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Take a look at that chunk of plastic and metal sitting in your
purse or pocket or, at this very moment, connected to your ears
by that now-familiar cord.
iPod. Zune. Rio. Zen. Whatever your brand, it's hardly fair to
call it a "digital music player" anymore.
Sure, they play music. But they also might contain recorded lectures
from college professors, archival recordings of radio dramas your
grandparents listened to when they were kids, entire movies and
a season's worth of TV shows, classic Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny
cartoons, made-for-podcast versions of public radio programs, audio
tour books of vacation hot spots, even a sales pitch from a company
you might want to do business with.
Considering the growing universe of digital content made for them
and the unexpected ways in which people use them, it's time to find
a new name for these much-beloved gizmos that have become as vital
to the properly wired consumer as cell phones and laptops.
It's amazing to think that the original iPod -- the Apple market-leader
whose name has become synonymous with MP3 players -- was unveiled
in October 2001. In his book, "The Perfect Thing: How the iPod
Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness," author and technology
columnist Steven Levy writes about how, at its unveiling, the first-generation
iPod was greeted by what now seems to be stunning nonchalance.
That original iPod held a whole thousand songs, adds Levy, a senior
editor and chief technology correspondent at Newsweek. But as the
devices became more popular, the universe of content designed to
piggyback onto them grew to include just about anything that can
be converted into ones and zeroes.
The latest twist, unveiled last week, is that Apple's iTunes store
-- the iPod's online mother ship -- now offers movies for rent that
can be played on computer, a home television set and, yes, the iPod
itself.
Yet, most first-time iPod users -- and, for that matter, first-time
users of digital music players in general -- probably don't immediately
think of their new toys as anything but pocket-sized jukeboxes.
"I think people buy the iPod for the music and discover the
other stuff afterwards," Levy says.
"The amazing thing about the iPod to me," he adds, is
how "it's found itself in the center of all of these big trends
happening in the digital world."
When Gregg Lavin took a trip to Southern Italy several years ago,
he took a guided tour using one of those listening wands museums
and historical attractions offer to visitors.
"I really didn't want to hold it up to my ear. It was kind
of old and grimy, and you could barely hear out of it," he
recalls.
Like many tourists, Lavin had packed his iPod, and it occurred
to him how handy it would be if he could just have downloaded an
audio guided tour, synced it to the iPod he was carrying anyway
and used it to take a self-guided tour.
Today, Lavin's company, Tourcaster (www.tourcaster. com), offers
MP3 tours of cities, towns and attractions around the world. Each
comes with a customized map keyed to audio tracks on the digital
music player. And, because it can be stopped and started at will,
a traveler can stop at attractions he likes, skip those he doesn't,
and even stop in midtour and resume the next day.
"We've been doing it a couple of years now, and every month
for the past year-and-a-half, our sales have increased," says
Lavin.
Tourcaster now offers "a couple hundred tours spanning the
globe," he says. Among them are themed tours that include an
excursion of Los Angeles' rock 'n' roll highlights, tours of Europe
keyed to specific composers, and even a tour of New Orleans that
focuses on the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina (Lavin says
part of that tour's proceeds go to area community organizations).
Closer to home, Scott Whitney discovered
how a digital music player can serve as more than a way to block
out aural distractions during the workday. His company, PodWorx
Inc. (www.podworx.com), produces podcasts for corporate clients.
Then, Whitney explains, "those companies
distribute those podcasts either internally, to their own employees
or salespeople or partners, or they put them out externally to customers,
prospective investors, the press or analysts."
Whatever the audience, a podcast, more than
an e-mail, memo or printed packet, "gives people a real sense
of who you are as a company, and you do that by talking to them,"
Whitney says. "It's such an emotional hook if it's done right."
Like the rest of digital humanity, Jack Spargo, a retired airline
pilot and member of the Sun City Summerlin Computer Club, stores
music on his MP3 player. But he also uses the Zen to chronicle his
travels.
"I use the photo capability and music capability of the Zen
to put together slide shows and video slide shows," says Spargo.
The productions -- which result in a pocket-sized photo album --
can be viewed right on the device or burned onto a disc.
Las Vegas attorney Michael Stein uses his iPod Nano as a sort of
TiVo for the radio, downloading, and then listening to at his leisure,
podcast versions of National Public Radio and Nevada Public Radio
programs.
Stein prefers to catch the programs when they're actually aired,
but says listening to the podcast version is the next best thing.
Doing so, he says, brings to mind "visions of the family around
the radio, listening to Orson Welles' 'doom is on us' and people
actually believing it."
It's a more apt analogy than Stein may realize: An irony of the
digital music player is that, through podcasting, it has given new
life to vintage radio shows, from dramas such as "The Shadow,"
"The Green Hornet" and "Flash Gordon" to variety
hours featuring Jack Benny, Martin and Lewis and Red Skelton.
For modern-day listeners, NPR podcasts are a convenient way to
keep up with programs on their own schedules. For public radio stations,
they're a way to reach listeners who might otherwise remain unengaged
with public radio.
Flo Rogers, Nevada Public Radio's president and general manager,
says NPR estimates that it sees about 12 million downloads each
month. Locally, Nevada Public Radio (www.knpr.org) sees about 37,000
downloads each month from its own Web site.
In fact, this combo of digital music players and podcasts has created
the same sort of radio listener/radio station dynamic VCRs did with
TV stations during the '80s.
"I think when you look across all media -- and this is not
an original thought -- the idea that we would, as few as 10 years
ago, say, 'Oh, it's Thursday at 8 o'clock, I want to be in front
of the TV watching 'Friends,' that seems primitive, doesn't it?"
Rogers asks.
And those college students you see walking around campus with their
ears plugged into iPods? Maybe they're just studying.
Kathleen Krach, an assistant professor in the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas' College of Education, last year began experimenting with
delivering lectures to students via podcast to augment what she
calls "brick-and-mortar" lectures.
Last spring, she put one lecture on a podcast, and "students
went crazy for it," Krach says. Last summer, she taught a distance
learning class entirely via podcast.
Krach estimates that 20 percent of those summer session students
downloaded the podcast lectures to iPods or other portable devices.
"I had some students tell me they went on a trip and listened
to it in the car," she says. "I've also gotten feedback
from students saying, 'I listened to your lecture all day on Saturday
in my house with my family.' So, there are students who are getting
the information, and the kids and the family pet are getting my
lectures as well."
And if the family wants to explore literature, UNLV's English department
maintains an extensive menu of podcasts of readings and lectures
presented by visiting lecturers and its own faculty.
"We've had 300 to 400 downloads of each one, which I think
is pretty good," says Douglas Unger, an author, UNLV English
professor and co-founder of UNLV's creative writing program.
Unger can foresee a time when UNLV instructors' lectures are routinely
recorded for archiving via podcast. In the meantime, he says, it's
exciting that members of the community, as well as students, have
access to "such a rich series of entertainment, and much of
it is very educational."
Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or
(702) 383-0280.
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