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Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

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Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#1

Post by bemmu »

I find it very easy, perhaps too easy to fill hours every day reading very interesting articles online. Then when I want to go outside for a walk, I would prefer to continue listening to similarly interesting content. I've found I take a lot longer walks if I'm engaged with an interesting podcast.

But there is a great divide here, it took a lot of digging just to find a few good podcasts (Stack Overflow, Venture Voice and Radio Lab), but they provide me less than 2 hours worth of content each week. With text, I wouldn't even be able to keep up with all the interesting content out there.

At this point I am fairly confident I have found most of the stuff I might be interested in listening to, so my interest now is to understand why more is not being produced, and if there is anything we could do to encourage production? Is there no demand for this? Are programmer types too shy? Why doesn't for example Steve Yegge just read aloud his blog posts and make them iTunes-subscribable?

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#2

Post by GeneralMaximus »

There is more than one reason.

* Many Internet users surf the web from their workplace or from public computers. Listening to audio in these settings, even with headphones on, is very difficult. This drives down the demand for audio. Heck, most people never even bother listening to audio when it is available, preferring to read through the transcripts instead.

* As a rule, anyone smart enough to be listening to programming podcasts can read faster than the podcaster can speak.

* Producing an engaging podcast takes more effort than writing an article. After all, you wouldn't want someone to just read out an article to you, would you? We expect more than just words from audio. A podcast would have to be scripted carefully to make sure it's engaging.

* Most geeks are excellent writers, but boring speakers.

* Text is searchable, audio (as of now) is not. How much metadata can you tack on to an audio clip, anyway?

* You can skim through text to see whether the content is worth reading or not. Skimming through audio is not that easy.

* Text allows more anonymity than audio.

It's not that people don't like podcasts. Audio is just too inconvenient a medium for most people.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#3

Post by davidw »

The only thing I can really stand to listen too much is the audio version of The Economist.

Mostly, though, I think long walks (or better, bike rides!) are better for listening to what's going through my own head. I'm bombarded by enough information as it is. Other than that, "GeneralMaximus" sums things up nicely.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#4

Post by helium »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #2

There is more than one reason. * Many Internet users surf the web from their workplace or from public computers. Listening to audio in these settings, even with headphones on, is very difficult. This drives down the demand for audio. Heck, most people never even bother listening to audio when it is available, preferring to read through the transcripts instead. * As a rule, anyone smart enough to be listening to progr…

It's easier to organize thoughts clearly when writing. Once you have said something it's already been broadcast. You don't have a chance to go back and revise, restructure or edit the message in any way.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#5

Post by m_eiman »

helium wrote: post #4
GeneralMaximus wrote: post #2

There is more than one reason. * Many Internet users surf the web from their workplace or from public computers. Listening to audio in these settings, even with headphones on, is very difficult. This drives down the demand for audio. Heck, most people never even bother listening to audio when it is available, preferring to read through the transcripts instead. * As a rule, anyone smart enough to be listening to progr…

It's easier to organize thoughts clearly when writing. Once you have said something it's already been broadcast. You don't have a chance to go back and revise, restructure or edit the message in any way.

Most probably write down what they're going to say in a script, but then they've already written it down and can be done by copy-pasting that text into a blog..

Seems to me like audio content is added work that doesn't provide many benefits, at least for this sort of prepared content. Audio is more useful when recording spontaneous conversations.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#6

Post by [deleted] »

m_eiman wrote: post #5
helium wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to organize thoughts clearly when writing. Once you have said something it's already been broadcast. You don't have a chance to go back and revise, restructure or edit the message in any way.

Most probably write down what they're going to say in a script, but then they've already written it down and can be done by copy-pasting that text into a blog.. Seems to me like audio content is added work that doesn't provide many benefits, at least for this sort of prepared content. Audio is more useful when recording spontaneous conversations.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#8

Post by Hast »

IT conversations (http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/) has quite a lot of good content.

If you just want something other than reading there are quite a few video presentations available on Google Video (http://research.google.com/video.html). And naturally TED talks (http://www.ted.com/index.php).

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#9

Post by shalmanese »

If you're restricting yourself to audio only, you're missing out on a bunch of interesting videotaped lectures that you can listen too without missing out on much. Check out the entire @Google series on Youtube or a bunch of interesting documentaries or TED talks.

I've written about how to run video in the background on an iPhone: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/running-videos-in-the-backgrou...

Re: Ask HN: Why is there a disproportionate amount of interesting text vs. spoken content?

#10

Post by theblackbox »

I'd recommend the "Off the Hook" podcast by Emmanuel Goldstein and the HOPE recordings available for download via the 2600 website

don't really do podcasts much myself, though. But these did keep me mildly entertained/informed a while back (esp. the HOPE conference about coupon hacking)

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