Charles on… anything that comes along

I realised with a start that the perfect use for podcasts is to listen to the iTunes Music Store “New Music Tuesdays”, when they have new tracks. You can hear the stuff, get an idea (at least) of whether you might like it. No effort required.

And it shows what’s in the podcast too, through a little popup in the iTunes main bar, so you can navigate rapidly through it. Now that’s classy.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Podcasting - now you too can hear voices in your sleep (28 June 2005; score: 48.57%)
• Dave Winer buys an Apple; Stanford University podcasts lectures (7 November 2005; score: 39.58%)
• The father of articles about podcasting? (13 June 2005; score: 37.87%)

One of the questions I was asked after my Hotwire talk was “When you give clients a hard time, is it because you’re annoyed at them for not having a story, or with us for not getting it right?”

This threw me rather, since I couldn’t recall giving anyone a McEnroe-style chewing-out for a while, and certainly not of any clients. So I asked for elucidation. They cited an example where I’d spoken to blinkx, who wanted to tell me about their latest and greatest video search product, and I’d instead wound up questioning them pretty closely on how they would make ends meet financially since they don’t have any adverts yet must run pretty big servers. Apparently the blinkx people were fazed.

I’m surprised that they’re surprised that a journalist would just say “Oh, video search, great”, and leave it at that, as if companies had some god-given right to exist and thrive. Of course they don’t; everyone has to justify their existence, or at least keep the bills paid. Or both.

I guess my interviewing style might be rather more John Humphrys than David Frost (as satirised by Dead Ringers: “Now.. I have to be tough in asking you this.. and I apologise in advance… but is that sofa comfortable? I mean, properly comfortable?”).

But it also seems to me that that’s the only way you’re going to worm out the interesting topics, rather than the dull stuff. I had someone from a hard drive maker the other day who was determined to tell me about areal density; I was just as determined to quiz him on the potential effect of DRM on hard drive sales. Guess which I wrote about?

Humphrys was, as luck would have it, talking to a Lords select committee yesterday, which seems to have been entertaining. Links:

Daily Telegraph
BBC
Guardian Online.

Anyone got a link to a video of it?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• PR treats journalists not as resources, but like car companies treat parts suppliers (updated) (5 February 2009; score: 44.27%)
• Why PR people ring up to ask if you got the release they emailed you; and why it's still wrong (16 December 2004; score: 41.16%)
• After Google Talk, an instant messaging war on the offing? (1 September 2005; score: 38.43%)