Short-form podcasting — Thoughts on Racket.

Shavin Peiries Jun 20, 2021 2 min read

Jun 20, 2021

Companies are making it easier for everyday people to utilise their favourite method(s) of distribution.

As a business, we thought that podcasting would be an excellent way to do content. But the idea was always too much because there are many things to do before you even get started. For example, researching mics and setups all turn into a massive source of Resistance.

Until racket.com.

I remember seeing a bunch of rainbow-coloured pictures on Twitter and wondered what it was. However, it wasn't until I went through Sharath's racket on how he tweets that I got excited about trying the format for myself.

Racket allows you to share 9-minute audio clips about... whatever you'd like!

Here are my pros and not-so cons, cons.

3 ways in which Racket shines:

• I love that there's a 9-minute time constraint. It allows you to get creative and fit only the most essential information into a short time. No filler, just killer information.
• The Volley's are an attractive feature too. A Volley on Racket is an "interactive racket", as they say. It's kind of confusing, but what it really is is a prompt that'll help you get started.
• I really love that there's isn't a place to edit it. You're raw, and I like the fact that it's encouraged over having to go into editing mode where it could bog you down from shipping what you recorded.

3 places it could use work:

• You can't listen to a Racket for yourself until it's published. Either I missed it, they didn't make it clear, or it's intentionally designed that way. I'm not too sure. I want to be confident the audio is working before I hit publish.
• When talking, I didn't notice that I was speaking too loudly into the mic, and it was picking up my breathing. If the visual of how the mic behaves is more sensitive and colour coded where red is too loud, it might be a helpful visual affordance.
• This is not so big, but I wish there was a way they could allow you to crop out uhms and uhh sounds that you make automatically. Just so that you sound more confident and so that the communication is clear without compromising the flow.

I'm really excited about Racket. It conveys authenticity because of the way it's constrained and I love that.

As a newly launched product owner, it's difficult to make people believe in you because you're trying something new out and don't have many voices backing you. But you can use your own voice to talk about what you're excited about with what you're doing. And then share it with those people with the hope that they'll buy into your ideas!

If you're interested in heavy breathing, a lot of um's and ah's, this is my first racket.