The Hobson & Holtz Report, Report

Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz have just completed and syndicated the second airing of their new podcast for communicators called The Hobson and Holtz Report.

If you haven't yet tuned in, I would encourage you to download the latest show, it's interesting to see, err listen, to how these guys are putting new technology to practice in a truely new and unique way.  Plus they're talking about cool and interesting stuff.

While I enjoy the show I'll admit, I haven't yet found religion with podcasting.  IMO the technology still has some obstacles to overcome before it can become a solid communication tool.  The fact that it's a one-way medium and expensive to produce are things I can live with, but my biggest gripe is this -- the lack of indexed content.

At the moment there's no way to easily digest a podcast, you're basically stuck listening to the entire thing.  The latest H&H Report runs about 45 mins long, so you better have the time to listen or face the alternative of hit-and-miss dialing on your iPod.  And don't ask me how to earmark something you found interesting other than just joting down the time stamp.  It's just frustrating.  I will, however, give credit to Neville and Shel for including show notes with their podcasts, it really helps.  It appears that this is becoming more of a common practice among regular podcasters.

More info on the H&H Report can be found at the show's companion blog, For Immediate Release.

Comments

[Neville Hobson]

Mike, thanks for the commentary.

Lack of indexed content - that's my gripe with podcasts, too. Maybe it's me not fully knowing how the the software works (the players), but I subscribe to quite a few podcasts and I have yet to figure out a way to be able to jump to segments. Otherwise, as you say, you gotta listen to the whole damn thing!

I guess an iPod or similar is the only way to be able to do this.

So that's one reason why we do the show notes - makes it a bit easier to manually navigate the MP3 if at least you have a list of what's in it with the times of each segment.

But we're constantly looking and learning, so you might get a pleasant surprise in this regard before too long. Or not ;)

[Shel Holtz]

It may be worth remembering that podcasting didn't exist a year ago. The podcasting community is making a lot of noise about its desire for a podcast-friendly device (nobody in podcasting likes the iPod; Adam Curry is a fan of the iRiver media player, but none meet the real needs of the medium yet).

As far as time-shifted radio goes, I love podcasting. I listen to half a dozen podcasts, some daily, and I'm hooked. For convenience's sake, though, I'd like devices you can bookmark so you can return to a show right where you left it and that have WiFi built in (so podcasts can go straight to the device). The wish list among other, more seasoned podcasters is longer, but I'd settle for that right now.