Quoted by Mid-Day: Wagging Tongues Is A Good Thing
Sowmya Rajaram ran a story in Mid-Day (dated 8 May 2010) on the phenomenon of Vogging or Voice Blogging, quoting Janaki Ghatpande and me. The story is titled ‘Wagging Tongues Is A Good Thing’
I think it’s an interesting concept and not a surprising one. After text and pictures and video and in the age of micro-blogging, easy audio has to be the next step. I don’t think this is going to replace ‘traditional’ blogging just yet (and how old I feel calling such a recent phenomenon as blogging, ‘traditional’). Vocal expression is different from verbal and visual expressions. Its requirements are different, its appeal is different and hence it should interest a different set of users. Obviously there will be overlaps but I think the audience should be considered different, at least for their usage behaviour if not for their actual numbers.
I’m thinking of this the way I think of radio, television and entertainment/news on the internet. Even if the same person uses all three media, he/she uses them differently, during different times of the day, in different situations and enjoys them all differently. Television didn’t really kill the radio as the song goes and I don’t think the internet has killed TV as the doomsday pundits predicted a decade ago.
I don’t know yet how I’d take to vogging but a short five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d take to micro-blogging. Twitter hasn’t cut into my blogging activities, but rather supplemented it. Then again, they’re both verbal media. Vogging being audio, I can’t yet tell. Personally I’m more comfortable behind the written word than the spoken word, even for an on-the-go tool like Twitter. Then again, it could be a handy tool for live coverage, a sort of voice recording for notes on the go.
I’d like to wait and see how convenient the infrastructural end of this pans out as well. It’s really easy for me to login to Twitter and Facebook from my basic (non-scary) phone and it’s fairly affordable too. In addition, services like Twitpic and Flickr allow for image blogging on-the-go really easily too. If voice blogging turns out to be that easy, well, you just might be hearing from me and hearing me pretty soon!
Note: For those who know me personally, yes, the second name is wrong and no, I did not marry an Anand!!
