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Because when you use their ecosystem, they get user data. They acknowledge that in their blog post: > We also want to make our programmes and services as good
by eddieroger 8y ago
Because when you use their ecosystem, they get user data. They acknowledge that in their blog post:
> We also want to make our programmes and services as good as they can possibly be - this means us getting hold of meaningful audience data.
They claim it's because they're a public service and need to know what the public want, but there are other ways, and I'm torn on if it's a legit case or not. NPR has been trying to up use of NPR One for what I assume are similar reasons, but haven't gone the way of shutting out listening sources yet. Instead, they propose a standards [0] to do it from the listeners, and it's showing no signs of success.
0. https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2018/12/11/675250553/remote-audio-data-is-here https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2018/12/11/675250553/...
- dageshi 8y agoAs part of their public service remit they need to be able to show they're making content for all age ranges/demographics, if a big chunk of the audience is moving to podcasts, especially if that part of the audience is younger then that's a big deal for them.
- nyolfen 8y agonpr recently bought pocket casts, which immediately went from my favorite app to a bug-ridden mess
- snarf21 8y agoThis is the super weird reasoning. It is as simple as incentivizing the users. Make one popular podcast only available in their app and let the users consume everything else as is. You'll quickly figure out what content is driving use of their app.
- driverdan 8y agoWhich is a lie. Podcasts are played directly from the source, meaning they have the stats already. The only thing they may not know are subscription rates.
- kwhitefoot 8y agoI use Podcast Addict on my Moto and gpodder on Linux. In both cases I have a massive subscription list that downloads episodes daily. The server that supplies them knows only that I downloaded it, not whether or not I actually listened or that I listened to a few minutes and then abandoned the episode. The purpose is to have a wide variety of material to listen to in my car (via Bluetooth) in which I do not have a data connection.
- pessimizer 8y agoSo probably volume of downloads is an excellent, but somewhat ambiguous indicator of audience. Unless you continue to download podcasts that you listen to for a few minutes then abandon - but that would probably make you as much of an outlier as someone who downloads once, but copies the episode for someone else.
- eddieroger 8y agoPodcasts are downloaded from source, but may also be downloaded and played locally. Knowing download data isn't the same as knowing it was actually played (I regularly delete podcasts from my feed, but my client still downloads them), let along if I'm pausing for periods at a time, or fast forwarding, or any other habits that may be useful.