8 ms·

Show HN: Anycast+ – An AI-powered podcast app

47 points by kindjeff 2y ago

Spivak 2y ago
The killer feature for using AI on podcasts is automatic ad blocking. You get that working folks will pay $5/mo for that alone.
- isubkhankulov 2y ago
  This extension works if you’re listening on a computer https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/
  - WithinReason 2y ago
    For any podcast?
    - therein 2y ago
      Community sourced skiplist.
      - WithinReason 2y ago
        The page says it's for YouTube
        obviyus 2y ago
        Podcasts often have a copy on YouTube nowadays. SponsorBlock has saved me hours
  - maxglute 2y ago
    For what services other than youtube? Seems like a lot of podcasters haven't migrated from google music / google podcast to youtube music podcast. The ones that do does have youtube interface but I rarely see any get tagged by sponsorblock. Honestly one of the things I was looking forward with the google podcast -> youtube music podcast clusterfuck.
  - jimsug 2y ago
    As mentioned - only works for YT. I also don't know if the crowdsourced skiplist works for podcasts as well as for youtube ads, since I think a larger proportion of podcasts use dynamic ad insertion - do they have consistent length? Might mess up ad tags/flags
    - maxglute 2y ago
      I haven't tried, but youtube music podcasts can redirect to youtube interface, which I assume will work on 3rd party apps like newpipe with sponsorblock integration. Sponsorblock mostly helpful in skipping sponsor reads, 3rd party apps (or youtube premium) blocks injected ads. Ultimately, IMO there's too many niche podcasts out there for sponsorblock route. Better to have AI solution to figure out and tag ads + sponsors + filler content to autoskip according to timestamp on downloaded audio file podcasts which could be variable length due to localized ads.
    - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
      Dynamically inserted? How does that work if you've downloaded the mp3?
- kindjeff 2y ago
  It sounds like a useful feature, but I am worried it may have potential legal risks.
  - jen729w 2y ago
    I wouldn’t (worry). I’ve downloaded a file to my local device. Sue me for doing something to it before I ingest it. ;-)
    - CaptainFever 2y ago
      Not sure why this is downvoted. Ad blockers aren't illegal, no one has the obligation to listen to ads without skipping it. This isn't really controversial on HN.
      - kindjeff 2y ago
        Yeah, I mean it might get rejected as an app from the app store. I support ad blockers.
- nox101 2y ago
  what are you listening to podcasts on that it's not easy to skip ads? I'm using Downcast. It's a fairly old app. I think it defaults to +30s +2m -30s buttons which IIRC are settable. It's trivial to skip the ads. I don't need AI to solve that.
  - spike021 2y ago
    If driving, not everyone wants to have to search for the buttons to do that, accidentally skip too far ahead, have to go back a step or two, etc.
  - whereismyacc 2y ago
    Usually I'm listening to podcast when doing dishes, or grocery shopping, at the gym, or on a walk. I don't really want to have to take up my phone to skip an ad, and the controls on the headphones are too janky. This would definitely be a killer feature for me.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mgkimsal 2y ago
      "Siri, skip ahead 30 seconds". Doesn't always work, and... sometimes, it's 60, sometimes it's 2 minutes... If it's a podcast I listen to a lot, I usually know if it's a 30/60/120 second ad spot. Even the voice command to do it isn't always convenient though, I'll definitely grant.
- lccerina 2y ago
  I have it! It's called having a thumb to press +15s (it works also with other fingers, nose, limbs, voice...)
  - maxglute 2y ago
    It's hassle when you're out/active/preoccupied/sweaty/winter with unreliable touch gloves. Sometimes it's 2 clicks for a short ad, sometimes its 8+ for long one. I consume a lot of podcasts and sometimes use a bluetooth remotes with tactile buttons. If only smartwatch like pebble still exit can have dedicated skip forward/backward button. I don't know if you listen to any popular podcasts that's also on youtube with audience sponsorblocking (like WAN show), especially with "filler" youtube gaming algo skipped. It's a much better experience eliminating 1000s of skips from your life.
- draxil 2y ago
  Well killer of podcasts at least.
  - inhumantsar 2y ago
    as far as I understand it, ad blocking on podcast doesn't cost the creators anything The way it does for blogs and newspapers. Podcasts are downloaded and apps generally don't report back on which seconds you listen to and which seconds you skipped. ad revenue is largely based on the number of downloads in a particular region.
- mgrandl 2y ago
  Exists and is open source: https://github.com/jdrbc/podly_pure_podcasts/tree/main https://github.com/jdrbc/podly_pure_podcasts/tree/main
- xnx 2y ago
  $5/mo is exactly what https://www.adblockpodcast.com/ https://www.adblockpodcast.com/ costs.
maxglute 2y ago
>Export your transcripts and subtitles to your notes app. Would be nice to be able to TTS translated transcriptions. Insert tags to switch between voices on normal TTS, and eventually move to device side generated natural voices that matches original cadence.
- kindjeff 2y ago
  Yes, I am planning to implement this feature. In the future, there will be more AI-related features, such as AI recommendations, support for more languages, and a more versatile podcast knowledge chatbot.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    As a pocketcast lifer, I wish you success. Does Are you aware of listennotes who transcribes $1+0.06c per minute? I like the idea of 50 transcriptions per months, but there's like 30m podcasts and 3 hour podcasts. Eitherway feels like there's ~5 years where AI podcast have good subscription market before device side transcription/translation/natural voice. Hope you grow big before then.
    - kindjeff 2y ago
      Agreed, I also think local transcription is the ultimate solution. For now though, whisper.cpp is still too slow on cell phones. It may take some more time to develop. I haven't followed listennotes' transcription feature, I'll check it out. I've tried their catalog and search API, and many popular Chinese podcasts are not included.
      - maxglute 2y ago
        Look forward to Chinese podcast integration especially. TBH PRC podcast ecosystem is just so far ahead. There's nothing close to Ximalaya as an audio platform/economy. Podcast keeps getting bundled into music or video streaming platforms in west, when it should be combined with audiobooks, other spoken word content into it's own thing.
hethune 2y ago
A testing version of this app hasn't been published yet or isn't available for this account.
- kindjeff 2y ago
  Hello, the Google Play version is still in alpha testing. You can join googlegroups through the link on the home page to get access to the alpha version.
nox101 2y ago
Interestingly, I know several people what would like AI to read stuff to them and read it to them in an interesting way (not Hal-9000 ish) One friend wants conference papers turned into audio. Another wants fan-fiction read dramatically.
- Fluorescence 2y ago
  I have found huge gaps with how digestible different audiobooks are. It's so painful when there is a book I am really excited to listen to and find that I just can't. Maybe I just mentally drop out mid-sentence or the words float past without carrying any meaning and it can be difficult to pin down why. One aspect is the performance. An accent or an intonation can cause a nails on blackboard type revulsion. A morose, monotone or bored voice, ugh? For example, I just can't do any Scott Brick performance (which is pretty annoying given how prolific he is) because he trails off every sentence in this weird pitch change that doesn't match how any normal person speaks. It causes me this distressing mental dissonance because it's so disconnected to the passage being read. I suspect it's a result of him just reading out words blind and not talking like a human trying to communicate specific meanings and feelings. This is also the problem with robot voices - the difference between a joke, a question, an assertion, a doubt, sarcasm or self-delusion can all be in the intonation. With text you might pause and revoice a passage to catch a meaning but the conveyor belt of audio means the next words are upon you giving no chance for reflection. The place where I can handle a robot voice is when using it with the text in front of me. I quite like it as a pace setter. I still have my own internal voice giving flavour but gain some reading endurance when tired or the material is boring/dry and I keep mentally wandering off. The other aspect is the style of writing - some writing is delightful to read but awful to listen to. The parameters includes everything from sentence structure to vocabulary. A simple example is lists: perfect for quickly imbibing visually but can be maddening to hear read out. Same with numbers, or parentheticals or footnotes or... so I generally can't listen to anything technical. The most listenable things for me is anything in a conversational style. However, even dialogue dominated works can be torture when they use certain patterns of "he said"/"she said" directions that are effectively punctuation and silent when we read but overwhelming when voiced. A first-person diary style often fits with being spoken without changes. There is a probably an AI opportunity to rewrite books to more resemble radio plays that work better as voice performances. IMHO voicing technical works needs some brand new ideas. Real life conference talks that just narrate their paper are torture to sit through. Successfully engaging speakers use personality, humour, anecdotes and structure talks playfully with setup/reveals, hypotheticals, pauses for thought and have all sorts of rhetorical tricks to bring drama to the driest content.
0kk33 2y ago
I am really satisfied with snipd.com when it comes to podcasts and AI processing.
- jimmySixDOF 2y ago
  Yes I am very impressed with the summary function and the chapter assignments which are amazingly useful to jump around to find the best of parts to go back and snip. Export text to note apps is also huge once the collection is big enough over time. I keep wishing they would buy Audible ;)
- kindjeff 2y ago
  Yes, snipd is very good. But for me: 1. It does not support Chinese transcription 2. It is more like a note-taking software rather than a podcast software. Therefore, I still developed this app.
jacksonhacker 2y ago
[dead]
bijutoha 2y ago
Anycast+ seems promising. Can you share some of your favorite podcasts you've discovered using the app?
aitooltrek 2y ago
[flagged]
xd1936 2y ago
Super cool. My podcast has transcripts already. Any chance your app will be able to pull those in, instead of needing to generate a new one? https://podcasting2.org/podcast-namespace/tags/transcript https://podcasting2.org/podcast-namespace/tags/transcript
- kindjeff 2y ago
  Good idea. I was originally supposed to support transcription in the podcast RSS specification, but since there are not many podcasts implementing this field, I have not yet added this support.

47 points by kindjeff 2y ago

The killer feature for using AI on podcasts is automatic ad blocking. You get that working folks will pay $5/mo for that alone.

isubkhankulov 2y ago
This extension works if you’re listening on a computer https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/
- WithinReason 2y ago
  For any podcast?
  - therein 2y ago
    Community sourced skiplist.
    - WithinReason 2y ago
      The page says it's for YouTube
      - obviyus 2y ago
        Podcasts often have a copy on YouTube nowadays. SponsorBlock has saved me hours
- maxglute 2y ago
  For what services other than youtube? Seems like a lot of podcasters haven't migrated from google music / google podcast to youtube music podcast. The ones that do does have youtube interface but I rarely see any get tagged by sponsorblock. Honestly one of the things I was looking forward with the google podcast -> youtube music podcast clusterfuck.
- jimsug 2y ago
  As mentioned - only works for YT. I also don't know if the crowdsourced skiplist works for podcasts as well as for youtube ads, since I think a larger proportion of podcasts use dynamic ad insertion - do they have consistent length? Might mess up ad tags/flags
  - maxglute 2y ago
    I haven't tried, but youtube music podcasts can redirect to youtube interface, which I assume will work on 3rd party apps like newpipe with sponsorblock integration. Sponsorblock mostly helpful in skipping sponsor reads, 3rd party apps (or youtube premium) blocks injected ads. Ultimately, IMO there's too many niche podcasts out there for sponsorblock route. Better to have AI solution to figure out and tag ads + sponsors + filler content to autoskip according to timestamp on downloaded audio file podcasts which could be variable length due to localized ads.
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    Dynamically inserted? How does that work if you've downloaded the mp3?
kindjeff 2y ago
It sounds like a useful feature, but I am worried it may have potential legal risks.
- jen729w 2y ago
  I wouldn’t (worry). I’ve downloaded a file to my local device. Sue me for doing something to it before I ingest it. ;-)
  - CaptainFever 2y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted. Ad blockers aren't illegal, no one has the obligation to listen to ads without skipping it. This isn't really controversial on HN.
    - kindjeff 2y ago
      Yeah, I mean it might get rejected as an app from the app store. I support ad blockers.
nox101 2y ago
what are you listening to podcasts on that it's not easy to skip ads? I'm using Downcast. It's a fairly old app. I think it defaults to +30s +2m -30s buttons which IIRC are settable. It's trivial to skip the ads. I don't need AI to solve that.
- spike021 2y ago
  If driving, not everyone wants to have to search for the buttons to do that, accidentally skip too far ahead, have to go back a step or two, etc.
- whereismyacc 2y ago
  Usually I'm listening to podcast when doing dishes, or grocery shopping, at the gym, or on a walk. I don't really want to have to take up my phone to skip an ad, and the controls on the headphones are too janky. This would definitely be a killer feature for me.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mgkimsal 2y ago
    "Siri, skip ahead 30 seconds". Doesn't always work, and... sometimes, it's 60, sometimes it's 2 minutes... If it's a podcast I listen to a lot, I usually know if it's a 30/60/120 second ad spot. Even the voice command to do it isn't always convenient though, I'll definitely grant.
lccerina 2y ago
I have it! It's called having a thumb to press +15s (it works also with other fingers, nose, limbs, voice...)
- maxglute 2y ago
  It's hassle when you're out/active/preoccupied/sweaty/winter with unreliable touch gloves. Sometimes it's 2 clicks for a short ad, sometimes its 8+ for long one. I consume a lot of podcasts and sometimes use a bluetooth remotes with tactile buttons. If only smartwatch like pebble still exit can have dedicated skip forward/backward button. I don't know if you listen to any popular podcasts that's also on youtube with audience sponsorblocking (like WAN show), especially with "filler" youtube gaming algo skipped. It's a much better experience eliminating 1000s of skips from your life.
draxil 2y ago
Well killer of podcasts at least.
- inhumantsar 2y ago
  as far as I understand it, ad blocking on podcast doesn't cost the creators anything The way it does for blogs and newspapers. Podcasts are downloaded and apps generally don't report back on which seconds you listen to and which seconds you skipped. ad revenue is largely based on the number of downloads in a particular region.
mgrandl 2y ago
Exists and is open source: https://github.com/jdrbc/podly_pure_podcasts/tree/main https://github.com/jdrbc/podly_pure_podcasts/tree/main
xnx 2y ago
$5/mo is exactly what https://www.adblockpodcast.com/ https://www.adblockpodcast.com/ costs.

maxglute 2y ago

>Export your transcripts and subtitles to your notes app. Would be nice to be able to TTS translated transcriptions. Insert tags to switch between voices on normal TTS, and eventually move to device side generated natural voices that matches original cadence.

kindjeff 2y ago
Yes, I am planning to implement this feature. In the future, there will be more AI-related features, such as AI recommendations, support for more languages, and a more versatile podcast knowledge chatbot.
- maxglute 2y ago
  As a pocketcast lifer, I wish you success. Does Are you aware of listennotes who transcribes $1+0.06c per minute? I like the idea of 50 transcriptions per months, but there's like 30m podcasts and 3 hour podcasts. Eitherway feels like there's ~5 years where AI podcast have good subscription market before device side transcription/translation/natural voice. Hope you grow big before then.
  - kindjeff 2y ago
    Agreed, I also think local transcription is the ultimate solution. For now though, whisper.cpp is still too slow on cell phones. It may take some more time to develop. I haven't followed listennotes' transcription feature, I'll check it out. I've tried their catalog and search API, and many popular Chinese podcasts are not included.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      Look forward to Chinese podcast integration especially. TBH PRC podcast ecosystem is just so far ahead. There's nothing close to Ximalaya as an audio platform/economy. Podcast keeps getting bundled into music or video streaming platforms in west, when it should be combined with audiobooks, other spoken word content into it's own thing.

hethune 2y ago

A testing version of this app hasn't been published yet or isn't available for this account.

kindjeff 2y ago
Hello, the Google Play version is still in alpha testing. You can join googlegroups through the link on the home page to get access to the alpha version.

nox101 2y ago

Interestingly, I know several people what would like AI to read stuff to them and read it to them in an interesting way (not Hal-9000 ish) One friend wants conference papers turned into audio. Another wants fan-fiction read dramatically.

Fluorescence 2y ago
I have found huge gaps with how digestible different audiobooks are. It's so painful when there is a book I am really excited to listen to and find that I just can't. Maybe I just mentally drop out mid-sentence or the words float past without carrying any meaning and it can be difficult to pin down why. One aspect is the performance. An accent or an intonation can cause a nails on blackboard type revulsion. A morose, monotone or bored voice, ugh? For example, I just can't do any Scott Brick performance (which is pretty annoying given how prolific he is) because he trails off every sentence in this weird pitch change that doesn't match how any normal person speaks. It causes me this distressing mental dissonance because it's so disconnected to the passage being read. I suspect it's a result of him just reading out words blind and not talking like a human trying to communicate specific meanings and feelings. This is also the problem with robot voices - the difference between a joke, a question, an assertion, a doubt, sarcasm or self-delusion can all be in the intonation. With text you might pause and revoice a passage to catch a meaning but the conveyor belt of audio means the next words are upon you giving no chance for reflection. The place where I can handle a robot voice is when using it with the text in front of me. I quite like it as a pace setter. I still have my own internal voice giving flavour but gain some reading endurance when tired or the material is boring/dry and I keep mentally wandering off. The other aspect is the style of writing - some writing is delightful to read but awful to listen to. The parameters includes everything from sentence structure to vocabulary. A simple example is lists: perfect for quickly imbibing visually but can be maddening to hear read out. Same with numbers, or parentheticals or footnotes or... so I generally can't listen to anything technical. The most listenable things for me is anything in a conversational style. However, even dialogue dominated works can be torture when they use certain patterns of "he said"/"she said" directions that are effectively punctuation and silent when we read but overwhelming when voiced. A first-person diary style often fits with being spoken without changes. There is a probably an AI opportunity to rewrite books to more resemble radio plays that work better as voice performances. IMHO voicing technical works needs some brand new ideas. Real life conference talks that just narrate their paper are torture to sit through. Successfully engaging speakers use personality, humour, anecdotes and structure talks playfully with setup/reveals, hypotheticals, pauses for thought and have all sorts of rhetorical tricks to bring drama to the driest content.

0kk33 2y ago

I am really satisfied with snipd.com when it comes to podcasts and AI processing.

jimmySixDOF 2y ago
Yes I am very impressed with the summary function and the chapter assignments which are amazingly useful to jump around to find the best of parts to go back and snip. Export text to note apps is also huge once the collection is big enough over time. I keep wishing they would buy Audible ;)
kindjeff 2y ago
Yes, snipd is very good. But for me: 1. It does not support Chinese transcription 2. It is more like a note-taking software rather than a podcast software. Therefore, I still developed this app.

jacksonhacker 2y ago

[dead]

bijutoha 2y ago

Anycast+ seems promising. Can you share some of your favorite podcasts you've discovered using the app?

aitooltrek 2y ago

[flagged]

xd1936 2y ago

Super cool. My podcast has transcripts already. Any chance your app will be able to pull those in, instead of needing to generate a new one? https://podcasting2.org/podcast-namespace/tags/transcript https://podcasting2.org/podcast-namespace/tags/transcript

kindjeff 2y ago
Good idea. I was originally supposed to support transcription in the podcast RSS specification, but since there are not many podcasts implementing this field, I have not yet added this support.