Although the sound quality is not optimal -- on par, or worse, than an AM radio station -- it was nice to be able to tune in to my favorite NPR shows at my leisure. And, as Katz promised, I felt like I was becoming cultured; after all, I was sitting on the bus listening to the Wall Street Journal and interviews with Spalding Gray rather than idly staring at the graffiti on the seat in front of me. The experience definitely qualified as a "simple pleasure" (though those backwoods stump politicians were absent).

My initial complaint about my two-hour MobilePlayer was that it simply didn't store enough content. I couldn't take it on a road trip unless I was hauling along a laptop in order to refresh the content every two hours. The seven and a half hour version is better equipped for such use, but is still not long enough for a major road excursion. Also, although the interface for the MobilePlayer is simple -- a number of big blue buttons allow you to rewind and fast forward, bookmark segments or scroll through audio "headlines" -- it's also too opaque: A digital display that showed you what you were actually storing on your player would be better.

But more problematic is the utterly convoluted software for downloading your content to your MobilePlayer. There are three different programs involved in the download and upload of fresh audio, and each one seems to have a mind of its own. You may have six or seven pieces of content that you want to cram into your MobilePlayer, and organizing schedules and space and updates for that content is a balletic feat best suited for those who are good at complex math problems. Better instructions might help, too: Although your MobilePlayer can apparently automatically download your daily subscriptions, I failed to make this operation work despite my study of the two instruction manuals.

The main appeal of Audible is, essentially, that you can listen to audio on demand, instead of having to hit the bookstore to pick up an audio book or sit by your radio and wait for your favorite show to come on. But this, unfortunately, is still only a small advantage over the current analog options; and the Audible content management system is too limited and confusing to make it a worthwhile investment for any but the most busy and literary of technophiles.

This is, of course, a problem for most of the new portable content devices on the market; the technology still doesn't offer totally intuitive content transfer from the Web. Unfortunately, the cultured customers Audible is targeting may not have the interest or patience to deal with the technical roadblocks the product puts in their way. Audible also faces a problem in convincing consumers that it's worth shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a new piece of electronic equipment. Who needs yet another device to haul around, when your radio and Walkman can, essentially, serve the same purpose?

(According to Audible's recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, a mere 3,900 customers have downloaded content from the Audible site, and the company had a total revenue of $376,000 last year. Still, Audible has backing from a number of big names -- including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Hambrecht & Quist, Compaq, Intel and a recent $11 million investment from Microsoft.)

In response, Audible is now pushing its subscription content into other people's devices: The company is already converting its New York Times daily readings into MP3 formats for distribution on MP3.com, and will offer a portion of its content in MP3 format for upcoming MP3 players from Diamond and Creative. As an even bigger boon, portable Windows CE devices from companies such as Casio, Compaq, Philips and Hewlett Packard are now shipping with Audible software included. The CE portables will store and play Audible content just as the MobilePlayer does. However, these devices currently hold about eight megabytes of RAM, and each hour of Audible content requires about two megabytes -- so unless you plan on keeping your CE device relatively empty of phone numbers and e-mail, you'll get only a token hour or two of audio playback before your handheld computer runs out of storage space and battery power.

Still, this seems like the direction that makes the most sense for Audible's audio-on-demand business. Perhaps the future will bring us one multipurpose portable device with endless amounts of storage space that can play on-demand MP3 music, radio and Audible audio files, and perhaps even display digital books. (Heck, toss in a cell phone for good measure.)

Right now, though, all these different products still seem to be competing for the attention of a fledgling early-adopter audience. As inspiring as Don Katz's cultural "renaissance" may be, Audible offers more prospective promise than current utility.
salon.com | May 3, 1999

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