"The trends that will shape our future"

March 23, 2006 5:47 PM

A conversation about the futureis a 1 hr. 15 min. Time magazine podcast (mp3 file) of a panel discussion, featuring Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban, LA Times op-ed editor Andres Martinez, author Steven Johnson ("Everything Bad Is Good for You") and magazine writer Caitlin Flanagan.
posted by edlundart (10 comments total)

I read 'Everything Bad Is Good For You' and thought it was terrible.

That said, I shall download this podcast, listen to it, and tell you if Johnson continues to come up with witty ideas that he backs up with insubstantial, tenuous and unconvincing references.
posted by armoured-ant at 6:06 PM on March 23, 2006

I just wish every podcast would have a transcript with it... the internet would be a better place for it
posted by matimer at 7:47 PM on March 23, 2006

That's weird. Looks like an MP3 file to me. Why do they call it a "podcast?"
posted by scarabic at 8:17 PM on March 23, 2006

But why should I listen to this 1 hr 15 min. discussion?
posted by jouke at 8:32 PM on March 23, 2006

I'm sorry, who?
posted by fenriq at 10:19 PM on March 23, 2006

That's weird. Looks like an MP3 file to me. Why do they call it a "podcast?"

What's the difference between a "podcast" and a downloadable voice recording in mp3?
posted by arrowhead at 10:28 PM on March 23, 2006

arrowhead writes "What's the difference between a 'podcast' and a downloadable voice recording in mp3?"

Pretension.
posted by brundlefly at 11:57 PM on March 23, 2006

What's the difference between a "podcast" and a downloadable voice recording in mp3?

Branding.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:04 AM on March 24, 2006

> I just wish every podcast would have a transcript with it... the internet would
> be a better place for it

There's the same problem with podcasts as there is with tape-recording a class lecture instead of taking written notes: there's probably only ten minutes of interesting content but it takes an hour to listen to it. Podcast utilities urgently needed:

1. simple voice-to-text that works
2. speed-it-up utility that trims bits and makes everyone talk three times as fast
3. quality/sanity auto-checker - cuts out the Uhhhhhh's, the silences, the self-contradictions, the unfunny jokes, the pointless digressions, the questions that have already been answered.

All free and open-source, naturally. I suppose 3 is a bit optimistic but hope springs eternal.

posted by jfuller at 3:34 AM on March 24, 2006

jfuller, great points, especially [3] -- and I'll add:

4. good quality text-to-voice, so you can treat any blog like a podcast.

I'm only partly joking. I envisioned a "phase x" for podcasting where people would write their stuff up, then send it off to be pumped through some kind of voiceover avatar of themselves. Because, who has the time to sit there and do the read and crunch the files etc. after you've already spent time writing it? (Major assumptions, I know...)

More to the point: The web works great as a medium for code, like langauge in text. Encode voice in such a way that you can easily map it back, without error, to text. The obvious and easy way is to have text as the source format; it would be trivial (given modern software available to any up to date Mac user and probably to most Windows and Linux users with a little effort) to convert a text stream to voice, but it will take a little work for someone to develop software to put in the important Uhhhhs, silences, unfunny jokes, etc. So, you know, it sounds, human.
posted by lodurr at 5:25 AM on March 24, 2006