5 ms·

Podcasting feels like an alternate reality where none of the massive players took over and everything stayed federated.

by Zhyl 9y ago

thinkloop 9y ago
Interesting you say that, I got into podcasts recently (a bit late I know) and found the space very confusing. It's kind'of all on iTunes, but not really, you can get them from their source sites, but also some apps have a subset. Understanding the model is not easy. I didn't know it was powered by rss until this thread. I am really pro federation, and I am not deterred, but I am an engineer on HN. I wonder why email, being federated as well, is easy for anyone to grok.
- afterburner 9y ago
  Pocket Casts is a nice podcast app.
  - CAT0 9y ago
    They also have a nice web interface https://playbeta.pocketcasts.com/web/ https://playbeta.pocketcasts.com/web/
    - _asummers 9y ago
      There's a native OSX app, too, which has been mostly ok for me, so far. A few bugs occasionally, but it's better than running in browser in my experience.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- princekolt 9y ago
  The email protocols are hell. Absolute hell. I don’t think anyone truly groks how it works all the way down either. A big difference is that email has slowly been developed over a period of decades, and so a lot of great software (both libs and GUIs) were built on top of it, and “perfected” over the time. Maybe what prevented RSS from reaching the same level of development is that RSS is only composed by “creators”, while email has no target audience.
  - jon_richards 9y ago
    An example: My server sends notification emails to the company automatically. Everyone is using gmail to view their emails. When there is an update about a previous notification, I send an email with the in-reply-to header. Oh wait, gmail doesn't use that. Alright, I'll just make sure that the subject line is exactly the same as the original notification (as gmail says to do). This works for a bit, but if someone hits reply-all, suddenly the subject line for the thread is now "Re: <the original subject>" and my followups no longer thread. I'll just make sure that my followups always have "Re: " in them, so they thread whether or not people have been communicating on the thread. This mostly works, but if the update is a week or two later, gmail just decides they shouldn't thread. This is on top of the fact that emails with similar subject lines occasionally thread together. This gets really annoying when you send automated emails where the subjects are the same except for an identifier of some sort (specifically to prevent threading). And there's no way to give feedback to gmail about this. No way to forcefully thread or de-thread emails. You are just given the choice of gmail's threading or no threading at all.
    - iforgotpassword 9y ago
      Just don't use the web front end, access them using your favorite mail client using IMAP. Oh wait, google fucked that up too. Luckily most clients worked around the google bullshit over the years.
    - thinkloop 9y ago
      Good points - so federated email works so well because most of us decided to federate to a single server. Something sad about that.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      Well you just need to start using a real MUA like outlook or thunderbird and drop gmail
      - andybak 9y ago
        I dropped both of those in favour of Gmail (and now Inbox) years ago much to my delight. What am I missing?
- nicky0 9y ago
  Open solutions are always more confusing than centralised ones. End user podcast apps try to hide all the details an make it look like "here's an app with podcasts in it". But behind the scenes it is wonderfully messy. Same with email. Any time you try to make things work without a single central point it makes the whole thing harder to grasp and explain. Open ID was another example. End-user contact points try to simplify things by "productizing" the offering and hiding the implementation details, with various degrees of success.
macspoofing 9y ago
Yep. It's perplexing that a YouTube for podcasts (with centralized ad serving and similar profit sharing) hasn't emerged. The space is endearing - maybe that's why it is so vibrant?
- ghaff 9y ago
  Well, distribution is fairly centralized [ADDED: in practice through iTunes/Google Play/etc.] and the hosting of the actual podcasts is cheap enough that throwing them on S3 or wherever isn't really a burden for most people. And advertising, when it exists at all, tends to be native advertising. > The space is endearing - maybe that's why it is so vibrant? That's true but arguably YouTube at least started out that way as well. I suspect that there are a number of factors; no single one I can think of (except maybe the hosting costs and that seems an unsatisfactory explanation by itself) really captures it.
  - jhauris 9y ago
    I think it's decentralized partly because itunes doesn't integrate with any other services. So to serve android and IOS many podcasters NEED a single RSS feed that they point iTunes and other services to. Many relatively small services exist to help with hosting, and usually provide a hosted RSS link independent of itunes/whatever. I really hate that many podcasters are trying to push their own app or their publishers / organizations app (even NPR is doing this). Getting everyone using the same platform is how podcasts will get youtubified.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      The biggest thing I was surprised about when I started a podcast is that iTunes doesn't host or distribute podcasts. As an end-user, I thought I was getting iTunes content with podcasts. But in reality it's just an aggregator like reddit or HN: it's full of links, but those links are external and pull content from other places. I was also surprised by how easy (and free) it is to get a podcast on iTunes, especially compared to getting an app on the App Store.
orbitur 9y ago
Some "players" like Stitcher are trying their best to get away from that, though. And they're seeing moderate success, too. I feel like podcasts have simply been overlooked by big media types, and the day is coming where enough power will concentrate and advertisers will only want to give money to networks instead of individual podcasts. Enjoy the freedom while it lasts. I think 5 years from now, no individuals will be able to make money from it without joining a "network."
- singingfish 9y ago
  I did Stitcher for a bit. It was kind of ok. But the walled garden felt wrong and at some point I couldn't find a podcast on stitcher I wanted. So I found Downcast (iOS app). While it's not perfect, it does let me access my spaghetti-and-duct-tape BBC radio downloader easily.

Podcasting feels like an alternate reality where none of the massive players took over and everything stayed federated.

by Zhyl 9y ago

Podcasting feels like an alternate reality where none of the massive players took over and everything stayed federated.

Interesting you say that, I got into podcasts recently (a bit late I know) and found the space very confusing. It's kind'of all on iTunes, but not really, you can get them from their source sites, but also some apps have a subset. Understanding the model is not easy. I didn't know it was powered by rss until this thread. I am really pro federation, and I am not deterred, but I am an engineer on HN. I wonder why email, being federated as well, is easy for anyone to grok.

afterburner 9y ago
Pocket Casts is a nice podcast app.
- CAT0 9y ago
  They also have a nice web interface https://playbeta.pocketcasts.com/web/ https://playbeta.pocketcasts.com/web/
  - _asummers 9y ago
    There's a native OSX app, too, which has been mostly ok for me, so far. A few bugs occasionally, but it's better than running in browser in my experience.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
princekolt 9y ago
The email protocols are hell. Absolute hell. I don’t think anyone truly groks how it works all the way down either. A big difference is that email has slowly been developed over a period of decades, and so a lot of great software (both libs and GUIs) were built on top of it, and “perfected” over the time. Maybe what prevented RSS from reaching the same level of development is that RSS is only composed by “creators”, while email has no target audience.
- jon_richards 9y ago
  An example: My server sends notification emails to the company automatically. Everyone is using gmail to view their emails. When there is an update about a previous notification, I send an email with the in-reply-to header. Oh wait, gmail doesn't use that. Alright, I'll just make sure that the subject line is exactly the same as the original notification (as gmail says to do). This works for a bit, but if someone hits reply-all, suddenly the subject line for the thread is now "Re: <the original subject>" and my followups no longer thread. I'll just make sure that my followups always have "Re: " in them, so they thread whether or not people have been communicating on the thread. This mostly works, but if the update is a week or two later, gmail just decides they shouldn't thread. This is on top of the fact that emails with similar subject lines occasionally thread together. This gets really annoying when you send automated emails where the subjects are the same except for an identifier of some sort (specifically to prevent threading). And there's no way to give feedback to gmail about this. No way to forcefully thread or de-thread emails. You are just given the choice of gmail's threading or no threading at all.
  - iforgotpassword 9y ago
    Just don't use the web front end, access them using your favorite mail client using IMAP. Oh wait, google fucked that up too. Luckily most clients worked around the google bullshit over the years.
  - thinkloop 9y ago
    Good points - so federated email works so well because most of us decided to federate to a single server. Something sad about that.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Well you just need to start using a real MUA like outlook or thunderbird and drop gmail
    - andybak 9y ago
      I dropped both of those in favour of Gmail (and now Inbox) years ago much to my delight. What am I missing?
nicky0 9y ago
Open solutions are always more confusing than centralised ones. End user podcast apps try to hide all the details an make it look like "here's an app with podcasts in it". But behind the scenes it is wonderfully messy. Same with email. Any time you try to make things work without a single central point it makes the whole thing harder to grasp and explain. Open ID was another example. End-user contact points try to simplify things by "productizing" the offering and hiding the implementation details, with various degrees of success.

macspoofing 9y ago

Yep. It's perplexing that a YouTube for podcasts (with centralized ad serving and similar profit sharing) hasn't emerged. The space is endearing - maybe that's why it is so vibrant?

ghaff 9y ago
Well, distribution is fairly centralized [ADDED: in practice through iTunes/Google Play/etc.] and the hosting of the actual podcasts is cheap enough that throwing them on S3 or wherever isn't really a burden for most people. And advertising, when it exists at all, tends to be native advertising. > The space is endearing - maybe that's why it is so vibrant? That's true but arguably YouTube at least started out that way as well. I suspect that there are a number of factors; no single one I can think of (except maybe the hosting costs and that seems an unsatisfactory explanation by itself) really captures it.
- jhauris 9y ago
  I think it's decentralized partly because itunes doesn't integrate with any other services. So to serve android and IOS many podcasters NEED a single RSS feed that they point iTunes and other services to. Many relatively small services exist to help with hosting, and usually provide a hosted RSS link independent of itunes/whatever. I really hate that many podcasters are trying to push their own app or their publishers / organizations app (even NPR is doing this). Getting everyone using the same platform is how podcasts will get youtubified.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    The biggest thing I was surprised about when I started a podcast is that iTunes doesn't host or distribute podcasts. As an end-user, I thought I was getting iTunes content with podcasts. But in reality it's just an aggregator like reddit or HN: it's full of links, but those links are external and pull content from other places. I was also surprised by how easy (and free) it is to get a podcast on iTunes, especially compared to getting an app on the App Store.

orbitur 9y ago

Some "players" like Stitcher are trying their best to get away from that, though. And they're seeing moderate success, too. I feel like podcasts have simply been overlooked by big media types, and the day is coming where enough power will concentrate and advertisers will only want to give money to networks instead of individual podcasts. Enjoy the freedom while it lasts. I think 5 years from now, no individuals will be able to make money from it without joining a "network."

singingfish 9y ago
I did Stitcher for a bit. It was kind of ok. But the walled garden felt wrong and at some point I couldn't find a podcast on stitcher I wanted. So I found Downcast (iOS app). While it's not perfect, it does let me access my spaghetti-and-duct-tape BBC radio downloader easily.