211–220 of 299 posts
Podcasts may literally be the last major content category on the internet that is still open/inter-operable/syndicated. (remember when we thought RSS and Atom were really going to go far?). Maybe not for long.
It was open until people realized that they could make significant money off of it. Then the walls started going up.
"Castopod Host is an open-source server made for podcasters who want engage and interact with their audience."
It is still under development, but looks very interesting.
https://podlibre.org/author/castopod/
Submitted separately: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26882081
(Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the project)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently gave Spotify a try for about 8 months but just switched back to Apple Music. My reason for switching back had nothing to do with podcasts, it was simply Spotify's terrible interface that makes it impossible to just browse all the music in your library . But I had also started to notice podcasts infiltrating UI that used to be only music playlists. A few times I even mistakenly clicked on a podcast thinking…
I dont think Spotify cares about the 0.1% of users that bring their own MP3s. It's a shrinking market. The growth is all the people who never even heard of an EmPeaThree. I think back when I ripped my 350+ CDs to FLAC. In retrospect, it wasn't worth it.
I make use of it a lot for albums and songs not available on Apple Music. AFAIK, Spotify doesn't really have an answer to this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's elevated and normalized white ethno-fascist voices. He is subtly transphobic. I used to listen to him constantly when I was younger but I find him to be a huge chungus these days. I think maybe its that I have changed more than his podcast has but I'm not sure.
I meant like, a quote. or an episode. Some raw data I can listen to, not just your conclusion.
I don’t like Spotify’s player or their process for restricted access podcasts. “Free” isn’t free when it requires a special app. Podcasts using RSS was genius and a great “protocol” for distributing content that fit into the original web idea of information available anywhere. I hope Spotify loses and regular podcasts stick and thrive. I’m more worried about people like NPR requiring their own app x 1000.
I'm pretty sure that Spotify's API allows access to podcasts outside the official app. I'm already using software that can stream Spotify content to local devices that don't support Spotify. Creating an RSS feed is only an implementation detail. And I wouldn't discount the publishing and distribution part of making a podcast content available. Without Spotify or a similar platform, the burden of putting content onlin…
Of course it also requires a Spotify dev account so that’s limiting too.
I’m discounting the publishing and distribution part because we have examples of podcasts that moved from regular to Spotify (eg, JRE) and the content didn’t change at all.
Podcasts are pretty awesome as the distribution costs are low and are pretty similar whether your distributing via Spotify or your own CDN.
With regular you get discoverability via Apple and many others so that’s bigger than Spotify.
This is a “solved” problem in that creators have been easily doing this for 10 years. The technical aspects are minimal and completely abstracted through many services available that are dollars per month.
[0] https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc...
Meanwhile I guess apple stopped accepting new podcasts into their database and people are spreading rumors of a new paid podcasts+ subscription model launching today. Which I hope falls flat. Podcasts should be free and accessible to anyone.
Announced: https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/20/apple-unveils-podcast-subs... Press Release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-leads-the-next-... Quote: >Starting in May, listeners in more than 170 countries and regions can sign up for premium subscriptions that include a variety of benefits curated by creators, such as ad-free listening, access to additional content, and early or exclusive access to new seri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, but they could lose subscribers due to Podcasts. See, I pay for Spotify because of their playlists. Playlists have nothing to do with podcasts. I listen to my podcasts using a different app. Yet Spotify keeps throwing its podcasts in my face. Spotify is not good at podcasts. That's why I use a different app for that. I'm getting tired of scrolling past all the podcast spam in my Spotify UI, and yet Spotify provid…
Can you tell me how Spotify is with playlists of comedy albums? I started falling asleep to comedy a couple months ago to manage poor sleep based on a generally negative attitude. It was fine on YT Music for a while, but now a lot of the community playlists are garbage, or most of the clips have been pulled (I assume some copyright issues). I'd move to Spotify for that, and pay, if they had a catalog of decent standu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Personally when ever I hear about an interesting podcast, and it's followed by "available on Spotify/Podimo, whatever", my reaction is always: Okay, never mind then. Every time I hear that (and I want to check it out), I do so in Pocket Casts, my fav app (first on Android, then on iOS). I know there are probably podcasts that are _only_ on Spotify, but I haven't tripped over one yet.
OT but AntennaPod is amazing, and open source. I switched from Pocket Casts and it's amazing.
Do Spotify actually manage to sell any significant number of subscriptions due to podcasts? Personally when ever I hear about an interesting podcast, and it's followed by "available on Spotify/Podimo, whatever", my reaction is always: Okay, never mind then. There are so many great podcasts on the open web. Those available on platforms like Spotify always seems to be people with existing celebrity status trying to "ca…
- Total MAUs grew 27% Y/Y to 345 million in the quarter (...) Based on the behavior we see when users first join Spotify, we are confident that podcast usage has been a factor in the accelerated net additions.
- The strength in Ad-Supported revenue was led by our Podcast, Direct, and Ad Studio channels, with Podcast and Ad Studio both growing over 100% on a Y/Y basis. Podcast performance benefited from strong underlying demand from advertisers with a 50% increase in the number of companies spending in this channel vs. Q3
- As of Q4, we had 2.2 million podcasts on the platform (up from more than 1.9 million podcasts in Q3). Of note, 25% of our Total MAUs engaged with podcast content in Q4 (up from 22% of MAUs in Q3 2020
So the short answer is that podcasts help increase usage of the platform (and with better margins than music, probably due to copyright and leverage of artists vs. content creators)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OT but AntennaPod is amazing, and open source. I switched from Pocket Casts and it's amazing.
AntennaPod is unfortunately quite lacking if you like to listen to "story" podcasts where you want to listen old -> new.