Sightseeing is a term that we're all familiar with. We pack the car full of our relatives and drive out into the country or into town and enjoy the scenery. Sightseeing is the same thing, but there's no video. It's just straight audio.
Given that there's no video, the challenge is on the podcaster to impart the ambience and sights to the listener using strictly audio. Soundseeing is probably best known from the tourism industry where tour agencies provided "walk about" audio tours for places like Stonehenge and museums. Podcasters, of course, have taken the idea to the extreme. As I write this article I am listening to a soundseeing tour of a guy and his niece speeding through the town of Kingston, Ontario in a new Mini.
Since soundseeing is generally done on site or on the road, the equipment required is identical to mobilecasting. The main difference between more traditional mobilecasting and soundseeing is that the podcaster really needs to be able to create visual images with words in soundseeing. The background noise of whatever is occurring definitely assists in this, but the listener has no eyes and therefore the scene has to be described for him or her.
Soundseeing podcasts are generally less polished than studio shows because the background noise and movement is part of the ambience. The genre is popular enough that many directories have a soundseeing category and a Google search for the term turns up a substantial number of hits.
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Great little description of soundseeing! I run soundseeingpodcasts.com and am going to be doing a show that demonstrates how soundseeing work and some important things. I like your site and love the business help you are giving the average dude when it comes to doing this podcasting stuff.
Posted by: dave | June 18, 2006 7:18 PM | Permalink to Comment