Podcasting 101

One thing that's difficult with communicating on the Internet is the impersonal nature of text-based communication. Also, since there is no vocal inflection or non-verbal/vocal cues, a message can be severely misunderstood. The following example conversation is a fairly typical example of what can happen.

Me: Hey, you should invest your money in the stock market.
My Friend: Yeah right, that sounds like a great idea.
Me: Really? Wonderful! I was really being a sarcastic jerk, but you thought I was being serious!
My Friend: I was being sarcastic too. And you are a jerk.

There are several ways to counteract that, and today you will get to read about two of them.

The first way is fairly straightforward. It involves formatting the text so in such a way to draw the emphasis on to certain words. Re-read the conversation:

Me: Hey, you should invest your money in the stock market.
My Friend: Yeah, right, that sounds like a great idea.
Me: Really? Wonderful! I was really being a sarcastic jerk, but YOU thought I was being serious!
My Friend: I was being sarcastic too. And you ARE a jerk.

The formatting changes help, but not a lot. Some meaning is still lost.

The second and more effective way to communicate would be to directly speak to your audience through a podcast. Some people find it a lot easier to speak than to type, and I see how some people would like that. Personally, I need a live audience to perform a monologue, otherwise I lose focus and I don't do the same quality of work.

Tonight's class showed me a little more of how people learn to use technology that they are unfamiliar with. People tend to be very distrustful of themselves when they encounter a problem on a computer. Also, the Matthew Effect comes very strongly into play with technology (for those of you to whom the Matthew Effect is unfamiliar, it comes from a verse in the Book of Matthew in the Bible which says "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer"). Those who view themselves as "technologically incompetent" tend to despair when they encounter a problem with a computer, or they tend to be too afraid of making a mistake that they don't explore what happens if they click "yes" or "no" on the computer screen.

I love that I now know how to make podcasts, at least with Gcast. I'm well versed with general computer use, and technical program use, etc... but very unfamiliar with audio and video creation/editing. Podcasting was something I used on a very general level, but not something that I understood. Now that's changed, and I hope to make many more podcasts in the future!