September 7, 2005

NYC Soundwalks

I was in New York City for the first time this summer. And I downloaded a couple audio programs from the publisher Soundwalk. Basically these programs are audio walking tours of various sections of New York City that are timed to your footsteps. The narrators are NYC natives that know the ins and outs of the neighborhoods and tell you where to go.

Right now they have 13 programs for New York City, 1 for Paris, and 1 for India. New York City is perfect for these audio tours because the neighborhoods are so dense and there’s so much history and diversity in a small area.

I did the Chinatown walk and the Lower East Side Manhattan walk. Both were excellent. The Lower East Side of Manhattan is incredibly diverse as they take you into delis, into back alleys that were former speakeasies, and into a Jewish temple that is now a place for artists to jam and put up their art work. There was even an acid jazz band playing when I went in to the temple.

The second walk I took was in Chinatown narrated by a guy who was born and raised there. This tour took us off the tourist trap strip of Chinatown and down some very interesting streets. Some of the doors he requested us to enter were locked probably due to too many people doing these walking tours. This one ends in a peaceful Buddhist temple.

If you’re going to New York I definitely recommend doing a few of these. They’re about 45 minutes long. They have great music that keeps you in step. They’re not for the faint of heart as they take you into some potentially dangerous places but nothing too serious and the narrators use some dirty mouth so they might not be for kids. You can buy them as mp3s through the Soundwalk website or on Audible.com or Amazon. So load up your portable digital audio player or CD player and hit the streets with Soundwalk. It’s better and cheaper and less obtrusive than any NYC tour bus.

September 7, 2005

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:

https://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.

September 6, 2005

Podcast Alley Acquired by Podshow(?)

In one of the more low-key acquisitions I’ve seen it appears that Podcast Alley has been acquired by Podshow, Adam Curry’s high-profile podcasting start-up. In the podcasting space this is a pretty big deal since “The Alley” has been a mainstay for podcasters and listeners since almost the very beginning.

I haven’t seen anything official-looking from either company yet so it’s possible that this is still in rumor stage but based on the links below it appears that it’s a done deal:

Podshow Buys Podcast Alley – Thoughts
PodShow’s first acquisition: Podcast Alley

What will this mean for podcasting? Who knows? I’ve always been a big fan of Podcast Alley but also have felt that there were a lot of improvements that could be made. Perhaps now they will be. Kudos to Chris McIntyre for all he has done to build Podcast Alley into what it is today. I’ll continue to wear my Podcast Alley T-shirt with pride!

September 6, 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…

September 1, 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.

I can’t add much to that…

August 31, 2005

Cancel the Noise

I don’t get annoyed easily but here’s something that does it for me. I’m walking down the street listening to an audiobook and I’m just getting to a really good part and WHOOOOSH, a big old bus rolls by and drowns 10 all-important seconds’ worth of sound. Since I live in LA this actually tends to happen quite a bit. I’m pretty wedded to my iPod headphones but I’ve been thinking about buying a pair of those nice noise-cancelling headphones that they sell. I came across a good article from the Detroit Free Press that discusses the available options. Here’s the link:

Some headphones that dampen noise can create sticky situations

The Shure E4c headphones sound great for my situation (not sure I’m ready to walk down the street the Bose headphones on!). Guess I’ve got something to add to the holiday wish list…

August 25, 2005

LearnOutLoud.com Launches Internet’s First Directory of Educational and Self-Development Podcasts

We’ve officially launched our new podcast directory. Here’s the press release that went out today…

LearnOutLoud.com Launches Internet’s First Directory of Educational and Self-Development Podcasts

LOS ANGELES, August 25th — LearnOutLoud.com, an online resource for audio and video learning material, announces the launch of the Internet’s first directory of educational and self-development podcasts (https://www.learnoutloud.com/podcasts). This directory contains hundreds of podcasts for people interested in learning about business, politics, science, technology and dozens of other subjects. Unlike other podcast directories, LearnOutLoud.com’s directory is not a free-for-all directory. Rather, all podcasts have been hand-picked to ensure quality of content and production.

“Most other podcast directories have several thousand podcasts while we have several hundred,” said LearnOutLoud.com CEO and Founder Jon Bischke. “We feel that’s an important point of differentiation for us. People are busier than ever and we wanted to give them an easy way to find the cream of the crop when it comes to podcasts you can learn from. We feel that we’ve accomplished this with our directory.”

Features of LearnOutLoud.com’s podcast directory include 1-click subscriptions through Apple iTunes, the ability to listen to podcasts via streaming audio, hundreds of user-generated ratings and reviews and the inclusion of RSS feeds that allow users to easily download past episodes of a podcast. “We’ve tried to make the process of finding and listening to podcasts as user-friendly as possible,” commented Bischke. “Whether you’ve been listening to podcasts for months or have yet to listen to your first podcast, we think you’ll find that our directory will meet your needs.”

Some of the popular podcasts featured in LearnOutLoud.com’s directory include The Grape Radio Podcast (learn about wine), The Slacker Astronomy Podcast (learn about astronomy) and The Engadget Podcast (learn about the latest in technology). “We are trying to get the word out that listening to podcasts can be both enjoyable and educational,” said Bischke. “Our directory is chock full of podcasts that will help you learn and keep you entertained at the same time.”

Mr. Bischke will be available for interviews on podcasts and other programs to discuss the directory or anything else related to audio learning. Interested parties are encouraged to contact him at 1-800-550-6070 or by e-mailing press@learnoutloud.com.

About LearnOutLoud.com

LearnOutLoud.com (https://www.learnoutloud.com) is an online portal that provides visitors innovative and interesting learning alternatives. The company’s mission is to increase awareness of audio and video educational and self-development material and suggest ways to fit learning into everyday life (during commutes, while exercising, etc.). LearnOutLoud.com’s catalog offers an extensive collection of non-fiction and classic fiction titles organized into categories such as business, language learning and self-development. Whether someone is looking to reach their potential, gain insight from classic literature or find inspiration for everyday life, LearnOutLoud.com will help to provide an answer to the question “What Do You Want to Learn Today?”

For more information email: press@learnoutloud.com.
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August 24, 2005

A Calmer Commute

My mother clipped an article for from a recent Reader’s Digest entitled “A Calmer Commute.” It’s a short article but really captures the essence of what we’re trying to do with LearnOutLoud. Since I can’t find an online version of the article, here are a couple of passages:

No wonder road rage grips America’s highways. While the average commute is 26 minutes, some 3.4 million of us clock 90 minutes or more each way.

Wow…3.4 million people who spend an hour and a half commuting each way!

The article goes on to mention safer ways to spend your commute than talking on a cell phone. Here’s one of them:

Improve your mind – Listen to the latest James Patterson thriller on CD or choose a business tome, such as T. Harv Eker’s new Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. You could also learning to speak Italian. Berlitz’s Rush Hour Series offers many languages.

Cool. We have Secrets of the Millionaire Mind up on our site here as well as many titles from Berlitz.

Improving your mind is indeed a fantastic way to spend your commute. Look no further than our catalog for almost 7,000 ways to do so. 🙂

August 24, 2005

Podcasting Goes Legit

This is a little late in coming but we wanted to congratulate Adam Curry and Ron Bloom on the venture capital (More than 8 Million Bucks Worth) they raised recently for PodShow. People are really starting to realize the very REAL potential for Podcasting and I’m glad you guys found some adventurous people to help you.

This is how great things happen: on the one year aniversary of his own podcast, the Daily Source Code, Curry remembered how his wife asked him originally how the hell he’d make any money through podcasting. The answer was simple: “I don’t care, all I know is I like doing it”. Its that sort of attitude that rocks the world. Here’s to people that do something for the love of doing it. Most of the time, its the only way to get anything meaningful accomplished.

LearnOutLoud had taken great pains to showcase podcasts and we hope our directory and others like it only add to the landslide in audio content that’s chosen by you and no one else.

For those interested in checking out the details on Curry and Bloom’s deal, check this article out:

Podcast start-up creates music network

August 15, 2005

NPR to Start Podcasting

Good news in the audio learning world. It appears that NPR is going to start podcasting many (all?) of its shows. It turns out that their agreement with Audible.com has expired and they’ve chosen not to renew it. So time will tell if NPR decides to make all of their shows available via podcasting and whether there will be a charge to subscribe. Currently they have a few shows available via podcast that you can find here and will be able to find soon in our podcast directory (still in beta).

Here are a couple of links for more info on this development:

http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/NPR_defining_new_Podcast_strategy
http://www.droxy.com/2005/08/15/npr-to-start-podcasting/