A couple weeks ago I had a chance to be convinced once again that life can be really unpredictable. When I began listening podcasts back in late 2005 I couldn't imagine that several years later I'd be interviewed on Skype by a guy from the company ExperiencePoint , which conducts field research to obtain information, which companies simply can't get about their customers.

The interviewer, Andrew, approached me via a private message, after reading my comments on one of the groups I've joined on LinkedIn.com. He asked for 15 mins of my time to ask me some questions about my mobile learning experience, particularly how exactly I use my iPod Touch for leaning on the go. Every small detail was valuable - where do I listen to them, do I do anything else at the same time, do I follow up on information I learn from podcasts I listen to and so forth. Also, I was asked to provide a small photo journal with some photos of me as I'm listening to a podcast to get a better picture of the environment. And so I provided it, with detailed captions for every photo.

It was an exciting experience because Andrew told me that he had a long list of different people he'd found for interviews. A week before he'd interview an astronaut and now it was my turn to share my experience. Well, it wasn't like I felt like Edgar Mitchell but close :-)

A few weeks ago I was watching a retrospective video on AllThingsD.com - Steve Jobs interviewed on stage at D3 with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg and Steve was presenting a new feature at iTunes - a podcast. It was 2005 and there was a very limited number of podcasts available on iTunes and now I realize that as I began to listen podcasts in the fall of 2005 I can be considered as kind of a veteran of the podcast movement, if such a thing exists somewhere :-)) The first couple podcasts I began to listen to and which I listen to today are: TWIS - This Week In Science and later TechNightOwl. I have to tell you that there is no way, given the amount of spare time I have daily, I could get the information my brain was starving for without these two sources!

So folks, dig into iTunes, search for stuff you're passionate about, put it on your iPod, iPhone, or anything you can sync with iTunes and enjoy learning!

Artyom Diogtev,

New Media Manager