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What's hilarious is that the reason is Google is pushing back on sharing user analytics with BBC. For another company it'd be the pinnacle of respecting user bu
by gerash 8y ago
What's hilarious is that the reason is Google is pushing back on sharing user analytics with BBC. For another company it'd be the pinnacle of respecting user but you just seem biased against Google so there's nothing they can do to please you it seems.
All other services (Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple, etc.) serve podcasts on their own properties but if Google does it it's monopolistic. To me such claims about Google have become too overused and have lost their meaning.
I don't blame BBC though for sticking to their guns because they really want user analytics and think have the weight to pull out. The justification they provided is just misleading.
- jamescridland 8y agoThe podcasts are played directly from the BBC's servers. The BBC already have all the consumption data that they would expect - IP address, device, time listened, etc - in their own server logs. Just like a normal podcast player. So... what user analytics do the BBC actually want?
- shermozle 8y agoThose user analytics aren't very useful. You get IP address, device and time _downloaded_. You get nothing about "listened". There's a standard NPR have written to improve this, but it requires the podcast players to implement it. It's very privacy-respecting but I doubt Apple will implement it, so it's probably going to be a non-starter unless the big podcasters like the BBC hold the line.
- jamescridland 8y agoThe standard is RAD. The BBC hasn't implemented it. For Google Podcasts, "downloaded" = "listened", since it has no auto-download feature. So they are (excepting the minority who manually download) actual listens. You remind me that I should add a sniffer for RAD support in my Podnews pages, so I'll go and do that. My own podcast has RAD tags in it.