Musings

I just love iTunes not because the online music store is really huge with different types of genre to suit any musical taste. I love it because I can buy the latest TV episodes of Bones, Closer and CSI. Now I’m even considering getting a high res display so that I can buy the HD versions of serials.

But the hidden value of iTunes for me is the iTunes U. I have learnt about Facebook and what it intends to do listening Mark Zukerberg at a Stanford University talk. Or hear Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman predicting the global crisis of today two years ago? Then there was the interesting talk on credit crunch by well respected economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Thomas Friedman’s books are great reading, he’s a good writer. But the thought of having to plough through Hot, Flat and Crowded, his latest book on climate change, was too daunting. But I learnt about the arguments he presented in the book, through his talk at Oxford University.

Few  Singaporeans would have heard Singapore diplomat Kishore Mahubani speak at Columbia University to promote his new book The Asian Hemisphere. But I heard him, courtesy of iTunes U. There’s even a video clip of his talk on iTunes. Even NUS has put up a couple of podcasts. One featuring the current Indian Commerce Minister (sorry, I can’t remember his name) talk about his book on the growth of India.

I also heard Steve Wozniak, the other Steve who founded Apple, talk about his early days in computing at Oxford University; Prof Henry Jenkins, renown media academic talk about New Media literacy as part of a MIT course on media; Steve Jobs at Wharton University.

My list of podcasts are long. I listen to them when I’m driving. Some are about 60 minutes, others less. But I enjoy all of them. They really supplement my reading on current issues and trends.

That’s a reason why I guard my iTunes account carefully. Hopefully Apple wouldn’t wake up one day and decide to yank my account. I won’ cry over the loss of the online store and even TV episodes – I can buy them in the real world – but the podcasts would be hard to get. It would be really tedious to visit various university websites and hunt these podcasts down.

The podcasts from universities like Stanford, LSE, MIT and others give you opportunities to listen to professors, company founders, economists and others you read about only in magazines but never listen to in real life. People like Marissa Mayer of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Paul Krugman, economics nobel laureate and Thomas Friedman, NYT columnist. 

Yup, these podcasts are sure interesting.

• podcasts are useful
• An iPod shuffle that talks?
• History in the making
• Listening to a book
• I received my iPad!