I began my research of Lynda by talking with my mother. I have not spent much time personally using Lynda, but my mom has. After getting a good feel about the usage of the site from a frequent user, I spent some time of my own on the site. This process was substantially different than my experience with researching for the FiveThirtyEight podcast. Since I have a lot of experience with FiveThirtyEight and not much with Lynda, I was initially relying on a third-party account of the site as opposed to my knowledge base. Surprisingly, this was beneficial. Entering my analysis of Lynda I had no bias that would hinder making a non-opinionated evaluation of the site.

The primary focus when we began recording was to avoid sounded scripted. In the FiveThirtyEight podcast, we had a sharp transition from the initial more formal segment to the discussion segment. During our in-class discussion of the FiveThirtyEight podcast, we received negative feedback regarding this transition, and we noticed a much smoother transition in most other podcast published to this point. We tackled this problem by creating a list of talking points and then just talking. I feel that the transition is much smoother if not seamless for the Lynda Podcast.

After completing a podcast as a producer and a podcast as an assistant producer, I have a much better sense of what enables “new media” to be effective. From our in class discussion, I was able to develop a reasonably clear perception of “new media” (to the extent it can be perceived accurately), but the techniques that one can use to convey a message or argument through new media is a much more elusive idea to pinpoint. Although these techniques are not static due to the nature of “new media”, I understand what these techniques should seek to accomplish both now and in the future. This understanding is important to cultivate in order to be an effective “new media” writer and critic.