Have been using Pocket Casts for my go-to for past couple of years. Deleting today.
Why?
Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
181–190 of 204 posts
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#182> Audio veteran Owen Grover will serve as CEO of Pocket Casts. Grover previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager at iHeartRadio, and before that as Vice President of Programming and Marketing at Clear Channel Music & Radio. Pocket Casts will operate as a joint venture, with founders Philip Simpson and Russell Ivanovic in leadership roles and the existing staff and developer team remaining in place. To ensure development aligns with the mission-driven ethos of public radio, the board will be comprised of representatives of the public media leaders.
Well, that sucks.
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#183I was quite happily using the Podcast iOS app until iOS11 where they completely ruined it. Someone recommended that I buy Pocket Casts and I've been using it ever since.
One thing that annoys me, when I go to a new Podcast I like to listen from the beginning, and Pocket Casts marks old episodes as "Played" so it's hard to go through and listen to them in order as I forget where I've gone to.
Any solution for stopping the app marking these old podcasts as played?
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try Overcast, I’m a big fan. I finally gave up on the Apple app years ago after it was unable to sync my place for the 1200th time. Never had that issue with Overcast.
Seconding Overcast - it has traditionally traded blows with Pocket Casts as the best 3rd party podcast app on iOS, but I like it better for the smart speed and voice boosting features.
Volume boost is part of pocketcasts as well
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#185Time to look for alternatives? Call me a cynic but I have a feeling their bias (and questionable tech capabilities) will drive it down to the ground.
Hey cynic
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try Overcast, I’m a big fan. I finally gave up on the Apple app years ago after it was unable to sync my place for the 1200th time. Never had that issue with Overcast.
The question with Overcast, is whether it will be able to compete in the open market with Marco's almost quixotic desire to avoid any form of tracking whatsoever. He won't even track stop/start/listen actions, and now he's eliminating tracking pixels ( https://marco.org/2018/04/27/overcast42 ) - all very admirable, but by foregoing all the obvious revenue opportunities, will he be able to make it up by attracting a l…
This is the weirdest critique of an app I've ever read on HN. Overcast isn't tracking users enough?
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#187I love NPR, I love Pocket Casts.
But it feels weird to me knowing that I donated money to NPR, and that money might be used to purchase a private company.
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
People with these statistics will be making things better for themselves and for advertisers. This may often coincide with making things better for users, but the type of data you're talking about is mostly useful for making it harder to skip ads.
I like my free, RSS-shared MP3 files as much as the next listener, but these things aren't free to produce, just like PocketCasts isn't free to make. Podcasters sell ads, and advertisers rightly want something in return. If ads are easy to skip, they have no assurance that they're getting anything for their money, so the money dries up, and the podcast goes under. There is always going to be a game of back and forth between ads and avoiding them, and this is just the next move, if it even happens.
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would it though? I'd be happy to podcasters to have aggregated figures on listens, skips, pauses etc, as long as it's not linked to me. It could improve podcasts, ads, and probably increase their revenue, which I'm all in favour of.
One of the stats could be "How many ads can we cram in per 30 minutes before people stop listening"
I agree that it's a potentially miserable reality however if I'm still capable of skipping forward, and it means that my favorite podcasts and creation networks are able to sustain themselves, I'm okay with this outcome.
Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR
#190I love NPR, I love Pocket Casts. But it feels weird to me knowing that I donated money to NPR, and that money might be used to purchase a private company.
They use donated money to pay people to write NPR One. If you think of this as an acquihire, is it any different?