Month: April 2018

Today is honorable mention day. That means I am not talking about “books” but instead Audiobooks and Podcasts.

Audiobooks:
The wonders of Audiobooks first became apparent when a long car ride to Flordia (from PA) was made significantly better by the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone audiobook. The way a narrator can carry you through the story using only the voices he produces is simply mesmerizing. There is depth in the spoken word, and you can infer so much about a character from the inflection an author gives to their lines.

Hagrid is a massive half-giant with a huge scraggly beard and a deep voice. Every time the narrator spoke as Hagrid the resonant sound of his voice brought back my mental image of Hagrid as a character. For many people movies that are based on a book stink because the disrupt or shatter whatever the reader’s mental image of a character looked like. Audiobooks strike a balance between providing more information about what a character sounds like and how he/she acts without removing the audience from the creative process. How I saw Hagrid was influenced by what I thought Hagrid would look like. It was as if I was a creative consultant on the character design of every person in a book. Thus I feel that audiobooks serve a niche in my life. If I am going on a long (insert prolonged mindnumbing experience here) then and audiobook will be superior to even music.

Music is great for listing in a car, but on a 4-hour car trip, I want to have experienced a story by the end. Having an audiobook can help me do that.

Podcasts:
Podcasts are a crazy element of the digital revolution, and they come in all shapes forms, sizes, and varieties. Podcasts can be hour long unscripted videos, a bunch of people talking into a microphone for half and hour, or a highly scripted 60 min news broadcast.

Some of my personal favorites include Serial, Dan Carlton’s Hardcore History, and anything from the NPR 1 app.

Serial follows the investigation of a real-life crime as the reporters try to wrap their head around the situation and attempt to figure it out with you. The reporter will often take a break and discuss what is going on in her head as you try to formulate your own opinion on what may have happened. More often than not the case is ambiguous and doesn’t have a truly correct answer allowing the intrigue to build even further. If you like Mysteries at all, I highly recommend you check this out.

Dan Carlton’s Hardcore History, on the other hand, is not for the faint of heart. Each episode is highly produced and can be up to three hours in length. I am sure many people would find it mind-numbingly boring, but I like history. It’s right up my alley.

But best of all:
1. They are almost all free!
2. They are all sponsored by Squarespace!

That was a podcast joke I am sorry if you didn’t get it.

If I were truly honest on this blog about what source I read most, I would have to mention Reddit. Reddit is a magical place chock full of rainbows sunshine and quite a few memes. In this post, I am going to try and describe what makes this website special and why I believe that you should use it as a new social media if you haven’t already.

So, what is Reddit even?
Reddit “is an entertainment, social networking, and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links.” (source).

It’s also one of the most influential and visited sites on the internet today. Reddit received 14 billion unique visitors in March 2018. Reddit’s dedicated userbase alone is over 3.36 million. This is people who actively login and contribute. Over 333 million have accounts (sources).

Visual Appeal
At first, when you see photos of Reddit, you may be turned off by the website’s appearance. It does not have a flashy or modern interface, in fact, it deliberately seems to try and appear as an old 90s webpage. Why is this good? Well for starters, if you decide you can’t use Reddit because the interface turns you off from the website that’s a good thing, it’s a barrier to entry.

When a website is open to anyone and anything, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Instagram the quality of the average content posted drops. By keeping Reddit looking deliberately old-fashioned looking. (Reddit appears visually closer to Angel then it ever will to Canvas.) People that would otherwise value the site for reasons other than the services it provides are fewer and farther between. Honestly, the visual interface is simple enough to get the hang off, so don’t be turned off by it. There is so much more to be gained from Reddit.

Content
Why is Reddit different from other social media? People are identified for the content they bring to the table not for who they are. Except for AMAs and a few minor Reddit celebrities, people don’t know who anyone else on the website is. This means two things.

1. Just because you are hot, famous, or a large business you cannot acquire significant amounts of followers. In fact “following someone” almost never happens on the site. Reddit is a content aggregator. Think of it as the front page of the internet. You visit Reddit to see all the cool things updated in real time that are going on around the world. Will you ever see restroom selfies and people updating their relationship status? Nope. It’s not even possible. Don’t use Reddit to connect with family and friends. Reddit is to engage with the internet and the world.

2. Reddit is content based. The currency system of Reddit isn’t “likes,” “follows,” or “subscribes.” Reddit conducts business in upvotes. On Reddit, people post links, text, photos, or videos. These are then voted on people as to which ones should be seen by more people. The faster a post garners upvotes the quicker it moves to the front page. This means that on the front page you can have a post half a day old with 50,000 upvotes right next to a new post with 5,000. The new post is probably breaking news of some sort and so it rapidly shoots up the system to display both the most important and timely news all in one place. The longer a post stays on Reddit the more upvotes it needs to sustain to remain on the front page.

Personalization
The final reason Reddit is great is has to do with personalization. On Reddit content isn’t all posted to one massive jumbo pot and then upvoted from there. Everything is divided into subreddits. All of which each represents their own unique, thriving communities about specific things. Fly fishing? Check. Birds with Arms? Check. International Politics? Check. Music? Check. Hitler wearing sock? Check.

As a user, you don’t subscribe to individual people. You subscribe to different subreddits. This allows you to customize what kinds of news you receive. If you only like science news, then only subscribe to the subreddits that promote science news. It’s a phenomenal system that is infinitely customizable. By using Reddit, you are building yourself a custom news filter just for you!

In this post, I didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what makes Reddit great. If you want to learn more, just use the website, and watch this video by CGP Grey.