Overcast

Late yesterday the team behind This American Life and Serial released the S-town podcast, which I’ve been excited to listen to for months. They’ve released every episode at the same time (Netflix style) to encourage binge-listening, so today I downloaded all seven episodes and began listening using my podcast app Overcast. While listening to the first episode I had a look at the S-town website and Facebook page, where they had posted a bunch of media related to the podcast. There were photos of the people involved in the story, links to reviews and analysis of the podcast, etc., which provided a nice multi-platform experience while I was listening to the audio.

Serial was really exemplary at posting supporting materials and digital media online to help their listeners become immersed in the story. It’s something I’ll keep in mind for my own creative practice in the future, making sure to really take advantage of the distribution platform provided by social media websites.

Facebook and Instagram

First thing in the morning I was tagged in a post on Facebook announcing that DJ Shadow would be touring Australia soon. I took the link I was tagged in and shared it with some friends in Facebook Messenger to give them a heads up and perhaps organise buying tickets together.

Again, today I didn’t interact with social media websites in terms of creation or publication, but I did passively browse and consume material on Facebook and Instagram.

Book club

My book club was meeting in the evening to discuss this month’s book (Submission by Michel Houellebecq) so I took some time in the afternoon to read reviews and discussion pieces on the controversial novel. I read pieces in The Guardian, The New York Times and The New Yorker, and they gave me some interesting insights into the book and some points to discuss at my book club.