Twenty-Three Years On
The husbandry of a
blog in its 23rd year might leave one wondering whether there is a
need to radically change its format and workings, or to provide other means of
engagement with an audience whose attention is now grabbed by whatever suits
these changing times.
When reviewing this
issue, I have landed on the premise that textual expression still matters. I
hope my blogs, as I have often suggested, follow the judgement of a good
seamstress making a skirt: it should be long enough to cover the detail, whilst
short enough to keep the interest.
I think I read that
quip in the Reader's Digest, over 40 years ago, and it still matters. In terms
of the format and appearance of my blogs, I have essentially maintained the
same design for as long as I can remember.
A New Development
However, in 2026, I
came upon an interesting development. On my Android phone, using the Google
Chrome browser, there was an option to "Listen to this page". What
you get is not a verbatim readout of the page, but an AI-generated summary,
lasting up to 90 seconds.
For one blog I wrote
at the end of January, I could not get an AI-generated summary; rather, it was
a Read Aloud of the blog, word for word. I was not happy with that, and I could
not find any mechanism to change it from a verbatim readout to an AI-generated
précis.
It then occurred to
me that, months ago, when working with Google NotebookLM, as it was known until
earlier in July, the month we are now closing out, when it became Gemini
Notebook, you could paste the URL of a source into a notebook and then ask for
an Audio Overview.
The Audio Overview
In its default state,
the Audio Overview is a Deep Dive: an AI-generated discussion between two
people, one with a male voice and one with a female voice, on the content of
the source. It offers explanation and exposition of the material to give a
considered and thoughtful review of, in this case, the blog I have posted as a
source.
This follows a
podcast format, and you have options for a short version or one of much longer
duration, with further formats beyond the Deep Dive, namely Brief, Critique, or
Debate. I have plumped for the mid-range Deep Dive, which can run anywhere from
15 to 25 minutes.
To my mind, this is a
judicious use of time: long enough to explore a blog's topics exhaustively, yet
the podcast rarely rambles into the inconsequential or the insignificant. A
five-minute podcast, by contrast, would do little justice to much of what I write
about.
These conversations
come in the M4A audio file format, which I upload to the Internet Archive and
then share via an inline frame tag at the bottom of the text of every blog
written in 2026.
I think this brings a
rich context to the blog beyond just reading the material. Some discussions
extend the reach of the blog to topics not clearly covered, or to issues that
need addressing in clearer detail than a blog can offer.
A Matter of Inclusion
There is another
benefit I had not fully appreciated at the outset. These audio overviews open
the blog to those who might otherwise be shut out of it: readers with visual
impairments, and those who find long passages of text a struggle.
They also serve the
many who simply prefer to listen whilst commuting, walking, or going about
their day. What began as an experiment in enrichment has quietly become a
matter of inclusion, and I am glad the blog can now meet its audience in more
than one way.
Weaving a Train of
Thought
Beyond that, and this
is still work in progress, I have taken links to blogs created in a monthly
circle and asked for Audio Overviews that now weave an interesting train of thought. I have been
surprised to see this, as each blog is usually written individually and separately,
on its own subject, perspective, and merit.
I have put these out
as much longer-form Deep Dive podcasts, published on a quarterly basis. I
suppose the parameters for prompting in these situations require a bit more
grounding and centring on the context of those blogs.
Occasionally, the
Audio Overviews might misconstrue or misunderstand something; and while you can
interact with a podcast, reproducing it, even on the same prompt, creates a
uniquely different podcast.
That said, you have
the option to put in clarifications and corrections until you are happy with
the result. Some outputs are just too good to be discarded, the quality of the
discussion outweighing the minor errors.
AI as a Useful Tool
My hope is that
readers of my blogs can also become listeners to the podcasts, which serve as
independent and usually objective reviewers of the material concerned, the blog
being the core source of the podcast. As the author of these blogs, I have
found the podcasts can untangle some awkward uses and styles of my writing. In
this, I have found AI a most useful tool.
In the end, the same
principle that has long governed my prose now governs my podcasts: long enough
to cover the detail, short enough to keep the interest. The good seamstress, it
seems, has taken up a new craft.
