It's really a shame that so much great content is so poorly accessible because it's buried in untranscribed podcasts today. For example, check out this comment from Om Malik explaining the value of universal wireless systems through a potential real-world example:
"If you're selling hot dogs - right - on the street and like some bunch of drunks show up and wanna buy $50 worth of hot dogs, but don't have money, you don't have to lose the sale. I'm just saying, you know."
That's practical and funny stuff, yet you wouldn't know about it unless you downloaded the
July 19th edition of Om and Niall Podsessions and caught the last five minutes.
Another challenge with podcasts: I happened to be climbing a hill while biking to work and listening to my iPod when I heard this line from Om Malik and thought it was funny. However, I was nowhere near a computer and the time and had to remember to write something about it once I was at a keyboard. To make matters worse, I had to transcribe the line I wanted to cite from the podcast since no transcript is available. This makes it even more work to give Om credit for his creative perspective on wireless technology.
Would more people consume the content created by Niall and Om if it was transcribed? Definitely. It would get indexed by search engines, leading to traffic from people searching on relevant terms. More people finding it would lead to more people citing it. And text is easier to cite than audio today. Are Niall and Om going to take the transcribe their own podcasts? Not very likely.
As I mentioned at the end of
this post, Google Video's link-within-a-video feature has made life easier for citing video content, but I don't believe anything similar exists for podcasts today.
Somebody figure out how to auto-transcribe audio and video content for podcasters and vloggers? Podcasters, vloggers, the current and prospective audiences would all benefit.
1. Posted by: John Doe on August 8, 2006 10:37 AM:
It was released 16 months ago.
sigh