Fedora and lack of audio communication with the community

[Les Mikesell]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Valent Turkovic <valent.turkovic <at> gmail.com> writes:
>> first excuse me if this is the wrong mailing list. If there is
>> fedora-marketing or some similar :) mailing list please point me in
>> the right direction.
> 
> There is a fedora-marketing-list indeed.
> 
> But to answer your suggestion: I personally don't understand why all the fuss 
> about podcasts, IMHO written plaintext is more convenient for things like that 
> (easier to skim over, easier to find a section when going back to something you 
> already read, easier to search automatically (fulltext search), easier to find 
> in a search engine too (fulltext indexing), no need to either put headphones on 
> or have everyone around listen to the podcast too whether they want it or not, 
> can be consumed on a machine with no sound at all (as in some offices) and of 
> course faster to download too).

One word: commuting.  Podcasts do to talk radio (or the internet 
equivalent) what tivo does to television.  While it is absurd to hope 
that an interesting personality will be chatting on a live broadcast and 
conclude at precisely the times you are trapped in your car for the 
daily commute, it is quite easy to subscribe to a podcast and automate 
the transfer of new content to your ipod/player. Then it is a matter of 
pushing the button to pause/continue at convenient times.  It's also 
great if you work out regularly on a treadmill or similar device that 
doesn't require your full concentration.  Sometimes way a person is 
saying comes across differently when you listen to an interview compared 
even to reading a transcript of the same thing.  I tend to prefer the 
ones moderated by someone with actual broadcast experience like Leo 
Laporte or fast paced ones like CNET's Buzz Out Load.


If you have access to a windows or mac box, fire up itunes and look at 
the huge (and free) selection aggregated at the itunes store.  Most may 
be available by other means but that's the easiest way to browse a large 
  choice in one place.  I'm not sure if there is a pure-linux way to 
access this catalog or subscribe directly though.  With itunes you click 
to subscribe and can configure it so new items automatically sync to an 
ipod when you connect to recharge and 'listened' podcasts are 
automatically deleted - and you can make a 'smart playlist' that keeps 
the newest items at the top.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com