8 ms·

I do think that podcasting is ripe for disruption and a great candidate for a "super app" that can end up being people's go-to to listen to podcasts and be expo

by dvt 4y ago

I do think that podcasting is ripe for disruption and a great candidate for a "super app" that can end up being people's go-to to listen to podcasts and be exposed to new ones. Spotify did literally nothing to actually support podcasting as another vertical--which it 100% is. Podcasting isn't just "music" and it's a profound misunderstanding to believe that it is. It's honestly embarrassing that their biz dev people were like: "just buy out Joe Rogan, that should do the trick." To this day, I mostly listen to podcasts on YouTube. Spotify doesn't have transcripts, scrubbing, chapters, discoverability, "shorts," etc., etc. I run an open source Spotify player[1] and their API doesn't even have a podcast type/category (lol, they are actually "music videos" in the JSON payload). It's like podcasts don't even exist. [1] https://github.com/dvx/lofi/ https://github.com/dvx/lofi/

helmholtz 4y ago
By contrast, Spotify's Episode Search is the best in the business, bar none. At least on Android. All the other options are so fucking bad, it makes me mad. Let's say I want to search not for a podcast, but all podcasts featuring "Alex Honnold". Well, when I type that in to Spotify, it gives me loads of podcasts he's appeared on, with the option to start playing the episode immediately. All the other apps that I've tried, AntennaPod, PocketCasts, Podcast Addict, are in stone age. How do these other apps expect me to discover podcasts? They are just glorified RSS feeds, these other apps. Having said that, I don't want to pollute my music with my podcasts, so I don't use Spotify for podcasts anyway :)
- wmfrov 4y ago
  The Google Podcasts app has search like that on Android as well. I agree that it's amazing that there is such a dearth of usable podcast apps out there, especially on Android.
  - helmholtz 4y ago
    The problem there is you need to install the Google app in addition to the podcast app, something I refuse to do. I just don't get why podcast search is so appalling, and why it's not a bigger deal. It drives me bananas.
- irowe 4y ago
  Pocket Casts has a whole “Discover” tab with both algorithmic and human-curated recommendations, as well as browsing by category. I’m not sure what more you could ask for except for maybe user-generated shareable playlists. Pocket Casts even has this excellent feature where you can share a link to the current time stamp in an episode and share it. The recipient of the link doesn’t even need to download the app; the shared snippet is playable right in the browser.
  - helmholtz 4y ago
    Read my lips: "Episodes". I want to search through bloody episodes! I want it to go through it's entire index of ALL episode titles, show-notes and transcripts and find me relevant podcast episodes where the phrase I searched is relevant. I don't want discovery, I don't want AI, and I certainly don't care for any sharing things. I want to be able to find content. And I don't want to go join a series on Episode 592 and go backwards. I'm interested in a topic: Jennifer Aniston, Alex Honnold, Dieter Rams, GUI libraries in Rust, C++ game development, Financial Independence. I just want it to show me individual episodes! It'd be like searching google for "GUI library in Rust" and it showing me the Rust website and saying "good luck out there!" It should just search the bloody websites and show me the relevant webpage.
    - irowe 4y ago
      Hmm. You can search episode names and show notes on Pocket Casts on a per-show but not a global basis. I guess that is a shortcoming.
- sundarurfriend 4y ago
  I used to use Player.fm as my main podcast app, and it had a pretty good episode search feature. > All the other apps that I've tried, AntennaPod, PocketCasts, Podcast Addict, are in stone age. How do these other apps expect me to discover podcasts? They are just glorified RSS feeds, these other apps. I didn't know PocketCasts was lacking this too! When I switched to AntennaPod, this was the only feature I really missed. But by now, I've gotten used to just websearching for podcast episodes and then opening them in AntennaPod after the fact.
Spivak 4y ago
You mean Apple Podcasts? The app that every podcast feels compelled to publish on and is by far the biggest review and discovery platform.
- dvt 4y ago
  Apple Podcasts is atrocious from a usability standpoint and unless you know exactly what you're looking for, discoverability is extremely opaque. No "trending," no "new podcasts," no "shorts." Compare the Apple Podcast experience to something like TikTok or even the YouTube algorithm.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Am I missing something? Apple Podcasts is nothing but discovery -- It's 3/4 of the main tabs. On "Listen Now" you get popular and personalized suggestions, on "Browse" you get new, trending, top shows, top episodes, top channels, and a bunch of categories. If that's not enough if you go to "Search" and pick a genre you get top, new, and subgenres.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      Maybe it's just me, but Apple Podcasts only shows me NPR and NYT podcasts on listen now, and Browse is pretty much the same but with some republican outlets thrown in. I've never discovered a great podcast on there.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    > Compare the Apple Podcast experience to something like TikTok or even the YouTube algorithm. I've compared these and Apple Podcast, as bad as it is, is miles better. YouTube shorts is a waste of screen real estate and TikTok is a waste of time altogether. I want a tool for finding things, not a funnel for delivering ads.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    > No "trending," no "new podcasts," no "shorts." Why would I want any of that garbage? The only one of those suggestions that's remotely worthwhile is "shorts" for podcasts to post best-of clip shows without requiring you listen to full episodes.
wlesieutre 4y ago
> I do think that podcasting is ripe for disruption and a great candidate for a "super app" that can end up being people's go-to to listen to podcasts and be exposed to new ones. What would a disruptive new "super app" bring to the table compared to every other podcast app that already does this? I'm partial to Pocket Casts personally.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  Same here. I don't use Spotify for podcasts, even though I pay for premium, because I have Pocket Casts. I listen to podcasts at 2.7x. Not the 2.5x or 3.0x speeds Spotify insists I have to choose among. I have podcast-specific settings. Podcasts like Lex Fridman start at exactly 7 minutes in, so that I avoid predictable ad segments. The player cuts out silence and skips pauses automatically. It's nice that it tells me how many hundreds of hours I saved last year just by skipping silence. Pocket Casts doesn't put up one banner after another warning me to learn more about Covid, just in case people in the episode say something that the official narrative won't catch up to for 6~18 more months. Also Pocket Casts doesn't put banners on its home page reminding me to tamp down my assumed racism and avoid beating up Asian people. If Spotify made a podcast player better than Pocket Casts and stuck to letting me listen to podcasts without US-centric political banners, then I'd be using Spotify. But I don't see how they ever can do that.
  - gruffin 4y ago
    > I listen to podcasts at 2.7x Jesus lord. And here I go at 1.25x and sometimes 1.5x and think that's fast as fuck.
    - unsupp0rted 4y ago
      If you're a native speaker listening to native speakers, you can probably easily do 2x after a few hours of getting used to it. If you're listening to someone with an accent you might have to slow it down a lot. Likewise if your audio quality isn't very good or if you're concentrating too much on another task. E.g. when I'm walking in familiar neighborhoods 2.7x is easy but when the area is even somewhat unfamiliar I either slow it down to 1.x or turn it off, because I suddenly find it hard to grok the content. I first started speeding up my podcasts when I heard that blind people can listen above 4x ~ 6x speed without missing a beat. I'm still trying to break the 3x barrier.
misterprime 4y ago
Podcasting 2.0 and PodcastIndex.org are helping a lot. I use the Fountain.FM app and get lots of new features through it that Apple Podcasts doesn't have. https://podcastindex.org/ https://podcastindex.org/ https://www.fountain.fm/ https://www.fountain.fm/ Chapters, chapter art, support producers directly through streaming sats and tipping extra through "boosts". It's great! I don't make much use of it, but there are cross-app comments, live stream notifications, and more.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Just learned about this: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/podcasting20/ https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/podcasting20/

by dvt 4y ago

helmholtz 4y ago

By contrast, Spotify's Episode Search is the best in the business, bar none. At least on Android. All the other options are so fucking bad, it makes me mad. Let's say I want to search not for a podcast, but all podcasts featuring "Alex Honnold". Well, when I type that in to Spotify, it gives me loads of podcasts he's appeared on, with the option to start playing the episode immediately. All the other apps that I've tried, AntennaPod, PocketCasts, Podcast Addict, are in stone age. How do these other apps expect me to discover podcasts? They are just glorified RSS feeds, these other apps. Having said that, I don't want to pollute my music with my podcasts, so I don't use Spotify for podcasts anyway :)

wmfrov 4y ago
The Google Podcasts app has search like that on Android as well. I agree that it's amazing that there is such a dearth of usable podcast apps out there, especially on Android.
- helmholtz 4y ago
  The problem there is you need to install the Google app in addition to the podcast app, something I refuse to do. I just don't get why podcast search is so appalling, and why it's not a bigger deal. It drives me bananas.
irowe 4y ago
Pocket Casts has a whole “Discover” tab with both algorithmic and human-curated recommendations, as well as browsing by category. I’m not sure what more you could ask for except for maybe user-generated shareable playlists. Pocket Casts even has this excellent feature where you can share a link to the current time stamp in an episode and share it. The recipient of the link doesn’t even need to download the app; the shared snippet is playable right in the browser.
- helmholtz 4y ago
  Read my lips: "Episodes". I want to search through bloody episodes! I want it to go through it's entire index of ALL episode titles, show-notes and transcripts and find me relevant podcast episodes where the phrase I searched is relevant. I don't want discovery, I don't want AI, and I certainly don't care for any sharing things. I want to be able to find content. And I don't want to go join a series on Episode 592 and go backwards. I'm interested in a topic: Jennifer Aniston, Alex Honnold, Dieter Rams, GUI libraries in Rust, C++ game development, Financial Independence. I just want it to show me individual episodes! It'd be like searching google for "GUI library in Rust" and it showing me the Rust website and saying "good luck out there!" It should just search the bloody websites and show me the relevant webpage.
  - irowe 4y ago
    Hmm. You can search episode names and show notes on Pocket Casts on a per-show but not a global basis. I guess that is a shortcoming.
sundarurfriend 4y ago
I used to use Player.fm as my main podcast app, and it had a pretty good episode search feature. > All the other apps that I've tried, AntennaPod, PocketCasts, Podcast Addict, are in stone age. How do these other apps expect me to discover podcasts? They are just glorified RSS feeds, these other apps. I didn't know PocketCasts was lacking this too! When I switched to AntennaPod, this was the only feature I really missed. But by now, I've gotten used to just websearching for podcast episodes and then opening them in AntennaPod after the fact.

Spivak 4y ago

You mean Apple Podcasts? The app that every podcast feels compelled to publish on and is by far the biggest review and discovery platform.

dvt 4y ago
Apple Podcasts is atrocious from a usability standpoint and unless you know exactly what you're looking for, discoverability is extremely opaque. No "trending," no "new podcasts," no "shorts." Compare the Apple Podcast experience to something like TikTok or even the YouTube algorithm.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Am I missing something? Apple Podcasts is nothing but discovery -- It's 3/4 of the main tabs. On "Listen Now" you get popular and personalized suggestions, on "Browse" you get new, trending, top shows, top episodes, top channels, and a bunch of categories. If that's not enough if you go to "Search" and pick a genre you get top, new, and subgenres.
  - yunwal 4y ago
    Maybe it's just me, but Apple Podcasts only shows me NPR and NYT podcasts on listen now, and Browse is pretty much the same but with some republican outlets thrown in. I've never discovered a great podcast on there.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > Compare the Apple Podcast experience to something like TikTok or even the YouTube algorithm. I've compared these and Apple Podcast, as bad as it is, is miles better. YouTube shorts is a waste of screen real estate and TikTok is a waste of time altogether. I want a tool for finding things, not a funnel for delivering ads.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  > No "trending," no "new podcasts," no "shorts." Why would I want any of that garbage? The only one of those suggestions that's remotely worthwhile is "shorts" for podcasts to post best-of clip shows without requiring you listen to full episodes.

wlesieutre 4y ago

> I do think that podcasting is ripe for disruption and a great candidate for a "super app" that can end up being people's go-to to listen to podcasts and be exposed to new ones. What would a disruptive new "super app" bring to the table compared to every other podcast app that already does this? I'm partial to Pocket Casts personally.

unsupp0rted 4y ago
Same here. I don't use Spotify for podcasts, even though I pay for premium, because I have Pocket Casts. I listen to podcasts at 2.7x. Not the 2.5x or 3.0x speeds Spotify insists I have to choose among. I have podcast-specific settings. Podcasts like Lex Fridman start at exactly 7 minutes in, so that I avoid predictable ad segments. The player cuts out silence and skips pauses automatically. It's nice that it tells me how many hundreds of hours I saved last year just by skipping silence. Pocket Casts doesn't put up one banner after another warning me to learn more about Covid, just in case people in the episode say something that the official narrative won't catch up to for 6~18 more months. Also Pocket Casts doesn't put banners on its home page reminding me to tamp down my assumed racism and avoid beating up Asian people. If Spotify made a podcast player better than Pocket Casts and stuck to letting me listen to podcasts without US-centric political banners, then I'd be using Spotify. But I don't see how they ever can do that.
- gruffin 4y ago
  > I listen to podcasts at 2.7x Jesus lord. And here I go at 1.25x and sometimes 1.5x and think that's fast as fuck.
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    If you're a native speaker listening to native speakers, you can probably easily do 2x after a few hours of getting used to it. If you're listening to someone with an accent you might have to slow it down a lot. Likewise if your audio quality isn't very good or if you're concentrating too much on another task. E.g. when I'm walking in familiar neighborhoods 2.7x is easy but when the area is even somewhat unfamiliar I either slow it down to 1.x or turn it off, because I suddenly find it hard to grok the content. I first started speeding up my podcasts when I heard that blind people can listen above 4x ~ 6x speed without missing a beat. I'm still trying to break the 3x barrier.

misterprime 4y ago

Podcasting 2.0 and PodcastIndex.org are helping a lot. I use the Fountain.FM app and get lots of new features through it that Apple Podcasts doesn't have. https://podcastindex.org/ https://podcastindex.org/ https://www.fountain.fm/ https://www.fountain.fm/ Chapters, chapter art, support producers directly through streaming sats and tipping extra through "boosts". It's great! I don't make much use of it, but there are cross-app comments, live stream notifications, and more.

panick21_ 4y ago
Just learned about this: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/podcasting20/ https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/podcasting20/