Today’s episode was one of those “running to catch up with myself” kind of days. Busy. On the move. Meaning to sit down and record… and then something else pops up. But I don’t mind that rhythm. There’s something alive about feeling like you don’t quite know whether you’re coming or going. So this one turned into a proper ramble. A stream-of-consciousness audio blog. No tight structure. Just what was on my mind.
And what was on my mind? Social audio.
Whatever Happened to Short-Form Social Audio?
I’ve been having a conversation over on BlueSky with my long-time audio friend Sm2n. We go way back to the AudioBoo days. If you were around then, you know the vibe. You’d record a short audio post, someone would reply with their own short audio, and before you knew it you had this threaded, asynchronous voice conversation happening. It felt alive.
Then AudioBoo became AudioBoom and pivoted toward mainstream podcasting. A bunch of us migrated to Anchor 1.0. Swell made a serious go at it. Lemur had a run. Twitter/X even introduced native audio posts for a minute. And yet… none of it really took off.
So I’ve been asking: why?
I tossed around a few theories in the episode.
Maybe we’re just a visual culture. Short-form video exploded. Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts. Influencers rushed in. The algorithm fed it. But audio-only short form? No big-name migration. No hordes followed. Without influencers camping out there, the mass never arrived.
Maybe it’s cognitive. Listening deeply takes a different kind of energy. In conversation, most of us listen to respond, not to understand. Short-form audio required you to actually pay attention. There were no visuals to lean on. Just voice. Just tone. Just presence. That intimacy can be powerful, but it also demands something of you.
And maybe it’s simpler than that. A lot of people don’t like the sound of their own voice. Video gives you props. Background. Visual context. Audio alone? It’s just you.
Still, I miss it. I miss people recording while walking through woods, sitting in cafés, capturing the texture of real life. You’d hear birds. Street noise. Distant chatter. That theatre of mind. Podcasting, especially the polished studio version, filters all that out. Clean mics. Sound-treated rooms. Noise gates. It’s beautiful in its own way, but different.
Long-Form vs. Conversation
Podcasting has clearly won. Everyone has a podcast. The big names have video versions. VODcasts. Multi-cam setups. Studio lighting. Sponsors. Structured intros. Mid-roll ads. Thumbnails engineered for algorithmic appeal.
And I get it. There’s money there. There’s a whole industry around teaching you how to turn your passion into six or seven figures if you just structure it right and game the algorithm.
But here’s my quiet rebellion: I treat this as an audio blog.
No tight runtime. No rigid intro. No ad reads wedged in every ten minutes. Sometimes it’s two minutes. Sometimes it’s two hours. Today it was just me thinking out loud.
With short-form social audio, we could actually have a threaded voice conversation. A synchronistic but not real-time exchange. With long-form podcasts, I talk, you listen while commuting or washing dishes, and maybe you comment somewhere later. It’s not the same.
And yet, here we are. Long-form audio thrives. Short-form social audio fades into niche corners.
If you made it this far in the episode, you probably genuinely like audio. And I’m curious: what is it about audio that keeps you here? The intimacy? The ability to multitask? The feeling of someone in your ear while you move through the world?
The Bigger Platform Game
I also drifted into the broader issue of platforms and algorithms.
Everything starts to feel the same when people are optimizing for reach. YouTube thumbnails start looking identical. Podcasts follow a formula. Blogs turn into listicles. Everyone’s trying to hold attention long enough to satisfy the ad model.
There’s brilliant stuff out there, no doubt. But if it’s not playing the algorithm game, it often disappears. I stumble across abandoned blogs all the time. Great writing. Then silence. Probably discouraged by lack of visibility.
It’s one of the reasons I keep banging the drum about owning your own site. A blog in the original sense. A place for self-expression. Not just content marketing. Not just performance.
The Return of Radio SoulCruzer
On a more exciting note: I’m bringing Radio SoulCruzer back on Mixcloud.
This isn’t just a music dump. It’s an audio experience. A mix of music and talk. Sometimes drive-time energy. Sometimes late-night Northern Exposure vibes. The music will be the main character, not the talk. But there’ll be plenty of jibber jabber from me between sets.
Some shows will be pre-recorded. Some will be live, with chat and the possibility of hopping on as a guest. I want to bring back the “soundtrack of your life” concept. Conversations shaped by the songs that formed you. I’ve done it for my own life in phases before. Time to do it again. Time to invite others in.
If you want pure talk, you’ve got this podcast. If you want music woven through the experience, Radio SoulCruzer will be your place.
You can find it at mixcloud.com/soulcruiser. You don’t need an account to listen, but if you want to join live chats when I go live, it helps.
Big Winter Roam
Also, February means I’m doing the Cats Protection Big Winter Roam. Committed to 126 miles this month to raise funds for cats and kittens. It’s about vet bills, food, care, and rehoming. If you’re Team Cat and want to support, the JustGiving link is floating around on my socials.
In the End…
If a podcast guru heard this episode, they’d probably shake their head. No strict format. No polished intro. No sponsor reads. No neat three-point structure with a clean bow on top.
But that’s kind of the point.
This is an audio blog. A space to think out loud. To wander. To explore questions like why short-form social audio never quite caught fire. To test ideas in real time. To resist the flattening effect of optimization.
If you’re still here, you’re part of the tribe that values voice. And that’s enough for me.
Peace.