December 19, 2008

$1 of Every Order to Literacy Bridge Charity

Between now and December 31, 2008, LearnOutLoud is donating $1 from every order placed on LearnOutLoud.com to Literacy Bridge, a nonprofit charity that distributes Talking Book Devices to impoverished rural areas with low literacy levels. Their pilot program is beginning by providing Talking Book Devices to families in the rural north of Ghana. You can learn more about there program here:

LiteracyBridge.org

So feel free to place an order with LearnOutLoud.com before the end of 2008 (even if it's for a $1 audio book), knowing that $1 from every order you place will be donated to Literacy Bridge. Literacy Bridge is promising that all funds raised by December 31, 2008 will be applied directly to their pilot tests and not to administrative costs. So help the nation of Ghana to learn out loud today, when you place an order on LearnOutLoud.com:

LearnOutLoud.com Sale Section

Posted by LOLDavid | Permalink

February 07, 2008

Amazon.com Buys Audible.com

There was big news in the audio book industry this past week as the world's biggest online retailer Amazon.com acquired the leading online retailer of digital audio books Audible.com for approximately $300 million. Audible.com has been in business since 1997 and has amassed over 80,000 audio programs in their catalog.

It will be interesting to see what Amazon.com does with Audible.com in terms of integrating audio book downloads into Amazon.com's expanding digital inventory. Currently all Audible.com audio books have digital rights management (DRM) which prevents users from sharing audio books, transferring them between computers, and playing their audio books on certain portable audio players (such as the Microsoft Zune).

Amazon.com has recently launched Amazonmp3 which features DRM-free music downloads, so one would have to assume they will be moving in the direction of DRM-free audio books as well. But this remains to be seen. Also will Amazon.com maintain the Audible.com monthly subscription programs of offering one audio book for one credit or will they move into an a la carte model of digital distribution?

Another unknown is what will happen with the audio books in Apple's iTunes store? Currently all audio books in the iTunes store are provided by Audible.com. But now that Amazon.com is heavily competing with iTunes in terms of music sales, it would seem that Amazon.com probably won't be providing them with audio books to sell.

One thing is certain. With Amazon.com stepping into this space, digital audio books are sure to gain a lot of popularity in the coming years. And that means a lot more people will be joining the audio learning revolution!

Posted by LOLDavid | Permalink

September 18, 2007

eMusic Launches DRM-Free Audio Book Store

The website eMusic, which is second to iTunes in music download sales, announced yesterday it will be offering DRM-free MP3 downloadable audio books through their subscription service.

N.Y Times Article: EMusic to Offer Audiobooks

They've launched the beta version of their audiobooks section and are currently offering 1011 audio books from publishers: Random House Audio (about 500 titles), Penguin Audio (about 150 titles), Hachette Audio (about 15 titles), Blackstone Audiobooks, and NAXOS AudioBooks.

eMusic's press release announces "eMusic Introduces World's First Audiobooks Catalogue in MP3", which isn't entirely true as we've been selling MP3 audio book downloads for over a year now and have over 1500 titles to choose from. And other publishers such as NAXOS AudioBooks, Christian Audio, Sounds True, The Teaching Company, and Nightingale Conant have made their catalog available on MP3 through their websites. But we won't hold that against eMusic, as this is a welcome development in the trend towards audio books being offered in the universal DRM-free MP3 format so that customers can play their audio books on all portable audio players and not have to worry about compatibility issues or other frustrations surrounding DRM-ed files.

At LearnOutLoud we gave their new audio book program a test run. It requires signing up for the eMusic 14-day free trial which gets you 25 free downloads and 1 free audio book. You give them your credit card and you're billed at the end of the trial if you don't cancel.

The eMusic (music) download subscription is separate from the audiobooks subscription. When you sign up for the 14-Day trial that includes 25 free music downloads and 1 free audio book download, you are essentially signing up for 2 trials. From there you can choose to continue either subscription. The eMusic (Music) Basic Monthly subscription gets you 30 music downloads for $9.99 per month and the subscriptions and downloads scale up from there. The eMusic Audiobooks Basic subscription gets you one audiobook credit per month for $9.99 a month, and 2 audiobook credits a month for $19.99 a month. The audiobook credits do not roll over to the next month, so if you forget to use your credits within the month, then you lose them.

We signed up for the trial and then needed to download the eMusic Remote which is where you browse all their music and audio books. Once you're in the eMusic Remote application, then downloading music and audio books is quite easy. It's basically a one-click purchase when you click their download button and the entire audio book is queued up to download in the eMusic Remote Download Manager.

They break audio books up into quite a few tracks. For the 11-hour audio book we downloaded it was 113 tracks which I guess amounts to about 10 tracks per hour. There wasn't an option for a single bookmarkable AAC file, which would be nice for iPod users so they don't have to remember what track number they're on. They do offer their audio books at a bit rate of 64kbs which is higher than Audible.com's highest bit rate of 32kbs.

eMusic is digital watermarking their audio book files, which means they are stamping information onto the audio file, so if their files do show up on peer-to-peer sharing networks they can trace the files back to their original source. We're unsure if this watermark contains customer info, and if so, we're unsure what the repercussions would be for customers who shared their files on peer-to-peer sharing networks.

Browsing the eMusic store is very fast and easy. They feature 14 categories and numerous subcategories to browse in the audiobooks section. Audio samples are in .m3u which loads and plays in whatever your default player is for .m3u files. Overall it was a good user experience downloading audiobooks from eMusic, and we'll stay subscribers and see what more they have to offer.

We welcome eMusic to the wonderful world of audiobooks!

Posted by LOLDavid | Permalink

June 04, 2007

5 Reasons DRM Will Die within 5 Years...And 5 Things You Can Do To Make Sure it Does

Just spent the last few days out at the National Book Expo and had a lot of conversations with major publishers about DRM. The general consensus among most people is that DRM is on the way out. Apple.com's homepage is featuring DRM-free music. Top articles talking about the demise of DRM (such as this one I wrote back in November) regularly are featured on popular media sites like Digg and TechCrunch. However, there is still a lot of resistance from big content companies (e.g., record labels, publishers, etc.) to put content out there DRM-free.

In this article I'll give five reasons why you won't see DRM (at least not audio-based DRM) five years from now. Hopefully this article will help (at least in a small way) to convince big content companies to move away from DRM sooner rather than later. I'll also give five suggestions for things you can do to speed DRM's demise.

Reason #1 - The mobile media market. According to projections within five years there will be more than four billion media-enabled mobile phones on the market. That's an incredibly huge opportunity for content providers (witness what happened in the ringtone market a few years back and you'll have a sense of the upcoming explosion in mobile audio content). However, mobile content companies and carriers don't want to deal with a variety of proprietary file types. They'll instead want to focus on a limited number of non-proprietary file types like MP3 and AAC. In and of itself this trend is very likely to put an end to audio DRM.

Reason #2 - EMI. The fact that the world's fourth largest record label was willing and able to make their entire catalog available DRM-free is testament to how far we've come. Getting the sign-off to do this was no insignificant thing as it meant convincing artists, agents and many others in the music industry that this was a good thing. If EMI was able to do it then it's only a matter of time before others will follow (assuming that EMI has reasonable success with their strategy). Up until a month ago many people assumed that convincing major content providers to go DRM-free was just too hard. EMI has helped to show that while it isn't easy, it is achievable.

Reason #3 - Amazon. Amazon recently announced they were launching a DRM-free music store. Amazon is already one of the Top 5 sellers of music depsite never having sold a single music downloand. Their entrance into the market wiill have a huge impact and as labels and publishers realize the huge amount of the money they are missing by not being DRM-free and not being included in Amazon's digital catalog most of them likely will make the switch.

Reason #4 - Growing customer awareness. The infamous Steve Jobs memo and other news of late has helped bring DRM to the forefront of customer awareness. Although many people still don't know what DRM is that is gradually changing. And as customer's perceptions change they'll start to demand that they can do what they want with their media uncumbered from DRM. That will help lift sales of DRM-free content and convince more content onwers to make the switch. That'll be one helluva virtuous cycle.

Reason #5 - Increasing complexity. We live in a world that is moving incredibly fast. There are more devices being produced than ever, more websites selling content and more consumers. The challenge with any proprietary, DRM-infected platform is that it has to do so much more work to adapt to the changing world. For instance, our main competitor Audible.com has to work diligently to ensure that mobile handsets supports its ".aa" files (Hint: Most don't). We just need to make sure that mobile handsets support MP3 and AAC files (Hint: Most do and in the future it's a pretty safe bet that they all will.). Makes our job a whole lot easier.

For these five reasons I think you'll see a complete end to DRM as early as the end of this decade. Want to speed the process? Take the five steps below:

#1 - Support Apple/EMI. One of the first things I'm doing this week is buying a bunch of iTunes DRM-free content. First of all, it makes sense to me to do this now that it isn't crippled content that I might not be able to play a few years from now. Second, I'm voting with my dollars. If Apple and EMI report great sales it'll help the other record labels to follow suit.

#2 - Support other people selling DRM-free content. A while back I posted a round-up of other DRM-free providers of audio content. I encourage you to patronize these sites. Sure this is self-serving but I truly believe that by spending the vast majority of your money on DRM-free content you'll send a clear message to content owners.

#3 - Support organizations that are fighting against DRM. DefectivebyDesign.org is probably the best place to start. Donate money to them and see how else you can help them out. These guys have been fighting the fight for a long time and the tide is starting to turn in no small part due to the efforts of people like Corey Doctorow, Jason Calacanis and others who've railed against DRM in the past.

#4 - Spread the word about DRM. The next time you see a friend downloading DRM-infected songs off iTunes ask them if they know about DRM. Explain to them that they might want to think twice about buying a song they may not be able to play in a few years. You'll be doing them a favor and at the same time you'll be helping spread awareness.

#5 - Digg, Furl, del.icio.us, etc. this article. :)

We're getting really close to a DRM-free world and if we band together on this one we can move into a world where the power shifts back into the hands of the consumer and messages like "not authorized to play" are a thing of the past.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

April 02, 2007

The Death Knell for DRM

Another nail in the coffin. Major kudos to the guys at EMI and Apple for making this happen.

EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

February 13, 2007

One more nail in the coffin of DRM

Yahoo and Monster Cable throw their support behind Steve Jobs and Apple in advocating the death of DRM.

Jobs gains support from Yahoo, Monster on DRM issue

We're almost there.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

February 06, 2007

I Love Steve Jobs

I've spent most of the last couple of years in a love-hate relationship with Apple. I love them because they make slick devices, have done much to promote podcasting and have user interfaces that just plain work. I hate them because they make Fairplay-content incompatible with any devices other than iPods and won't allow other forms of DRM'ed content to work on the iPod.

However I just read something Steve Jobs wrote that was posted today on Apple's website:

Thoughts on Music

I whole-heartedly agree with everything he says in here and I'm officially changing my tune on Apple (in addition to upping my timeframe for running out to buy a Powerbook).

The point is simple. DRM for music and audiobooks doesn't work and never has. One of these days the Emperors (the record labels and major publishing houses) will realize they aren't wearing any clothes and they start selling DRM-free content. That will be a very, very good day.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 27, 2007

The Promise of Education in Africa

I'm in the process of filling out an application to attend TED Global this June in Tanzania. For those of you who aren't familiar with TED it's an annual conference that brings together cutting-edge thinkers in the arts, business, science and social activism. I'd be thrilled and honored to be able to attend. Below is a list of some of the previous blog entries I've written about opportunities related to education in Africa. I'm looking forward to writing more soon as we prepare to launch Education Revolution later this year.

Within a generation we'll have an opportunity to bring a world-class education to Africa and other developing nations. That opportunity has never existed within the entirety of humanity until now. And I count my blessings every day that I live in age where we can help to make that happen.

Some of my writings on Africa and Education

What if a mobile phone could make your life better?
My Goal? To Bring TED to You
More Reasons for Being
Five Things That Make It Easy To Get Up In the Morning
The "Tepping" Point Here at Home
The "Tepping" Point and The End of Poverty

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 22, 2007

The Mirage of DRM is Evaporating...

My prediction = At least one major music label will decide to go DRM-free by the end of the year. They are almost don't have a choice here unless they are willing to turn their entire business over to Apple going forward.

Record labels rethink digital rights management at Midem

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 14, 2006

We're Getting Closer...

Article in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer about major labels starting to sell music in unprotected formats

I'm excited to see that the music labels are finally waking up to the fact that DRM makes no sense.

Now we just need to wait until publishing companies figure this out. Given that the publishing industry tends to trail the music industry by at least several years it could be a while. So in the meantime you'll have to peruse the largest selection of DRM-free audiobooks on the Internet.

By the way, you'll love all of the new titles that we're going to make available for you in 2007! :)

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 18, 2006

The Top 10 Arguments Against DRM

One question we get a lot here at LearnOutLoud is why we've chosen to go DRM-free with our digital downloads. I've explained it to a number of people and written a number of posts about it but I've never summarized our reasons for going the DRM-free route in one post before. So here goes... (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about or what DRM is please click here.)

1. DRM doesn't prevent illegal use of files, it just makes it a bit more difficult to access them. A lot of publishers are under the impression that once you put DRM on a file nothing bad will happen to that file ever. It just ain't so. There are a multitude of tools out there that allow you to strip DRM off of files relatively easily. So while DRM might make illegal sharing a bit more difficult if someone really wants an unprotected/unencrypted version of the file it's not very hard to do this. This is an important point because...

2. All it takes is one person to crack the file and it can be made available to everyone. Most illegal trading of files happens over P2P networks. The thing with P2P networks is that it only takes one copy of a file to be unencrypted/unprotected to have that file be available to all. Check any P2P search engine and you'll find a multitude of titles that are supposed to only be available for sale online as protected files. Of course, there is one other possibility...

3. Anyone selling content on CD is already selling unprotected files anyway. With the exception of debacles like the Sony rootkit, 99+% of all CDs sold contain unencrypted files. This means that anyone who sells content on CDs is making unprotected content available and that putting those files online is as easy as ripping them to MP3 files, a pretty simple task these days. What boggles my mind is record companies and publishers who are willing to make content available unprotected on CD but for some reason insist on copy protection for digitally downloaded files. Especially considering that...

4. DRM adds a lot of costs for content producers - Implementing DRM isn't free of course. The costs to develop and/or license DRM technology, encode media files and deal with a multitude of DRM-related customer service complaints are usually passed on from the retailers to the content producers. What this means is that content producers make significantly less money selling DRM "protected" content than they do selling DRM-free content. Royalty rates offered to many content producers from online retailers are often pitifully low and DRM is typically used as a main reason why this is so. That's a shame. Of course that's not the only cost...

5. There's a huge hidden cost in trying to sell DRM'ed content - In addition to the many costs of implementing DRM for content there's a cost that is often overlooked: The sales you lose because people don't want to buy DRM'ed content or have incompatible players. This is huge. There is a growing number of people who won't buy any content that has DRM. In addition, because there is no universally compatible DRM standard, many people can't buy your content if they don't have a compatible player. For instance, if you only sell your content with Apple's Fairplay DRM all of the people getting Zunes during the holidays won't buy you content because it won't play on your player (and vice versa of course). So by implementing DRM you are losing out on a significant (and unknown) amount of revenue.

So those are five good reasons why content producers shouldn't implement DRM. Let's take a look at five good reasons why DRM hurts consumers...

6. Often the costs of the DRM are passed along to the consumer as well. Since DRM isn't free someone has to pay for it. Sometimes it's the content producer in the form of reduced royalties. Other times it's the consumer. Take the example of eMusic and Apple iTunes. iTunes tracks sell for 99 cents while eMusic tracks sell for 25 cents. One of the reasons why eMusic can sell its music for so much cheaper is that it isn't spending tons of money implementing a DRM system and dealing with customers who are having DRM issues. So it is able to offer a technically superior product for a significantly lower price. Which is good and even better when you consider that...

7. DRM-free content will play on your device of today and your device of tomorrow - It'll be a little shocker for some people in a few weeks when they get the new Zune device from Microsoft and try to load all of their Rhapsody or MSN Music tunes on it only to find that they won't work. Why? Because Microsoft's previous DRM (PlaysForSure) isn't compatible with the new Zune DRM. And that's an example of one of the biggest problems with DRM. It locks you into a specific player from a specific company. While that might be good for a hardware manufacturer like Microsoft or Apple it's not good for you the consumer. Want another reason? Consider that...

8. Your media devices of the future will be significantly different than your media devices of the present. I discussed this point at length in my post The 5 Dangers of Buying DRM'ed Media. There's a really good chance that your next media player won't be an iPod and that in the not-too-distant future it'll probably be your cellphone. If that's the case then you need to be aware that any DRM-encoded content that you buy probably won't work for you anymore. While millions of cellphones are currently shipping that play MP3 files, very few of them will play songs from iTunes or audiobooks from Audible.com. So if you're at all interested in being able to play your content (the stuff you paid hard-earned money for) in the future you should think twice before buying anything infected with DRM. Furthermore...

9. DRM fundamentally changes who is control of your media. This might be the most esoteric of the arguments and is a bit difficult to explain but in a nutshell, when you buy DRM content for the first time in history, someone else is dictating to you what you can do with something that you've legally purchased. Watch this short video from the great folks over at DefectiveByDesign which illustrates this point nicely:

Finally, it's really important to understand that...

10. Whenever you buy DRM'ed content you support the system of DRM - I buy DRM'ed content from time to time like most of you. However, I have realized that with each purchase of DRM'ed content I help to perpetuate a system in which DRM is acceptable. And at the same time, whenever I frequent a site that offers DRM-free content I'm helping to support a system in which DRM is viewed as unacceptable and a bad business practice. There are a ton of good sites out that offer DRM-free content (here's another great list) and they could use your support. By rallying around these sites we can help to tip the balance and make this a world where the power is in the hands of people who produce content and legally purchase it.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to me ramble and I hope you now have a better understanding of why this issue is important and what you can do to help make this world a better for place for content producer and content consumers.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

October 26, 2006

The Economics of Abundance and Why Most People Don't Get It

Chris Anderson (author of the Long Tail and editor of Wired Magazine) recently spoke at PopTech on the subject of The Economics of Abundance. I'll let you click the link for more information but to make a long story short, the economics of abundance are directly opposed to the economics of scarity. You remember scarcity right? After all it is in the basic definition of economics itself:

Economics, as a social science, studies human choice behavior and how it affects the production, distribution, and consumption of scarce resources.

But here's the problem...in a digital world resources are no longer necessarily scarce. A file can be replicated an unlimited number of times at virtually no cost. So in a world in which resources are increasingly abundant rather than scarce everything changes. (For a further elaboration on what is changing, check out this *excellent* series of posts on Media 2.Uh-Oh.)

Yet, most people don't understand what is shifting. Which is why you see Tower Records shutting its doors. It's why you see NBC laying off 700+ employees. Because too many people are blind to the economics of abundance and have no clue how to operate in world that is no longer defined solely by scarce resources. And so rather than change they'd prefer to stick to existing business models that worked in the past.

It's sad to me. Because I have conversations with people in the media world (like one I had this very morning) who want to keep their businesses closed off to the rest of the world. Who don't want to embrace the new channels of distribution that are available. Who'd rather spend their time and energy protecting their existing turf rather than going out and innovating and taking advantage of all of the new markets that are opening up.

And it's a shame because for most of these businesses they won't realize it until it's too late. By the time it becomes painfully obvious what the answer is they are filing for Chapter 11 and laying off the majority of their staff. Because they forgot to read The Long Tail or The Wealth of Networks.

Or more likely, because they didn't know those books existed in the first place.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

October 05, 2006

Sheer "Zune-acy" a.k.a. How the Zune will destroy businesses and confuse customers

So we're a few weeks away from the much bally-hooed launch of the Microsoft Zune. And while a lot of people are talking about the wireless capabilities or the questionable choice of brown for colors, no one seems to be discussing the most important impact of the Zune...the lack of backwards compatibility with the PlaysForSure DRM.

I understand what Microsoft is trying to do here. They're building an integrated stack (read: MSFT has full control over the player, the DRM and the content store). This is what has worked for Apple so well and indeed the lack of an integrated stack (read: the general yuckiness of slapping Microsoft DRM on content from Yahoo/Rhapsody/Napster and then trying to play it on a device from Creative or iRiver) is what has caused Microsoft to lag in the media world over the last few years. And if the crew in Redmond wants to truly have an integrated stack then they can't support anything outside of that stack which means they have no choice but to drop compatibility with PlaysForSure.

But the implications of not supporting PlaysForSure are huge. Let's assume for a second that the Zune is relatively successful in the market (it takes more than a 15% market share in the next couple of years). If that's the case then that will likely mean the following:

1. Companies that are supporting PlaysForSure content are screwed. There are hundreds of companies out there selling PlaysForSure content, the most famous of them being the music services listed above. A good chunk of Zune's market share will come at the expense of other PlaysForSure devices which means that the number of devices that can play content from those services will dwindle.

2. Companies that are supporting PlaysForSure content are screwed twice. So the easy solution seems to be for the companies selling PlaysForSure content to encode their content with the Zune DRM and either sell Zune content exclusively or sell both formats. Except for the fact that this won't work. Microsoft won't allow companies to sell Zune-DRM-laced content because that destroys the integrated stack model. So your only hope for getting on the Zune will be to work directly with Microsoft to get your content into their store. And that pretty much destroys the market for the middlemen (all retailers currently selling WMA DRM content).

3. Companies selling PlaysForSure devices are screwed. I hadn't planned to use the word "screwed" so much in this blog post but I couldn't help it because a lot of people are getting...well, screwed. Creative and Samsung and iRiver and all the other companies trying to compete with Apple get screwed twice as well. On one hand, they now have another device to compete with (and one that will no doubt have tons of marketing muscle behind it). On the other hand, the services they are so dependent upon (e.g., I bought my Zen almost exclusively because of the Rhapsody-To-Go service) will lose ground and may even shut down if they can't gain traction in a post-Zune world.

Yikes, not pretty. So that's what could/will happen if Zune takes off. What if it doesn't?

Well, if it doesn't then the situation isn't necessarily any brighter. What you'll have is a lot of customer confusion as people rush out to buy Zune devices and can't figure out why they won't work with Rhapsody or buy a Creative/iRiver/Samsung player and are at a loss to understand with they can't load content from Microsoft's store on it. Let's face it...DRM is already causing a fair amount of confusion on the part of customers. The launch of the Zune will likely more than double that confusion.

The funniest thing is that I've yet to see anyone talk about this all that much. Several of the content retailers I've talked about (people selling PlaysForSure content) didn't even seem to be aware of the situation. That's kinda scary when you think about it because there's a good chance that their businesses will change drastically in the coming months and years. Bloggers seems to be talking about everything else related to the Zune but not this. It's kinda eerie...

So is there a silver lining in this cloud? Perhaps. My hope is that customers get so sick of this DRM-nonsense that they start gravitating towards DRM-free audio and stop buying content that will someday be viewed as the 8-track tapes of the digital world. If the Zune accomplishes that then I'll applaud Microsoft for doing this...not because they made the right decision but rather because they made this thing such a mess that people looked for more sensible choices elsewhere.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

October 04, 2006

DRM: Think about it...

Here's a great short video from the folks at Defective by Design that'll make you think twice about the implications of DRM (the copy protection schemes implemented by most retailers of downloadable goods):

We're incredibly proud that all of the 500+ titles we have for download on LearnOutLoud are DRM-free. This means we don't decide where you can play the audiobooks you purchased from us. You do. And that's the way it should be right?

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

August 20, 2006

The 5 Dangers of Buying DRM'ed Media

A generation of people are being mislead by some glitzy marketing. They are buying music and other media off of services like iTunes thinking that they "own" this media. But unlike the generation before them was able to do with all those CDs they purchased, this new generation probably won't be able to enjoy their music and other media for many years to come. Instead, they're making a purchase today that will likely become worthless to them, and perhaps much sooner than they think. As I've heard Ian Rogers over at Yahoo! Music state several times, the iTunes music file is the equivalent of the 8-track cassette for this generation. So with that said let me present 5 very real dangers associated with buying DRM media:

1. Your next media player might not be an iPod - Right now everyone is in love with the iPod and for good reason. It's by far the superior device and experience for personal media. However, history tends to repeat itself and one thing we know from history is the gadgets that are dominant rarely stay on top for long. Microsoft is going to launch its new Zune soon and it may or may not be the coolest thing since sliced bread. Knowing Microsoft it probably won't be but other companies are going to launch other players and eventually there is probably going to be something out there that's cooler than the iPod. If all of your media was purchased from the iTunes Music Store (or any other place selling content in a proprietary format) you've pretty much locked yourself in to buying a particular type of device in the future. I'm not sure about you but that's not what I want to do. And besides, it's possible that your next MP3 player might not even be a dedicated MP3 player. Instead, it's quite possible that...

2. Your phone will be your next media player - Almost all of the new phones coming out right now have media playing capabilities built-in. For a while you'll probably find that whatever you're doing with your iPod is going to be superior to the experience on your phone. However, over time that will change and within a few years your phone will provide an iPod-like experience and eliminate the need for you to carry to devices everywhere (heck, the Nokia N91 is almost there today). So if you've bought a bunch of music in a proprietary file format (such as the iTunes Music Store) you really need to ask yourself the question "Am I prepared to not be able to listen to stuff on my phone in the future?" Sure, Apple will launch an iPhone sometime and it'll probably be cool but the fact of the matter you'll probably want to keep your options open for a while.

3. You have no idea how you might want to share your media in the future - Oh my gosh are there a lot of cool new media-sharing devices and technologies these days. Slingbox. Sonos. Roku. Bluetooth. Some of these work well with DRM'ed content and some don't. And who knows how the media-sharing devices of the future will respond to all of these proprietary file formats. The bottom line is that if you want to keep your options open and be able to use all of the kick-ass devcies that are on the horizon you'd be well-advised to have most or all of your media stored in an open, non-proprietary file format like MP3. Otherwise, you just might be SOL...

4. You might decide you want to get a new computer in the future - Yes, it's quite possible that the computer you are on right now might not be the same computer you'll be using a few years in the future. I'll go out on a limb and say that you'll likely want a little more memory and processing power down the road which will mean you'll have to upgrade. Will your music and other DRM'ed media go with you? Maybe... Music services such as iTunes/Rhapsody/etc. have ways you to authorize new computers and de-authorize computers you are no longer using. But can they guarantee that it won't be a pain in the ass? Nope, many people who have to do spend many hours of frustration dealing with this. And an unsettling number of people can't their media to work at all with their new computer.

5. Two words "Sony Rootkit" - Everyone knows about the Sony rootkit fiasco. That only affected people that had bought DRM-infected CDs. However, there's nothing to guarantee that something similar won't affect digitally downloaded files in the future. After all, DRM protection is always changing. For example, a while back Apple modified its firmware to make it incompatible with Real Networks music track. Now, it's important to point out that there hasn't been a case where DRM'ed files have rendered someone's computer inoperable. Having said that, I'd be very surprised if there weren't a scandal similar to the Sony rookit one that does affect downloadable content in the future. Given the ever-changing nature of DRM and the lengths to which some content providers will go to try to protect their works it could quite easily happen. And I don't want to be there when it does.

There are no doubt many other reasons not to buy DRM'ed media (including the very important one that you are supporting DRM with every DRM-laden purchase) but I think these five give a pretty compelling reason to avoid purchasing this type of content in the future. Now, I'm not adamantly against all shapes and forms of DRM. Sometimes it does make sense. For instance, it would be pretty hard to pull off an "all-you-can-eat" music service like Rhapsody/Yahoo Music/Napster without DRM. So in this case I'm not against DRM (I personally LOVE Rhapsody).

But the bigger problem is people (mostly unsuspecting teenagers and 20-somethings) buying DRM-laden media and thinking that they will be able to play that media ten or twenty years down the road (just like the generation before was able to enjoy CDs many years later). That almost assuredly will not be the case. Unless you're interested spending tons of time on the tedious (and potentially illegal depending on how you interpret the DMCA) task of removing the DRM from your media.

So where do you go to find DRM-free media? A while back I wrote a post entitled A Guide to DRM-Free Audio and that's a great place to start. Music services like eMusic and Audio Lunchbox rock and will only get better with time (especially as we lend them more support). And you can get a ton of spoken word content (audiobooks, podcasts, etc.) DRM-free as well.

If you still want to go out an buy DRM'ed content that's totally cool. Just don't say you weren't warned about what might happen. :)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

July 27, 2006

The "Not-So-Bright" Future for Media

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the future of media. No doubt some of this has been spurred by all of the discussion of Chris Anderson's new book The Long Tail (which you must read if you're at all interested in where media is headed). The question on my mind these days is what exactly is the future of media?

Media disruption is happening at a ridiculously fast rate. The best example of this is YouTube. I was walking back from lunch yesterday with my brother and was mentioning that YouTube was disrupting media consumption even more than TiVo did. You see with TiVo you still had to know when something was going to be on and decide whether it was good and TiVo-worthy. With YouTube you no longer need to worry about that. Just wait for everything to air and then wait for something like Digg videos to let you know if it was worth watching (like this awesome Colbert clip).

Then there's music. The fact that Yahoo is pushing hard to make music available DRM-free (as discussed here) speaks volumes about how far we've come in the last few years. More and more companies are getting the fact that DRM doesn't help anyone and they are willing to roll the dice on business models that don't assume that DRM offers the protections it pretends to.

And then there's this whole Long Tail thing which is pushing content to the edges. Your media discovery no longer comes from the aisles at Sam Goody or Blockbuster. It comes from your friend's MySpace page and some blogger's del.icio.us account. You use Pandora instead of Rolling Stone to find new music and can't even remember what network your favorite television show is on because that doesn't even matter anymore.

Lots of big media companies are frightened by this scenario. And they should be. The gatekeeper mentality toward media is rapidly eroding. It's being replaced by user-generated content, disintermediation of publishers and AI-like discovery and personalization tools. I'm not saying anything new here. Just making some observations of what I'm seeing and what others are talking and blogging about.

But what does this mean?

It means that if you're stuck in a 20th-century model for media distribution then you're toast. Sure, maybe not now...maybe in a few years or maybe you'll hang around even longer. But you'll eventually be moved out of the way (sometimes not so subtly) but what's coming down the pipeline. By the kid in the garage who just invented the next-generation media app that makes your content ridiculously easy to get. By the media discovery device that can't reach your content and therefore can't share it with people who are looking for it.

So what do you do?

First, you deliver incredible value to your consumer. You make it so easy to buy your content at a reasonable price that dealing with Bit Torrent or something else of that nature isn't worth it. You deliver the files in a non-crippled format that is at least the equivalent of what people can find on the Net for free. You make user experience paramount. You make consumption of your media incredibly painless.

Second, you build community around your media. You create passionate fans of your stuff who want to pay you for your stuff (even if they could get it for free elsewhere). Our buddies over at Integral Naked have done this. People pay them money because of the content but it's not just that. It's also about the community that forms around the content. Accessing that is just as important for many subscribers as the media itself.

Third, you are willing to innovate and understand that your revenue model is going to change. Hanging on to the way you made money in the past is, to throw out a bad cliche, like polishing the brass on the Titanic. The ship is going down and while you might make some money in the short-term by doing this you do so at the risk of the future of your company. We're moving to an all-digital world really, really fast and if you're not prepared for that you're putting your entire company at risk.

How do you innovate? You take chances. You try new things. You realize that some of the things you do won't make any sense in the short-term but will return you millions of dollars in the long term. You embrace the youth because their behavior will be indicative of what everyone will be doing in a few years. You watch how people are consuming media and let them dictate to you how they want to consume media vs. the other way around.

What does this have to do with LearnOutLoud? Nothing...and everything. We're trying to forge new ground with media delivery and consumption. And we're working with a range of people, some of whom really get it and some of whom don't (note: we prefer the former). And as much as this rant seems like it's focused on content producers it's equally important to consumers. Your world is shifting too and you have an opportunity to help forge this new future by voting your time, attention and hard-earned dollars towards the companies that are willing to take chances on new business models.

So maybe the future is bright after all. At least for those willing to embrace the tidal wave of change that has just started. A year ago nobody knew what YouTube was. Three years ago nobody knew what MySpace was. Six months from now there's going to be a new company that everyone will have heard of that no one has today and that company will be disrupting things all over again.

Bottom line = pay attention. Media shapes our lives and we're at a very cool point in history where we have the opportunity to really shape media. Just a little something to be conscious of...ok, back to your regularly scheduled, er, time-shifted programming...

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

July 20, 2006

LearnOutLoud/Loomia featured on CNET

Ken (one of the co-founders of Loomia, the company we use for our super-cool recommendations service) just dropped me a line to let me know that Loomia and LearnOutLoud were recently featured on Alpha, the CNET blog. Here's the link. Pretty cool write-up...

If you haven't used our recommendations service yet definitely give it a try. Log in to the site (or register if you haven't already), rate a few titles (the more the better!) and then click the Recommendations link in the upper-right corner of any page on the site for your own personalized recommendations. LearnOutLoud is the only spoken word audio site currently offering custom recommendations and we think you'll really like this feature.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

July 19, 2006

DRM-free MP3s from Y! Music???

Very cool blog post from Ian Rogers over at Yahoo! Music about their desire to sell content as DRM-free MP3s rather than protected WMA files (which among other things do not play on iPods). Ian makes the great point that music companies are already selling DRM-free content whenever they sell a CD. Sure there's an extra step involved of ripping that track to mp3 but what high school/college student doesn't know how to do that these days?

I've been making a similar point to publishers for a while now. At LearnOutLoud we currently have the largest selection of DRM-free spoken word audio content of any site on the Net. And our selection is set to triple or quadruple by year's end (stay tuned!). We're able to pay the publishers we work with a whole heck of a lot more because we don't have the costs associated with implementing and servicing DRM'ed content. And our customers benefit because they don't have to worry about tedious stuff like authorizing computers or devices, not being able to listen to their stuff both at home and at the office, etc.

I was interviewed last week by someone writing a paper on DRM and they asked what I thought the future of DRM would be in five years. I said (and it was indeed Ian who I first heard this from) that either we'll see no DRM whatsoever or the DRM that will be there will be so transparent that it won't bother you and you won't even know that it's there.

Sadly, that's not the case today. I'm a huge fan of the Rhapsody music service but there are times when I've driving and trying to listen to my Rhapsody music and DRM issues make me want to toss my Zen player onto the 405. Customers are becoming increasingly wary of this and so unless things get better soon I think you're going to see more people moving to DRM free audio services in the future.

Hopefully Yahoo! Music can pull a DRM-free service off. I'm definitely rooting for them.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

June 18, 2006

A Guide to DRM-Free Audio

Let's face it. The DRM (if you're unfamiliar with the term DRM, click here for an overview) debate is probably never going to be resolved. On one hand, you have consumers (and consumer advocates) who hate having media they legally purchased crippled by what are sometimes ridiculous restrictions. On the other hand, you've got content producers who feel that distributing DRM-free media will result in rapidly declining business as people opt for sharing content with others rather than actually purchasing. I have no intention to get into that debate but do want to offer up something that I feel pretty strongly:

If you are opposed to DRM and want to see more DRM-free content made available the best thing you can do is support the companies that are distributing DRM-free media.

It's not easy to run a company selling DRM-free media. A large number of content producers won't do business with you because they feel that their content isn't being protected adequately (even though many of these same content producers sell the same content on CD witih no DRM). So many DRM-free companies are forced to sell whatever they can and may not have the most popular artists or latest releases. However, if we're ever hoping to live in a world where DRM doesn't exist or has a much smaller impact I think it's important to do our best to support these companies.

To help in that regard I've compiled a list of companies that sell DRM-free audio (both music and spoken word). After all, the first step in the process is knowing which companies sell content with no DRM restrictions. I feel that the best way to fight DRM is to do what we can to support them (and I'll admit upfront that there is at least a little bit of selfishness here as we do have DRM-free spoken word audio on our site). If we do then maybe, just maybe, we'll live in a DRM-free world one day (or at least in a world where there are more options for people who want legal content without DRM restrictions).

A couple of notes: I've tried to stick with reviewing companies whose legality isn't in question. There are a number of companies (the most notable being allofmp3.com) who sell DRM-free media but where it is not certain if they are paying proper royalties to artists. Since this represents a bit of a grey market I haven't reviewed them. Also, I have no doubt that I've left some good and worthwhile companies off this list. I've tried to stick with the larger companies with the biggest selections. If I've missed anyone worthy of mention, please feel free to leave a post in the forums or drop me an e-mail at jon at learnoutloud dot com.

DRM-Free Music Sites

eMusic - The best-known and most popular DRM-free music site. I love what these guys are doing. First of all they're cheap ($0.25 a download). They've got a large selection (over a million songs) and they are bringing on an increasing number of well-known artists (e.g., Ray Charles, Bob Marley, Coldplay, Johnny Cash). They certainly don't have as much of the latest and greatest as iTunes or Rhapsody but what they've amassed is pretty impressive. I'd love to see eMusic get even more popular and give the big boys a run for their money.

Pros: Great selection, low prices, increasing selection of popular artists

Cons: No rollover on their monthly plans (either use your monthly downloads or you lose them), no a la carte sales

Audio Lunchbox - This is a great site for independent music. They have a number of plans ranging from monthly to a "Platinum" plan which offers over a thousand downloads for $250/year. While eMusic might have a wider selection and better prices on many titles, ALB does have a lot of music that eMusic doesn't.

Pros: Diverse selection of independent music, low prices, can purchase a la carte, RSS feed available for new additions

Cons: Like eMusic your monthly credits do not roll over, credit system can be a bit confusing

Magnatune - I love what John Buckman has done at Magnatune. One of the coolest things is that CDs on Magnatune sell for a minimum price of $5 but you can choose to pay whatever you want. The cool thing is that the average selling price is $8.93. And Magnatune splits all royalties with its artists so when you buy anything on the site you know exactly how much the artist is getting paid. Magnatune might not have as many names that you've heard of but there's a heck of a lot of good music there and given the general "goodness" of their business model this is a company definitely worth supporting.

Pros: Multiple DRM-free formats (even WAV files!), listen to albums in their entirety before buying, give 3 copies of music you buy to friends, their motto ("We are not Evil")

Cons: Not many artists that you've previously heard of

betterPropaganda - A sweet site for indie music with free MP3 downloads. Most of the artists are up-and-coming ones although artists like Brian Eno, Snow Patrol and Belle and Sebastian are featured (however, many artists have a limited number of tracks available). betterPropaganda has done a lot with playlists and podcasts and has a cool recommendations service from Loomia (the same company we use for our recommendations service). Definitely a site to keep an eye on.

Pros: FREE MP3 downloads, Nice mix of up-and-coming independent artists and more established ones, playlists, podcasts and recommendations

Cons: Limited number of tracks from more popular artists

Others: Bleep | CommonTunes | Epitonic | Garage Band | Insound

DRM-Free Audiobook Sites

Telltale Weekly - Telltale Weekly and its sister site, The Spoken Alexandria Project, have a number of free and low-cost public domain audiobooks. A glance at their bestsellers list produces titles from authors like Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe and H.G. Wells (of The War of the Worlds fame). Telltale's prices are very low and they have made a commitment to releasing recordings under the Creative Commons License in the future. In addition, they give 7% of gross revenues to worthy charities such as Project Gutenberg and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Pros: Low prices and many free titles, Multiple file formats (MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis), Charitable giving

Cons: Selection consists only of public domain titles, many titles are fairly short in length

Librivox - Librivox has an interesting take on audiobooks. They gathered an army of volunteers to read public domain audiobooks a chapter at a time. The upside is that they are producing a ton of content to listen to. The downside is that they chapter-by-chapter approach leads to some big inconsistencies in quality (although this does appear to be getting over time). And since these titles are all available for free it's tough to complain.

Pros: All audiobooks are free to download, large and growing selection of classical literature

Cons: Selection consists only of public domain titles, inconsistency both among and within titles

LearnOutLoud - We're doing the DRM-free thing as well and while our selection is still pretty small (approx. 400 titles) it's growing pretty quickly. A number of our titles are public domain but most are not including titles like Think and Grow Rich and content from authors like Bodhipaksa and Sir John Templeton. We're heavy on self-improvement titles but working hard to expand our selection in other areas as well. In addition, we give away one free full-length audiobook each month.

Pros: DRM-free non-public domain audiobooks, Multiple file formats (MP3 and bookmarkable MPEG-4), Personalized recommendations

Cons: Selection is still somewhat small and focused primarily on self-improvement titles

Others: AudioBooksForFree.com | Christian Audio | iAmplify | LiteralSystems.org | Project Gutenberg

DRM-Free Podcast Sites

No discussion of DRM-free audio would be complete without a nod to the podcasting community. I'm not going to review all of them but the best directories I've seen are Yahoo! Podcasts, iTunes, ODEO, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Alley and the directory here at LearnOutLoud.

So that's a round-up of what we've found. Like I said, I'm sure we've missed some. If you happen to know of any other sites that should be included or of any information that's incorrect drop me a line at jon at learnoutloud dot com or make a post in the forums and I'll update this blog post. We're big fans of all of the sites listed here, as much for what they are trying to do in terms of making DRM-free audio available as for where they are today. If enough of us do our best to support these site I feel we can tip the balance in favor of DRM-free media in the future. It won't happen overnight but I think it's a worthy goal.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

June 02, 2006

2006 Audie Award Winners

For those of you unaware, the Audie Awards are sort of the Oscars for audio books and they were held May 19th in Washington, D.C. They are run by the Audio Publishers Association. Hopefully next year a LearnOutLoud.com audio book will be up for an Audie but until then we applaud the winners of the 2006 Audies. Here's the winners that apply to audio learning in general and we feature on our site:

Audiobook of the Year
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Tertiary Phase
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America and The Audio Partners Publishing
Company
Author: Douglas Adams
Narrator: BBC Radio

Classics
Around the World in 80 Days
Publisher: Listening Library
Author: Jules Verne
Narrator: Jim Dale

Non-Fiction, Abridged
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Author: Jonathan Eig
Narrator: Ed Herrmann

Personal Development/Motivational
The Five Love Languages
Publisher: Oasis Audio
Author: Dr. Gary Chapman
Narrator: Dr. Gary Chapman

Biography/Memoir
Garlic and Sapphires
Publisher: Random House Audio
Author: Ruth Reichl
Narrator: Ruth Reichl

Business Information/Educational
Good to Great
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Author: Jim Collins
Narrator: Jim Collins

Inspirational/Spiritual
Finding God in Unexpected Places
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Author: Philip Yancey
Narrator: Mel Foster

Humor
The Truth (With Jokes)
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Author: Al Franken
Narrator: Al Franken

Original Work
Famous Composers
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks Ltd.
Author: Darren Henley
Narrator: Marin Alsop recorded at Room With a View

Solo Narration – Male
Moby-Dick
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks Ltd.
Author: Herman Melville
Narrator: William Hootkins

Narration by Author or Authors
The Tender Bar
Publisher: Hyperion AudioBooks
Author: J.R. Moehringer
Narrator: J.R. Moehringer

Audiobook Adapted From Another Medium
Hidden Kitchens: Stories and More from NPR's the Kitchen Sisters
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Author: Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva
Narrators: Frances McDormand, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva

Posted by LOLDavid | Permalink

May 25, 2006

It's Been a While...

Boy, a couple of weeks on the road and I'm out of the blog habit. Lots going on our end though so make sure to sign up for our newsletter if you haven't already. Our next update will be going out early next week (plus a brand new free audiobook is on the way soon!).

In the meantime, just a few things in the audio world I thought I'd point you too:

1. Dr. Daniel Amen - Recently listened to a presentation that he gave and was fascinated by what's happening in the world of brain science. It is really remarakable that although we have sophisticated technique to scan other body parts until just recently we haven't had anything to scan our more important body part (the brain). By the way, we have a number of Dr. Amen's titles available here.

2. Red Business - I had a chance to meet the people behind this at last week's Audio Publisher's Conference. I really like what they're doing and they've done some cool interviews with a number of big names (e.g., Tom Peters). Plus they recently put a title on TeachOutLoud!

3. Moneyball - I had a chance to listen to about half of Moneyball on the trip out to D.C. Very enjoyable! I've always liked Lewis' writing and if you're a baseball fan you're in for a treat with this one.

4. Pema Chodron - I've started listening to Pema Chodron and have been getting a lot out of it. I think there's a tremendous amount of benefit to be gained from merging the best wisdom from the Eastern and Western religious and spiritual traditions. Pema's treaching can providing the Eastern component of that equation.

So much more to say but I'll leave it at that for now. More to come soon!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

April 27, 2006

Take a look at TeachOutLoud

It's been flying under the radar for a while but I finally decided I should blog about our new service TeachOutLoud. When we started LearnOutLoud we were impressed by the number of good audiobooks and podcasts that were out there. At the same time, we compared that with the total amount of high-quality audio content that is generated on a daily basis around the world. We're talking about literally hundreds of speeches, lectures, presentations, classes, etc. that are delivered every day and of which far less than 1% are ever recorded and made available on the Internet.

One of the reasons why we felt that people didn't bother to record this content is that there wasn't an easy way to distribute it. You'd have to set up your own site, upload the content, deal with people who couldn't figure out how to download it or play it, etc. Not rocket science perhaps but certainly a bit of a hassle. And that assumes that you're giving the content away. If you wanted to charge for it then there's even more involved in terms of e-commerce, secure downloading, etc.

We wanted to make it a lot easier.

In fact, we wanted to make it so easy that if you had an MP3 recording of a live event or audiobook then you could have that audio available for people to download within minutes, complete with a professional looking product page and the capability to charge for the content if you so chose.

With TeachOutLoud that possibility is now a reality.

TeachOutLoud provides you with all of the services that you need to distribute and sell your audio content online. It allows you to focus on what you're really good at: Creating great content. Our vision for TeachOutLoud is a day when anyone and everyone can take a lecture they've just given, a class they've just taught or an audio book they've just recorded and easily make it available through LearnOutLoud.com.

No need to understand RSS or XML or any of that stuff. No worries about a proprietary file format that won't work with certain players (all files are distributed as MP3 files). No hassle in setting up hosting, customer service, e-commerce. Just an opportunity to record educational and inspirational content and make it available to anyone around the world (Note: We support international payment as well as Paypal).

In the last few weeks since we've done a soft launch of TeachOutLoud we've already had 50+ titles uploaded through the TeachOutLoud system. Here is a sampling of what you can find there:

John Selby - A best-selling author and noted teacher, John has posted a half-dozen courses on self-development and spirituality on TeachOutLoud.

The Work of Ratanjit Sondhe - Discoverhelp is a company dedicated to help you reaching your potential. They've posted a number of discussions with Ratanjit Sondhe that you will enjoy.

Trish Dennison - Dave Trager, the Founder of Feel Good Vibes, introduced us to Trish and we're proud to be hosting her content.

Sounds for Sights - Audio walking tours are a great way to enjoy a new city. The folks at Sounds for Sights have posted several titles through TeachOutLoud and even have made a free walking tour of Rockefeller Center and the Diamond District available for download.

This is just a start as we hope to have hundreds, if not thousands, of titles added to TeachOutLoud in coming months. The best part is that your title could be next. Do you have something you would like to teach the world about? Just head on over to http://www.teachoutloud.com and see how easy it is to get your audio content up so that others can learn from what you have to say.

Thanks to everyone who has been instrumental in bringing TeachOutLoud to life!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

April 24, 2006

More Content 2.0

OK, so I've been bitten by this Content 2.0 thing. In fact I think I'm going to start a whole new category for blog posts on the subject. It might not seem like it has anything to do with LearnOutLoud but I beg to differ.

It has everything to do with how we'll consume content/media in the future.

The graph above is the Alexa traffic chart for YouTube. If you haven't been already you really owe it to yourself to go. In less than a year and with virtually no marketing YouTube has grown to one of the Top 50 sites on the Net. By year's end I'm pretty sure it will be one of the Top 10. I think the reason for this is that it pretty much embodies what Content 2.0 is all about. What are those elements?

1. Brevity - Shorter content is perfect for our ADD-ish culture. While I'm definitely not saying that the three-hour epic movie is going away anytime soon I do think you'll see a trend to shorter and shorter forms on content in coming years. And one of the main reasons for that is...

2. Portable - A cool thing about YouTube is that I can watch stuff on YouTube or I can post it on my blog. With a little doing I can even download the content. Content 1.0 resides in a certain place (e.g., your television). Content 2.0 is a nomad and shows up wherever you want it to.

3. Personal - One of the neat things about Content 2.0 is that is remarkably personal. It's not the super-polished stuff you see coming out of television networks and movie studios. It's more rough. It's raw like AskANinja
or the Gillmor Gang. It's Blair Witch...not Blair Witch 2. Clerks vs. Clerks 2. In fact, often times the more money you throw at it the worse it gets.

4. Efficient - Look, we're all busy. I'd love to sit down and read all of the great books ever written and watch all the movies and the "cool" TV shows. But I don't have time. Very few of us do. So if you can give me 90% of the benefit and enjoyment of the full-length content in a condensed version I will be very appreciative. That was sort of my point in yesterday's post. If your 350 page book can be condensed down to a cool 50 pages then I can read 7 different books in the time it would have taken me to read your book.

Again, I'm not talking about Cliff Notes or executive summaries. I'm talking about a new form of content that is concise, personal, relevant and highly entertaining. A form of content that respects my time and at the same time appeals to my desire to gain a richer understanding of the world and learn the stuff I need to to improve my life and reach my goals.

That's what Content 2.0 is all about. YouTube gets it. Some podcasters get it (most don't). It'll be interesting to see who else gets it in the coming months and years.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

April 07, 2006

5,000 Registered Members

I promised myself I'd blog about these milestones a little less frequently but was excited to see that sometime in the last 24 hours we passed over the 5,000 registered member threshold. It's a lot of fun to watch the growth of the site and to see all of the people who are downloading audio books and podcasts.

Thanks to all of you who have joined the site. We've got lots more coming down the pipeline which we're very excited to share with you. Have a great weekend everyone and keep learning out loud!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

Paypal and International Payments

We've recently a couple of things to make it easier to purchase audio learning titles.

Pay with Paypal - If you're one of the 100 million+ people with a Paypal account you can now purchase audio books and video with Paypal. It's nice to make a purchase and not have to enter in your credit card. Your Paypal information (username and password) is entered directly on the Paypal website ensuring a safe shopping experience. Just look for the Paypal button above when you're making your purchase. It's really easy.

International Payments - Based on the many requests we've had we've now opened up our site for international purchases. If you don't live in the U.S. you can now purchase any of our downloadable titles with your credit card or via Paypal. We're very excited about being able to take the Audio Learning Revolution global. (Note: Our distributor only ships CDs and cassettes on the U.S. so, for now at least, the only titles that can be ordered internationally are downloadable titles.)

We're always interested in doing anything that we can to make it easier for you to find and order great audio learning titles. If there is anything we can do don't hesitate to let us know by sending an e-mail to suggestions@learnoutloud.com.

Thanks!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

April 06, 2006

David Allen and GTD

Recently I had an illuminating day attending a David Allen Roadmap Seminar in Santa Monica. Jon has written in the past about Allen, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts on Allen's system and philosophy as well.

David Allen, in case you were wondering is a human productivity black belt and author of the best-selling book, Getting Things Done. His system, now labeled GTD for short is a series of structured productivity schemes you can apply to your life in every way. On a surface level it comes across as a rigorous form of list making: you write down every single thing you wish to accomplish in your life, from the most mundane to the most profound; whatever has your attention at that moment. From there, you continue writing down things you wish to remember for the future the moment they come to you. These can be projects in the garden, goals for your next sales quarter, remembering phone calls, whatever. The overarching point here is that your brain is not something that was meant to store information. In fact, the more information you are constantly trying to remember, the more stress you have in your life because of the strain involved in making sure you have everything accounted for. This rings incredibly true to me, and indeed, another phrase Allen uses to describe GTD is "advanced common sense".

This isn't a system that Allen wants you to use solely as way of getting more projects done at work, despite the fact that most of the people attending the session with me were business professionals. On the contrary, while his system is acutely useful in the business world, Allen's ambition with GTD goes farther. Throughout the day he convincingly applied it to the accomplishment of goals at home, in personal relationships, hobbies, (i.e. planning what audio books you want to listen to) and the establishment of lifetime goals. You are also asked to reflect upon what you’ve done every week so that you are constantly keeping up and in focus on what you are trying to do and what underpins what you are trying to do.

I have since begun implementing some of GTD into my life and it has relieved the pressure I've attached to what I do in almost every way. You wouldn't believe how good it feels to write down everything you think about in a given day. When you see it, you can break it down into the actions it takes to get it done, and once you have all of that figured out, it simply isn't taxing you any longer. Imagine being able to rid yourself of the daily torture that comes from not knowing if you're doing exactly what you could be doing to reach your potential. I'm not saying I'm a yellow belt with this GTD stuff or even that I will follow everything talked about in the seminar to the letter. I don’t think Allen is pushing strict adherence; instead he is providing a model of task assessment that can filter out any associated anxiety. It is a very durable framework and you can find many different ways to work it into your routine.

As I said earlier, David Allen's primary book on the subject is Getting Things Done. He also has a second book which is available through us called Ready for Anything. Take a look, I honestly think you'll find something valuable here.

Posted by LOLSeth | Permalink

March 13, 2006

French look to open iTunes to other music players

France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker's popular iPod player.

Read more

The reason that stuff like this is important is that closed systems almost always stifle innovation. Currently you can only listen to songs (and audiobooks, podcasts, etc.) that you've put in iTunes if you have an iPod. By opening up iTunes to other devices there would likely be increased competition in the device player market which would lead to technological advances and drops in pricing.

Apple no doubt feels that by controlling both the software (iTunes) and the hardware (the iPod) that they can provide a superior user experience. To a certain extent that's been true to date. If you've had a chance to compare the iPod/iTunes/Fairplay DRM package to the alternatives you'll likely agree.

But to move forward these systems must become more open. I had a chance to watch a great presentation a week ago on the subject of the future of media and a great quote from Rob Lord was included:

“What if Internet Explorer only went to Microsoft’s site?”

If that was the case we would be back in the dark ages in terms of web development. Fortunately Microsoft allowed users of Internet Explorer to go other places besides microsoft.com. Let's hope that Apple does something similar and opens up iTunes and the iPod to competing music and spoken word services and players. That's something that would be in the best interest of everyone.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

February 09, 2006

Barack Obama takes home Best Spoken Word Album Grammy

Beating out the likes of actors and comedians such as Garrison Keillor, Al Franken, George Carlin, and Sean Penn, Illinois Senator Barack Obama took home the Best Spoken Word Album Grammy last night for his audio book Dreams from My Father which he authored and narrated. Mr. Obama joked in a recent podcast that he was going to now change his name to The Artist Formerly Known as Barack.

I haven't listened to the audio book yet but I plan to very soon. It's a memoir of Mr. Obama's search for the truth about his father and his familial roots in Africa, after his father died in car crash.

I've been a subscriber to the Barack Obama Podcast since it's inception. Regardless of political affiliation, I think Mr. Obama is an excellent speaker and his podcasts are very entertaining and informative. And he mixes up the format of how they are delivered as well. Sometimes he's at his home in Chicago, sometimes it's a speech he gave, sometimes it's him on a cell phone from the Middle East (which he recently traveled to), and there's also one of him on the Al Franken show. Mr. Obama is no dry, square politician and he's not always talking politics. He frequently talked about the Chicago White Sox as they were approaching the World Series.

So it was not surprising to me that his audio book and his narration were Grammy worthy. With this win, I'll have to make his audio book my next purchase.

Posted by LOLDavid | Permalink

January 30, 2006

Monday Round-up

Wow, tomorrow's the last day of January already? This month has flown by...

1. We crossed the 2,000 member mark last weekend. It took us about 11 months to get our first thousand members...and only 45 days to get our next thousand. Fun to see the growth. Thanks to all of you who just recently signed on!

2. Saw some cool buzz over the weekend about our Free Audiobook of the Month club. Several people blogged about it and I wanted to say thanks to Wynn, Phil, BK and Gary for the mentions (as well as anyone else out there who's linked to us). We appreciate it!

3. Our 1st Anniversary promotion ends at the end of the day tomorrow. If you didn't catch it in this blog post, we're giving away $12 gift certificates to promote our first twelve months in business. So if you've been itching to buy an audio book or two there's no time like the present. :)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 28, 2006

History in the making...

A little off-topic perhaps (or maybe not!) but I thought I'd post the link nonetheless:

http://jon.zaadz.com/blog/2006/1/history_in_the_making

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 26, 2006

Our First Anniversary!

It's hard to believe that we launched LearnOutLoud.com only a year ago. We've been working our tails off here to try to find you the best in audio and video content that's both educational and inspirational and we're really excited about a lot of the things that we have in the works for 2006.

We've been working very hard on a new service called TeachOutLoud which is currently in private beta. You'll be hearing more about that soon. Our Free Audio and Video Directory is expanding rapidly (638 titles at last count). And traffic to our forums is starting to pick up.

To kick off our second year right and celebrate the last 12 months we're running a promotion between now and the end of the month. If you place an order of $30 or more between now and the end of January we'll send you a $12 gift certificate for a future order. If you've never ordered from us before this is a great opportunity to give it a try. We have over 2,000 audio titles on CD and cassette and an ever-expanding number of titles available for download. To check out what we've got go to the following link:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Sale-Section

We'll send out the gift certificates automatically so it's super easy. Thanks for helping celebrate our first anniversary with us! We look forward to what the rest of 2006 will hold!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 20, 2006

More Reasons for Being

I recently returned from a three week stay in Ghana, West Africa, where I trained several non-profit organizations how to build websites. Over and over again I was reminded how much we in the West take our wealth for granted.

This is the start of an inspiring blog post from Rob who writes the Software By Rob. It's a highly interesting account of his stay and well worth reading. And while I wouldn't disagree with anything he has to say I would offer one addendum: I also think that we in the West take our education for granted.

Consider this story Rob relates about one of the gentlemen that he worked with and to whom he recommended a $15 computer training book.

15 bucks. The guy works 40 hours a week at an IT training facility and can't afford a $15 computer book. He's not starving. He's not living in a mud hut on the side of the road scraping to feed his family. But $15 is probably a week's salary for him, maybe more. At 83 times the minimum wage this book would cost $427 in the U.S., and the book was actually an old edition (from 2001), which as most of us know is almost worthless in the world of computer programming. If he wanted a current edition he would have to pay three times that if he could find it at all.

Rob then asks the question "Does this seem wrong to anyone else?"

Yup. It does to me. It should to most everybody.

He goes on to say:

For destitute poverty, providing food, clean water, shelter, and medical care are the most critical needs. There are many organizations that provide these services to the poor, and they help remedy a dire need in the world. But once these needs are met, the person's information poverty must be addressed.

The phrase "information poverty" has now been added to my vocabulary. At the end of the day I think it is information poverty that lies at the heart of Africa's problem. Until you attempt to solve that all of the money being spent on all of the other things won't have the impact they could have. I won't spoil much more of the article (go read it!) but Rob talks about Africans could help to climb out of poverty if they had the technology to sell their goods on the global market. He uses the example of Ghanian drum-makers selling their wares through eBay or Yahoo! Not that far-fetched in today's age of technology...and a lot more fulfilling than buying some crap trinket from some faceless department store.

At the end of the day the twin potential powers of education and technology offer an incredible opportunity to make a real and lasting difference in the world. As I blogged about before, Technology + Education = Productivity = Progress. And I tip my hat to everyone else who sees the potential here for technology and education to empower people.

To Doug Kaye for his tireless work on the Conversations Network which will Change the World by bringing cutting-edge, innovative conversations to your headphones.

To Jimmy Wales for his vision and dedication to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and services that Change the World by providing increased access to information. (Note: In his personal appeal for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation, he lists he reason for being as "the child in Africa who is going to use free textbooks and reference works produced by our community and find a solution to the crushing poverty that surrounds him.")

To Wynn at the Stingy Scholar blog and Tyler at Textbook Revolution for their passion for Changing the World through increased access to educational materials (join our conversation on that very subject here).

To Brian Johnson and the rest of the gang at Zaadz who are creating social networking tools that will connect people serious about Changing the World and empower them with the technology to actually do it.

And to the many others out there who want to leave a brighter, more hopeful and more educated world to the generation to follow.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone and if you feel the urge please take a few minutes this weekend to appreciate the access you have to technology and education. It's an incredible blessing but one that most of us (myself included) rarely acknowledge.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 19, 2006

The Wiki Has Landed

We've jumped aboard the Wiki train and have posted links to our Wiki from the LearnOutLoud homepage. For those of you who aren't familiar with what a Wiki is, it's a collaborative content management system. The most recognized example of a Wiki is Wikipedia, the Wiki-based encylopedia. Here's the link to our new Wiki Help Center:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/help/Help_Center

There are a couple of reasons why we're employing a Wiki here at LearnOutLoud. First, it's incredibly easy for us to edit it so it makes it easier for us to get up FAQs and other content up. Second, it allows you to help us make the site better by posting suggestions, questions, etc. Certain sections of the Wiki are wide open for editing and others require you to create a quick user account first (sorry, we haven't integrated this with our main account system yet).

A few sections you may want to check out:

Contact Us - Everything you need to get a hold of us

Frequently Asked Questions - Here's where we try to answer your questions before you ask them.

Volunteer Opportunities - A few opportunities to help out with LearnOutLoud.

Testimonials - What people are saying about us

We'll have a lot more up soon. And while I'm on the subject of Wikis let me provide a link to donate to Wikimedia Foundation. Software like Wikimedia (which powers our Wiki) and websites like Wikipedia represent a big part of the future of online collaboration and education. We've donated to the Wikimedia Foundation and we encourage you to do likewise.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

The end of boredom

Was cleaning out the ol' Bloglines tonight and remembered that I wanted to blog a Cuban post from last week. Here it is:

The end of boredom

A snippet:

Portable media devices, whether Ipods, portable gaming devices, phones with all their features, or whatever have solved what has been a generations old nuisance for all of us, boredom.

We have our little devices and now we are never bored. We dont find ourselves staring off into space unoccupied, wondering what to do. We dont find ourselves muttering about how bored we are sitting on the train, or on a plane, trying to do anything to make the time go by more quickly.

Our little mobile devices are so popular because they are the ultimate, continuous distraction. They are the easiest cure for boredom.

Interesting ramifications for portable audio and video no doubt. I think the shift of content away from big devices (TVs, PCs, etc.) and towards little devices (iPods, PSPs, mobile phones, etc.) will be one of the most sigificant, or perhaps the most significant development this decade. By the year 2010 I think we'll have the equivalent of VOD and AOD (audio-on-demand) on our mobile phone/PDA devcies.

That will change the game entirely.

The end of boredom is near. :)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

January 11, 2006

Video: Getting Started with LearnOutLoud

You may have noticed a new icon on our homepage today. Seth put together a great video overview of the LearnOutLoud site. If you're new to the site or feel like you haven't gotten a chance to fully explore it yet I'd strongly recommend that you check it out. Here's the link:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/#Quick

Enjoy!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Want to subscribe to this blog? This free, short video tutorial will show you how.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 25, 2005

Christmas Musings

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm having a wonderful time today with friends and family but wanted to take just a few minutes to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah.

We've got quite a collection of Christmas-related audio to listen to on LearnOutLoud. So if you feel the need later today to take a break and are looking for something to listen to here are a few suggestions:

Two Podcasts of A Christmas Carol

StoryNory
The Penguin Podcast

Two Free Teaching Company Lectures

Christmas in 19th Century America
Christmas in Victorian Britain

Other Christmas Audio Books

A Child's Christmas in Wales
A Prairie Home Christmas

Also, welcome to those of you who received an iPod (or other mp3 player) under the tree this year and are looking to fill it up! A few places to start:

Our Podcast Directory - 568 free educational and inspirational podcasts for you to listen to and download. And click here for a free video tutorial that will walk you through how to listen to and subscribe to podcasts using iTunes.

Our Free Audio Directory - We have tons of free audio books, speeches and lectures to listen to and download here. This is a great way to sample some spoken word audio and see what you enjoy listening to.

We're very grateful to all of you for helping make 2005 such an incredible success. We have a whole lot more planned for 2006 so please stay tuned. Please enjoy this wonderful day with your friends and family and cherish the time together.

Cheers,

The LearnOutLoud.com Team

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 13, 2005

Tookie Williams

For those of you who have been following this, Tookie Williams was executed earlier today in California. I don't know enough about the details of the case to offer any sort of qualified opinion on it but I did want to point people to a two-hour audio interview that Tony Robbins did of Tookie Williams from San Quentin Prison. It's a very interesting interview although it's a bit haunting to listen to now that he's gone.

Anyway, here's the link:

Tony's Interview with Stanley Tookie Williams

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 09, 2005

1,000 Registered Members!

We cracked the 1,000 member mark tonight (1,002 at last check). A minor milestone no doubt but kinda cool nonetheless.

If you haven't registered yet you can do so here. Registration is free, takes only a few seconds and allows you to do a bunch of stuff like post to our forums, rate and review titles and more. So go register and join the Audio Learning Revolution today!

Updated: I just found out that we also crossed the 10,000 title mark on the site this week as well. Right now we're at 10,082 and counting. Lots of options for you to get your Learn Out Loud on. :)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 08, 2005

Lennon Out Loud

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon, one of the most influential rock musicians in history. Very few people have had a bigger influence on their craft than Lennon. For more background on Lennon's life and untimely death, check out the John Lennon Wikipedia entry. And check out Zaadz for some Lennon quotes.

We don't have a lot of Lennon titles on our site but for those curious in learning more about this incredible man here are a few you might be interested in listening to.

The Beatles and The Beatles - Two biographies of the same name but by different authors. The first is the newly released and highly anticipated book by Bob Spitz. The second is an older title (originally published in 1968 and revised in 1996) by Hunter Davies published by Blackstone Audiobooks.

John - A biography of John Lennon written by his first wife Cynthia and published by Random House Audio. An unabridged version is also available.

Lennon wrote an array of amazing and innovative songs and his "Imagine" has always been on my short list of favorites:

Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

I can't think of many messages that the world needs more right now than that.

Rest in Peace John.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 02, 2005

E-Magazine #7 - December 2nd, 2005

Holiday Gift Ideas

Audio books make great holiday gifts! Rather than giving someone a book they may never read or another piece of clothing to stuff an already full closet, why not get them something you know they'll use. Just about everyone has a good amount of time in their vehicle and a well-chosen audio book is an excellent way to help them enjoy that time.

We've combed the Catalog at LearnOutLoud (rapidly approaching 10,000 titles) to pick out a few titles that make great gift ideas. Here are some of our recommendations:

The Chronicles of Narnia CD Box Set - By now you've probably seen the commercial for Narnia, the new Walt Disney movie that will be released in a couple of weeks. This movie is based on the Chronicles of Narnia series of books by C. S. Lewis. This box set contains all seven unabridged recordings (31 discs in all!) at a very reasonable price.

Freakonomics - If you're the type who views economics as a boring and stuffy subject, Steven Levitt's bestseller Freakonomics will shatter those myths. Levitt offers an informative and enlightening look at society through the lens of an inquisitive economist. Highly listenable and a great gift for just about anyone on your list. Other similar titles include two from Malcolm Gladwell: Blink and The Tipping Point.

Titles that are religious or spiritual in nature and that make great gifts include Joel Osteen's popular new audio book Your Best Life Now, Eckhart Tolle's classic The Power of Now and the The King James Bible read by James Earl Jones (we like to refer to this one as the "King James Earl Jones" Bible!).

Finally, a great audio book that just about everyone will enjoy is David McCullough's "Biography of a Year" 1776. It's also available in an abridged version here. If you're interested in getting a little taste of 1776 for free, check out the free WGBH production of David McCullough's presentation Biography of a Year: 1776.

That's just a small sampling of what's available. We have over 2,000 titles discounted 20-40% off. Visit our On Sale Section to find that perfect holiday gift.

We've Been Dugg and Delicious'zed...

It was a pretty exciting week here at LearnOutLoud headquarters. We ended up on the front page of technology news site Digg.com which led to prominent placement on social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and Furl and brief write-ups on Lifehacker (don't worry, it's a site about personal productivity, not hacking...) and Yahoo! News. We experienced traffic levels that were almost 10 times the norm which explains a bit of the sluggishness that you may have noticed.

Welcome to all of the new people who visited and those of you who subscribed to our newsletter and are reading it for the first time. It's great to have you onboard at the start of the Audio Learning Revolution!

Zaadz Daily Wisdom Podcast To Launch Monday

On Monday we'll be launching the Zaadz Daily Wisdom Podcast, a daily podcast consisting of inspirational quotes from philosophers, psychologists, spiritual teachers and optimal living gurus along with related commentary. The Zaadz Daily Wisdom Podcast is hosted by Brian Johnson, Philosopher & CEO of Zaadz, Inc. It's a great podcast to subscribe to and listen to first thing in the morning or on your way to work. Some of the individuals profiled in the first month of the Zaadz Daily Wisdom Podcast include Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Martin Seligman, Socrates and Marianne Williamson.

We've had a chance to preview the first month's worth of episodes of the Daily Wisdom Podcast here and you're in for a treat. We've reviewed thousands of podcasts and we haven't come across anything like what Brian has put together. To subscribe to the Zaadz Daily Wisdom Podcast go to http://www.learnoutloud.com/wisdom or search the iTunes Directory for "zaadz". While you're at it head on over to zaadz.com and check out their hot new site.

Announcing the Winner of the Nano Contest

We're proud to announce the winner of our Nano contest which is Brad Rhoads of Winfield, IL. Brad won by linking to us from his blog here. Congrats Brad!

Titles Under $10

A few titles under $10 from our Sale Section:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (CD for $9.80, Cassette for $9.10)
Acres of Diamonds (Digital Download for $2.98)
The Magic Story (Digital Download for $1.98)
Unlimited Power (CD or Cassette for $9.80)

Latest Resources, Articles and Blog Posts

Resources:

• Sounds True Publisher Page

Articles:

• Recording a Lecture or Seminar

BlogOutLoud.com:

• How to Become an Audio Learning Junkie, Part One
• Bono Out Loud
• Wiki Out Loud: Wikipedia Entries on Audio
• The "Tepping" Point Part One and The "Tepping" Point Part Two

Visit our blog at: www.BlogOutLoud.com.

Register and participate in the LearnOutLoud.com Forums.

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays everyone! Cherish the time you have with your friends and family. Count your blessings. Remember the important things (hint: it's not stuff...) this time of year.

Best wishes,

The LearnOutLoud.com Staff

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

December 01, 2005

Audio and Video Learning Around the World

So I popped on in to Google Analytics tonight to check on our stats and found the map of our vistitors fascinating. Each of the dots on the map represents a city from where at least 30 people came to our site in the last week. Where did we receive the most visits from? Taipei. 710 visits this week. Gives me chills just thinking about people in China firing up their web browser and listening to audio and video learning content, improving their English skills, etc.

I exchanged e-mails today with a sweet lady from China who explained to me how grateful she was to have found LearnOutLoud.com. Here's a bit of what she said:

maybe its main idea is not to practise one's listening, but obviously it's a big potential benifit to english learner, especially who want to improve their listening.

The potential for audio and video learning and podcasting is amazing. It can open up new worlds for people in places like China. And there will be an incredible demand for ESL and other english language programs in these countries. Likewise there will be a lot of demand for programs to learn languages like Mandarin. A prime example of this is the fact that the third most popular podcast on Yahoo's podcast directory is ChinesePod, a podcast out of Shanghai that teaches Mandarin Chinese through daily audio lessons.

The most apropros sign might have been the title that my new friend in China originally e-mailed me about. What was it?

The World is Flat

Yes, indeed it is.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 29, 2005

...and Furled...and Lifehacked...and Yahoo'ed!

It's been a bit of a wild last 30 hours or so. First the front page of Digg. Then the front page for del.icio.us where we still are over 30 hours later (I have no idea how that works). Furl kicked in a little bit. Then we thought the coast was clear.

Then around 1 PM PST today we got posted on the front page of a very cool blog called Lifehacker. (Apparently it's very popular as well.) Then, to double our pleasure (or pain depending on how the server is acting at that minute) we see that Lifehacker's article is syndicated to Yahoo! News. So in the span of 24 hours we go from nothing to getting posted on five of the biggest websites on the Net. Crazy...

Anyway, just two reasons for posting this. First, to explain why the site has been sluggish and apologize for any less-than-stellar experience that you have had with the site. We think we're in the clear now publicity-wise although the way the last couple of days have gone I wouldn't be surprised if Oprah gave me a call later tonight. ;)

Second, to say that this is all really cool. It's fun to see all the support for what we're doing and I hope that many of the thousands of people who've been introduced to the site in the last couple of days will return soon and often. It's also really cool to me personally that maybe, just maybe, for a few of you who visited this might have been a spark to figure out what this whole "audio learning" thing is all about. If all of the Diggs, Furls, del.icio.us bookmarks, etc. cause one new person to view their commute tomorrow as "prime learning time" then for me the headache of trying to keep up a server over the last 30 straight hours that I've been awake has been well, well worth it. :)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

(Updated 11/30/05 - Had the wrong URL for Furl...)

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 28, 2005

We've been dugg! (and del.icio.us'zed...)

If you've been on the site at all today you've probably noticed that it's a bit sluggish (or downright inaccessible). This was due to a huge influx of new visitors that happened when we made the homepage over at Digg.com. We made the homepage around 10 AM PST today and within an hour we were the victim of the "Digg Effect" (something so common that it even has its own Wikipedia entry).

We've been working hard to get the site up and it looks like most of the site is functioning properly (albeit a bit sluggishly) with the exception of the Free Audio and Video Directory which we've replaced with a static page until things stabilize. It also didn't help that in addition to being "buried" (the alternative moniker to the Digg Effect) we also have been on the popular list over at del.icio.us for a good chunk of the day.

Anyway, thanks to all the new folks for stopping by. We hope to have the site fully operational soon so you can see all we have to offer. In the meantime, bookmark us (or bookmark us in the del.icio.us), sign up for our newsletter or subscribe to our blog or podcast so we can keep in touch with you. Apologies to all of you for the inconvenience.

(And if you're not familiar with Digg.com or del.icio.us I would definitely recommend to go check them out. They're two of the coolest sites on the Net!)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 26, 2005

The "Tepping" Point Here at Home

On Wednesday I wrote an entry about The Tepping Point, a grossly simplified equation (Technology + Education = Productivity > Progress) that I fell underlies which economies become successful and which fall behind. I framed it in the context of Africa and Jeffrey Sach's groundbreaking book The End of Poverty. However, the Tepping Point isn't just a concept that it's important for economic develpment abroad. It's just as important right here in the U.S.

I'm reading the most recent issue of Fortune and I came back-to-back articles where the Tepping Point has direct relevance. The first ("Get a Life!") describes the increasing desire of men to have better work/family/life balance. One of the main issues: Can people be as productive (or even more productive) while working 40-50 hour weeks as they are if they are working 60, 70 or even 80 hours a week? The second article ("It's His Economy Now--And Yours" includes a couple of interesting charts that plot the growth of real GDP and real wages and salaries over the last five years. The take-away? While real GDP has been relatively strong (3-4% over the last couple of years), real wages and salaries have been falling for the last couple of years.

With a few blips on the radar the U.S. economy has been on relative easy streets for the last couple of decades. It's easy to think that will continue indefinitely, especially when we've been in the midst of such a prolonged uptick. However, history is full of examples of countries that were on top and presumably invincible one year can find themselves in troubled waters only a few years after. One only needs to look to what's happened in Japan over the last decade as evidence of that.

One again, let me offer a full disclaimer that I'm far from anything remotely resembling an economist but I get the general sense that there could be economic trouble ahead for the United States. Not in the sense of "Oh my gosh we're going to have another Depression and everyone is going to be poor." Rather a sense that although we will continue to do well and specific sectors might do very well that we're going to face an intense challenge from China, India and other countries that are growing at a much faster rate than we are.

China's economy is growing at a rate of 8% per year. Let me repeat that. China's economy is growing at a rate of 8% per year. With that type of torrid growth rate we don't need to look forward more than a couple of decades to a time when China, not the United States, will rule the world economically. After all, as I read in the early pages of The End of Poverty, it was a mere 1% difference in GDP growth rates between the U.S. and Africa between 1820 and 1998 that lead us becoming an economic power and Africa becoming an economic backwater.

OK, full disclaimer #2: I don't care who wins. I love my country as much as anyone but I also don't define myself by it. So I don't write any of this in the interest of trying to imply that it's bad if China or India or somebody else takes over the #1 spot in the world's economy. Rather I want to see all nations and all individuals succeed to their best possible ability.

And that's what I love about the Tepping Point. It's the furthest thing from a zero-sum game that you can find. Technological development and educational advancement form a tide that lifts all boats. No one loses in a more educated society. That's the beauty.

And to be honest, just as Africa has a long way to go in terms of education so do we here in the United States. Many K-12 schools are in a lot of trouble as over-worked teachers struggle to deal with larger class sizes and fewer resources. Colleges and universities are still world leaders but many American students are falling behind their often harder-working foreign classmates.

And adult education? Well the most telling sign for me of the state of adult education is when I tell people that I have a company that sells audio and video educational products. The immediate assumption by the vast majority of people is that we offer products for children. It takes many people a surprisingly long time to get the fact that we're trying to educate people who've already finished "their education" (as defined by that high school/college/graduate diploma).

Sure, a lot of people are good at learning what they need to know for work. Which is fine until you switch positions or careers and realize that this often means developing a whole new skill set. Or until you're forced to deal with the fact that innovation is moving at break-neck speeds and that the knowledge you have today is increasingly likely to become obsolete a couple of years from now. Or until you wake up and realize that 1.3 billion Chinese people are now a prime player in the global economy and that many of those people want your jobs and are very qualified to take them.

But by then it might be too late. That's what we want to help prevent here at LearnOutLoud. We want you to start Learning Out Loud before you find yourself in a position of learning too late.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 23, 2005

The "Tepping" Point and The End of Poverty

Extreme poverty can be ended, not in the time of our grandchildren, but our time.

If that doesn't send chills down your spine I'm not sure what will. It's in the introduction of Jeffrey Sachs' revolutionary new book The End of Poverty (Note: I just put up a free video lecture from Sachs here). I'm about 35 pages into this and it's an incredible combination of history and economics lessons and a call to action that we actually have the ability to put an end to extreme poverty including the continent that suffers the worst from its economic situation: Africa.

Helping Africa has long been a personal passion of mine and I fully expect to devote significant chunks of my life to doing what I can to improve the situation over there. It's no doubt a complex and daunting challenge to even make a dent in what often seems to be an overwhelming set of challenges. But I don't think we have a choice. If we believe in equality and justice then I think we must help.

As I was reading The End of Poverty I developed a (very) minor thesis which I'll call The TEPPing Point (apologies to Malcolm Gladwell). What is the TEPPing Point? It's a simple equation:

Technology + Education = Productivity > Progress

The combination of an improved technological infrastructure and increased access to education will lead to higher productivity. At the end of the day higher productivity means higher wages and ultimately economic progress. Sachs offer some illuminating points early in the book when he talks about how just a couple of centuries ago Africa wasn't all that far behind the rest of the world economically. However for the last couple of decades the rest of the world has advanced at a quicker rate leaving Africa in the dust. That's the main reason (I am likely oversimplifying here) behind why we see extreme levels of wealth in North America, Europe and Asia while most people in Africa live on a few dollars a day or less.

Why am I talking about this here on LearnOutLoud? Well, for starters we're doing our best to work on the "E" of the TEPPing Point. We feel that by enabling and encouraging audio and video education both here and abroad that we're doing our part (albeit perhaps a small part at this stage) to raise productivity and economic progress.

Consider this. I formed a bit of this theory while listening to a great interview on the IT Conversations Globeshakers podcast. In it, Tim Zak interviews technologist Ethan Zuckerman and asks the question "Why Should We Care About Africa?" A couple of years ago I would have had no way to access that conversation. Today it's as easy as plugging into an RSS feed and listening to it on my iPod. That's the kind of thing we want to enable on a wide-scale. Globeshaking indeed...

As far as technology is concerned some amazing strides are being made. In the interview Zuckerman talks about the incredible impact that the sub-$100 laptop that Nicholas Negroponte and others at MIT are developing will have (for a collection of links on this click here). He also relayed a story about how parents in Ghana (where Zuckerman has spent a good deal of time) will save money for months so that their children can spend time at cyber cafes in the hopes that the technical skills they'll pick up will help them to have a brighter economic future. (Note: When thinking about things to be thankful for tomorrow perhaps adding easy Internet access is something we should all be adding to our list?)

Indeed, I can feel a TEPPing Point coming. Things are accelerating at such a tremendous rate. If we (I speak collectively here) can bring technology and education to developing and impoverished countries without exploiting those countries in the process then we will change the world. When a kid growing up in Ghana can watch lectures from Stanford on his sub-$100 laptop or listen to foreign language training courses on her sub-$20 iPod then we will change the world. When the quality of a child's education no longer depends on an accident of latitude and longitude then we will change the world.

And I can't think of anything I would rather be thankful for in another decade or two than a world in which no one has to go to bed hungry or die from diseases that are ridiculously easy to prevent.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at LearnOutLoud.com to all of you around the world.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 20, 2005

New iPods: Micro, Pequeno and Invisa

The iPod Nano and Video iPod are now obsolete! Funny sketch from last night's Saturday Night Live:

http://section3.net/stevejobs_SNL/

:)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 19, 2005

Educational, Entertaining and Inspirational

I just listened to a great session with Doug Kaye over on the BayCHI podcast where he talks about the new Conversations Network that he's putting together. During the session he talks about the type of content they are looking for and says that it must be "educational, entertaining and inspirational." He then goes on to say that he'll take "two out of three" and that the most important of those three is inspiration.

Well they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so I'm going to borrow Doug's terminology because it precisely fits the criteria we've established for listing content on LearnOutLoud.com. We want content that both uplifts and informs and at the same time is very enjoyable to listen to.

To educate.

That's our mission.

(By the way, mark my words. What Doug is doing with the Conversations Network will change the world. It's going to be so much fun to watch and to be involved.)

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 14, 2005

E-Magazine #6 - November 11th, 2005

New Online Store - Get a Free $5 Gift Certificate

Well, we've been working long and hard on it but we're proud to announce that our online store is officially up and running. Currently, we're selling about 1,800 audio books on CD and cassette. Very shortly we'll add DVDs and downloadable digital audio and video to the mix. We would like to be your one-stop destination for all of your audio and video learning needs.

So what's in it for you? Well here are some reasons why we think you'll love shopping at LearnOutLoud.com:

• Discounted prices - Most of our titles are at least 20% off the suggested retail price.
• Easy and secure shopping experience - We've made it very easy to find what you are looking for and we've given you all the information (e.g., abridged vs. unabridged and # of CDs/cassettes) you need to make an informed buying decision. Plus, we utilize 128-bit encryption and other technology to keep your data private and secure.
• Real customer service - Unlike many online retailers we offer both e-mail customer service and a 1-800 number (1-800-550-6070) for you to call.
• 5-5-5 - LearnOutLoud.com is committed to 5-5-5 which means we give 5% of our pre-tax profits to charity, 5% of employee paid time off for volunteering and 5% of company equity to a charitable foundation.

We would like to invite you to check out our store with a very special offer. We'll give you a $5 gift certificate for your first order! This gift certificate spends like cash and there is no minimum you have to spend to use the GC. All you have to do to claim your $5 gift certificate is send an e-mail to newstore@learnoutloud.com. So get your gift certificate today and start shopping. With the holidays coming audiobooks make perfect gifts for friends and relatives. Stock up today!

LearnOutLoud.com Online Store

Free iPod Nano

Do you want one of those sleek new iPod Nanos? In just a couple of weeks we'll be giving one away. Although we've had a fair amount of people register to win it hasn't been a ton. Bottom line? Enter today and you have a really good chance at winning a free Nano! It's incredibly easy to enter the contest. Just do one of these two things:

Register for our site and post a message in our forums.
-OR-
Post a link to LearnOutLoud from your website or blog and send an e-mail to linked@learnoutloud.com to let us know you linked to us.

And if you do both of these you'll have double the chance to win!

So don't miss out. Make sure to register now for your chance to win the hot new Nano! (Full contest details available here.)

Over 500 Titles in Our Free Audio and Video Directory

We've mentioned our Free Audio and Video Directory in our newsletter before but we wanted to bring it up again as we hit the 500+ mark last week. We've added a lot of really cool new stuff so if you haven't checked it out in a while (or haven't checked it out at all!) you may want to stop by. Here's a sampling of some of the stuff we've recently added:

MIT Lectures - Links to over 100 free video lectures from MIT including ones from Jack Welch, Michael Dell and Noam Chomsky
Vega Science Trust - Links to 40 free video lectures on subjects like nanotechnology and physics
American Memory from the Library of Congress - Some amazing projects including Voices from the Days of Slavery and the September 11th, 2001 Documentary Project
Free Sermons from Sermon Index and SermonAudio.com - We've posted links to sermons from people like Billy Graham and Billy Sunday

This is only scratching the surface of what we have in the directory. Check it out today at http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video

Two New Titles from LearnOutLoud.com

We're happy to announce two brand new titles for sale on our site. These are the first that we've produced here at LearnOutLoud.com.

If you're an advertising professional or if you have a business that advertises, you'll want to check out Bill Grady's seminar How You Can Create Advertising That Really Works. This seminar is guaranteed to help you build a stronger and more profitable advertising program. It's available on 2 CDs for $15.95 (a downloadable version will be available soon).

If you're looking to build wealth and find financial independence, The Science of Getting Rich is a must listen. This book was written by Wallace Wattles, is narrated by Brian Johnson and is a classic in the field of self development. A downloadable version of this one is coming soon as well.

Two Cool New Articles: Seth's Tutorial & Gandhi Out Loud

We've been feverishly writing new content for you here at LearnOutLoud.com.

Seth just wrapped up a great tutorial on audio recording that helps make it easy to understand. If you're contemplating getting into podcasting or trying to record your own audio book this is a perfect primer.

How to Begin Home Recording: Level I

Jon wrote the first in an upcoming series of "Out Loud" articles. This series will cover audio and video material available for great leaders and historical figures. The first articles in the Out Loud series covers India's Mahatma Gandhi. Look for more of these in the near future.

Gandhi Out Loud

Latest Resources and Blog Posts

Resources:

• Zondervan Publisher Page
• C. S. Lewis Author Page

BlogOutLoud.com:

• Stanford Lectures on iTunes
• The State of Podcasting
• How to Subscribe to Our Blog

Visit our blog at: www.BlogOutLoud.com.

Register and participate in the LearnOutLoud.com Forums.

Coming Soon!

Our new program LearnDirect is in the works and we should have some more details in our next newsletter. Stay tuned!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

November 11, 2005

Peter Drucker: 1909-2005

Peter Drucker, perhaps the most famous "management guru" in history, passed away today at the age of 95 (link to FT article). Drucker had an enormous impact on the business world and leaves a tremendous legacy. Here's a brief bio of Drucker from Wikipedia:

Drucker, born in Vienna, Austria, moved to the United States in 1937. In 1943, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University as Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University.

He wrote about 30 books, the first in 1939, and from 1975 to 1995 was an editorial columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review. He continued to act as a consultant to businesses and non-profit organizations when he was in his nineties.

We have four Peter Drucker audio titles on LearnOutLoud. If you're interesting in learning more about this man and his management theories, visit the following link:

Peter Drucker Audio Books

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

October 22, 2005

How to Subscribe to Our Blog

Please excuse my manners. We've been posting blog entries for almost a year and I realize that we never stopped to explain how you can subscribe to our blog. Shame on us! Seriously though, just a few months ago I had no clue how to subscribe to a blog. Once I figured it out it literally changed my web-surfing life. So I thought I would take a few minutes to share the basics with you. And of course if you're already subscribed or know how to subscribe to a blog then please kindly disregard this post.

Step #1 - First, it's important to understand what you are doing when you are subscribing to a blog. Essentially you are setting it up so that when a new post is made to the blog you'll be automatically updated. Why is this nice? Well, let's say that there are five blogs you really like. Instead of having to check five different websites separately for updates you can check one place and see updates to any of the blogs. Pretty cool huh?

Step #2 - The next step is figuring out what your options are for subscribing to blogs. There are literally dozens of blog readers (often called RSS readers, aggregators, etc.) out there. If you have a My Yahoo! page that can actually be your blog reader. Google now has a reader called the Google Reader. I am partial to Bloglines, an online service that is pretty easy to use. What you use is totally up to you. If you're looking for some more options try searching for rss reader or rss aggregator.

Step #3 - Cool, now you've got your blog reader in place. Now you need the details for subscribing to our blog. For most blog readers you'll need to plug a URL into your reader (this is called an RSS feed or an XML feed but that's not important). To subscribe to our blog you can use the following feed:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/content/blog/index.xml

You'll notice that if you click on that link you'll get a bunch of gobbledy-gook. Don't sweat that. Just cut and paste the link above into the place where your blog reader tells you to. And if you're My Yahoo! you'll see a link on our blog page that makes it pretty easy.

So that's pretty much all there is to it. If you aren't subscribing to blogs, give it a try. It's a great way to stay up to date with a lot of cool stuff. And definitely subscribe to BlogOutLoud. We've got lots more good stuff coming for you in the next few months!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

October 17, 2005

Thinking 100 Years Ahead...

I was listening to Wayne Dyer's excellent course Choosing Your Own Greatness tonight and he repeated the following Chinese proverb. I felt it pretty apropos in terms of what's going on here at LearnOutLoud.

If you are thinking one year ahead, sow seed. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate people.

Take a minute today (or tomorrow if you've already gone to bed) and think about how you can help to educate someone in your life. Maybe it's reading to one of your children or telling someone you know about some you've recently learned. If you're stuck, why don't you share the love and tell someone else about LearnOutLoud.com. That'll count. :)

Here's to thinking 100 years ahead!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

October 13, 2005

Richard Feynman

I just put up a Richard Feynman author page. For those of you that don't know of him, Feynman is quite possibly one of the most popular physics teachers ever. He worked on the atom bomb, came up with so many breakthroughs its hard to name them all in one space, and was an all around eccentric and cool guy. His lecture series is expansive, and is possibly the best place for anyone interested in physics to start. I hope this page is useful!

p.s. I also just found out that late in his life Feynman was a major player in the commission that was put together surrounding the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. His views clashed with the official transcript and he managed to get a footnote added to showcase his different opinion on what happened during that horrible incident. What an awesome life this guy had.

Discuss this post in the LearnOutLoud.com Forums!

Posted by LOLSeth | Permalink

October 04, 2005

LearnOutLoud.com E-Newsletter #4

The new E-Newsletter has been posted to the site here. Dead Time Learning, Free Audio Books and a whole lot more! Check it out and if you're not subscribed to our E-Magazine yet please do so by going here.

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

Choices

I'm listening to Wayne Dyer's old Nightingale-Contant program How to Be a No-Limit Person right now (Note: Unfortunately it's out of print so your best hope of finding it is probably eBay. We do have a ton of other Wayne Dyer audio though!). In it, he talks about how we always have choices about how we can perceive the world. He specifically mentions our choice about how we respond when we're faced with a traffic jam.

Many people decide to let the situation control how they feel. They'll start to feel mad or frustrated or bored because of their external situation. Dyer makes the point that letting external conditions impact your internal emotions is very disempowering. Rather than get angry about the way the world is you should instead look for ways to make the best of whatever situation you're given. His recommendation for traffic jams? Audio learning! He tells the audience (it's a live recording) that you can learn French in a couple of years of sitting in traffic jams without ever having to set foot inside a classroom. How right he is...

It all boils down to choices. When you drive to work tomorrow morning you'll have an endless array of choices of things to listen to. Some will educate you, fulfill you or uplift you. Others won't. I'll be the first to admit that I don't always (or sometimes even often...) make the best choices. But I don't think that being perfect is the goal. I tihnk the goal is to continue to strive to make better choices.

That's one of the main reasons we started LearnOutLoud.com. We want to give you better choices for your morning commute and for any other time of the day when you can listen to something or watch something. There is SO much good stuff out there and we're only scratching the surface with our website. Having said that we do hope that we can help you to find some alternatives and that before long, like Wayne Dyer, you'll look forward to sitting in traffic.

OK, this rant is over. But please keep letting us know what we can do to serve you!

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

September 22, 2005

Cross-country aid

Looks like we got a little write-up about our trip to Louisiana published in the Glendale News-Press today. I thought I would pass it along in case anyone is interested. Here's the link:

Cross-country aid - Jet Propulsion Laboratory employee does his bit to help victims of hurricane devastation.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

September 09, 2005

Holy Crap, the Ipod Nano!

I won't lie, I held out on buying an iPod cause I just couldn't justify the expense. I wanted one, we all do: who wouldn't want to have their whole music collection in one place? Anyway, I recieved one as a gift and I don't know what I was doing without it. Its like every toy I ever had as a kid consolidated into the palm of my hand.

What am I getting at? Well, now all those toys will take up the place of a fingertip with this new iPod Nano that just came out. Look at the picture man, this thing is the width of a pencil, no joke. I don't know how insane things will get with ipod sizes, but it's almost becoming like this parody I saw recently. Soon the ipod flea will be real and maybe, just maybe I'll end up with one. Apple isn't selling iPod's anymore, they're selling lifestyles. When they get to a $50 price point, even my Grandma Doris will have one.

Discuss this post in the LearnOutLoud.com Forums!

Posted by LOLSeth | Permalink

September 07, 2005

Shakti Gawain Author Page

I just put up an author profile page for Shakti Gawain. While I was working on her biography I became rather interested in her concepts. She basically says what we want can be made manifest through mental will. In other words, the physical can affect the spiritual and become physical again. Does that make sense? Let me go over it again, there are parts of the body that we can utilize to affect parts of the mind, once the mind is stimulated, our world can be made to change. That's some pretty provocative stuff. If anyone knows more about her work, I'd love to talk further and get some recommendations if possible.

Discuss this post in the LearnOutLoud.com Forums!

Posted by LOLSeth | Permalink

Disaster Relief PSAs

Hey all. I just wanted to let you know that we recorded a brief public service announcement tonight for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If you have a podcast you are welcome to use this PSA. Here's the link:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/podcasts/LOLKatrina.mp3

I've included the transcript for the PSA below. If you are looking for other PSAs, Podshow has assembled a collection of them. Here's that link:

http://www.podshow.com/relief

PSA Transcript

Hey everybody. It's Jon Bischke here from LearnOutLoud.com. If my voice sounds a bit weary it's because I just returned from Louisiana where I spent the last few days helping out with the Red Cross. We were helping out in Lafayette where there are 40,000 evacuees currently residing. It was heartbreaking to see many of the people and realize how much they had lost and how their lives had been impacted by Katrina. At the same time, it was inspiring to see thousands of people coming to the aid of others who had been complete strangers only a few days before. So much is being done but there is so much more to be done. Please do whatever you can even if you don't think it'll make much of a difference. Donate to the Red Cross by going to www.redcross.org. Look for volunteer opportunities in your area on places like Craig's List. And please keep the people of the Gulf Coast in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks and months.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

September 06, 2005

Katrina Update (Live from Louisiana)

Hey all. I just wanted to make a quick post with a link to my account of the last few days spent in Louisiana. This is the text of an e-mail I sent out to family and friends so if some of it doesn't make sense that's probably why. It's incredible what's going on down there and I encourage everyone to help out in any way that they can...

Continue reading "Katrina Update (Live from Louisiana)"

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

September 01, 2005

Helping the Victims of Katrina

It's pretty shocking to see what's going on in New Orleans and other places in the South right now. The hurricane itself was tragic enough but now you have that compounded by looting and violence. It's a very tough situation and we encourage everyone to do what they can to help out. We're going to donate 5% of this month's sales at LearnOutLoud to help the victims of the hurricane. To find out what you can do to help, please visit the following websites:

The American Red Cross
Network for Good
The Salvation Army

I received a forwarded e-mail yesterday from a person who had just landed a gig as a weather person for a station in New Orleans. He wrote:

Tonight though, please take the time to enjoy your beds. Be grateful for all you have. And most importantly make sure to tell the people who you care about most that you love them. Life is fragile and you have to hold every moment closely.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

August 01, 2005

Focusing

Ever heard of focusing? I hadn't either until my Uncle Paul turned me on to it a few months back. It's form of therapy that involves going "within one's self" to pick up on feelings that might not be readily apparent at the surface level. The Focusing Institute's website does a much better job of explaining this than I could.

Focusing is direct access to a bodily knowing.

As in ancient times, philosophy now has a practice derived from it.

With training you can find the entry point to your embodied knowledge. After that, you can become able to stay long enough to interact with it. Then you can do many different things when you reach a profound level.

I tried a focusing session and it was pretty cool although I definitely had the feeling that you would need to do multiple sessions to derive the full benefit. Focusing is a great subject to learn about through audio and video because at it's heart focusing is very much an auditory activity (focusing partners often conduct sessions via the telephone). Seth just put up some of Ann Cornel's focusing titles up on our site. If you're interested in learning more about focusing I would encourage you to check them out.

Introduction to Focusing - A great one to start with if you're new to focusing.

Learning Focusing - A two CD set that goes a little deeper.

The Power of Listening - A videocassette that seems geared a bit more towards those conducting focusing sessions.

The Return of the Soul - Another of Ann's videocassettes. This one looks somewhat autobiographical in nature.

If you're interesting in finding out more about focusing, please visit the website of The Focusing Institute at http://www.focusing.org.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

July 24, 2005

Anthony de Mello

I've been reading (yes, reading not listening...) a bit of Anthony de Mello's "Awareness" this weekend and all I can say is "wow." It's one of the more remarkable books that I've read in a while. Here are a few passages from the portion I've read that stood out for me:

You never trust anyone. You only trust your judgment about that person.

Every new idea, every great idea, when it first began was in a minority of one.

Charity is really self-interest masquerading under the form of altruism.

Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is loss of the known.

Good stuff eh?

If you're interested in finding some audio and video de Mello titles, Seth just put up a bunch on our site. Here's the link:

Anthony de Mello Audio and Video

In addition, Wikipedia has a brief blurb on de Mello here. And if you're interested in reading Awareness, you pick it up here.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

July 17, 2005

Tiger Woods Wins the British Open

He's done it again. Earlier today Tiger Woods won the British Open by 5 shots (it didn't even seem that close) and became only the second player (Jack Nicklaus was the other) to win the career Grand Slam twice. It was his 10th major championship victory and even more evidence that Tiger is world's greatest golfer...if not the greatest golfer of all time.

We have a few Tiger-related audio and video titles up on the site that I wanted to let you know about:

Tiger: The Authorized DVD Collection - I just watched the first disc of this a couple of days ago and it's awesome. If you're a fan of Tiger at all you'll love it. It's available for purchase through Amazon or for rental through Netflix.

How I Play Golf - How I Play Golf is a great book and if the audio version is anything like it then it's a winner. An instructional booklet is included with this title.

In Search of Tiger - This one has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while. I think it might be time to fire it up. It's available on audio CD, cassette and mp3-CD.

With golf season in full swing (no pun intended), be sure to check out all of the golf audio and video learning products at the following URL:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Sports-and-Hobbies/Golf

Oh, and if you weren't watching the Open this morning you probably missed the new Tiger Woods commercial. It's one of the cooler things I've seen lately. Here's the URL so you can check it out:

http://www.nike.com/nikegolf/flash_reg.jhtml?.htm

(Click on "Tiger Woods TV Spot" and then click on "Watch the TV Spot".)

Cool huh?

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

July 13, 2005

Africa

I recently had the good fortune of being able to attend the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia. The concert was held to raise awareness about global poverty and the situation in Africa. Many of you probably watched it on television or the Internet.

I got an encouraging message in my Inbox from one.org yesterday. Here's a bit of it:

In Scotland this past Friday, overcoming the shadow of a tragic day in London, President Bush joined G8 leaders in an unprecedented deal to cancel debts and double aid to Africa.

For African nations fighting poverty and corruption, this means a $25 billion increase in aid and wiping out 100% of their debts. With this funding, Africa can halve deaths from malaria, put millions of children into school, and 10 million people across the world will have access to lifesaving AIDS drugs. Behind each of these numbers is one person, one life that will be changed forever.

For the complete announcement, click here.

It's an amazing and historic step and I want to applaud all of G8 leaders for taking it (especially to Tony Blair for spearheading the effort). There is a lot more to be done in Africa but the tone has been set and let's hope that this generation can be the one to finally put an end to senseless poverty and disease.

To wrap it back to LearnOutLoud I thought I would share a few audio titles that you can listen to that will help you more fully understand a continent that most people will never visit. I'm particularly interested to listen to Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux and Love is the Driest Season by Neely Tucker. Here are some other noteworthy ones:

An Affair with Africa by Alzada Carlisle Kistner
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
A Short History of Africa by Roland Oliver
Land of a Thousand Hills by Rosamond Halsey Carr

For more information on how you can help end global poverty, please go to www.one.org.

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Permalink

June 25, 2005

The Blind Children's Learning Center

I participated in a 5K walk today to raise money for the Blind Children's Learning Center in Santa Ana, California. The BCLC helps to develop the full potential of blind and visually impaired children and youth. It was a great morning and so much fun to see both the center and the children who benefit from it. Especially touching was a set of songs performed by Cody Lee, a very talented boy who attends the center.

Our plan is to work with organizations like the Blind Children's Learning Center to help bring audio learning programs to blind and visually impaired youth. One of the things we're hoping to roll out soon is a program where you can donate used audiobooks and we'll work to get them into hands of youth like the ones who attend the BCLC. Audio learning represents an awesome opportunity for these children to learn more about the world and we're very happy to be able to support that.

For more information on the Blind Children's Learning Center, please click here.

For more photos of today's walk, click here and here.

Posted by jbischke | Comments (0) | Permalink

June 11, 2005

G8 Agrees to Debt Relief for Poor Nations

I'm going to take a step away from our business for a couple of minutes to call your attention to something historic that happened today. Today finance ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations agreed to a deal to cancel at least $40 billion worth of debt owed by the World's poorest nations. For more on this momumental agreement, read the full story here. This debt relief will allow poor countries to improve health and education services and expand infrastructure. This has been the goal of organizations such as One.org, DATA and the Jubilee USA Network.

Why is this important? Well, let me quote from Bono's acceptance speech at the 2005 TED Awards:

Six and a half thousand Africans dying every single day from AIDS, a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can get in any pharmacy. That's not a cause. That's an emergency. Eleven million AIDS orphans in Africa, 20 million by the end of the decade. That's not a cause. That's an emergency. Today, every day, 9,000 more Africans will catch HIV because of stigmatization and lack of education. That's not a cause. That's an emergency. So what we're talking about here is human rights - the right to live like a human. The right to live period. What we're facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

Thousands, if not millions, of lives will be saved because of the decision. But there is much more work to be done in developing countries. With the upcoming G8 summit in Edinburgh there has never been a better time to make your voice heard. To lend your hand, visit the following websites:

http://www.one.org
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org
http://www.data.org
http://www.jubileeusa.org

We're getting there. One step at a time...

Discuss this post in the LOL Forums!

Posted by jbischke | Comments (0) | Permalink

October 03, 2004

First Presidential Debate on Audio

If you missed the first U.S. Presidential Debate, you can now download it at Audible.com. The audio certainly doesn't capture everything (I thought some of the "non-verbal" stuff that was going on the during the debate was pretty interesting) but it does allow you to focus on what the candidates are actually saying. I hope Audible does this for all of the debates. Here's the link to the download (FYI, it says Audible members only but I'm not sure if they are referring only to their paying members or to non-paying members as well):

First Presidential Debate at Audible.com

Posted by jbischke | Comments (0) | Permalink

September 29, 2004

New book from my old boss

Scott Schwefel, my former boss, just published a new book entitled I Think I'll Stand Up: Finding Your Personal Path To Success And Self-confidence and I thought I would give him a quick plug. Scott's a great guy who has been tremendously successful, recently selling his computer training business. I haven't read the book yet (just ordered it) but I figured I would mention it as I'm sure it'll be great.

Posted by jbischke | Comments (0) | Permalink

September 17, 2004

Egoscue Clinic Visit

Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting an Egoscue clinic in Irvine, California. For those of you not familiar with it, the Egoscue Method is a rehabilitation/injury prevention program based on the theory that most physical injury is caused by lack of flexibility, strength and range of motion. Pete Egoscue has written a number of books on the subject including the classic Pain Free.

Continue reading "Egoscue Clinic Visit"

Posted by jbischke | Comments (0) | Permalink