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.
I haven't had a smartphone in some time, but I highly recommend AntennaPod which is available of F-Droid.
Not only a great podcast app, but it respects your Freedom. It's the only thing I miss about not having a smartphone.
Doesn't this mean Google Podcasts is not really a podcast player? You can't pop arbitrary RSS feeds into it.
I would say yes. It’s no more a podcast player than the old AOL client was a web browser. Funny enough, while HNers always complain about Apple’s “walled garden”, the Apple podcast player subscribes directly to the host’s RSS feed. Once you subscribe to a podcast, Apple’s servers are no longer involved.
This is why my podcast isn't available on Google Podcasts, but is on iTunes. I read the agreement required to put it on Google Podcasts (the usual "irrevocable worldwide license to do whatever we want with it" for uploading data to Google servers), and passed.
Additionally, I do use bandwidth as my rough listener metric, so letting it be hosted by Google Podcasts would impact that significantly. Which is closer to the concern the BBC seems to have.
While Google & FB gobbled up the juiciest chunks of online media, podcasts have somehow remained one or of the freeiest media, imo working like the open web was supposed to. Ooh, it's kind of surprising. Discovery is still clunky. Getting from website to subscribed can be clunky. It's not interactive or conversational. Advertising is tricky. Podcasters generally have to negotiate deals separately. There are no clicks…
I agree completely. I'm a big podcast fan, for many opposite reasons I don't use social media.
Podcasts remind me of fanzines. Which is a great thing.
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 h…
They should just fund it out of general revenues, and dispense with the "license fee" entirely. Treat it as a marketing expense for the country as a whole, basically. The argument that they need an exclusive tax base in order to preserve autonomy is bogus - the monarch gets government funding too AIUI, do they have a dedicated tax base?
Technically speaking the way Podcasts work is a fascinating thing. Most on HN May be familiar with this already but Podcasts are completely open and a creator simply publishes an RSS that they then provide to a podcast App such as iTunes so it can appear on the Apple podcast app. In exchange most of these podcast apps share any listen counts and analytics with the owner of the Podcast. However, almost always the file…
Probably is a drive from the BBC itself into a closed DRM platform. Their BBC Sounds app is woeful. License fee payers are treated like complete dirt. Being charged multiple times for the same content. It's about time the BBC just became a subscription service. Older content should just be left on Torrents, and be available for re-sampling. They are absolute cretins.
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 h…
I have the GA speaker version of the podcast player. And navigating, bookmarking and selection is horrible. To the point, I've abandoned it. I do listen to BBC radio streams, but most of this content, if the songs are available from other on-tap on-line services is a waste of a good format. I'd rather more podcasts, and playlists. There isn't much need for the live element. Or having 24hr radio.
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 h…
Hassled for the rest of your days is a bit much. You email, send them a letter or call them or I think there is actually a website that you can register on which remove's them questioning you needing the license or not. I did it and i've not heard from them since. Not exactly rocket science.
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?
Private Eye has been covering this extensively. In brief a senior executive who sees himself as one day being head of the BBC is pushing it, even though it's broken, no one likes it, and it reduces money available for making programmes.
>They're trying to keep you on google's site. But why? I don't see a financial motivator here, unless there is some long-game that I'm not aware of. In theory, driving users to websites in a search result is likely just going to make Google more money from displaying ads. The only thing I can currently think of is they actually are trying to improve the user experience.
The adverts are right there on the page still. Why would it be more profitable to send users to the BBC website?
It wouldn't in the BBC's specific case, but in general the behaviour sending users to the site where they would likely be exposed to more advertising (probably by Google) would be the more profitable scenario.
>They're trying to keep you on google's site. But why? I don't see a financial motivator here, unless there is some long-game that I'm not aware of. In theory, driving users to websites in a search result is likely just going to make Google more money from displaying ads. The only thing I can currently think of is they actually are trying to improve the user experience.
If you stay on a search results page you're more likely to do another search after you're done listening, rather than browsing around on BBC's site.
I'd be fairly surprised if the metrics resulted in any measurable difference there tbh.