BBC podcasts on third-party apps • Hacker News Board

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#71

Post by astura » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

kj4ips wrote: post #69

I'm somewhat unsure what they actually changed, I'm really hoping they didn't just abandon the RSS feeds. As of 9:20 Eastern, I don't yet see the second release of BBC global news that I would expect to see for yesterday, which does not bode well. If you take away RSS, it's not even a podcast anymore.

According to various news sources they just changed robots.txt. I can't confirm that myself right now.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282436/bbc-podcasts-goo...

EDIT: Here's the robots.txt file:

https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/robots.txt?utm_source=podn...

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#72

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

cheez wrote: post #57

Navarr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Podcasts is a replacement for the Podcast aspect of Google Play Music. They're splitting it into "Google Podcasts" and "YouTube Music"

Google Podcasts is TERRIBLE compared to Google Play. The UX is just so bad. You'd expect at least some podcast-specific features like mark podcast as listened.

Not from Google I wouldn’t. They give hope to people everywhere who realise they don’t know design. Money doesn’t automatically buy competence, so if you can make something useful you can beat a Goliath in a small nice and work up from there.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#73

Post by kj4ips » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

kj4ips wrote: post #69

I'm somewhat unsure what they actually changed, I'm really hoping they didn't just abandon the RSS feeds. As of 9:20 Eastern, I don't yet see the second release of BBC global news that I would expect to see for yesterday, which does not bode well. If you take away RSS, it's not even a podcast anymore.

Looks like it may have just been cached, a few minutes ago at approximately 9:28 Eastern my podcatcher of choice just downloaded the episode, even though pulling the RSS through my browser still does not show the episode.

Additionally, the podnews article linked in other comments indicates this is just a trick with robots.txt, and does not appear to impact the actual function of the podcast.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#74

Post by ascagnel_ » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

cheez wrote: post #57

Navarr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Podcasts is a replacement for the Podcast aspect of Google Play Music. They're splitting it into "Google Podcasts" and "YouTube Music"

Google Podcasts is TERRIBLE compared to Google Play. The UX is just so bad. You'd expect at least some podcast-specific features like mark podcast as listened.

Google hasn't ever really "gotten" podcast players. Their first attempt (Google Listen) was basically a bad UI around a special Reader folder -- so you could accidentally mark a podcast as read while you were flipping through your RSS feeds.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#75

Post by johnnycab » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

calewis wrote: post #25

Having worked at the BBC several times it’s yet again insular thinking. In short, they’ve spend a load of (wasted cash) on a proprietary app that is useless, but some “strategy” dork - who’s never actually built anything - thinks he can get Google to change. Good luck with that.

I agree with the navel gazing and blinkered thinking prevelant at the Beeb.

I tried the BBC Sounds app, once I learnt about their intention to phase-out the excellent standalone iPlayer Radio app. The sound quality was markedly worse for live radio and coupled with a haphazard UI/UX - the app just got deleted. Also, there is no dearth of apps to consume podcasts e.g. I use the native Podcasts app on iOS and Deezer/Spotify on Android. BBC Sounds does not bring anything new or radical to the table.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/bbc-sounds-iplayer-radio-pod...

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#76

Post by snarf21 » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

eddieroger wrote: post #15

Jsharm wrote: post #8

I don't know why BBC pushes it's sounds app so hard. I get nagged to use it every time I listen through Alexa too. There's no BBC sounds smart speaker so why do they care? What do they gain from me using the app?

Because when you use their ecosystem, they get user data. They acknowledge that in their blog post: > We also want to make our programmes and services as good as they can possibly be - this means us getting hold of meaningful audience data. They claim it's because they're a public service and need to know what the public want, but there are other ways, and I'm torn on if it's a legit case or not. NPR has been trying…

This is the super weird reasoning. It is as simple as incentivizing the users. Make one popular podcast only available in their app and let the users consume everything else as is. You'll quickly figure out what content is driving use of their app.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#77

Post by ascagnel_ » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

mikewhy wrote: post #60

djhworld wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I subscribe to Giant Bomb (a video games website) and they have a premium tier for content. The podcasts are available for free, but funded by ads, or you can subscribe to the premium feed where the ads are edited out.

Ah good old videogames.com. Yeah premium podcasts are already a thing. There's no need to "figure out an API to let people use their license keys on third party players", it's simply HTTP Basic authentication embedded in the URL. Should work just about anywhere.

I'm also a premium subscriber; while they used to use basic HTTP auth, they've since switched to generating revocable, per-user keys. It's both better for security and easier for podcast clients to manage.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#78

Post by mcintyre1994 » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

Jsharm wrote: post #8

I don't know why BBC pushes it's sounds app so hard. I get nagged to use it every time I listen through Alexa too. There's no BBC sounds smart speaker so why do they care? What do they gain from me using the app?

I think they gave it away here - they're trying to get metrics and analytics they don't get through other apps. Podcasts have always offered really limited data, Apple do offer some data now - and I'm sure Google are collecting plenty but obviously they're keeping it to themselves.

There was a play for a new podcasting standard by I think Gimlet (or one of them big companies in the space), that let you have user identifiers, inject ads based on whatever at different times, and send tracking messages at different times. I listened to an interview with the guy who makes Overcast and he basically said there's no reason any podcast app except theirs would want to support that, so I guess owning your own app for your own content is really the only way to get those analytics if you want them.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#79

Post by Theodores » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #3

This is hilarious. Google is trying to leverage it's search & mobile OS market positions into pushing people towards its podcast app. Unfortunately for Google it has come up against one of the few entities in the world that can just turn around and say "Fuck. That." Frankly, I think this is a monopolist tactic from Google and it should result in government investigations but I have no hope that will happen. Nice to k…

Actually there is a problem with the BBC.

In the UK how do you compete for news eyeballs and try and make it pay when the BBC news is for free?

Imagine your business is weather forecasting, the same applies.

Then there is the small matter of the license fee. Most people just pay it out of fear of being caught by one of the legendary detector vans. But you can't have a TV or a monitor that also does TV without being hassled for the rest of your days.

It is getting that way online. I only listen to the BBC on DAB radio, if I sign in to their player thing I know I can't trust myself not to watch some lame series on iPlayer meaning I will have to pay up.

The BBC has an important propaganda role in informing the national conversation and keeping British people British. I am not saying that cynically, that is what the voice of empire is there for. They aren't trying to sell you product, it is more subtle than that, essentially propaganda though, controlling the latitude of available thinking.

They need to be more careful about closing down their reach as people like me go off-piste and start listening to stuff that would never make it onto the BBC. Once you have done that and realise the world thinks differently to the allowed BBC viewpoints there is no going back.

I don't see this as the BBC standing up to the monopolistic evil Google, I also think the BBC are not whiter than white.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#80

Post by maxwellito » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #53

exabrial wrote: post #39

Google Podcasts won't let you add or remove podcasts subscriptions unless you turn on location and web history tracking on your account.

Really? That would be disqualifying properties for me personally. What advantage does their service offer?

So far, none. Google podcast is pretty basic (feature-wise) to be honest. But being forced to give access to location and web history was a big turn off to me. However I found PodByte on the PlayStore that fit my small podcast needs without giving away all my personal data.