During The Gang #19 a listener wondered why it feels different to listen live vs. listening to the podcast later.
First of all, you don’t get the trademark music which should be reason alone to listen to the mp3-file as well, at least to the intro. Secondly, well, I have no second.
All I know is that I was very confused when listening to the mp3, thinking to myself I know this episode already. Only then did it dawn on me that I DID call in live last Friday, listening in on the first five minutes until my son woke up. Somehow I doubt though that I would have liked the experience that much. Sound quality was low even without the twitter callers unmuted and IMO The Gang is just not as good a venue for call-ins as is Newsgang. Being on a long-distance call from Germany just to listen live to a podcast just makes no sense either.
However, with Marc Canter’s low quality phone line, a big cast on the line which failed to moderate itself this time (and Steve Gillmor seemed often too busy, scanning the Twitterverse) and the pings of people joining or leaving the call, this was a tough episode to listen to, even though the content was not that bad.
Finally, I have grown very used to listening on my time, not on the producer’s time. That is of course one of the key advantages of podcasts: Being able to pause when the son wakes up or the phone rings.
UPDATE: Just had a quick chat with Steve. My critique of the live experience may be influenced too much that I called during our busy evening hours and from another country. Listening to the show you can grasp a sense of “live” via the pings alone but it will need to evolve further I think.
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