February 10, 2006

Fantastic Friend: Dan Millman

Over on Tom Peters’ blog he has a neat feature he calls “Cool Friends.” Basically these are people who Tom has come across who he feels are extraordinary and worth a mention. I like this idea so much that I’ve decided to do it here at LearnOutLoud.com. Even though I’m borrowing the concept I decided that I’d come up with a different name. Besides I don’t think “cool” is enough of a superlative to describe these people!

Our first Fantastic Friend is Dan Millman. Many people know of Dan through his best-selling book Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Originally published in 1980, Way of the Peaceful Warrior has sold of 2.5 million copies and been translated into dozens of languages. It’s the story of a young gymnast who learns about life from a mysterious gas station attendant named Socrates. The subtitle for the book is “A Book That Changes Lives” and I’ve yet to talk to anyone who has read it (or listened to it!) whose life hasn’t changed in some fashion because of it.

In addition to Way of the Peaceful Warrior Dan has a wealth of material worth checking out. We’re hosting a number of his other audio titles here at LearnOutLoud. I’ve listened to most of them and really enjoy Dan’s style of teaching. While many of his principles evolve from Eastern teachings his material is also very pragmatic.

A few titles that I’d encourage each of you to check out are listed below. We have them available for MP3 download and have also made them available as MPEG-4 files. The benefit of MPEG-4 files is that they are bookmarkable which allows you to listen to something else and then come back to same point in the audio book. It’s definitely the way to go when you are listening to longer pieces of content.

Here are a few that I would highly recommend:

The Twelve Gateways to Freedom
Energizing the Body
The Laws of Spirit

Way of the Peaceful Warrior is being released as a major motion picture this summer (starring Nick Nolte and Amy Smart) so you’ll likely be hearing a lot more about him in upcoming months. In the meantime, take an opportunity to make your commute a lot more enjoyable this week by listening to some of his work. In addition, please check out his website at www.danmillman.com for more information, his upcoming event schedule, etc.

Kudos to Dan for being our first Fantastic Friend.

More to come!

January 26, 2006

A Microsoft “iPod” in the works?

Business Week reports that Microsoft just might have its own version of the iPod in the works.

The Bug in Microsoft’s Ear

December 29, 2005

Ten New “Ear’s” Resolutions for 2006

No, I didn’t leave out the “Y”. While everyone else is talking about “New Year’s Resolutions” I figured I’d write an article about New Ear’s Resolutions. It probably sounds like I’m off my rocker but bear with me. A New Ear’s Resolution is a resolution to change the things you listen to in the coming year. To be honest, it might be one of the biggest changes you’ll make.

You see, I’m a big believer in the fact that our lives are often the product of the things that we consume. It might be the stuff we read, what we watch on television or the people we hang out with. Here at LearnOutLoud we’re all about the stuff that you listen to. Our mission is to help introduce you to amazing variety of really interesting and entertaining educational content that’s out there. We hope that by doing so we can encourage you to Learn Out Loud too.

So as part of that I’ve written a series of New Ear’s Resolutions. You might choose to follow them all or just to follow some of them. Either way, I think you’ll find that they’ll benefit you tremendously in the upcoming year. In fact, I guarantee it. Hear me out on this. OK, that was a bad pun but I really believe that if you were to incorporate just a few of these resolutions into your daily life that you won’t believe what an impact it will. Make them all a part of your life and you’ll end 2006 living on a totally different level than you started it on.

Ten New Ear’s Resolutions for 2006

10. Pull the cord on talk radio – OK, every once in a while I too like to listen to talk radio. But what it is about people going on and on about relatively meaningless stuff that attracts so many people? My answer? Lack of choices. People put on talk radio because there isn’t much else on the dial. Here’s my advice to you: Plan a bit ahead. Have something really good queued up on the CD player, iPod, whatever so that you listen to something that you enjoy rather than just settling for whatever is on.

9. Learn a language this year – Learning a foreign language used to be a lot more difficult than it is now. You used to have to go to expensive classes or try to learn from boring books which aren’t all that great at teaching language anyway. All that’s changed. There are a number of great companies like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone who are producing excellent foreign language courses. You can throw these in on your way to work and absorb a ton during your commute. It might not be enough to achieve fluency but you’ll get pretty darn close. Not a bad way to spend your drive time…

8. Listen to a new podcast each week – Set a goal in 2006 to try to listen to one new podcast each week. Maybe you’ll find that only one out of every four light your fire. That’s cool. By the end of the year that means you have 13 new podcasts that you’re subscribed. Given all that’s out there it’s not always easy to find good stuff. Try our Podcast Directory or read our recent article “The Top 10 Podcast Episodes of 2005” for some helpful suggestions.

7. Find a few “broken records” – I talked about this before in a previous blog post. A broken record is an audio book that you just throw on in the background when you’re doing something around the house, exercising, etc. Great examples of broken records are titles like Think and Grow Rich or The Science of Getting Rich (great if you’ve got some financial goals in 2006), titles like Living Health or The Food Revolution (if you are trying to lose weight and/or improve your diet) or general ones like 101 Ways to Transform Your Life or 50 Things I’m Going To Do Today. A couple of broken records you can pick up on the cheap include Acres of Diamonds ($2.98) and The Magic Story ($1.98). My latest broken record is Tuesday With Morrie. Everyone should listen to that at least once a year. Buy a few of these and throw them on often throughout the year.

6. Take a university course – Remember all those great courses you just never had the time to take? It’s not too late! Through offerings from The Teaching Company and the Portable Professor Series you can go back to school without high tuition or pre-exam anxiety. There are some really amazing courses here to dive into from some of the best professors around. It’s a great opportunity to expand your horizons and deepen your understand of the world that we live in. Take some time in 2006 to turn your vehicle into a “University on Wheels.”

5. Super-charge your workouts – When your exercising your body why not exercise your intellect as well? Sure it’s fun to listen to music when you work out but mix in some audio books or podcasts from time to time. It’s a pretty cool feeling to finish a workout and realize that in addition to getting in better shape you learned something as well. You can pick an audio book that has some relevance to the workout that you are doing. For instance, try listening to Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike when you’re cycling.

4. Deepen your religion/spirituality in 2006 – Want to get closer to God this year? You’re not alone. This is becoming a growing trend in today’s society. Think of your iPod (or mp3/CD/cassette player/etc.) as an oasis and an opportunity to re-connect to your source of inspiration. Pick up audio versions of The Bible, The Bhagavad Gita or any of a number of titles on Religion and Spirituality and give yourself a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life to focus on what’s truly important to you.

3. Subscribe to the Zaadz Daily Wisdom – One of my favorite podcasts is one that we’ve produced here at LearnOutLoud, The Zaadz Daily Wisdom. Brian Johnson is your host for the Daily Wisdom and he covers a wide range of philosophers, psychologists, spiritual teachers and others such as Socrates, Thoreau and Einstein. Think of it as a daily motiviational quote on steroids. Perfect to subscribe to and listen to first thing in the morning or on your way into work.

2. Create your own audio learning content – It’s easier than ever to record your own content. Surely you have something that you would like teach the world! Check out Seth’s article “How To Begin Home Recording” to see just how easy it can be. And what do you do with your recording once it’s done? Start with getting it listed right here at LearnOutLoud.com. We have a service in the works called LearnDirect which will allow you to share your audio content with millions of people and get paid to do so! For more information, send an e-mail to learndirect@learnoutloud.com.

1. Share audio learning with a friend – Perhaps by now you’ve become a believer of the impact that audio learning can have. Now it’s time to spread that love! Hook some of your friends and family on audio books and podcasts. We’ve created a number of audio learning junkies of our friends and family this year and we hope that you’ll do the same in 2006. Point them to LearnOutLoud.com. Show them this short, free video tutorial on listening to podcasts. Help them learn to stop worrying and love their commute. It’s one of the best gifts you can give somebody.

At the end of the day it’s not so much about what you’re learning but rather that you’ve chosen to take the time to Learn Out Loud. Many people get frustrated because they don’t have the time to read all the books they want to or learn the things that they know would help them in their lives. Audio learning can help with all of that. It can turn the 2/3/4 hours each day that you spend sitting behind the wheel, exercising, washing the dishes, etc. into a time of personal and professional development. To quote Brian Tracy, one of the biggest proponents of audio learning that I know:

If you did nothing but use that traveling time as learning time, this decision alone could make you one of the best educated people of your generation. Many people have gone from rags to riches simply by listening to audio programs as they drive to and from work.

That’s powerful stuff. 2006 is going to be a big year for you. We hope that you’ll incorporate Learning Out Loud into your daily life in order to make it the best year yet. Happy New Year and Best Wishes from all the staff here at LearnOutLoud.com!

December 20, 2005

Audio Books On the Rise in Malaysia

A quickie blog post tonight. Here’s an article on how audio book use in Malaysia is starting to take off:

Alternative to reading

We were chatting a little bit tonight about how we’ll have to launch Taipei.LearnOutLoud.com as we’re getting a lot of traffic from there. Maybe KualaLumpur.LearnOutLoud.com won’t be far behind!

December 17, 2005

Software opens up new world for blind

It’s reading articles like these that makes it very easy to get out of bed in the morning.

Software opens up new world for blind

“They say that books are the window to the world, but there is hardly a publisher here that produces popular books in both print and audio forms,” Mitra Netra Foundation deputy executive director Irwan Dwi Kustanto, said.

Himself suffering from reduced vision — only 2 percent of his eyesight remains — Irwan remembers the frustrations of having to always ask another person to read to him.

Wow. I’m very excited to help bring more audio content to Irwan, Riqo and other visually impaired people and I’m very excited to make our site more accessible to people who can’t actually view the site. If you know anything about the latter please drop me an e-mail at jon@learnoutloud.com as this is an area where we could use some help.

While I’m on the subject I wanted to give a quick mention to a couple of podcasts being put out by visually impaired people: Blindspot Podcast and Blind Access Journal. I had the privilege of seeing Darrell Shandrow of the Blind Access Journal podcast live as part of TWiT 30 at this year’s Portable Media Expo. It was pretty remarkable.

Which reminds of another remarkable story about a physically impaired person. But I’m going to save that for another time…

December 16, 2005

How to Become an Audio Learning Junkie, Part Two

Well, it’s been almost a month since the first installment of How to Become an Audio Learning Junkie so I had figured I’d better get back on the ball. Last time we talked about some of the cool resources that you could learn from on audio including stuff from publishers like Pimsleur and The Teaching Company. We also discussed the pros and cons of cassettes vs. CDs vs. portable audio. In this installment of How To Become an Audio Learning Junkie we’re going to dive a little deeper into the realm of portable audio. Many people are going to get an iPod or other portable MP3 player during this holiday season and one of the first questions will be how to load it up with content. We’re here to help with that.

There are two main types of content that you’ll want to download to your audio player:

1. Audio Books – The ability to listen to spoken word audio on a portable player will forever change the way you look at books. I love books and I love to read. But I’ve found that being able to listen to books as well as read them really liberates me. I’m able to get through a lot more books now because I have two options to consume them rather than one. For instance, I never thought that I would find the time to read Ayn Rand‘s Atlas Shrugged. Heck, it had taken me almost a year to get through The Fountainhead and that was back in college when I actually had time!

But when I trained for my first marathon a while back I was able to get through Atlas Shrugged in its entirety in just a little over a month without taking any additional time out of my day. That’s the power of audio learning! Needless to say I’ve been hooked on audio books ever since. I’ve also managed to pass on that addiction to many of my friends and family and hopefully thousands of people who’ve visited LearnOutLoud.com since we launched in January.

So where do you go for audio books to load up on your portable player? Well, there are a lot of options depending on whether you’ve got an iPod or not. If you’ve got an iPod you’ll probably find the easiest option is to go the iTunes/Audible.com route. So let me first cover Audible.

Audible.com – Audible is the original player in the portable spoken word market. They actually had a portable media player well before iPod existed. Audible works pretty well if you’ve got an iPod and they also work with a lot of non-iPod devices. You can buy books from them a la carte or you can sign up for one of their membership plans which allow you a certain number of books and/or periodicals each month.

Now if you have an iPod but don’t want to use Audible your options are a bit more limited. Most of the other big audio book services protect their titles with Microsoft’s DRM which unfortunately isn’t compatible with the iPod. So to get your titles onto your iPod you have to burn them to a CD, rip them to an MP3 and then add them to your iPod. Not a lot of fun…

A better solution might be to get a non-iPod MP3 player which gives you a lot more flexibility. I wrote extensively about this and the Creative Zen Micro player in my blog post “The Impending Death of the Apple iPod“. A player like the Zen Micro will allow you to use Audible.com but it also allows you to use a number of other audio book services. What audio book services are those? Here’s a listing:

Jiggerbug – I really like the Jiggerbug service. It allows for unlimited audio book rentals including both downloads and CDs. They aren’t as well known as Audible and the hassle of getting stuff to an iPod is a consideration but I do think they offer the best overall service. I’m strongly considering ditching my iPod soon for a non-iPod device and Jiggerbug is a big reason why I’d do that.

Simply Audiobooks – A entrant in the digital download space, Simply Audiobooks began selling content for download just last week. Similar to Audible and Sounds Good, titles can be purchased a la carte or through a subscription service.

There also are a couple of services that allow free audio book rental through library systems. Overdrive and Net Library offer their services in a large and growing number of libraries. Because they utilize the Microsoft DRM they are not compatible with the Apple iPod (another good reason for buying a non-iPod device). In addition, there are also some smaller retailers that offer audio books for download as well including PayPerListen.com.

Of course no discussion of portable audio would be complete without a little plug for what we’ve got here at LearnOutLoud.com!

LearnOutLoud.com – Our selection of titles for download is currently small but will be growing rapidly. For now check out titles from Gildan Media and Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga or individual titles like The Science of Getting Rich or How You Can Create Advertising That Really Works. Many more are on the way soon!

We’ve also got a very popular free section on the site. Our Free Audio and Video Directory has over 500 titles, many of which can be downloaded to portable players. Some of the highlights include historical speeches from American Rhetoric, sermons from SermonIndex.com and free audio books such as Free Culture and As a Man Thinketh.

OK, enough about audio books (in case you couldn’t tell I could go on forever…). Let’s talk podcasting!

2. Podcasting – Podcasting arrived on the scene with a bang. A year ago almost no one (outside of Adam Curry and Dave Winer) knew what podcasting was. Today it’s on everyone’s lips and even the New Oxford American Dictionary selected “podcast” as its word of the year. Yup, podcasting is hot and it’s a great way to get cool content for your portable player.

Let’s start with the basics of podcasting. For a basic explanation of podcasting you can consult Wikipedia. Better yet, listen to a free recorded version of the Wikipedia entry here. It’s a pretty simple concept but at the same time it can be a little intimidating to subscribe to your first podcast.

There are other ways to listen to podcasts than with iTunes but we do feel that iTunes is probably the easiest way to get started.

Although it might be the easiest way to listen to podcasts it’s not necessarily the easiest way to find new podcasts. The iTunes directory is a little bare and I tend to prefer the Yahoo! directory, the Odeo directory and our very own directory here at LearnOutLoud.com.

LearnOutLoud.com Podcast Directory – I’m partial to our podcast directory for a couple of reasons. First, it tends to contain higher-quality of podcasts because we’ve focused on educational podcasts. There’s a lot of crap out there in the podcasting world and we’ve largely side-stepped it. The reason we’ve been able to do this is that we’ve hand-selected all of the podcasts in our directory and listened to most (if not all) of them before choosing to include them. Also, our directory offers one-click subscriptions to iTunes for most podcasts and the ability to stream podcasts directly.

Well, the fingers are getting a little tired so I think I’ll sign off for now as I’ve give you a lot to chew on, er, listen to. I’ll be back with another installment in a couple of weeks when I talk about how you can best fit audio learning into your everyday life. In the meantime have an absolutely tremendous weekend and don’t forget to spending some quality time this weekend Learning Out Loud!

December 12, 2005

Shownotes for Audio Learning Revolution Episode #013

Audio Learning Revolution Podcast for Dec 11th, 2005

December 12, 2005

Shownotes for Audio Learning Revolution Episode #012

Audio Learning Revolution Podcast for Dec 2nd, 2005

• Intro and Interlude Music – “Walk Away (Bitsream Dream Remix)” by Lovespirals from The Podsafe Music Network

• Introduction
  – Direct Link to the show
  
  – Link to Feeds for Audio Learning Revolution podcasts
  
  – Link to LearnOutLoud.com Podcast Directory
  
  – Comments or Questions about the Podcast directory E-mail

• Religion & Spirituality Podcasts
  – Link to Religion and Spirituality Podcast Category Page.
  
  – Link to The Catholic Insider Podcast
  
  – Link to The Vatican Radio Podcast
  
  – Link to Zencast Podcast
  
  – Link to Rachel’s Choice Podcast
  
  – Link to Consciousness: The Inside Story Podcast

• Interlude Music – “Love Survives” by Lovespirals from The Podsafe Music Network

• Politics Podcasts
  – Link to Politics podcast category page
  
  – Link to Left Right and Center Podcast
  
  – Link to Sen. John Edward’s Podcast
  
  – Link to Governor Schwarzenegger’s Weekly Radio Address Podcast
  
  – Link to the Presidential Weekly Radio Address Podcast
  
  – Link to the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast
  
  – Link to the CNN News Update Podcast
  
  – Link to the Newsweek On Air Podcast
  
  – Link to the CBS News Face the Nation Podcast
  
  – Link to ABC News: The Afternote Podcast
  
  – Link to Slate Magazine Podcasts
  
  – Link to Shelley the Republican Podcast
  
  – Link to Democrats are Lost Podcast
  
  – Link to The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly Podcast
  
  – Link to The All RNC Podcast
  
  – Link to The Democracy Now Podcast
  
  – Link to The Mother Jones Radio Podcast
  
  – Link to The Progressive Radio Show Podcast
  
  – Link to Radio Nation Podcast
  
  – Link to THIS IS HELL Podcast
  
  – Link to The Air America Podcasts

• Interlude Music – “Ecstatic (Radio Edit)” by Lovespirals from The Podsafe Music Network

• Philosophy
  – Link to Philosophy Podcast Category Page.
  
  – Link to DebateGod Podcast
  
  – Link to Awaretek Podcast

• Self Development
  – Link to Self Development Podcast Category Page.
  
  – Link to NPR: Health & Science Podcast
  
  – Link to KCRW’s Second Opinion Podcast
  
  – Link to The Health Report Podcast
  
  – Link to The NBC5 HealthWatch Podcast
  
  – Link to The MommyCast Podcast
  
  – Link to the Gay Parenting Show Podcast
  
  – Link to Dr. Alan Rubin’s HealthCast Podcast
  
  – Link to the Intraspectus Podcast
  
  – Link to the All in the Mind Podcast
  
  – Link to the Sound Medicine Podcast
  
  – Link to Strengthcast
  
  – Link to the Motivation to Move Podcast
  
  – Link to More Hip than Hippy Podcast

• History Podcasts
  – Link to History Podcast Category Page.
  
  – Link to Speeches and Historical Audio Podcast
  
  – Link to History According to Bob Podcast

• Outro – “Our Nights” by Lovespirals from The Podsafe Music Network

  – Link to the LearnOutLoud.com Podcast Directory

December 7, 2005

The Impending Death of the Apple iPod

Yesterday I wrote about the death of CDs (well, sort of…). Today I’m writing about the death of the Apple iPod.

Wait a minute? The death of the iPod? Do I mean the same “iPod” as in the sleek, hot-looking little iPod Nano and the innovative very popular video iPod? Do I mean the same iPod as in the ones that are flying off the shelves this holiday season and that will no doubt boost Apple’s earning and stock price to record levels?

Yup, I most certainly do.

Tonight I got my first introduction to Real Rhapsody, the unlimited pay-as-you-go music service from Real Networks. And while this might be a bit premature given that I’ve been a subscriber for about three hours, I’m completely and unabashedly a huge fan. For $9.99/month I get unlimited access to over 1.3 million songs. For that same price I get unlimited access to…10 songs on iTunes. Hmmm…

OK, now you’re probably saying “Hey, that’s cool and all but I want to take my music with me.” That’s where Rhapsody To Go comes in. With Rhapsody To Go I can now take any of those 1.3 million songs with me whereever I go. One catch…I can’t take them with me if I have an iPod. Apple stubbornly refuses to license its Fairplay DRM and thereby have shut Rhapsody users out of putting their (legally purchased) music on the iPod.

Apple has done the same thing with audio books as well. The only option you have if you want to purchase audio books and put them on an iPod is Audible.com. Legally purchased audio books from Sounds Good, Simply Audiobooks and Jiggerbug won’t work. And that’s a shame because I think those companies (along with NetLibrary and Overdrive) are offering some very cool innovations in the spoken word audio world.

The funny thing is that this is a bit of deja vu for Apple. They built a walled garden around the Mac back in the 80s and we all know how well that turned out for them. I’m certainly not anti-Apple. I love what Steve Jobs has done with the iPod in terms of promoting portable media. I just think we’ve moved passed the days of only allowing content to work with your player or your software. People don’t want that. The era of darknet is over. The era of lightnet is upon us.

So what does all of this mean? First of all, if Apple doesn’t start changing their tune (sorry, bad pun…) soon I think that the relatively more open platforms are going to win out. I don’t know a better tip-off of that than this recent blog post from Chris Anderson, editor over at Wired Magazine. Like him, I’ve come to the conclusion that my next portable device probably won’t be an iPod. It’ll probably be something like the Zen Micro pictured above.

Second, if the open platforms start to gain more ground than the rules change a lot. The iTunes/iPod/Audible dominance in the spoken word audio market changes significantly. Certainly Audible is somewhat insulated because their service works with many non-iPod devices, but they will face increased competition. Hey, that’s what happens when monopolies are dissolved.

I loaded up on all the Bob Dylan songs I could find earlier this evening. I really enjoyed being able to go back through all the old stuff that I would never have bought on iTunes but were now a click away with Rhapsody. The one that seemed most apropos for the occasion? Well, it goes a little something like this.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last

Yup, the times they sure are a-changing… I just hope that Jobs and the gang realize that before it’s too late…again.

December 7, 2005

Audio Learning “Lens” on Squidoo

The Squidoo site went public today and our lens on “Audio Learning” is in the Top 100 (#10 as of this writing). Here’s the link:

http://www.squidoo.com/Audio_Learning/

Squidoo is a hot site (I love how their colors match ours!) and it’s a great idea. Seth Godin and the gang have done it again!

Kudos to Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion for the heads up (although I do disagree a bit with his assessment of Squidoo).