Why Use Audio? George and Mary-Lynn from Bigg Success Explain

Mary-Lynn Foster and George Krueger gave solid reasons. It was amazing to listen all their views.

@legbamel, you are smart to think about the time commitment involved. It does take time to produce a good sounding podcast. Maybe you could start with once a week, or once a month. Just think about what you might be able to do on a regular basis and make it a feature!

@timethief, you bring up some interesting points. We do remove unnecessary "umming and ahhing". We know our audience is busy, so we get right to the point and keep it short. We use professional(radio)broadcasting equipment which does make a difference in the sound.

It sounds like you prefer to read rather than listen. That's why every show is also fully summarized in a blog post. However, other people prefer to listen rather than read. Adding the audio component allows us to serve both markets.

Thanks to you both for adding to our guest post.

- George & Mary-Lynn

I do not currently use podcasts on my blog and I do not apprehend any benefit to my readers by creating and posting them at this time. I do have a clear and resonate speaking voice, and theatrical training so I may choose to create an occasional podcast in the distant future, but I don't foresee that happening any time soon.

My experience as a listener
I rarely listen to podcasts on blogs because most of the ones I tried to listen to made me grind my teeth. The accents and the umming and ahhing, as well as, the poor sound quality, likely due to not speaking directly into the microphone, drove me crazy.

Just as not everyone can be a good broadcaster on radio or in visual media, not every blogger podcaster will have the elocution and voice projection skills required to hold listener attention, even if they do have something meaningful to share. Worse still is when an organized approach to delivering a clearly defined message is lacking and combined with foregoing. Based on my early experience as a listener I believe a minority of bloggers may be good podcasters but most will not be.

I can't think of a single benefit that podcasting provides to sighted people, but I do recognize that podcasting may benefit hold some benefit for those who are visually challenged.

The disadvantage I immediately experienced as a listener to a podcast was that I had to type notes while I listened. We can skim read a published post, bookmark it for future reading, and readily access it, in whole or part, at a later time to locate for example a relevant "quote". Well, podcasting does not facilitate doing this with ease.

Suggestion
That being said, I'd like BC Admin to consider providing every BC member the option of posting a single video and a single podcast on their BC Profile page.

I don't know how people do music blogs without audio. I don't record myself reading posts, but I do always include audio with my posts. Telling someone how great a song is has far less impact than letting them listen themselves.

I don't listen to podcasts, but I have considered creating them. I know how much better you can get your point across verbally, rather than losing sarcasm or more subtle emphasis. I'm just hesitant because I rarely have a time when I can record them without interruption. (And I'm shy.) :D