Ipod Audio Books

By Author: Steve Childens
Total Articles: 1124
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The growing popularity of the iPod has led to a number of innovations in several fields. It has truly become the most portable symbol of the mass media and how information can be disseminated through it. When the concept of the audio book was introduced it was challenged on the grounds that it was not mobile enough. But with the popularity of iPod, and with the fact that every other person now owns one, it has become possible to use it as a medium through which audio books can be played and made mobile.

With the growth of the iPod sales from 8.53 million  in the first quarter of the year 2006 to a whooping 10 million in the year 2007, there is no doubt about the wide reach that this small and simple device has among the people. Interestingly, this can be related to the topic we are now discussing - the popularity of audio books. The year 2005 saw a whooping fifty percent rise in the number of audio books sold than the previous year. There is indeed no doubt that this has happened because of more and more people finding out how their audio books can easily be carried around on their iPod, dispelling their concerns ...
... about being able to access them only from the comforts of their homes where they have a computer.

Apart form the iPod, mp3 players and other portable players that play audio files, the digital music system in the cars is another medium which has made the use of audio books extremely popular. It is a known fact that a large number of people spend a lot of time on travel each day commuting to and from their workplace. This has increased the time that they spend ‘on the go', which means that a large number of people spend a lot of time in their cars. Therefore, the music system of the car becomes an ideal way to popularize audio books. Stuck in the traffic jam, there is nothing as relaxing as listening to your favorite author being read out to you as an audio book on your iPod. This helps a great deal in dispelling the gloom that one faces because of the number of hours one spends caught up in the middle of traffic on all sides.

One advantage that audio books have over their predecessors in hard copy, is that one can most easily multi task while listening to a favorite book being read out to them. They can be cooking or cleaning while the audio book is playing on your iPod. This is particularly useful for those who have very little time to spare to sit and read a book cover to cover. The beauty about this whole concept is that not only fiction and classic can be heard in the audio format, but also learning books, business books and even lectures can be heard as audio files.