5 ms·

Facebook Is Pulling Back from Its Foray into Podcasting

27 points by lxm 5y ago

doubtfuluser 5y ago
Not surprised on this, I think the rise and demise of clubhouse predicted both behaviors. Long form audio “rooms” require constant attention to follow. I listen to podcasts when running or driving, but not as a short “distraction”. Extrapolation Leads me to believe that there’s probably not a big enough market for big players like Facebook.
- wand3r 5y ago
  I really like Call In, David Sack’s new offering. Its basically a slightly better version of clubhouse that uploads the show to a host after it ends. Much better experience for me because I can listen to interesting people and discussions and if I was moved to participate I could show up to the live version
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    I'm not a huge podcast consumer, but definitely my favourite ones that I've listened to are carefully scripted and edited down so that they feel tight and content-dense. I lose patience with ones that feel like a talk show, especially if it's more than 2 people having a meandering conversation with each other, cutting off and interrupting, etc. That kind of content is okay live, especially in a venue like a Twitch stream where you can actually participate in the mayhem. But as a recording? I end up just changing to something else.
    - wand3r 5y ago
      Thats fair. The ones i mostly listen to are David Sacks, Antonio Garcia Martinez and Glenn Greenwald. I am so so on Greenwald tbh. The formats are mostly the same though, they are usually a topic based discussion or standard interview and at the end the open for questions. So its kind of like your standard recode interview or Ted style interview. Its less like clubhouse where it just feels like an awkward discord channel. I do agree, i dislike the clubhouse format and the meandering multi person conversations that dont have a direction
vaylian 5y ago
Sidenote: Spotify seems to require browser-based DRM when playing free podcasts. We really don't need more closed plattforms on the web. So I'm happy that facebook is no longer trying to do podcasting.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Wait... So Facebook not competing with Spotify is good?
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    In all fairness, I still don't see why we need big players in the podcast market to begin with. A podcast can be as easy as MP3 files and an RSS file pointing to them - the whole "podcasting webapp" thing that people add on top of it only sets up fences and gates, much like "social media" killed and quasi-monopolized private web content production from personal homepages to Facebook.
    - afandian 5y ago
      IMHO a podcast is defined as audio content + RSS. If I need a special app, it's not a podcast. If I can't download to listen offline on a device of my choosing it's not a podcast. Looking at you BBC Sounds and Spotify.
pavlov 5y ago
I worked at Facebook on adjacent projects, and would have predicted a year ago that FB will give up on these audio creator initiatives as soon as Zuck's attention is somewhere else. The only reason these audio-focused projects were started was that at the start of 2021 people believed it was a "Mark priority", and everyone wanted to ship something by the end of H1 2021 so it would make it into their performance reviews. (This is also the explanation for why so many companies including Twitter, FB and Spotify shipped audio products around May-June 2021. Everybody ran on the same review cycle.) It's hard to exaggerate how much of FB's flailing is explained by internal beliefs in something being a Mark priority, which then shifts to something else by the next half. It's a downside of being a founder-owned company at this scale – the signals from the top become caricatures of "Great Leader probably wants X now."
- xeromal 5y ago
  It kind of works when the leader is a visionary like Steve Jobs and somewhat an Elon musk. They're troubled humans but being confident and aggressive works often works. I don't see Zuch with the same charisma and gusto though. He strikes me more an engineer than a visionary.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    > He strikes me more an engineer than a visionary. This doesn't add up with Facebook going "all-in" on the metaverse imo.
    - bduerst 5y ago
      I still think Metaverse was a branding/distraction strategy from taking a bath financially. The lack of substance is telling.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      This is a perfect example. Zuckerberg wants to be a visionary. But the "metaverse" is a terrible vision whereas visionaries are typically labelled as such because they manage to envision things that others don't AND those visions turn out to be great.
timcavel 5y ago
codebook 5y ago
I remember when FB announced they will launch podcasting platform (or clubhouse alternatives), the head of the program took a photo that she sat in front of a laptop and a famous podcast mic (Blue Yeti) with wrong direction. Blue Yeti has diaphragm towards the front not upward, her mic top pointed to her mouth. I expected this.

27 points by lxm 5y ago

Not surprised on this, I think the rise and demise of clubhouse predicted both behaviors. Long form audio “rooms” require constant attention to follow. I listen to podcasts when running or driving, but not as a short “distraction”. Extrapolation Leads me to believe that there’s probably not a big enough market for big players like Facebook.

wand3r 5y ago
I really like Call In, David Sack’s new offering. Its basically a slightly better version of clubhouse that uploads the show to a host after it ends. Much better experience for me because I can listen to interesting people and discussions and if I was moved to participate I could show up to the live version
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  I'm not a huge podcast consumer, but definitely my favourite ones that I've listened to are carefully scripted and edited down so that they feel tight and content-dense. I lose patience with ones that feel like a talk show, especially if it's more than 2 people having a meandering conversation with each other, cutting off and interrupting, etc. That kind of content is okay live, especially in a venue like a Twitch stream where you can actually participate in the mayhem. But as a recording? I end up just changing to something else.
  - wand3r 5y ago
    Thats fair. The ones i mostly listen to are David Sacks, Antonio Garcia Martinez and Glenn Greenwald. I am so so on Greenwald tbh. The formats are mostly the same though, they are usually a topic based discussion or standard interview and at the end the open for questions. So its kind of like your standard recode interview or Ted style interview. Its less like clubhouse where it just feels like an awkward discord channel. I do agree, i dislike the clubhouse format and the meandering multi person conversations that dont have a direction

vaylian 5y ago

Sidenote: Spotify seems to require browser-based DRM when playing free podcasts. We really don't need more closed plattforms on the web. So I'm happy that facebook is no longer trying to do podcasting.

AlwaysRock 5y ago
Wait... So Facebook not competing with Spotify is good?
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  In all fairness, I still don't see why we need big players in the podcast market to begin with. A podcast can be as easy as MP3 files and an RSS file pointing to them - the whole "podcasting webapp" thing that people add on top of it only sets up fences and gates, much like "social media" killed and quasi-monopolized private web content production from personal homepages to Facebook.
  - afandian 5y ago
    IMHO a podcast is defined as audio content + RSS. If I need a special app, it's not a podcast. If I can't download to listen offline on a device of my choosing it's not a podcast. Looking at you BBC Sounds and Spotify.

pavlov 5y ago

I worked at Facebook on adjacent projects, and would have predicted a year ago that FB will give up on these audio creator initiatives as soon as Zuck's attention is somewhere else. The only reason these audio-focused projects were started was that at the start of 2021 people believed it was a "Mark priority", and everyone wanted to ship something by the end of H1 2021 so it would make it into their performance reviews. (This is also the explanation for why so many companies including Twitter, FB and Spotify shipped audio products around May-June 2021. Everybody ran on the same review cycle.) It's hard to exaggerate how much of FB's flailing is explained by internal beliefs in something being a Mark priority, which then shifts to something else by the next half. It's a downside of being a founder-owned company at this scale – the signals from the top become caricatures of "Great Leader probably wants X now."

xeromal 5y ago
It kind of works when the leader is a visionary like Steve Jobs and somewhat an Elon musk. They're troubled humans but being confident and aggressive works often works. I don't see Zuch with the same charisma and gusto though. He strikes me more an engineer than a visionary.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > He strikes me more an engineer than a visionary. This doesn't add up with Facebook going "all-in" on the metaverse imo.
  - bduerst 5y ago
    I still think Metaverse was a branding/distraction strategy from taking a bath financially. The lack of substance is telling.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    This is a perfect example. Zuckerberg wants to be a visionary. But the "metaverse" is a terrible vision whereas visionaries are typically labelled as such because they manage to envision things that others don't AND those visions turn out to be great.

timcavel 5y ago

codebook 5y ago

I remember when FB announced they will launch podcasting platform (or clubhouse alternatives), the head of the program took a photo that she sat in front of a laptop and a famous podcast mic (Blue Yeti) with wrong direction. Blue Yeti has diaphragm towards the front not upward, her mic top pointed to her mouth. I expected this.