7 ms·

Podcasting is getting huge

77 points by Futurebot 11y ago

adamncasey 11y ago
I remember podcasts being pretty big sometime around 2008 - a lot of podcasts have stopped publishing since then. Is it ahead of where it was then?
- firasd 11y ago
  I was aware of podcasts when they launched around 2004 (and worked on some related sites) but a lot of the early hype about podcasts as a business didn’t pan out. I suspect it may be misleading to look to the past this point—the upsurge of professional content, advertising, etc. may mean it really is different this time.
- danso 11y ago
  The Serial podcast is huge, and in journalism, one of the few bright spots of success in indepth reporting...I would say that that alone has accounted for the majority of upswing in number of media reports proclaiming the new popularity of podcasts. So, despite the stats of increased downloads/awareness cited...which may not be impressive at all if we compare them against the overall uptick in phone adoption and mobile digital consumption since 2008...there's no guarantee that podcasting as an industry has real footing...particularly in what exists for creators to create and then get paid. At least, there's nothing on the scope of what Twitch and YouTube have done for gaming screen casters, AFAIK
  - vijayr 11y ago
    Serial podcast was great. Tim Feriss is good, Dan Carlin is awesome. Any other podcast you'd recommend? Excluding the self promotional internet business types.
    - yitchelle 11y ago
      Most of the podcasts from team (https://gimletmedia.com/ https://gimletmedia.com/) behind Serial are good.
    - cholantesh 11y ago
      > Dan Carlin Exactly the name I think of when I hear the word 'podcasting', and I'm surprised to see no mention of him in the article. In fact, I'm a regular podcast listener and I recognized few of the names in this piece, which was confusing to say the least. If you're a Carlin fan, you definitely need to listen to Mike Duncan's podcasts - History of Rome and Revolutions. I'm also a fan of Skeptoid and Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. For lighter stuff, I enjoy Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast and Nerdist.
    - will_pseudonym 11y ago
      QOD. James Altutcher and Steven Dubner (freakonomics). They have one question each day they talk about. Both have GREAT perspectives. It's almost always a paradigm shifter.
      - icpmacdo 11y ago
        I cant understand how James Altutcher has A list guests and horrible audio quality, so annoying.
        will_pseudonym 11y ago
        Honestly I have never noticed! What are your favorite podcasts that have great production values BTW? I'm looking for a great production company.
- tehwebguy 11y ago
  Yeah. Incredibly, this article doesn't mention the YouTubers that are driving massive numbers to podcasts.
DiabloD3 11y ago
The problem with podcasting for me is I have no easy way to consume them that isn't already part of my entertainment workflow. Literally, if it isn't something I can subscribe to in Youtube, or add it to my queue in Netflix, eventually it just gets lost and falls out of my entertainment workflow.
- lamby 11y ago
  Sharing is also problematic, so recommendating a particular show or segment is high friction.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > entertainment workflow That's a bit of a contradiction.
  - riebschlager 11y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. If you have an "entertainment workflow" then you are doing entertainment wrong.
- unprepare 11y ago
  a lot of shows get uploaded to youtube as well. Dan carlin's podcasts hardcore history[1] and common sense [2] both get uploaded to youtube whenever a new episode comes out. Both excellent podcasts as well. I'm sure it's not very common however. Oh, i also might as well mention that you can have itunes download your podcasts and put them in your plex media server or kodi server. [1]https://www.youtube.com/user/dancarlinpodcaster https://www.youtube.com/user/dancarlinpodcaster [2]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3As7170z7TsHZ7-ShaRe1A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3As7170z7TsHZ7-ShaRe1A
JamesBaxter 11y ago
I understand that a huge percentage of podcast listeners are based in the US but the number of hours I've spent listening to completely irrelevant adverts is insane. Surely someone can make a service that takes a podcast feed and packages it with different adverts for different markets and then creates new feeds. I'd make it but the scaling sales end is not something I know how to do. I suppose it depends how Apple interprets the feed as I assume Apple devices are the most used for podcast consumption.
- oliao 11y ago
  I like the idea. I find the advertising inside podcasts also particularly annoying. You can't ignore them by looking away like you would on a screen. Maybe we need an adblock for podcasts (even if it will be difficult to automize -> some manual stripping of the parts where they are promoting stuff)
  - anton_gogolev 11y ago
    > even if it will be difficult to automize Crowdsourcing? See if a lot of people skip over certain fragments of an episode and mark it as "advertisement". Granted, this requires some level of cooperation from podcast player applications.
  - vdaniuk 11y ago
    Yes, please! Let's make bootstrapping and indie projects as hard as possible by placing advertising control solely in the hands of large corporations that have means and resources to fight adblocking.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lewton 11y ago
    > I find the advertising inside podcasts also particularly annoying. Really? Most podcast apps replace the skip buttons with "jump forward/back 15/30 sec". Hitting a button twice is too much effort in exchange for getting content for free?
iagooar 11y ago
Sorry for the shameless plug: A friend and I have launched a podcast publishing platform, batteries included, called Podigee (https://www.podigee.com https://www.podigee.com). The backend runs on Rails + PostgreSQL, the frontend is a mix of Rails and AngularJS. Also, we run dedicated download / stream servers with some nice Lua scripts for caching the files and reducing overall costs for AWS S3 traffic. The nicest feature is that once you upload an audio file, we will apply some good audio algorithms to it, encode it to different audio formats, and expose it automatically in your RSS feed.
- lewispb 11y ago
  If we're on the subject of plugs, I wrote Podcast Chart (https://www.podcastchart.com https://www.podcastchart.com) Again in Rails, all running on AWS.
arethuza 11y ago
I used to have a serious podcast habit - one of which used to run adverts for Audible. Now I listen to audiobooks and hardly ever listen to podcasts and never listen to the podcast where I learned about Audible.
- austenallred 11y ago
  Same
- jsmeaton 11y ago
  Rogan? So many ads for Audible.
  - kawsper 11y ago
    Twit.tv as well. I think they sponsored all the popular podcasts.
  - evan_ 11y ago
    Audible sponsors- or has sponsored- a LOT of podcasts. They're second only to Squarespace in that regard.
    - corobo 11y ago
      When it comes to Audible literally anyone can be 'sponsored' by them - I don't know if the big guys get an upfront or set amount but I was able to register as an Audible podcast affiliate before we even had a single episode out
      - evan_ 11y ago
        I know that with Squarespace at least podcasts with a larger listenership have a completely different deal than the regular affiliate marketing channel- though I don't know any details. I kind of assumed it was the same across the board for podcasts on larger networks though I don't really know for sure.
  - 11y ago
jacquesm 11y ago
I've tried consuming podcasts on a number of occasions. I've utterly failed at finding a way to appreciate them, even on subjects that interest me. Reading faster than people speak is a factor (much faster) and being able to skim and dive in where I'm interested, ability to bookmark, to cut-and-paste bits for my notes files and so on. Besides reading is a lot easier for me to stay concentrated on the content rather than listening to someone talking. Podcasting just isn't for me, but I totally understand that there are people for who they are very useful. Any article can be turned into speech by using text-to-speech software, it would be nice if podcasts could be turned into transcripts with similar ease.
- bane 11y ago
  If you have a long commute, car/bike/train/etc. they're basically perfect audio companions. I couldn't figure out what to do with them either until I decided to stop listening to the news on a daily basis during my commute (it made me too aggravated).
  - Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
    >If you have a long commute, car/bike/train/etc. they're basically perfect audio companions. On bikes, at least where I live, using headphones is illegal. I'd love to listen to music or podcasts on my bike but I just can't do it with only one ear covered. It's probably not advisable anyways. Interestingly, it is legal to ride a bike or even drive a car while deaf. It would be illegal for a deaf person to cover both ears while driving or biking if I'm reading the statutes correctly.
    - ShaneOG 11y ago
      Totally off-topic, but where do you live?
      - Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
        Arlington, Virginia. VA. code § 46.2-1078 is the relevant statute. https://vacode.org/46.2-1078/ https://vacode.org/46.2-1078/ I work in DC, so DC and / or Federal law would also be relevant. I believe the distracted driving statutes in DC would also apply to bikes, so headphones would fall under that I believe. DC, VA, and MD also have contributory negligence. You can read more about that here: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24312/what-is-contributory-negligence-and-why-is-it-such-a-big-danger-for-cyclists-and-pedestrians/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24312/what-is-contr... TL;DR you can receive no damages if you break the law in any tiny way while on a bicycle or on foot. Wearing headphones might be said to have contributed in some way, so you might get nothing.
bane 11y ago
I listen to a huge assortment of retrocomputing related podcasts (partial list here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576) using the podcast addict app. tbh, I'm subscribed to far more than I can ever listen to, and I'm in my car for at least 2 hours a day. Right now, I'm addicted to the ANTIC podcast which features an almost impossible number of interviews with people from all over the early computer industry who experienced working for a fast growth startup, the bust that followed and the hand-off to an unexpected acquirer. It took a few episodes to get going, but it's very addictive now. I'm pretty much convinced that there's a selection of podcasts for just about any interest. They act as an audio-only companion to my youtube subscriptions...and there's even a bit of overlap between the two communities. Everything I listen to is very amateur/hobbyist produced (like most youtube videos) and it often shows, but the enthusiasm is often enough to pull me through. I had completely ignored podcasts until about 3 years ago and started seriously getting into them a couple years ago. I've even got my parents hooked on a couple.
- vram22 11y ago
  >I listen to a huge assortment of retrocomputing related podcasts Interesting. I like to dabble a bit in retrocomputing in my free time (mainly older languages, some of which I've used before, others not). Looked at that list of podcasts. A majority seem to be for games, which I'm not much into - I only play a few, sometimes. Only a few, like "retro computing roundtable", seem like they may be about more general computing topics. Do you know if any others are?
  - bane 11y ago
    I'm not aware of too many. ANTIC is relatively holistic in terms of subject area, but focuses on Atari 8-bit computers. I believe they've even had a couple episodes reviewing the different dialects of BASIC available for the Atari 8-bit computer platform. AMICast is a relatively recent show with not many episodes, but it's about the Amiga from a very European perspective. I'd love to know more as well.
    - vram22 11y ago
bovermyer 11y ago
This quote made me feel really old: > Podcasting has been around for about a decade — the term is a reference to the iPod, which older readers will remember as an iPhone that only played music. Now I'm in the category of "older readers." Lovely.
- jhwhite 11y ago
  Same here. It blows my mind that there are people that need to be explained what an iPod is, especially in context to an iPhone.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  I'm sure/hope it was tongue in cheek, but I did find that pretty amusing. My brother is 18 and he would probably be 'one of the last' to use a scroll-wheel iPod.
ekianjo 11y ago
Podcasting was hard at the time of the iPod ? Seriously ? Isnt't that the other way around, it was hard until iTune made it easy to suscribe to thousands of podcast from a single, unified interface ? Vox has short memory.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Listening to podcasts was "hard" until you could download over cellular and didn't have to sync up at your computer. So I do think there was friction at the time of the iPod. That's been one of the big changes--plus a greater range of good content.
kmfrk 11y ago
I'm surprised how little I've seen someone trying to sell pickaxes for the gold rush of podcasting. I don't know whether that's an indicator of a trend, or whether the domain knowledge just makes such a venture unfeasible, but I'd imagine to see people renting out recording studios and selling bundled podcasting setups with training and the like, if this were such a huge trend. Is anyone currently doing this?
- dagw 11y ago
  Both Panoply and Gimlet (two popular podcasting companies) are getting into that business to various degrees. Panoply recently co-produced and co-promoted a podcast with GE while Gimlet seems to be more focused on doing pure "white-label" podcasts where they'll do all the production work, but their name doesn't appear on the final product. Basically if you are company and want a podcast they'll make it for you (or work with you to make it).
- 23d 11y ago
  Here in Atlanta http://businessradiox.com/our-studios/ http://businessradiox.com/our-studios/ is doing it on a regional scale. They are very knowledgeable in the domain, and they are very active in the local start up scene. Also I have been working on this https://www.chirbit.com/ https://www.chirbit.com/ on the distribution/consumer side.
- will_pseudonym 11y ago
  If anyone knows, please let me know of a company selling podcast production service... I'd love a sharp, reliable pick axe. :)
pluma 11y ago
For me podcasts fill a similar niche to TV: something I can passively enjoy without having to focus much while doing unrelated things. The two major differences are that I no longer watch TV and I can listen to podcasts wherever I am. My biggest problems are that there's too many of them and it's easy to miss the one or two really interesting episodes in a sea of monthly/weekly content. Even more so if you listen to them at 2x speed and rarely have the time to stop and actively pay attention. It's more of a form of pleasant background noise with the occasional glimpse of really interesting information. Like overhearing a conversation between colleagues.
PhilipA 11y ago
I really enjoy podcasts at work, and they excel when I am doing boring repetitive work. I do however wish that there would be a better place for Podcast discovery than ITunes.
- will_pseudonym 11y ago
  Overcast + Twitter connection = You see the podcasts people you follow, subscribe to. Great stuff I've found here!! HN is a great discovery service, as is Facebook. Email me if you wanna know the podcast my fiancé and I look forward to most each week! :)
- escherize 11y ago
  I paid for Overcast by Marco Arment on iOS and it's pretty good at recommendation (uses Twitter). He's since made it free (!) so you should check it out if you run an iDevice.
ptha 11y ago
I'm surprised the article makes no mention of Adam Carola's podcast. Possibly due to some of the controversial remarks made by Carola on the show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Carolla_Show_%28podcast%29#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Carolla_Show_%28podca.... I'm not a fan, but if you're mentioning Serial and WTF, Carola's podcast is right up there as far as numbers go, and was involved early on in monetising his podcast with adverts etc.
- seivan 11y ago
  In case you missed, this article is on Vox. Carolla is worse than ISIS in their eyes.
  - gnrme 11y ago
    Indeed. Always look at the URL before reading an article to understand the environment in which it was written. There's lots of websites out there with agendas - some more blatant than others.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  Christ, what an asshole.
mrlyc 11y ago
I don't have much time to read but I do have a lot of time to listen, usually while I'm doing housework or travelling, so I'm subscribed to a lot of podcasts and YouTube channels. When a YouTube channel has something new that looks interesting, I download the video, convert it to an MP3 and add it to my collection. When I come across a book I want to know more about, I look up the author's name on YouTube to see if there's an interview with them. That usually presents the main ideas of the book without having to read it. I download the video, convert it then subscribe to that channel if it has other videos I'm interested in too.

77 points by Futurebot 11y ago

I remember podcasts being pretty big sometime around 2008 - a lot of podcasts have stopped publishing since then. Is it ahead of where it was then?

firasd 11y ago
I was aware of podcasts when they launched around 2004 (and worked on some related sites) but a lot of the early hype about podcasts as a business didn’t pan out. I suspect it may be misleading to look to the past this point—the upsurge of professional content, advertising, etc. may mean it really is different this time.
danso 11y ago
The Serial podcast is huge, and in journalism, one of the few bright spots of success in indepth reporting...I would say that that alone has accounted for the majority of upswing in number of media reports proclaiming the new popularity of podcasts. So, despite the stats of increased downloads/awareness cited...which may not be impressive at all if we compare them against the overall uptick in phone adoption and mobile digital consumption since 2008...there's no guarantee that podcasting as an industry has real footing...particularly in what exists for creators to create and then get paid. At least, there's nothing on the scope of what Twitch and YouTube have done for gaming screen casters, AFAIK
- vijayr 11y ago
  Serial podcast was great. Tim Feriss is good, Dan Carlin is awesome. Any other podcast you'd recommend? Excluding the self promotional internet business types.
  - yitchelle 11y ago
    Most of the podcasts from team (https://gimletmedia.com/ https://gimletmedia.com/) behind Serial are good.
  - cholantesh 11y ago
    > Dan Carlin Exactly the name I think of when I hear the word 'podcasting', and I'm surprised to see no mention of him in the article. In fact, I'm a regular podcast listener and I recognized few of the names in this piece, which was confusing to say the least. If you're a Carlin fan, you definitely need to listen to Mike Duncan's podcasts - History of Rome and Revolutions. I'm also a fan of Skeptoid and Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. For lighter stuff, I enjoy Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast and Nerdist.
  - will_pseudonym 11y ago
    QOD. James Altutcher and Steven Dubner (freakonomics). They have one question each day they talk about. Both have GREAT perspectives. It's almost always a paradigm shifter.
    - icpmacdo 11y ago
      I cant understand how James Altutcher has A list guests and horrible audio quality, so annoying.
      - will_pseudonym 11y ago
        Honestly I have never noticed! What are your favorite podcasts that have great production values BTW? I'm looking for a great production company.
tehwebguy 11y ago
Yeah. Incredibly, this article doesn't mention the YouTubers that are driving massive numbers to podcasts.

DiabloD3 11y ago

The problem with podcasting for me is I have no easy way to consume them that isn't already part of my entertainment workflow. Literally, if it isn't something I can subscribe to in Youtube, or add it to my queue in Netflix, eventually it just gets lost and falls out of my entertainment workflow.

lamby 11y ago
Sharing is also problematic, so recommendating a particular show or segment is high friction.
jacquesm 11y ago
> entertainment workflow That's a bit of a contradiction.
- riebschlager 11y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. If you have an "entertainment workflow" then you are doing entertainment wrong.
unprepare 11y ago
a lot of shows get uploaded to youtube as well. Dan carlin's podcasts hardcore history[1] and common sense [2] both get uploaded to youtube whenever a new episode comes out. Both excellent podcasts as well. I'm sure it's not very common however. Oh, i also might as well mention that you can have itunes download your podcasts and put them in your plex media server or kodi server. [1]https://www.youtube.com/user/dancarlinpodcaster https://www.youtube.com/user/dancarlinpodcaster [2]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3As7170z7TsHZ7-ShaRe1A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3As7170z7TsHZ7-ShaRe1A

JamesBaxter 11y ago

I understand that a huge percentage of podcast listeners are based in the US but the number of hours I've spent listening to completely irrelevant adverts is insane. Surely someone can make a service that takes a podcast feed and packages it with different adverts for different markets and then creates new feeds. I'd make it but the scaling sales end is not something I know how to do. I suppose it depends how Apple interprets the feed as I assume Apple devices are the most used for podcast consumption.

oliao 11y ago
I like the idea. I find the advertising inside podcasts also particularly annoying. You can't ignore them by looking away like you would on a screen. Maybe we need an adblock for podcasts (even if it will be difficult to automize -> some manual stripping of the parts where they are promoting stuff)
- anton_gogolev 11y ago
  > even if it will be difficult to automize Crowdsourcing? See if a lot of people skip over certain fragments of an episode and mark it as "advertisement". Granted, this requires some level of cooperation from podcast player applications.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Yes, please! Let's make bootstrapping and indie projects as hard as possible by placing advertising control solely in the hands of large corporations that have means and resources to fight adblocking.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Lewton 11y ago
  > I find the advertising inside podcasts also particularly annoying. Really? Most podcast apps replace the skip buttons with "jump forward/back 15/30 sec". Hitting a button twice is too much effort in exchange for getting content for free?

iagooar 11y ago

Sorry for the shameless plug: A friend and I have launched a podcast publishing platform, batteries included, called Podigee (https://www.podigee.com https://www.podigee.com). The backend runs on Rails + PostgreSQL, the frontend is a mix of Rails and AngularJS. Also, we run dedicated download / stream servers with some nice Lua scripts for caching the files and reducing overall costs for AWS S3 traffic. The nicest feature is that once you upload an audio file, we will apply some good audio algorithms to it, encode it to different audio formats, and expose it automatically in your RSS feed.

lewispb 11y ago
If we're on the subject of plugs, I wrote Podcast Chart (https://www.podcastchart.com https://www.podcastchart.com) Again in Rails, all running on AWS.

arethuza 11y ago

I used to have a serious podcast habit - one of which used to run adverts for Audible. Now I listen to audiobooks and hardly ever listen to podcasts and never listen to the podcast where I learned about Audible.

austenallred 11y ago
Same
jsmeaton 11y ago
Rogan? So many ads for Audible.
- kawsper 11y ago
  Twit.tv as well. I think they sponsored all the popular podcasts.
- evan_ 11y ago
  Audible sponsors- or has sponsored- a LOT of podcasts. They're second only to Squarespace in that regard.
  - corobo 11y ago
    When it comes to Audible literally anyone can be 'sponsored' by them - I don't know if the big guys get an upfront or set amount but I was able to register as an Audible podcast affiliate before we even had a single episode out
    - evan_ 11y ago
      I know that with Squarespace at least podcasts with a larger listenership have a completely different deal than the regular affiliate marketing channel- though I don't know any details. I kind of assumed it was the same across the board for podcasts on larger networks though I don't really know for sure.
- 11y ago

jacquesm 11y ago

I've tried consuming podcasts on a number of occasions. I've utterly failed at finding a way to appreciate them, even on subjects that interest me. Reading faster than people speak is a factor (much faster) and being able to skim and dive in where I'm interested, ability to bookmark, to cut-and-paste bits for my notes files and so on. Besides reading is a lot easier for me to stay concentrated on the content rather than listening to someone talking. Podcasting just isn't for me, but I totally understand that there are people for who they are very useful. Any article can be turned into speech by using text-to-speech software, it would be nice if podcasts could be turned into transcripts with similar ease.

bane 11y ago
If you have a long commute, car/bike/train/etc. they're basically perfect audio companions. I couldn't figure out what to do with them either until I decided to stop listening to the news on a daily basis during my commute (it made me too aggravated).
- Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
  >If you have a long commute, car/bike/train/etc. they're basically perfect audio companions. On bikes, at least where I live, using headphones is illegal. I'd love to listen to music or podcasts on my bike but I just can't do it with only one ear covered. It's probably not advisable anyways. Interestingly, it is legal to ride a bike or even drive a car while deaf. It would be illegal for a deaf person to cover both ears while driving or biking if I'm reading the statutes correctly.
  - ShaneOG 11y ago
    Totally off-topic, but where do you live?
    - Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
      Arlington, Virginia. VA. code § 46.2-1078 is the relevant statute. https://vacode.org/46.2-1078/ https://vacode.org/46.2-1078/ I work in DC, so DC and / or Federal law would also be relevant. I believe the distracted driving statutes in DC would also apply to bikes, so headphones would fall under that I believe. DC, VA, and MD also have contributory negligence. You can read more about that here: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24312/what-is-contributory-negligence-and-why-is-it-such-a-big-danger-for-cyclists-and-pedestrians/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24312/what-is-contr... TL;DR you can receive no damages if you break the law in any tiny way while on a bicycle or on foot. Wearing headphones might be said to have contributed in some way, so you might get nothing.

bane 11y ago

I listen to a huge assortment of retrocomputing related podcasts (partial list here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576) using the podcast addict app. tbh, I'm subscribed to far more than I can ever listen to, and I'm in my car for at least 2 hours a day. Right now, I'm addicted to the ANTIC podcast which features an almost impossible number of interviews with people from all over the early computer industry who experienced working for a fast growth startup, the bust that followed and the hand-off to an unexpected acquirer. It took a few episodes to get going, but it's very addictive now. I'm pretty much convinced that there's a selection of podcasts for just about any interest. They act as an audio-only companion to my youtube subscriptions...and there's even a bit of overlap between the two communities. Everything I listen to is very amateur/hobbyist produced (like most youtube videos) and it often shows, but the enthusiasm is often enough to pull me through. I had completely ignored podcasts until about 3 years ago and started seriously getting into them a couple years ago. I've even got my parents hooked on a couple.

vram22 11y ago
>I listen to a huge assortment of retrocomputing related podcasts Interesting. I like to dabble a bit in retrocomputing in my free time (mainly older languages, some of which I've used before, others not). Looked at that list of podcasts. A majority seem to be for games, which I'm not much into - I only play a few, sometimes. Only a few, like "retro computing roundtable", seem like they may be about more general computing topics. Do you know if any others are?
- bane 11y ago
  I'm not aware of too many. ANTIC is relatively holistic in terms of subject area, but focuses on Atari 8-bit computers. I believe they've even had a couple episodes reviewing the different dialects of BASIC available for the Atari 8-bit computer platform. AMICast is a relatively recent show with not many episodes, but it's about the Amiga from a very European perspective. I'd love to know more as well.
  - vram22 11y ago

bovermyer 11y ago

This quote made me feel really old: > Podcasting has been around for about a decade — the term is a reference to the iPod, which older readers will remember as an iPhone that only played music. Now I'm in the category of "older readers." Lovely.

jhwhite 11y ago
Same here. It blows my mind that there are people that need to be explained what an iPod is, especially in context to an iPhone.
madeofpalk 11y ago
I'm sure/hope it was tongue in cheek, but I did find that pretty amusing. My brother is 18 and he would probably be 'one of the last' to use a scroll-wheel iPod.

ekianjo 11y ago

Podcasting was hard at the time of the iPod ? Seriously ? Isnt't that the other way around, it was hard until iTune made it easy to suscribe to thousands of podcast from a single, unified interface ? Vox has short memory.

ghaff 11y ago
Listening to podcasts was "hard" until you could download over cellular and didn't have to sync up at your computer. So I do think there was friction at the time of the iPod. That's been one of the big changes--plus a greater range of good content.

kmfrk 11y ago

I'm surprised how little I've seen someone trying to sell pickaxes for the gold rush of podcasting. I don't know whether that's an indicator of a trend, or whether the domain knowledge just makes such a venture unfeasible, but I'd imagine to see people renting out recording studios and selling bundled podcasting setups with training and the like, if this were such a huge trend. Is anyone currently doing this?

dagw 11y ago
Both Panoply and Gimlet (two popular podcasting companies) are getting into that business to various degrees. Panoply recently co-produced and co-promoted a podcast with GE while Gimlet seems to be more focused on doing pure "white-label" podcasts where they'll do all the production work, but their name doesn't appear on the final product. Basically if you are company and want a podcast they'll make it for you (or work with you to make it).
23d 11y ago
Here in Atlanta http://businessradiox.com/our-studios/ http://businessradiox.com/our-studios/ is doing it on a regional scale. They are very knowledgeable in the domain, and they are very active in the local start up scene. Also I have been working on this https://www.chirbit.com/ https://www.chirbit.com/ on the distribution/consumer side.
will_pseudonym 11y ago
If anyone knows, please let me know of a company selling podcast production service... I'd love a sharp, reliable pick axe. :)

pluma 11y ago

For me podcasts fill a similar niche to TV: something I can passively enjoy without having to focus much while doing unrelated things. The two major differences are that I no longer watch TV and I can listen to podcasts wherever I am. My biggest problems are that there's too many of them and it's easy to miss the one or two really interesting episodes in a sea of monthly/weekly content. Even more so if you listen to them at 2x speed and rarely have the time to stop and actively pay attention. It's more of a form of pleasant background noise with the occasional glimpse of really interesting information. Like overhearing a conversation between colleagues.

PhilipA 11y ago

I really enjoy podcasts at work, and they excel when I am doing boring repetitive work. I do however wish that there would be a better place for Podcast discovery than ITunes.

will_pseudonym 11y ago
Overcast + Twitter connection = You see the podcasts people you follow, subscribe to. Great stuff I've found here!! HN is a great discovery service, as is Facebook. Email me if you wanna know the podcast my fiancé and I look forward to most each week! :)
escherize 11y ago
I paid for Overcast by Marco Arment on iOS and it's pretty good at recommendation (uses Twitter). He's since made it free (!) so you should check it out if you run an iDevice.

ptha 11y ago

I'm surprised the article makes no mention of Adam Carola's podcast. Possibly due to some of the controversial remarks made by Carola on the show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Carolla_Show_%28podcast%29#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Carolla_Show_%28podca.... I'm not a fan, but if you're mentioning Serial and WTF, Carola's podcast is right up there as far as numbers go, and was involved early on in monetising his podcast with adverts etc.

seivan 11y ago
In case you missed, this article is on Vox. Carolla is worse than ISIS in their eyes.
- gnrme 11y ago
  Indeed. Always look at the URL before reading an article to understand the environment in which it was written. There's lots of websites out there with agendas - some more blatant than others.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
Christ, what an asshole.

mrlyc 11y ago

I don't have much time to read but I do have a lot of time to listen, usually while I'm doing housework or travelling, so I'm subscribed to a lot of podcasts and YouTube channels. When a YouTube channel has something new that looks interesting, I download the video, convert it to an MP3 and add it to my collection. When I come across a book I want to know more about, I look up the author's name on YouTube to see if there's an interview with them. That usually presents the main ideas of the book without having to read it. I download the video, convert it then subscribe to that channel if it has other videos I'm interested in too.