I don’t think there is this underlying “need” in North America, thus a traditional lecture refactored into a podcast will only have a very small niche audience.

But teaching-tainment, which can be rated by consumers, and where different teachers have various incentives could be a very compelling model, with the right plumbing taking 2/20 of course.
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http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oG.....184325405/**http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/05/14/ft.korea.megastudy/index.html

“At least part of its success is due Megastudy’s choice of teachers or lecturers who can quickly take on star status.

Instructor Peter Yoon left a career in a conventional classroom to teach for Megastudy. His online lessons have made him so well known that students often approach him for autographs when he makes personal appearances at study sessions.

“Teaching English through the online services has made me more popular… from just a local teacher to kind of a national teacher,” says Yoon.

Teachers such as Yoon take home a cut of the profits from their online lectures. The more students registered, the more teachers earn.”

So why can’t I write xiao shan in Hanzi as part of my reply? It looked good before I sent it.

Mike in Singapore (fighting technology and my thumbs on the keyboard)

1st, I am a three time graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University. I always love seeing stuff from alumni no matter the field. CMU is hell but heaven on earth follows graduation.

Tomorrow I will be on a 2 hr bus ride from our HQ in Tokyo to our R&D Center in 小 山 (xiǎo shān) Aoyama (in Japanese) I will take the time to read the article carefully as well as a few of the links on the bus ride.

I will also listen to a few Chinesepod casts while I view the pdf files of the transcripts cruising along the highway.

With time I think the distinction between the hardware one uses to listen (I-Pod) and a mobile down-loadable (in real time) piece of hardware will cease to exist. Then it becomes a question of how much multi-tasking one can do efficientaly.

For me one task (studying Chinese takes all my bandwidth) so walking around with my nanopod listening to chinesepod has only reinforcement value and not absorbing new lessons.

Equally, I am not sure what is the definition of a mobile device. For sure, Japan is way ahead of the US. I have seen people watching TV on their cell phones on a high speed train, whereas I have no cell phone reception in my house in the US. Auntie Sue always talks about slow/costly downloads in Australia.

At the same time for business I am able to multitask eliminating some air travel by video conferencing three continents at least three times a week. So sometimes in a global world I am 1st world and sometimes 3rd world.

Going back to my CMU days; Did I learn more in class, studying in the library(pre-PC) or hanging out with fellow classmates in one of our rooms ?

I think the answer is all of the above. And that is why the total service offered by Chinesepod is benefitial in our current world. I view chinesepod.com as our campus.

So please reconsider the following; Chinesepod technology brings a global campus together as oppposed Chinhesepod technology permits us to learn when we want, how we want.

Mike in Singapore (almost)