Israel Hyman

I know my last post was a little vague. Here’s my dilemma, expressed with more specificity:

I have roughly 8,500 people who watch my Izzy Video episodes, and I want to be able to have a conversation with them. The problem is that podcasting is very one-sided. Mostly, it’s just me talking, via my videos and blog postings. For a viewer to talk back, they could leave a comment on a post, or send an email, or comment on MySpace, but I don’t like these options for a couple reasons: 1) They are far too singular; i.e. one email at a time, or one comment at a time is not the way to get to know an audience of 8,500 people; and 2) Text on a page lacks a face and voice; I need more than text on a page to begin building relationships. I need more of the human characterstics: face, voice, personality.

Shouldn’t there be a solution to this problem?

I’ve been brainstorming this, and here are some options I’ve pondered:

1. Have a conference where audience members from all over the world attend, and we have a chance to meet in person. This isn’t a realistic option for a number of reasons. Few people from the audience would attend because of the inherent costs, timing, various levels of interest, etc. Although I’d have a chance to meet people in person, and they could meet each other, we could do this maybe once per year, for a high cost, and once per year is not often enough to create relationships.
2. Get some gigantic conference calls started. I don’t even know if this is possible. Scheduled events like this have their strengths, but one major weakness is that they lack the natural organic qualities of a conversation which continues beyond the time restraints of a scheduled meeting. I want a solution where I can continue a conversation throughout a day, where everyone speaks with each other, and it would be perfect if we didn’t have to be in front of our computers to have it.
3. We could meet virtually, such as in Second Life. This is a great idea, if the entire audience were early-adopting geeks like myself, and if everyone had systems that could support it. I like the real time chat aspect of Second Life, and I like how it feels as if you’re meeting in a place, but I don’t think it’s the best way for my audience to communicate with me and with each other. However, one of the huge advantages is that through communicating via Second Life, you begin to feel like you’re getting to the know the person. My personal example is that I met Eric Rice in Second Life, many times, and we had in-depth conversations in the virtual world. Although I read his blog, and watched his videos, the conversation happened in Second Life. Much later, I met him at the Podcast Expo, and we spoke in person for a short time, but I definitely didn’t feel I was meeting him for the first time. I already knew him.
4. I could create an online forum. This is probably a good idea to get everyone talking to each other, but some of the problems are still there: 1) Just text on a page, so not the whole personality and 2) Only accessible in front of a computer.
5. Maybe we could use some new-fangled mobile technology that is similar to forums, but not bound to computers. Group text-messaging, group conference calls. Recorded voices responding to each other, all done via mobile phones. Phone conversations are a great way to communicate, and they could be in real time, recorded, and posted to websites like forums, so the information inside them becomes persistent. Hmm, now that would be interesting! But I don’t think it’s really invented yet.

So my question is this? Is this possible? Is there a better way?

Can I have a meaningful conversation with 8,500 people and really get to know everyone?

Probably not, but how close can I get to that?