Sep 8, 2020
Jeff and Charlie talk about a new Edison Research report on podcast listening time. Jeff brings up a post Charlie had been working on to find a replacement word for “intimate” to describe how a message received via a podcast is different than reading it in print. Charlie says that although he has been using intimate for quite a while, it’s not really the right word: “My point has always been that the listening experience is a truly genuine and clear way to communicate passion in a way that the written word cannot. ‘Intimate’ normally denotes revealing some aspect of personal details.” Charlie talks about coming across this Mark Twain quote about the spoken word vs. print: “the color, play of feature, the varying modulations of a voice, the laughs, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness, and charm, and commend it to our affection ... is gone” when it appears in print. Twain called it “the soul of the speaker.”