Dr. Dave Goes Global

I’m guessing you’ve heard about downloading music from peer-to-peer sites, lawsuits attempting to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, and Steve Jobs capture of the process by making it legal for those willing to pay 99 cents per song. Jobs again demonstrated his brilliance by doing what no one else had been able to do: licensing the majors and packaging it in a cute hardware form called an iPod.

I bought my first mp3 player 4 or 5 years ago when it was new. What a great device – the Rio. No moving parts and tons of good music for your ears while you jogged or traveled. I even invested in the company – I think I lost money. The early adapters either ripped (copied) the CDs they owned or downloaded from Napster. Millions ignored the illegality issues until the music industry began to sue its customers. Kazaa(lite)++ made it less likely that you would be caught, but the threat was still there.

So Jobs came along and scooped up the entire process and made it one of Apple’s major successes. Now enterprising gearheads have begun to use the platform for the rebirth of internet radio – podcasting. Podcasts are really nothing more that audio (mp3) files, but through the use of aggregator websites, users can automatically gather and download their favorite tunes/shows and listen to their own custom-built radio while on the move. iTunes makes this even easier.

My good friend, psychologist Dr. David Van Nuys, is an early adapter, and has started his own podcast series – Shrink Rap Radio. Once you are there, Click on "Shows" to hear Dr. Dave interviewing other psychologists. He provides the listener with an inside look into the current state of the art (or science) of the psyche. "Its all in your mind" is his tag.

As a physiological psychology research scientist in my former life, I was interviewed recently for his show. We talked about “The Death of Psychology”. You won’t need an iPod (or anything else starting with that incessant little “i”) to be able to listen. Assuming your computer is sound enabled (and most are) just click on the link and see what you think about this new medium, podcasting and Dr. Dave.