Leading Hands Through Technology

Remember podcasts? Almost 9 years ago, Leading Hands posted an article about how podcasts were the next big thing. For a few years, podcasts fell off popular culture radar but recently they have re-surged because of becoming a source of breaking news. It seems that almost every celebrity has their own podcast; another reason they have gained popularity is that it gives fans another way to hear interviews and discussions in a longer format. Whether you want politics, sports, comedy, history or fitness talk, podcasts have what you are looking for!

Below is a random list of audio shows you can stream/download during your long commute to work or when you have downtime. What’s your favorite?

• The Adam Carolla Show
• The Art of Charm
• Pardon My Take
• The Steve Austin Show – Unleashed!
• The Dan Patrick Show
• The Rich Eisen Show
• The Big Podcast With Shaq
• Chive Podcast
• LadyGang
• Talk Is Jericho,
• Penn Jillette’s Sunday School
• Mohr Stories with Jay Mohr
• Brandi Glanville Unfiltered
• The Eddie Trunk Podcast
• Adam and Dr. Drew Show
• The Nerdist

You can subscribe to podcasts on mainstream mediums like iTunes and PodcastOne.

The One Minute Tip is a collection of Podcasted technology tips, interviews, quickstarts and videos for people who don’t have time to read manuals cover to cover. They will find and Podcast these “gems” three times a week.

This site is very cool. FREE Vcasts for my video ipod. And well done.

http://www.oneminutetip.com/

ave you heard of Podcasting? Well if you haven’t, here is your chance to get the first edition of Leading Hands podcast.

Leading Hands – Volume 1 Edition 1 Podcast
• Cool website’s billyharvey.com & googlefight.com
• Exclusive interview with Todd Bertsch from Designfor24.com
• Review of The March of the Penguins
• Discover Thomas L. Friedman’s book “The World Is Flat”

According to Wikipedia, Podcasting is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s). I consider them little radio shows that I can play on my portable digital music player (iPod). You can either save it to your hard drive or carry it around with you wherever you go. The portability is the sheer beauty of it.

During my daily commute, I recently started listening to audio books on CD so instead of mindlessly listening to Howard Stern, I can learn something worth while. I recently listened to Love Is The Killer App by Tim Sanders and The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. Now a company from Chagrin Falls, Ohio has essentially put audio books on an Ipod Shuffle. Findaway World LLC co-founder Christopher Celeste explains that they have created a device called a Playaway which is a book that is preloaded on a digital player. The player is the size of a credit card and they mirror a book cover. They actually look like mini-books.

The player is unique because it works without a separate listening device such as a CD or mp3 player. Instead of downloading a mp3 or buying an audio book on a CD, you just collect these new fangled audio books like you would anything else. Unlike the traditional music player, which give you the ability to load audio onto them, the Playaway player is the book. Why is this a big deal?

It just points to the fact that people are still not ready to give up something tangible to represent an audio book. With explosion of Podcasting, the creation of homemade radio shows that you can download and put on your Ipod, consumers are expressing the fact that they want new unique content. Everything is going digital and now most audio books are being offered on audible.com, but a digital file is not same as an audio book. You can hold your Ipod with the file on it, but you still aren’t getting the artwork you would with a traditional CD or book. Now with Playaway you can the audio, the artwork and the technology!

Look for the Playaway to hit your local bookstores in October this year.http://www.playawaydigital.com/