AudioBoo - Talking In Public.

AudioBoo: DJ Memories - Part 1.

The radio DJ story will follow sometime.

Ask The Audience.

One of the highlights of my week, is listening to the latest podcast from The Word Magazine A magazine which i can heartedly recommend to any serious music lover & a publication that i have probably mentioned before & will, quite possibly mention again at some time.
Podcasts, generally, are one of those things that the Internet was just made for. Especially when they are done well. Which is precisely the case here

But, this week the Word Podcast was even more special than usual, for me anyway. Because, in it they actually gave me a name check & answered a question which had i sent into them.
The podcast was mainly about recording studios & my question was along the lines of, "Does the use of Autotune mean the end of "real" vocalists". (By the way, my question is about 10 minutes before the end)

I actually intend to write another blog post around aspects of the podcast discussion about recording studios & the question that i asked.

But, the other aspect i wanted to mention, was the way that everybody these days seems to be after our opinion. Whether it be a radio show, a tv programme, or in this case, a monthly magazine. They all want input from their readers, viewers & listeners.

In the case of The Word, they use their Twitter feed to ask for questions, as do many others. Usually just before they are about to record the podcast.
But, i've lost count of the amount of times i've been asked, as a viewer or listener, to contact somebody to give my opinion about something they are discussing, or to vote on a hot topic.
I suppose this is just a natural progression from the old fashioned way of contacting a studio, by telephone?

Maybe it's just a case of the media, in its many forms, getting to grips with social media & the Internet generally? After all, it must be a great deal easier getting an email, or a text message, than having to actually answer a phone call. And the ways that people can contact, or get involved these days are growing in number all the time.

I know that many tv programmes, radio shows, magazines, newspapers & even the presenters themselves, have their own Facebook pages, Twitter feeds etc.

So, i guess the question is, does this really matter?

Some might see this as lazy journalism, or cheap programming. After all, these people are getting the general public to provide some of their content for them & at no real cost.
But, there again, it can also be seen as true public service broadcasting. Getting the public involved is exactly what some people like to see.
Also, getting your audience involved in the show, or programme, will probably make that audience more loyal. It almost becomes "their programme. They are far more likely to watch, listen, or read & be enthusiastic about your product, if they feel involved in some way.

Personally, i see no real problem with this & i can actually envisage this public involvement becoming more widespread. In fact i've already seen examples & ideas for this.
Maybe that's the topic for another day?

There is nothing quite like having your name & question being used on your favourite podcast.
As long as that potential thrill remains, people will always want to get involved.

Reading The Future?

In Britain fairly recently, we had a national postal strike.
As can be imagined, this caused a lot of disruption to postal services. The effects were felt for far longer than the actual strike, because of the backlog of mail that built up.
Because of this, some companies that rely on the Royal Mail service, started to make alternative arrangements to get their products to their customers. One of those may well have some implications for the future.

Like a lot of people, i subscribe to magazines. All of which have to be delivered by post.

During the postal strike, two of the magazines that i subscribe to, one a weekly publication & the other a monthly one, decided to start a service whereby a link was sent by email to all subscribers. This email link linked to a special online version of the full magazine. This e-magazine was a full replica of the published version & even has turnable pages. It can also be magnified to highlight parts of text.

This is a very clever little bit of programming that allows this to happen & i should inagine that it's a pretty recent development too. But, i truly believe that this is a pointer to the future for both magazines & possibly even newspapers too.

One reason for this thought is that both magazines, "Word Magazine" & "The Week", have found that their subscribers like the e-magazine so much, that they have both decided to make this a permanent arrangement. Now, when a new edition of the magazine comes out, i get an email, complete with the link to the e-version.

I have already set up special email folders to save these links. Thus giving me a permanent link to the magazines. I don't even have to store, or even read my paper copy anymore.
This is surely a sign of things to come?

Another thing that these two magazines have in common, is that neither of them has a website that allows you to read their content online. Yes, they both have a website & in the case of "Word Magazine" a very good one too. But, you can't read the magazine there, you have to subscribe to do that.
To me at least, i think this is a very sensible arrangement & one i fully support.

Now, contrast this arrangement with what most other magazines & especially newspapers do.
Most of them allow you to read most, if not all, of their content online & for free too.

I'm sure we've all seen the news coverage of Rupert Murdoch & News International complaining about Google allowing anyone to search for their content & then access it online for free.

Whilst i can see why Rupert Murdoch is not happy, surely this situation is of his own making?
You can't really complain that people are either not buying a physical copy of your newspaper, or that they are unwilling to pay to view it online, when the newspaper has it's own website which shows the newspapers content, for the whole world to see & for free too!
Am i missing something here?

I have no doubt that people would be willing to pay for content. But, they are not going to do that when that same content is freely & legally available elsewhere.

So, why don't Rupert Murdoch & other news organisations go down the same route that magazines such as "The Week" & "Word Magazine" have done?

I think one reason might be that they all rushed into creating websites for their various publications, thinking that they had to get on the bandwagon & not get left behind by the competition.
By doing this, they have now created an audience for online reading & have even allowed more people to read their output than ever before.
Unfortunately, a lot of these people will be casual readers. How many of those casual readers would actually pay good money to read that relevant publication? I guess we'll never know.

My challenge to Rupert Murdoch etc would be.
If you are really serious about getting people to pay for your online content & even encourage people back to buying a hard copy of your newspapers. Shut down the free, official, websites of your newspapers & then charge people to view them. Or, send your paying subscribers an email link, to enable them to view the newspaper online.

I have a funny feeling that Mr Murdoch will not take this course of action. But, if he did, it would most likely solve the Google problem in one fell swoop.

I think 2010 could be an interesting year in the newspaper & magazine publishing world.