Sunday, September 21, 2003

What I learned when I first listened to a blog. I finally had a chance to listen to the Christopher Lydon interviews on his blog -- "Dave Sifry, an incredible lesson in civics." It's good to hear Christopher Lydon's voice again! Having lived in this area for a while, I have followed him on TV for years, on radio for years, and then poof - he was off the air. He is a great interviewer and it's great to hear him once again. Also, I've read Dave Sifrey's blog and certainly use his site. But hearing his own voice answering really good questions was a whole different story. Christopher Lydon's contention rings very true, that the texture and feel you can get from hearing someone's own voice communicates on many more levels and more engagingly than simply reading the text of a blog. But for me there is a legitimate question about how well audio interviews fit within the blog medium. Here's why: for me, blogs are all about allowing me as a reader to plow through a lot of information quickly, delving deeply where I am engaged or aggressively skipping past screens and screens of text. Audio doesn't work that way. It tends to be much more sequential - you have to kind of stay with it for a certain period of time (maybe not beginning to end, but starting in the middle often is not workable.) So it doesn't lend itself that well in my opinion to the blog mode of communicating - and especially not the blog mode of "consuming" (reading/hearing.) Yes, the hearing the author's voice reacting to thoughtful questions is a major additional dimension to the experience, but using Radio as a radio may not work that well. 7:48:17 PM  >  trackback []   comment []