
More of a niggle is the fact that podcasts are not currently searchable (barring the creator providing time codes for specific chapters). Whoever figures out a way of dividing up podcasts into searchable/skippable chapters will be the real podcast player.
Posted by: Sam Smith | April 04, 2006 at 03:36 PM