What is audioblogging?

9/13/2002

I began the week thinking I should add a definition for audioblogging to this site.  It makes sense to me that someone who found this site say through a search on Google would expect to find the definition here.  After all I am calling this site "Audioblogging News".

As the week went on I started to question the real meaning and value of audioblogging and what were the real problems that we could solve by creating a RSS 2.0 module for it , authoring tools and the architecture to make all this work end to end.

So I thought I spend sometime this weekend writing down my thoughts and opinions.

What is Audioblogging anyway?  Why even bother. Why not go right for the gusto and go right to multimediablogging and include all media types.

In my opinion audioblogging should be used as a first step with a media type to enhance the PC weblogging experience and at the same time increase the weblogging reach beyond the PC.   I have read much discussion on weblogs this week pertaining to the use of all kinds of multimedia such as audio, photos, video, etc.  in weblog posts. They seem to be talking about enhancing the PC weblogging experience.  I want that too.  But we need to also pay special attention to the fact that audio alone could have a huge effect on the mobile user who is not using a PC.

I want to start to deliver two way weblogging conversations available on the PC today to mobile weblogging nodes.  The problem audioblogging could help solve is how we include mobile nodes equally into the public discussion being held on public weblogs today? 

Autoblogging?

I don't want the autoblogging experience to be one way like radio is today.  I want the autoblogger in the discussion, communicating in this public weblog space with minimal effort.  The same ease PC webloggers have today with tools like Radio. 

Who better to bring into the discussion about the accident on the TurnPike or the tiger running loose around town.  We are not far from the day when cars will be equipt like police cars are today with video and audio recording equipment.  Lets makes sure that stuff can be plugged into the weblogging conversation when it gets here.

So when I think of audioblogging or adding audio to weblogs I'm thinking more of how the weblogger may use audio to extend their content to the mobile nodes out in the cloud.   With that in mind audioblogging posts need to be mobile node aware and sensitive to the fact that  the user may only be experiencing their content through a speaker without the text in the post. 

As a kid growing up in New Jersey I remember how my friends and I would listen to radio broadcasts of Yankee games. Wiffle bat and air ball in hand on my friend Bruce's lawn.  Baseball announcers Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White would describe to us every detail we needed to know about  of favorite Yankees during the game.  They were so aware of their audience.  They new we were listening on radios and the experience of listening to them was so different than listening to them on TV.  It really made us feel like were at the game. We could hear "Hey hotdog" and we could hear the umpires calling strikes and balls.  Radio extended the reach of the Yankee experience to us all summer long as we looked forward to the broadcasts after a full day of playing baseball in the local lots.  Even when the games were on TV Channel 11 we would sometimes turn down the volume of the TV to hear the radio broadcast because it was so good and so much better than what was being said on the TV broadcast.

The autoblogging experience I speak of does not include the sound bytes that were weaved into the context of a weblog post to only enhance the PC weblog experience.

The audio will need to be able to stand on its own and cleanly deliver the content like those Yankee radio broadcasts.  I see specific audio files being included with the text post and aggregated to the mobile nodes and other completely different audio files weaved into the context of the text post  and not aggregated to the mobile nodes(not to say that a text post audio sound byte may not be included in the mobile node audio file or have the ability to stand on its own).

Autoblogging Radio

Tonight as I was driving home I daydreamed a little about how I would operate my future autoblogging radio.  The control could be on my automatic floor mounted shift.  Maybe 4 or 5 buttons at finger tip reach.  A small LCD panel that I could look down to every so often to help me navigate through the autoblogging stations.  In the top right corner I could see the channel ID that Garth writes about. 

All these channels would operate so differently than old radio.  The channels would only progress when I was locked into them and programming would stop as I became bored and moved to the next channel.  On the shift I saw the left button as rewind the middle as play and stop and the right as the fast forward.  There would also be two other buttons that were arrows to help me scan through the channels.

I know this is only a dream of mind but I am starting to see the different pieces from end to end.

And how does the autoblogger "edit this audio file" and how do they "publish this audio or photo" from the car.  Well that day dream is for another boring Friday afternoon ride home.

What others are saying about "What is audioblogging":

 9/17/2002  -> Mitch Ratcliffe of RatcliffeBlog: ->  listen

This document is a work in progress:

By Harold Gilchrist

Last updated: 9/19/2002

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