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I’ve had my new 30 GB iPod with video for about a month and a half now and I’m a bit surprised at how different it is from the iPod Shuffle that I used previously. The obvious difference comes from having a screen and being able to play video. But what I wasn’t expecting was that I’d listen to a lot more music. With the Shuffle I occasionally would use autofill, but most of the time I would have a few albums and favourite tracks and have most of it filled with podcasts. I’d carefully choose the podcasts and would regularly rotate them.
Now I don’t have to choose a limited selection with all of my music on the iPod and my podcast subscriptions have grown dramatically. In the early days of podcasting when I didn’t have an iPod I would carefully choose 80 minutes of podcasts or music and burn a CD for the drive to Halifax each day. With the Shuffle I’d always have something to listen to, but now with the bigger iPod I have much more than enough to listen to. The increased choice is both good and bad. Sometimes it takes me longer to choose what to listen to, but overall I love have a queue that is always full of something to enjoy.
I’m listening to a lot more music and watching a bit more video, but most of the time with the white earbuds is spent on music. I’m buying more music now (from both iTunes and Bleep), but I’m also listening to a great deal more Creative Commons music as well. My current favourite podcasts now are Vu d’Ici / Seen From Here (music), CC365 - Creative Commons 2006 Calendar (which provides a new CC licensed song every day!), The Revolution (CC licensed music and interviews), Big Shed (audio documentary), KCRW’s The Treatment and The Business (two shows about the film and tv industry), 43 Folders (productivity tips), The Ricky Gervais Podcast (comedy) and my newest discovery, Inside the Net (interviews and discussion of new Web trends). On the video side there are only two vidcasts (vodcasts?) that I never miss and they are the daily Rocketboom and the weekly Command-N (that I’ve helped tape a few segments for) and they both feature tech news. An odd thing is that I prefer watching them on the iPod’s small screen better than on the computer screen. Maybe it’s because it’s more personal and connected to me. The context that media is consumed within is very important and it seems that tiny video on a tiny screen isn’t as bad as tiny video on a larger screen.
tags: podcasts, ipod, vlog, vidcasts