Podcasting Hacks

Create a Soundseeing Tour

Bring listeners with you on a tour through your world with vivid verbal imagery.

Soundseeing podcasts are walking tours around neighborhoods, events, or special places. What makes them unique is the medium. If the tour were video, we could simply sit back and watch the pictures of the scenery in a very passive manner. By using audio, our podcasting tour guide creates a “theatre of the mind” [Hack #32] by painting images with words that we must then interpret in our own minds.

Examples of soundseeing tours are available at http://soundseeingtours.com/. This is a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed you can use in your podcatcher.

This use of imagery means your listeners become much more active participants. And the podcaster is free to guide the listeners’ attention as to what they think is the essence of the scene. That’s not to say that the background audio isn’t important. You couldn’t do a fun soundseeing tour from a studio. The chants of the crowd at a game, the clink of glass in a café, or the creaking of floorboards in an old house all add detail to the vision painted by the podcaster’s words.

A successful soundseeing tour comprises three critical pieces. The first, somewhat obvious one is that you should tour someplace interesting. Your house could be an interesting tour if you are famous. But those of us not burdened with fame might choose a walk around a historic town, a carnival, an event, or a tourist destination.

The second critical element is ...