Well, it was bound to happen.
Yesterday, I had an amazing conversation with Mark W. Schaefer from the Grow Blog that covered topics like the power of Klout and the evolution of Marketing, Communications and Blogging in 2010. We even pushed out into the coming year and discussed creativity, analytics and what might be in store for Social Media. The Skype line that we connected on sounded great and I used Audio Hijack Pro to capture the conversation (as I always do). It lasted about 45 minutes and I thought it was the perfect bowtie ribbon on a great year of Podcasting.
But then...
When I went to record the show tonight (intro, outro, music and shownotes), something truly strange happened. The audio on Mark's side was perfect, but my voice came out about two octaves lower and to make matters even stranger, there was a delay on my side of the conversation, so I would hear dead air, Mark then speaking to something I was saying and then my voice coming in after. In all of my years of Podcasting, I am stumped. I don't think it was Skype and I'm baffled as to how Audio Hijack Pro could have messed up the audio recording in this manner.
It really does suck.
I've missed a couple of shows over the years, and I tend to not publish/talk about it, but this really upset me, mostly because I now feel like I wasted Mark's valuable time (especially during the holiday season when we were both taking some well-deserved time off). It also sucks, because the content was great and I really wish you could hear it, but it's just not listenable. I considered just putting it "out there," with a warning that the audio was wonky, but I couldn't even listen to it because it sounded so... weird. I hope Mark understands and can accept this apology. I'm hopeful he and I will record a lot more this year... and for years to come.
Until then...
If you're really starved for an episode of Six Pixels of Separation, please allow me to recommend that you take a listen to SPOS #159 - Digital Marketing All-Star Roundtable. This episode featured a roundtable conversation I conducted on behalf of Marketing Magazine with Seth Godin, Charlene Li, Shelly Palmer and David Weinberger in June of 2009. If you haven't heard it yet, I promise it won't let you down.
Next week, we'll (hopefully) be back with our regularly scheduled programming.
Tags: analytics audio hijack pro audio recording blogging charlene li communications content creativity david weinberger grow blog klout mark w schaefer marketing marketing magazine podcast seth godin shelly palmer skype social media