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Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

npr.org

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Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#111

Post by jrwiegand »

mintplant wrote: post #97

> Pocket Casts is an enormous opportunity to improve discovery for listeners, provide podcast producers with better insights Translation: we're going to start tracking listeners' behavior. > And yet despite this remarkable renaissance, the listening experience — particularly around discovery — has remained virtually unchanged. Pocket Casts will enable us to forge a closer relationship with our listeners Translation:…

I think you are exactly right. NPR pushed NPR One in order to track users. It failed miserably. So now the plan is to join with other big networks and buy a successful podcast app to then try again. It will likely degrade Pocket Casts and I am disappointed with this news.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#112

Post by freedomben »

kondor6c wrote: post #87
peterjlee wrote: post #16

I've been frustrated with many free podcast apps so I paid for Pocket Casts and I've been happy since. I think it's a smart move by NPR et al. What they want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc. These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server. NPR has the NPR One app but I guess not enough people are using i…

You should give AntennaPod a chance, very lightweight and allows for new podcasts to be added. It is open source and has is actively developed. Additionally you won't have any new requirement to create a new account or pull analytics from your listening habits as you mentioned towards the end.

AntennaPod looks nice, but I do use the Web version of Pocket Casts a lot. It wouldn't be too hard to switch back to gPodder and Rhythmbox, but I love that state syncs between the Android app and web player. It will be hard to let Pocket Casts go (if it does become a spy).

Source for AntennaPod: https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#113

Post by jrwiegand »

newen wrote: post #92
robinhood wrote: post #45

I think I've tested all the major podcasts app out there, paid for their subscriptions etc... The one that was clearly over the others has always been Pocket Casts. I'm also a subscriber of https://play.pocketcasts.com , their web platform. I just love them. I'm really happy that they've made the money they deserve (or I hope they did anyway). That being said, I don't feel confident at all that NPR will now respect m…

The NPR One app does collect statistics such as when do user start and stop podcasts etc. I remember them mentioning the app in a couple of their podcasts and how they use that data to improve their podcasts. It's very likely that they will use Pocket casts for that purpose and it's probably why they bought Pocketcasts, since so few people use the NPR One app.

The notion is valid but users clearly don't want to be tracked. NPR One lost and they still continue to push it and will likely convert Pocket Casts. I find the news discouraging at best.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#114

Post by jrwiegand »

wpietri wrote: post #68
crispinb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc. That's exactly what I don't want > These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server. Good. Long may it remain so.

I don't want them to have individual data, but I'm fine with them having anonymized statistics. Knowing what people are doing with things you make is such a valuable tool for making it better.

I agree in theory but what else can be made better about podcasts? Is it worth the trade off for everyone's data? These are questions I believe were asked and answered with NPR One. Also, anonymized data is still data and that derived information can be very powerful.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#115

Post by jeffnappi »

jrwiegand wrote: post #109
asfasgasg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cynical fatalism plays better when the supposed perpetrator isn't NPR. Speaking of organizations I would trust with my personal info, it's hard to think of any better.

Pocket Casts never tracked anything. Why is it now okay to start tracking me? Does NPR do something better than anything other large organization?

How could you possibly know pocketcasts never tracked anything? I am a pocketcasts user and I'd be surprised if they weren't tracking my usage of the app.

From their privacy policy, they at a minimum track what you subscribe to: What information do you collect about me? Your username in the form of an email address, and password; Your podcast subscriptions, episode data and settings configuration; Your unique device identifier, device language and licence validation data; Pocket Casts web service also uses cookies and like technologies to keep you logged in.

Should you choose to generate a support request from within the Service, we may generate an attachment containing additional data to assist in addressing your support request which you’re welcome to view prior to submission.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#116

Post by rtpg »

jrwiegand wrote: post #113
newen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NPR One app does collect statistics such as when do user start and stop podcasts etc. I remember them mentioning the app in a couple of their podcasts and how they use that data to improve their podcasts. It's very likely that they will use Pocket casts for that purpose and it's probably why they bought Pocketcasts, since so few people use the NPR One app.

The notion is valid but users clearly don't want to be tracked. NPR One lost and they still continue to push it and will likely convert Pocket Casts. I find the news discouraging at best.

"clearly don't want to be tracked" is probably relative.

To be honest I would totally be cool with letting podcast producers know when I play a thing and pausing and whatnot. I think it might be useful to them for improving things and making stuff be better cut.

The counterpoint is that this stuff would probably also be used for ads. But there's already ads in the podcasts? I'm pretty desensitized to targeted ads at this point...

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#117

Post by janekm »

obenn wrote: post #62
peterjlee wrote: post #16

I've been frustrated with many free podcast apps so I paid for Pocket Casts and I've been happy since. I think it's a smart move by NPR et al. What they want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc. These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server. NPR has the NPR One app but I guess not enough people are using i…

The only caveat to this is their insight into advertisements. Lets say a podcast runs ads during its first 5 minutes, they can now tell exactly how many people are listening or skipping those ads and may be incentivized to start putting ads in the middle of podcasts, or implement some sort of non skip-able interruption.

Or they can make the ads less annoying. For the most part NPR podcasts are pretty good for having "not worth skipping" ads that are a few seconds long.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#118

Post by drb91 »

pflats wrote: post #73
scrooched_moose wrote: post #5

So is this basically a confirmation they're giving up on NPR One? It hasn't been updated for 7 months, after about 24 straight monthly updates. If so, I wonder if they're going to cram livestreaming into Pocket Casts. That'd be enough for me to switch to something else, I much prefer apps that do a single thing extremely well.

NPR One was toxic for NPR (the national company) in their internal politics. Smaller local stations fought back against having to promote the app on their broadcasts out of fear it would drive their local listeners away. http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/03/npr-decides-it-wont-promote...

They should be afraid. I went podcasts only as quickly as I could because the local reporting was so low quality.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#119

Post by CharlesW »

gumberculese wrote: post #3

The Apple podcast app has gotten continuously worse over the past few years, I'm excited to see that 3rd parties are picking up the slack, but I'm still pretty disappointed that Apple has neglected one of the most important aspect of the phone (for me, anyway).

> The Apple podcast app has gotten continuously worse over the past few years

Can you name a few specific ways in which you think this is true? (I personally think it's come a long way from the awful skeuomorphic reel-to-reel metaphor, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.)

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#120

Post by as-j »

simcop2387 wrote: post #21
eigen-vector wrote: post #15

I'm so glad to see the team behind Pocket Casts find success. It's one app I've never been disappointed with and supported right from the beginning. The paramount quality of a good app is how easily it gets out of the way and lets you enjoy the content. Pocket Casts has done a spectacular job at that.

Yea it's been my favorite podcasting app since i found it. So glad it's NPR and such that acquired it and not a company that's going to fill it with ads (the main reason i stopped using any other apps).

It’ll be interesting to see how it does. I wonder if you’ll still be able to auto skips the first 30s or 1min of an episode...
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