11 ms·

Show HN: The best technology podcast episodes

340 points by podnami 7y ago

podnami 7y ago
Podnami improves the discovery of great technology podcast episodes. There's an abundance of podcasts out there - but it's hard to figure out which conversations are worth tuning in to. The best episodes get voted to the top and is your "daily digest" of technology to listen to. Happy to answer questions about its tech stack or future plans!
- cvaidya1986 7y ago
  Great job! So what's the tech stack :)
sciencewolf 7y ago
This is great! Only thing I'd ask is that if you're going to allow direct playing on the site, to enable 1.5-2x speed.
- podnami 7y ago
  Thank you! We'll add it in the native player coming soon. Web based audio players have major drawbacks, such as limitations in background playback on mobile devices. That's why we've intentionally left the web player as simple as possible until the native player is launched.
nikivi 7y ago
Recently noted down my favorite podcasts I love. It's a bit hard to keep up at times even with 2x/2.5x speeds and smart speed on with Overcast. There's so much good content out there. https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/podcasts https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/podcasts
- podnami 7y ago
  That's a great list of favorite episodes you have there! We'll add the Joe Rogan Experience interview with John Carmack to our list as well - one of the all time classics!
- fabiandesimone 7y ago
  Check out www.podcastnotes.org
- manigandham 7y ago
  Start playing it at 3x speed.
- weavie 7y ago
  Your whole site is a rabbit hole! Nicely done.
- unixhero 7y ago
  Solid stuff! Just what I have been looking for!
sunseb 7y ago
How can we download an episode? (I want to put it on my mp3 player)
corysama 7y ago
Love the concept. All of the descriptions are cut short and end with... As a user, that leads me to believe I can click on a cut description to see the full description. At least on mobile Safari, clicking on a description does nothing.
- podnami 7y ago
  Thanks! That's the result of our somewhat shaky truncation feature which is supposed to stop overly long titles and descriptions to break the layout. We'll look into how a "click to expand" feature could work!
  - mhdhn 7y ago
    Overuse of truncation sucks. Screw the layout: users can easily scroll down and up. Truncating without a click to expand option is inexcusable. Meanwhile, how about just don't use truncation at all. There's a limit for number of characters in a podcast description. It's in the 2000's I think.
  - angelmass 7y ago
    I feel like the truncation is fine, but too short at the moment. On mobile at least, it’s 25 characters, which isn’t enough space for me to figure out what the episode is about half the time
contingencies 7y ago
Understand others may have differing opinions but I for one never understood podcasts. They seem a very inefficient way to consume information, with generally a very low signal to noise ratio. I can see an attraction while driving, but I don't do that so don't have that problem. The only one I can remember listening to and enjoying in the past was related to roguelike development, and was essentially more of a well choreographed and researched interview framed as a discussion.
- nickthegreek 7y ago
  I do podcasts when I’m not consuming information in other ways. Mostly while driving, showering or working out.
- throwGuardian 7y ago
  Others feel differently, as podcasting is a multi billion dollar industry
  - contingencies 7y ago
    Sure, but so are tabloid newspapers, glossy magazines and junk food. (Edit: These are other examples of billion dollar industries that equate to low quality experiences you can choose to give yourself, but which will have longer term implications.)
    - throwGuardian 7y ago
      How about illegal drugs and human trafficking, if you're going down the rabbit hole of false equivalency?
    - wishinghand 7y ago
      That's such a BS comparison. What's the negative externality of listening to podcasts?
      - j7ake 7y ago
awwaiid 7y ago
Mmm... Is there an RSS feed so I can add this to my podcast player? :)
- teekert 7y ago
  +1! First thing I looked for.
  - antupis 7y ago
    +1
wenbin 7y ago
Good job! You can use our API to search episodes https://www.listennotes.com/api/ https://www.listennotes.com/api/
- podnami 7y ago
  We are using it for our search feature! You're providing a great service and we'll be rolling over to a Pro plan soon!
buzzert 7y ago
Looks great, but please make sure your site has at least basic functionality with JavaScript disabled (right now it loads just an empty page). This is really important for your users who use screen readers (for the blind), folks with older computers or miniature/underpowered computers.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Also for folks on metered/slow (eg, 2g) connections, and privacy conscious users who don't wish to enable JS for basic functionality.
lucasverra 7y ago
Hello there, congrats on launch You should really add context by date of release and a link to listen not : Ex for exponent episode : https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/exponent/episode-152-platforms-versus-YVcSLvOwA_o/ https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/exponent/episode-152-pl...
- podnami 7y ago
  Thank you! We will add a detailed view, alongside a RSS feed for the top list tomorrow.
dustingetz 7y ago
Please show podcast date; I appreciate you need to bootstrap signups by having Sam Altman on your front page but the product is not just useless but actively wastes my time when I can't tell if this is new content. (The Sam Altman interview is from Nov 2018 and this info is concealed by podnami)
- podnami 7y ago
  Gotcha! Not having creation date displayed was part space limitations, part the idea that we want to drive somewhat older episodes with high longevity. We will add a “classic” tag shortly for episodes older than x weeks to indicate that it’s not new content. Thanks for the feedback!
- capableweb 7y ago
  Why this obsession with "newness"? If the podcast is crap because nothing they are talking about is new enough, then maybe you're better of not listening to it. If it's good content and discussions, they'll be timeless.
  - Can_Not 7y ago
    Because there is a strong chance that if "Sam Altman Interview" is interesting to me, I'd like to know if it's an old Interview I've already heard or a new one I've not yet heard... And refusing to timestamp things calling them "timeless" reaks of arrogance and hubris.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >good content and discussions, they'll be timeless. It really depends on the topic. Something like 99 Percent Invisible is pretty evergreen. An interview about AI research? Something from a few years ago is probably going to be a bit dated unless it's about fundamental principles. A podcast that deals primarily with current news/politics/etc.? I'm probably not going to be interested in something a year old.
mgsk 7y ago
Cool idea. Some points of frustration: * there's no way to get to the "home" of the podcast (so that I can explore episodes not listed on the site) * there's no indication of how long the podcast is * there's no way to interact with the media playback (skip forward, etc.)
navs 7y ago
I love podcasts but lately I feel I've got too many to listen to. I unsubscribe only to find I missed an episode. That FOMO coupled with an almost obsessive need to reach podcast "inbox zero" is becoming a problem. This looks like the kinda platform that could curb that with focus on individual episodes rather than the Podcast itself.
- ragebol 7y ago
  Yep, podcasting inbox zero has become quite hard since I started working remotely. No commute is less time for listening to podcasts.
  - navs 7y ago
    Do you sometimes find yourself listening to a podcast episode not because you enjoy the content but because it's part of your completionist streak?
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Take up running or biking. :) One of the biggest life hacks I fell into was to reserve my favorite podcasts or most anticipated episodes for a long run or biking session. I would look forward to that run all day. Often I'll double my distance just to put on another episode. Much more fulfilling than a commute as well.
- djhworld 7y ago
  I've got some gaming ones I have on rotation all the time, but the rest I tend to dip in and out if I see something in the show notes/title that looks interesting.
dominotw 7y ago
leetcode by day, joe rogan podcast by night. all day!!
GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
My initial feedback is to increase the truncation threshold for the Episode title. I couldn’t read half of them on my phone.
stevens32 7y ago
I'd really like a link back to the source episode, or at least be able to read the full description
moltar 7y ago
Why do so many podcast apps or services cut off titles with ellipses. So annoying. Please stop!
- jingw222 7y ago
  Maybe trading usability with athletics just goes a bit over board
  - mandeepj 7y ago
    Aesthetics”*”
- fahrradflucht 7y ago
  Came here to say that. On mobile there is no way to read the full title of an episode. No detail page, no click through to the original post.
thatsenough 7y ago
Love this, but on the phone the podcast art takes up a lot of real estate and leaves little room for the podcast title. I’d rather see an even more stripped down UI that leaves more room for the informational content. Then again, I guess not all podcast episodes have informative and encompassing titles, like articles often do.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gnicholas 7y ago
How is this "HN for tech podcasts"? Are there comments somewhere that I can't see? I would love it if there were a way to annotate/comment on specific statements in podcasts, because I think podcasters (and their guests) get away with saying untrue things more than people who write blog posts/articles. It's super easy to tweet out a quote and evidence that it was false. There is much more friction involved in quoting a podcast, noting the time stamp, and packaging that up with evidence in a tweet. Wish there were an easier way!
- yoz-y 7y ago
  I wouldn't go directly for the untrue things but it would be nice to have a place to specifically discuss podcasts with a nice interface to point out to excerpts (with transcripts it would be even more cool.) One option now is to use the clip sharing tool in Overcast and tweet out the clip, it works really well. But that is just one client.
lhoff 7y ago
For the german speaking audience, i can recommend the interview mit Marco Börris. It's quite long (>6h) but absolutely worth the time. https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-03/marco-boerries-alles-gesagt-interviewpodcast https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-03/marco-boerries-alle...
sbr464 7y ago
Awesome content, just noticed this on the main page, maybe add: {!userSubscribed && showBigFullPageForm} Also, how do you view details or scrub playback position?
ykevinator 7y ago
This is like pop music. The guests are all the people I'm supposed to admire but I don't feel anything.
nelson687 7y ago
Top past week and Top last month have the exact same content, guess it's because the content in the site is new?
skinnyarms 7y ago
I love podcasts and I'm glad for any service that helps me find useful content. That said, I'm not quite getting how I'm supposed to be using this. From a consumer viewpoint, I have a front page recommending episodes and a weekly summary. I get that, cool. Now if I want to heart episodes to tell other listeners about episodes I particularly enjoy...I go to the website and search/submit the episode...I guess? Anyway, I'm interested - I just wanted to share my first impression in case it was useful.
ch 7y ago
Since there is relatively little information on the linked page, I'll put some questions I have here. 1. How does it work? It would appear the list is user curated. New submissions are from users (via submit) and ranking is based on hearts? Is there any future plan to be able to associate # of plays with a given episode (not sure if podcast app apis allow this). 2. In relation to #1 (an asked already by others), how can I subscribe to this in my podcast app?
alpb 7y ago
Unclear how it is best, according to who/what? Nearly all good podcasts I know aren’t there at all.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
I highly recommend On the Metal, it's Jess Frazelle, Bryan Cantrill and Steve Tuck, with great interviews. This episode in particular was amazing: https://oxide.computer/blog/on-the-metal-6-kenneth-finnegan/ https://oxide.computer/blog/on-the-metal-6-kenneth-finnegan/
olingern 7y ago
I'm new-ish to Go and find "Go Time"[1] nice for building context while I continue learning. 1 - https://changelog.com/gotime https://changelog.com/gotime
angry_octet 7y ago
The only problem with this incredibly basic web page is that it isn't listing the best podcasts and is recommending listening to an anti-democratic extremist. No indication where this list came from either.
- rondecuba 7y ago
  Who is the anti-democratic extremist?
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible…" Peter Thiel.

340 points by podnami 7y ago

Podnami improves the discovery of great technology podcast episodes. There's an abundance of podcasts out there - but it's hard to figure out which conversations are worth tuning in to. The best episodes get voted to the top and is your "daily digest" of technology to listen to. Happy to answer questions about its tech stack or future plans!

cvaidya1986 7y ago
Great job! So what's the tech stack :)

sciencewolf 7y ago

This is great! Only thing I'd ask is that if you're going to allow direct playing on the site, to enable 1.5-2x speed.

podnami 7y ago
Thank you! We'll add it in the native player coming soon. Web based audio players have major drawbacks, such as limitations in background playback on mobile devices. That's why we've intentionally left the web player as simple as possible until the native player is launched.

nikivi 7y ago

Recently noted down my favorite podcasts I love. It's a bit hard to keep up at times even with 2x/2.5x speeds and smart speed on with Overcast. There's so much good content out there. https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/podcasts https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/podcasts

podnami 7y ago
That's a great list of favorite episodes you have there! We'll add the Joe Rogan Experience interview with John Carmack to our list as well - one of the all time classics!
fabiandesimone 7y ago
Check out www.podcastnotes.org
manigandham 7y ago
Start playing it at 3x speed.
weavie 7y ago
Your whole site is a rabbit hole! Nicely done.
unixhero 7y ago
Solid stuff! Just what I have been looking for!

sunseb 7y ago

How can we download an episode? (I want to put it on my mp3 player)

corysama 7y ago

Love the concept. All of the descriptions are cut short and end with... As a user, that leads me to believe I can click on a cut description to see the full description. At least on mobile Safari, clicking on a description does nothing.

podnami 7y ago
Thanks! That's the result of our somewhat shaky truncation feature which is supposed to stop overly long titles and descriptions to break the layout. We'll look into how a "click to expand" feature could work!
- mhdhn 7y ago
  Overuse of truncation sucks. Screw the layout: users can easily scroll down and up. Truncating without a click to expand option is inexcusable. Meanwhile, how about just don't use truncation at all. There's a limit for number of characters in a podcast description. It's in the 2000's I think.
- angelmass 7y ago
  I feel like the truncation is fine, but too short at the moment. On mobile at least, it’s 25 characters, which isn’t enough space for me to figure out what the episode is about half the time

contingencies 7y ago

Understand others may have differing opinions but I for one never understood podcasts. They seem a very inefficient way to consume information, with generally a very low signal to noise ratio. I can see an attraction while driving, but I don't do that so don't have that problem. The only one I can remember listening to and enjoying in the past was related to roguelike development, and was essentially more of a well choreographed and researched interview framed as a discussion.

nickthegreek 7y ago
I do podcasts when I’m not consuming information in other ways. Mostly while driving, showering or working out.
throwGuardian 7y ago
Others feel differently, as podcasting is a multi billion dollar industry
- contingencies 7y ago
  Sure, but so are tabloid newspapers, glossy magazines and junk food. (Edit: These are other examples of billion dollar industries that equate to low quality experiences you can choose to give yourself, but which will have longer term implications.)
  - throwGuardian 7y ago
    How about illegal drugs and human trafficking, if you're going down the rabbit hole of false equivalency?
  - wishinghand 7y ago
    That's such a BS comparison. What's the negative externality of listening to podcasts?
    - j7ake 7y ago

awwaiid 7y ago

Mmm... Is there an RSS feed so I can add this to my podcast player? :)

teekert 7y ago
+1! First thing I looked for.
- antupis 7y ago
  +1

wenbin 7y ago

Good job! You can use our API to search episodes https://www.listennotes.com/api/ https://www.listennotes.com/api/

podnami 7y ago
We are using it for our search feature! You're providing a great service and we'll be rolling over to a Pro plan soon!

buzzert 7y ago

Looks great, but please make sure your site has at least basic functionality with JavaScript disabled (right now it loads just an empty page). This is really important for your users who use screen readers (for the blind), folks with older computers or miniature/underpowered computers.

rahuldottech 7y ago
Also for folks on metered/slow (eg, 2g) connections, and privacy conscious users who don't wish to enable JS for basic functionality.

lucasverra 7y ago

Hello there, congrats on launch You should really add context by date of release and a link to listen not : Ex for exponent episode : https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/exponent/episode-152-platforms-versus-YVcSLvOwA_o/ https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/exponent/episode-152-pl...

podnami 7y ago
Thank you! We will add a detailed view, alongside a RSS feed for the top list tomorrow.

dustingetz 7y ago

Please show podcast date; I appreciate you need to bootstrap signups by having Sam Altman on your front page but the product is not just useless but actively wastes my time when I can't tell if this is new content. (The Sam Altman interview is from Nov 2018 and this info is concealed by podnami)

podnami 7y ago
Gotcha! Not having creation date displayed was part space limitations, part the idea that we want to drive somewhat older episodes with high longevity. We will add a “classic” tag shortly for episodes older than x weeks to indicate that it’s not new content. Thanks for the feedback!
capableweb 7y ago
Why this obsession with "newness"? If the podcast is crap because nothing they are talking about is new enough, then maybe you're better of not listening to it. If it's good content and discussions, they'll be timeless.
- Can_Not 7y ago
  Because there is a strong chance that if "Sam Altman Interview" is interesting to me, I'd like to know if it's an old Interview I've already heard or a new one I've not yet heard... And refusing to timestamp things calling them "timeless" reaks of arrogance and hubris.
- ghaff 7y ago
  >good content and discussions, they'll be timeless. It really depends on the topic. Something like 99 Percent Invisible is pretty evergreen. An interview about AI research? Something from a few years ago is probably going to be a bit dated unless it's about fundamental principles. A podcast that deals primarily with current news/politics/etc.? I'm probably not going to be interested in something a year old.

mgsk 7y ago

Cool idea. Some points of frustration: * there's no way to get to the "home" of the podcast (so that I can explore episodes not listed on the site) * there's no indication of how long the podcast is * there's no way to interact with the media playback (skip forward, etc.)

navs 7y ago

I love podcasts but lately I feel I've got too many to listen to. I unsubscribe only to find I missed an episode. That FOMO coupled with an almost obsessive need to reach podcast "inbox zero" is becoming a problem. This looks like the kinda platform that could curb that with focus on individual episodes rather than the Podcast itself.

ragebol 7y ago
Yep, podcasting inbox zero has become quite hard since I started working remotely. No commute is less time for listening to podcasts.
- navs 7y ago
  Do you sometimes find yourself listening to a podcast episode not because you enjoy the content but because it's part of your completionist streak?
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Take up running or biking. :) One of the biggest life hacks I fell into was to reserve my favorite podcasts or most anticipated episodes for a long run or biking session. I would look forward to that run all day. Often I'll double my distance just to put on another episode. Much more fulfilling than a commute as well.
djhworld 7y ago
I've got some gaming ones I have on rotation all the time, but the rest I tend to dip in and out if I see something in the show notes/title that looks interesting.

dominotw 7y ago

leetcode by day, joe rogan podcast by night. all day!!

GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago

My initial feedback is to increase the truncation threshold for the Episode title. I couldn’t read half of them on my phone.

stevens32 7y ago

I'd really like a link back to the source episode, or at least be able to read the full description

moltar 7y ago

Why do so many podcast apps or services cut off titles with ellipses. So annoying. Please stop!

jingw222 7y ago
Maybe trading usability with athletics just goes a bit over board
- mandeepj 7y ago
  Aesthetics”*”
fahrradflucht 7y ago
Came here to say that. On mobile there is no way to read the full title of an episode. No detail page, no click through to the original post.

thatsenough 7y ago

Love this, but on the phone the podcast art takes up a lot of real estate and leaves little room for the podcast title. I’d rather see an even more stripped down UI that leaves more room for the informational content. Then again, I guess not all podcast episodes have informative and encompassing titles, like articles often do.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gnicholas 7y ago

How is this "HN for tech podcasts"? Are there comments somewhere that I can't see? I would love it if there were a way to annotate/comment on specific statements in podcasts, because I think podcasters (and their guests) get away with saying untrue things more than people who write blog posts/articles. It's super easy to tweet out a quote and evidence that it was false. There is much more friction involved in quoting a podcast, noting the time stamp, and packaging that up with evidence in a tweet. Wish there were an easier way!

yoz-y 7y ago
I wouldn't go directly for the untrue things but it would be nice to have a place to specifically discuss podcasts with a nice interface to point out to excerpts (with transcripts it would be even more cool.) One option now is to use the clip sharing tool in Overcast and tweet out the clip, it works really well. But that is just one client.

lhoff 7y ago

For the german speaking audience, i can recommend the interview mit Marco Börris. It's quite long (>6h) but absolutely worth the time. https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-03/marco-boerries-alles-gesagt-interviewpodcast https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-03/marco-boerries-alle...

sbr464 7y ago

Awesome content, just noticed this on the main page, maybe add: {!userSubscribed && showBigFullPageForm} Also, how do you view details or scrub playback position?

ykevinator 7y ago

This is like pop music. The guests are all the people I'm supposed to admire but I don't feel anything.

nelson687 7y ago

Top past week and Top last month have the exact same content, guess it's because the content in the site is new?

skinnyarms 7y ago

I love podcasts and I'm glad for any service that helps me find useful content. That said, I'm not quite getting how I'm supposed to be using this. From a consumer viewpoint, I have a front page recommending episodes and a weekly summary. I get that, cool. Now if I want to heart episodes to tell other listeners about episodes I particularly enjoy...I go to the website and search/submit the episode...I guess? Anyway, I'm interested - I just wanted to share my first impression in case it was useful.

ch 7y ago

Since there is relatively little information on the linked page, I'll put some questions I have here. 1. How does it work? It would appear the list is user curated. New submissions are from users (via submit) and ranking is based on hearts? Is there any future plan to be able to associate # of plays with a given episode (not sure if podcast app apis allow this). 2. In relation to #1 (an asked already by others), how can I subscribe to this in my podcast app?

alpb 7y ago

Unclear how it is best, according to who/what? Nearly all good podcasts I know aren’t there at all.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

rhinoceraptor 7y ago

I highly recommend On the Metal, it's Jess Frazelle, Bryan Cantrill and Steve Tuck, with great interviews. This episode in particular was amazing: https://oxide.computer/blog/on-the-metal-6-kenneth-finnegan/ https://oxide.computer/blog/on-the-metal-6-kenneth-finnegan/

olingern 7y ago

I'm new-ish to Go and find "Go Time"[1] nice for building context while I continue learning. 1 - https://changelog.com/gotime https://changelog.com/gotime

angry_octet 7y ago

The only problem with this incredibly basic web page is that it isn't listing the best podcasts and is recommending listening to an anti-democratic extremist. No indication where this list came from either.

rondecuba 7y ago
Who is the anti-democratic extremist?
- angry_octet 7y ago
  "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible…" Peter Thiel.