What you see below is my first recording on the service known as Spoken; I have also included a transcript of the audio. Enjoy.
There is a service known as Spoken. This is my first recording on that service.
As I have interacted with the service, I have realized the virtue of it for someone like me, who really doesn’t have time to sit down to record an hour long podcast, but might have a few moments each week to record a quick thought on a specific subject.
I thought I would go meta for this first recording and discuss podcasting. I think the thing that makes me interested in podcasting as a medium is just how personal it can be. Not only is the subject matter generally very personal to the hosts because they inherently know a lot about the given discussion topic, but the listener is allowing the podcasters themselves into their ears, into their mind. From podcast to podcast, the listener can therefore like or dislike an entire show, regardless of subject matter, based on the podcaster’s cadence, even based on their voice alone.
It seems wrong (or possibly trivial) to judge an entire podcast (and decide not to listen to it, then) based on the fact that you don’t like someone’s voice, but it does make sense. The success of a podcaster in the medium is dependent on such qualities. You are potentially giving hours of your time to this person’s voice in your ear. You have to trust that they know what they are talking about and… you have to like their voice.
Spoken, on the other hand, is quite a different beast. Listeners will (and should be) just as discerning about who they are willing to listen to, but being a service that only allow recordings of three minutes or less provides for more flexibility from the perspective of the listener and the speaker. It is built for quick thoughts, for short-form audio clips. Voice memos, if you will. There is the possibility that editing would allow for deeper perspectives, but three minutes is three minutes and it is not a long enough time for simple meanderings or long pauses.
This is a platform that I feel I could use successfully, as I have used Twitter in the past, given the fact that I can produce three minutes of audio, much more readily week to week than I could an hour long podcast.
That’s all I have for now. Thanks for listening and I hope you hear me when I speak again soon.
Posted: November 13, 2015
In 2022, I am participating in two leadership training programs. This should be a social experience, so I am writing about it. Check out the full list of posts in the series here.