Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

chartable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 364 posts

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#51

Post by otikik »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #24

Personally, I'm not a fan of podcasts at all. I've tried, and listened to some interesting ones, but in the end I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc. Overall, text just works better for the kinds of content I'm interested in. There's a podcast related to a product I work with that I'…

> I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc

My counterargument to that is that in order to do any of those things you need to have your eyes engaged with the content. I can listen to podcasts (or audiobooks) while at the gym, cooking, doing laundry, cleaning dishes, or going to pick my kid from school. That means to me more than the advantages you mentioned.

One additional advantage: getting to sleep. I don't enjoy sleeping. If i have a light source near me, be it a lamp or a screen, I don't feel sleepy at all. I can't fall asleep while watching a Netflix show that I like. I have done the experiment. I can feel sleepy while reading a book, but an engaging one and a night lamp will keep me awake: I read the first Harry Potter volume in a single sleep-less night. Listening to podcasts with the lights off and my eyes closed makes me drift to sleep much more easily.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#52

Post by king_magic »

Are we? Podcasts are pretty overwhelming - there’s so many of them, it’s so hard to catch up, and I’m so tired of Blue Apron ads read by the hosts of podcasts.

Personally, I’ve pretty much stopped listening to anything outside of NPR One, which does an okay-to-pretty-good job of simplifying the experience of listening to podcasts (at least aligned to NPR). Even then the ads are super annoying.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#53

Post by npollock »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #24

Personally, I'm not a fan of podcasts at all. I've tried, and listened to some interesting ones, but in the end I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc. Overall, text just works better for the kinds of content I'm interested in. There's a podcast related to a product I work with that I'…

> Podcasts are also completely inaccessible to search engines.

Google is actively working with the podcast community and encouraging podcasters to structure their data to be accessible in search: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/podcast

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#54

Post by jessaustin »

socrates1998 wrote: post #29

I love podcasts. As a self-employed person who needs some light distraction but can't walk to a water cooler and just kill some time, they are perfect. I tried going back to the radio yesterday for a moment and almost threw up with the quality. Not sure if a "Netflix for podcasts" would work. Unless ad money dries up because advertisers think people skip them too much, then I am not sure what the advantage would be.…

The stuff Rogan advertises is so bizarre. It has been a couple of weeks since I listened to him, but the one I can remember best was some sort of payment app that supposedly paid the user to use the app. Then there have been various AM-radio-type "nutritional" products. Maybe mainstream firms don't want to be associated with him, but how do the goofballs he advertises come up with 8 figures every year?

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#55

Post by jldugger »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #24

Personally, I'm not a fan of podcasts at all. I've tried, and listened to some interesting ones, but in the end I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc. Overall, text just works better for the kinds of content I'm interested in. There's a podcast related to a product I work with that I'…

> The podcast is very well done, but each one is about an hour long.

Many podcast apps have a pitch stable speedup function, that increases the playback speed. I'm currently at 2.1x, but I have a blind friend that listens to email via TTS at something like 4x. It's a skill that you can practice and ramp up over time.

> I'd much rather have it as a blog post where I can skim through to find the pieces that interest me.

Personally, podcasts are a supplement to my blog feeds, for the daily commute. There is no public transit to work that's feasible, and even if there was, I generally cannot read in car without getting motion sickness. So reading is pretty much off the table, and instead podcasts fill that slice of daily life.

> Podcasts are also completely inaccessible to search engines.

This is mostly true, although nothing prevents transcripts from being made readable.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#56

Post by alexpetralia »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #24

Personally, I'm not a fan of podcasts at all. I've tried, and listened to some interesting ones, but in the end I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc. Overall, text just works better for the kinds of content I'm interested in. There's a podcast related to a product I work with that I'…

The other thing is that we often engage with things for two goals: (1) information and (2) entertainment.

Text excels at being extremely efficient for (1), but not as efficient for (2) - at least when compared to multimedia like photos, videos, audio, etc.

Podcasts offer a good balance between (1) and (2), but they are not the high-octane fuel of information that pure text can offer.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#57

Post by astura »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #24

Personally, I'm not a fan of podcasts at all. I've tried, and listened to some interesting ones, but in the end I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc. Overall, text just works better for the kinds of content I'm interested in. There's a podcast related to a product I work with that I'…

Well, yeah, of course if you're just sitting in your living room you'd rather read than listen; however that's not really the use case of a Podcast.

The value podcasts bring is you can consume them during times you can't read. During exercise, driving, walking to work, cleaning the house, cooking, and train/car rides (for people who get motion sick while reading in a moving vehicle). They turn tedious menial tasks into times when you're mildly entertained - that provides immense value.

They can also be used for a slightly more interesting white noise.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#58

Post by schnevets »

Creators may be entering a golden age, but the delivery methods and infrastructure have been stagnant for years now. We now have ongoing shows, evergreen episodic shows, "two amateurs in a basement" niche shows, 12-episode and it's done audiobooks, and various other designations of podcasts, and yet we still serve everything like it's a blog that needs to release content weekly. I also find it frustrating that we only categorize by topic. I'll listen to something very different on a 5 hour car ride than I would on a 15 minute walk with my dog (beyond something "Comedy" instead of "News")

Most listeners see Apple Podcasts as "good enough", but I find it confusing, and other applications follow the same approach with one or two "tweaks" that are not worth sacrificing features or adjusting to a new UI. I'm still optimistic that Spotify can get their act together (since they have the resources and incentive), but they haven't done anything dazzling since quietly adding a podcast section years ago.

It severely limits the capabilities of the medium, and yet no one seems to think anything is wrong. I understand this structure is a result of RSS serving as the backbone of "podcatchers", but everyone would benefit from a bit of lateral thinking.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#59

Post by chooseaname »

loudmax wrote: post #41
spuz wrote: post #17

I am surprised that higher capacity storage on phones was not mentioned as a driver of podcast listenership. For me, when I upgraded to a phone that had 32GB of storage around 2014 I was finally able to store mp3s that would download automatically ready for me to listen to along with all the music and photos that we would otherwise fill up our phone storage with. Before this, it was actually pretty hard to be an avid…

I suspect you're correct. I find it surprising that people buy flagship phones that don't include an SD card reader. It seems that there's a belief among some handset manufacturers that storage capacity is only relevant for apps since all media is stored in the cloud. Either that or they just want to charge you for that extra storage. Being able to download hours worth of podcasts on an SD card and not worry about st…

> I find it surprising that people buy flagship phones that don't include an SD card reader.

Because most don't come with an SD card reader and there are other features people want besides that. Buying a $1000 phone is all about the trade-offs one is willing to live with.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#60

Post by scriptkiddy »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #24

Personally, I'm not a fan of podcasts at all. I've tried, and listened to some interesting ones, but in the end I'd much rather consume the same content by reading instead of listening. It's faster, it's easier to skim and skip around, you can have hyperlinks to other references, etc. Overall, text just works better for the kinds of content I'm interested in. There's a podcast related to a product I work with that I'…

For people with long commutes like myself (1 hour +), audio podcasts are a great way to pass the time in he car. Podcasts are a great way to keep your mind occupied when you're sitting in traffic or doing some other tedious and menial task. Sitting down and actively listening to a podcast while doing nothing else is not very appealing to most people.
Post reply on HN