Does timeshifting work?
Or how many of your podcasts do you get to listen to?
I read with interest recently that Apple has had 7,000,000 podcast subscriptions and 15,000 podcasts. Podcasts - and now TV episodes on iPods - allow what is referred to as time shifting. It’s not a new phenomenon. We’ve been doing it as long as we’ve been taping shows on TV while we’re out. The difference now though is we’re time shifting into our on-the-go time using portable entertainment players.
Is anybody listening?
But who’s listening? Who has enough time to listen? As a blogger I have to read a lot to stay informed and I’ve discovered how time consuming reading is - and you can do that a lot quicker than listening to podcasts.
And what about saturation? Can we find any we like anymore? Are they cataloged well enough on iTunes? You can’t Google search their content after all - although smart podcasters provide transcripts a week or two later, thus enabling their podcasts to be searched for by their content.
Having tried the podcast listening thing, I’m not so sure it can be the success it wants to be. If you miss one, they can accumulate very rapidly. I’ve cut back to only two podcasts and still have seven podcasts of 30 to 50 minutes each, patiently waiting for me. But where do I find the time? I don’t have the time free to time shift podcasts into.
Maybe the urban lifestyle supports it with long hours of travel (which doesn’t include me). For many this is the only spare time available. Hands up all those who can find one hour a day every day to sit under a tree and do nothing? Without changing your current lifestyle, without giving something up? Maybe it suits joggers and walkers too. Ok, hands down, maybe it’s just me that’s gotten too busy.
Timesaving
We live such busy lives - although I’d argue not as busy as our grandparents or in the same way - and we are forever trying to invent time saving devices: microwaves, dishwashers, computers, mobile phones, etc, yet the more time saving devices we invent, the less time we have. Or are we just time addicts? Gimme more, gimme more.
We do inflate to fill our available time and beyond. We are not busy in the old-fashioned way. Our grandparents worked virtually from getting up to going to bed, with much less time for leisure. Having spent the last six months at home, I am well aware of just how much time cooking, cleaning and doing the washing for four kids and two adults consumes - even with all our time and labor saving machinery. Yet for our grandparents, with at least that many kids, and often many more, how long would those basics have taken them? It’s no wonder they had less clothes - they just wouldn’t have had the time to clean them!
We on the other hand have all this leisure time and expand our lifestyles to consume it. We have much busier lifestyles outside the home and workplace than our grandparents - although many of us work longer ours in the workplace - probably because we can. We stuff our available time like when as teens, we packed into a dunny in a dunny squash competition, with arms and legs hanging out the sides. And it feels the same too.(Dunny: Australian slang for toilet cubicle)
Not surprisingly, I am writing a piece on my blog, Qwertyrash titled “I’m too busy - I need less time!” (now I’m going to have to find the time to finish it!) and it talks about this very fact - how when I got more time (when I became unemployed), I tried to do too much - and now don’t even have time to listen to podcasts. And it feels like my legs and arms and other bodily parts are busting through the cracks in my day. Maybe if I replaced my timesaving computer with a pen and paper…
And so, having found that timesaving devices are not bringing us more time, we have now turned our attention to timeshifting.
Timeshifting
But does timeshifting work? Just how many podcasts - and now TV shows - can you queue up before you give up? Oh, and then there’s audio books competing for your time. These things are even better than podcasts - but also take much longer to get through.
It all comes back to the tree. If you can’t find the time to sit under one, you may not succeed at timeshifting. But, hey, iPods are still great for listening to music on.
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
So why can exactly are you able to listen to music on your iPod and not Podcasts? Is it that you only listen to your iPod for 3 minutes at a time to hear a single song? Or is it perhaps that you just aren’t really all that interested in any of the Podcasts you’ve heard? Nothing wrong with that.
Personally, I listen to a lot more Podcasts (everything on IT Conversations, Democracy Now, and several others) than I do music. Just suits me better. I usually listen while I’m at work or commuting by bus in the morning. Also I listen while cleaning, doing laundry, washing dishes, or cooking. There’s lots of time to listen without having to schedule an hour to sit under a tree.
I don’t listen to any podcasts for the very reason I don’t consume video portably. I takes another level of attention. I may read (seriously) while listening to non-vocal music or read (leisurely) listening to any other music. And I have to read a LOT. I cannot seriously read while listening to spoken content or watching video simultaneously, it just doesn’t work. Just listening to Diana Krall singing “A Case Of You” right now (from “Live in Paris” -> buy it!) I am also *much* slower to write this comment. If I commuted by car I *might* listen to podcasts or audiobooks.
I do listen to many podcasts daily and find lots of time to do that (commuting, housework etc. similar to Brendan’s experience above) I am a confirmed NPR/BBC/CBC and overall public radio addict.
A few things learned: 1) Set itunes to only retain the latest edition of a podcast. Do you really need to listen to every single episode? Why? If you never listen to a particular sub, axe it! Life is too short and there’s plenty of good stuff out there.
2) Create podcast playlists in itunes. For example, I have a playlist called “Channel One” combining many short (10 min or less)
items (eg. NPR’s “business story of the day” ). It’s a lot easier to listen this way and big fun to have customized meta-radio stations. Organized information can be far less overwhelming.
You can create separate ‘stations” devoted to arts, travel etc. - the content updates automatically of course. To really go all-out, create playlists combining your music and podcasts (hit shuffle!:)). Possibilities are pretty much endless.
3) this stuff is supposed to be fun!
Timeshifting works for me.
I don’t have a TIVO. I use NetFlix and watch a whole season of a show at a time, when I want, commercial free with extra features.
I have a new iPod and I have fallen in love with Podcasting. It makes my commute a million times less tedious.
Wow. Boy am I glad I’m not the only one who has this problem with podcasts.
When podcasts first appeared on iTunes it was awesome! I began subscribing to every show which I was interested in.
However, I tried listening on my PowerBook, but I realized it was taking up my complete and utter attention. Considering I’m always doing something on my computer, reading or something, I just can’t listen to anything other than music.
Cue to up to 2 weeks ago and I realized I hadn’t found time to listen to any at all, and they were just piling up. I deleted all files and removed my subscriptions, now I’m trying to figure out a way to remove the podcasts playlist item.
If I had an iPod, however, I’m confident I would have found time when I was travelling to and from college each day with nothing to do for hours at a time. But DHL lost my iPod in the post and the refund is STILL going through, and I’ve left college now. Grr.
Same goes for all of above in regards to videos too. I dunno if portable media, other than music, is gonna work. Like, At ALL.
I agree with a lot of the article (and the comments): I can only really listen while commuting, because I *cannot* work and listen to spoken word audio at the same time. Lots of people do - but I know I can only do anything well if I do one thing at a time.