Fact: Lance doesn't understand audioblogs
Nor will Lance take the time to do the proper research to inform his audience properly about audioblogs. I never received an email from old Lance and I been writing and following audioblogs in my weblog for almost two years. This article is strickly one man's factless opinion based on nothing and no research.
Lance says: "Annoyance aside, recording blogs instead of writing them actually devalues the entire concept of blogging. How do you cross-link? What about RSS feeds? Sound files are—except for whatever textual preface you decide to add—sealed containers. You can't link inside them. You can talk about other sites you're referring to, but how will you direct your audience to these sites? Will you say the URL? "
Lance, the personal publishing movement today on the web is way beyond resembling the old one way participation of reading PC Magazine at the desktop. Your thinking and methods are just plain old, outdated and wrong. I just wouldn't expect this from a technology journalist in 2004. You know there is a big online conversation going on out here (and by the way it's textual, audible and visual) and it's to bad your missed out using it for fact checking this article.
Lance quote: "Annoyance aside, recording blogs instead of writing them actually devalues the entire concept of blogging
Lance think "Mobile Micro Content" meets the "Wireless Web". The kind of news content you might stumble across in the micro-airwaves as you drive to work while keeping your eyes on the road. Is it safe to read text weblogs as you drive? No!! You can't even talk on a cell phone in some places as you drive. The eyes are spoken for as you drive but not the ears. Audioblogging is the only valid, safe blogging method available to you as a driver of a mobile device or when you're on the move like when walking, running, etc. Audioblogging adds the value by enabling the continuation of the online conversation in these situtaions.
Lance question: How do you cross-link?
Must everything be crossed linked to text centric html pages in your PC centric world? Audio files on the Web are links. Audioblogs can crosslink to other online linkable audio. Have you ever heard of a playlist?
Lance question: What about RSS feeds?
Answer: Audioblog posts today are always contained in RSS, ATOM feeds and media player playlists. Here let me use the medium to show you a few. Audio posts are really just weblog posts containing audio file links. Complete with title and a description that contains embedded audio links in them. Why would you ever think that audio links would be excluded from the RSS feeds? I let you in on something else if you promise not to tell anyone. The links for images are in there too.
Lance question: You can talk about other sites you're referring to, but how will you direct your audience to these sites? Will you say the URL?
Answer: Why would you go out of your way to say an URL in an audioblog? Oh I know, your back in your PC centric world reading your text blog from your desktop again. If I create an audio post it doesn't make any sense for me to refer my "listeners" to any text out on the Web if what I'm refering to is other online "LINKED" audio. But that doesn't mean I can't link to other sites in my post description for discovery by Google, Technorati, Feedster and my text reading audience.
You see Lance, today audio links and files are only one way we enhance the text reading experience aimed at the desktop PC audience. Tomorrow, as wireless spreads everywhere, online audio (audioblog posts being one variety) will be the dominate medium that routes and informs the online mobile news audience.
Lance I promise if I need to check out facts about PCs I'll include PC Magazine in my research if you promise to fact check an audioblogging article you write in the future with the Audioblogging community.
As I always say, stay tuned!!
Note: I also reposted this response to Lance in PC Magazine's discussion group about the article.
Lance Ulanoff writes in PC Magazine: Blogs Speak!
AudioBlog has some sample blogs on its site that sound quite clear and lucid. Founder and chief evangelist Eric Rice has one, but I can tell by the cadence that he's reading off prepared text. It makes him sound stilted and uncomfortable. But his information-rich audioblog (explaining how the service can work with XMLRPC and non-XMLRPC weblogs) is the exception and not the rule for what promises to be yet another unfortunate online trend. I didn't know I "prepared" any of my audioblogs except for maybe one or two. And I wonder about all the other examples of people whose blogs he didn't cite.
Blogging Pro cited the article, and seemingly new to weblogging, they aren't convinced of Lance's grasp of blogging as a whole.
What I like about being a loudmouth, and being a blogger (no matter how much I despise the word), is being able to stand up and shout. Oh and good news! You can actually do TWO things at once... listen to this audioblog, and scan something else you might potentially hate. Check it.
6:50:46 PM 
|
