What Makes for an Interesting Interview

The 3 podcasts as well as 2 of the vodcasts that I chose were from Storycorps and then the last one was from Youtube.

The first podcast  that I listened to was called The Legacy of Lillian Tinsley and it discussed  financial struggles in the 40's and one lady's life changing decision for one family.  http://storycorps.org/listen/
The qualities that I noticed in it were:
-interesting topic (description)
-picture with title
-short (only a couple minutes long)
-it had 1 person talking
-someone else laughing in the background
-it started out with an interesting line
-jumped right into a story

The second one was called It is not just a tattoo. It was two women who discussed how healing tattoo removal can be after abusive relationships. http://storycorps.org/listen/
Its qualities were:
-interesting topic (good title)
-picture with title
-it was short
-it was an interview
-it began with a story
-it evoked empathy because of the topic
-it was a very personal topic

The third podcast was called I wanted to own a restaurant ever sine I was a kid. This story discussed how a father and son felt when the son with Down Syndrome opened his own restaurant. http://storycorps.org/listen/
The qualities that it had were:
-interesting topic (good description)
-picture with title
-it was short
-it was an interview
-the topic was one that I had already read about so it was familiar to me.
-it was inspirational
-it was personal

The vodcast ( or animated short) that I picked from Storycorps was called John and Joe.
It was a father discussing his two son's decisions to become new York fireman and how their deaths on 9/11 affected him. http://storycorps.org/animation/
 It had/was:
-interesting topic (good description)
-picture with title
-a little longer than the podcasts but still short
-a written lead in
-simple and consistent animation
-slow paced
-a familiar topic
-Invoked compassion
-only one person talking
-slow paced
-a personal story

The last vodcast that I chose was one that I had seen in the past. It was a TED talks that got turned into an animated video. It was called To this day project, and the speaker, Shane Koyczen, reads a poem about what it was like to be bullied as a child.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY
The qualities that I noticed were:
-no description but catchy title
-Screenshot with title
-written credits
-poetry
-funny
-invoked empathy
-relate-able topic
-the animation was constantly changing
-mixed pictures in with the animation
-used writen words
-only one person talking
-fast paced

After reviewing all of these different stories I have come to a decision that the following qualities were what I feel make a pod/vodcast are essential for creating a good pod/vodcast.
1.) I feel that the topic should be one that people can connect with on an intellectual or personal level. The more familiar people are with the topic the more likely they will be to listen to or watch it.
2.) I think that it should begin with a story or an engaging lead in to keep peoples attention.
3.) The title or description should include your topic and be catchy if it can to get people to listen to it.
4.) Animation kept my attention and put what the speaker was saying into context. I feel that it is important and helpful as long as it follows along with the speaker and isn't distracting from them.
5.) Has to have clear audio with no background noise. The speaker needs to be clear and use a moderate pace so that you can keep up.

I found that I preferred the vodcasts for the reasons that I stated above but I do feel that if you took away the visual aspect from them they wouldn't seem as real. Seeing something played out while you hear it connects two of your senses and will help people connect to it, without that the story is still good but it doesn't come to life in the same way.

Comparing the podcasts to the vodcasts I could see that they all engaging had topics that were (fairly) short in length. They had titles and pictures and most had good descriptions to get your attention. They all had one or two people talking and they spoke clearly and at a good pace to follow along with what they were saying. The only differences that I noticed were that the vodcasts were a little longer and had some type of a lead in or credits before they began.

I really liked all of the stories that I listened too/watched  and actually went on to find more.