What Good is a Podcast Now?

So, what’s on your iPod (if you are the kind of person who carries one)? I was given a classic iPod as a gift and, being what Everett termed a “late adopter”, it only took me a year or two to really realize what a great gadget it is.

Of course, any iPod’er realizes immediately the benefit of having all of their music at their beck and call – as well as the ability to forego music stores in search of CDs (and putting up with the really loud music that now seems to be the accepted ambiance of such environments). A major benefit of the classic iPod is not just its 30 gig storage lies its ability to be adaptable to the other iPod changes, such as accommodating video media. But for me the beauty of the iPod lies in its downloading Podcasts and audio books.

I have always loved radio. To me, there is nothing like listening to the spoken word, and even more specifically the reading of the written word. I am old enough to remember evenings with my family, especially my grandmother, listening to the radio. I remember how excited I was, when visiting my sister in France, in 1966, that the radio carried the old time radio shows like Superman and The Green Hornet. And then there were all those nights my sisters read me to sleep.

In this age of technology, the human voice has a special place. I find it in the amazing Podcasts put on the Internet, as well as the electronic books I can download for a price or from my local library. Of course, nothing can take the place of talking to my sister, brothers, my daughters, my partners, and my friends. They are always better than radio.