We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts • Hacker News Board

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#71

Post by scriptkiddy » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

jccalhoun wrote: post #22

DamnInteresting wrote: post #14

As a long-time podcast listener, I have been steadily reducing my intake of podcasts in recent months. For me, this is largely due to a few annoying trends, such as Podcast A airing an episode of Podcast B, a new offering from the same organization. These crossovers are becoming common, and they are basically very long ads. I am seldom interested, but it's difficult to get them out of the play queue, especially while…

Oh I HATE the trend of corporate podcasts shoving episodes of other shows into their feed. I look forward to a new episode of the show I like only to start it and hear some other show. A close second is some podcasts have started putting reruns into their feed. I guess someone told them that missing weeks is bad so they just put a rerun in. Ugh.

> A close second is some podcasts have started putting reruns into their feed.

"Stuff you should know" and "Stuff to blow your mind" do this. However, they sprinkle these in once a week and still release their normal 2 new episodes per week. It kind of makes sense for these shows since they have a massive back log and the nature of the subject matter is not really time sensitive.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#72

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #65

reificator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LeVar Burton Reads I'll have to take a look at that one... Is it in a book ? It seems like a new reading rainbow ... https://youtu.be/uPqpmSWwuGk

Wow.. what is Reading Rainbow? I thought Lavar Burton Was a Star trek guy.

It was on public broadcasting since around 1983 and was hosted and produced by him.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#73

Post by C1sc0cat » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #62

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 aren't for reading a prepared text. They're mostly for conversations.

You do have to prep for those as well from experience on TWIWG (this week in wargaming) - you also have to prep for actual play ones look at the work that Mat Mercer puts in.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#74

Post by meowface » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #54

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?

The Cash App is made by Square and they probably pay him a lot. And you'd be surprised how much money pseudo-pharmaceuticals like Alpha Brain can make. They usually put tiny amounts of different compounds (legitimate compounds, but below their effectiveness thresholds) into each capsule. Their marginal cost is very low, and they sell at extreme markup.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#75

Post by icebraining » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

scottlocklin wrote: post #3

dontbenebby wrote: post #2

If anything there's too many good podcasts - I usually set my device to keep the five most recent, and there are good shows I simply don't get to. (I never could "zone out" and program while a podcast is on like some people, I need ambient/classical/electronic music to do that)

I almost never listen to podcasts for this reason, and because it is vastly more efficient to read than it is to listen to a couple of people talking who may or may not be sticking to the topic. It's funny the market effect, if you're, say, John Dolan, it's vastly more time efficient to spend an hour and a half talking to your buddy and get paid for it than it is to spend many hours researching and writing a 1000 or…

> it's vastly more time efficient to spend an hour and a half talking to your buddy and get paid for it than it is to spend many hours researching and writing a 1000 or 2000 word essay on a topic

I don't know what kind of talks those are, but the podcasters I listen to spend a lot of time researching for the episodes. I'm guessing few people can just ad-lib 90 minutes of interesting stuff every week.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#76

Post by C1sc0cat » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #54

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?

Its's always super strange from the UK reader on the BBC hearing the host stop then do an add break live themselves.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#77

Post by spuz » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #63

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…

This is not it.. anecdata I stream all the podcasts I listen to, many of which I actually watch on YouTube.. I have unlimited data or 20gb or something like that.. The "download a podcast/movie" is probably an important RITUAL for a lot of people, but I don't see actual lack of space as a key barrier.

How long have you been doing this though? I started to listen to more podcasts in 2014 when Serial was first released. At that time I did not have unlimited data (I still don't) and I suspect very few people did. I think for the vast majority of listeners at that time, storage was a much bigger factor to ease of listening than generous mobile data caps.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#78

Post by ddebernardy » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #10

dontbenebby wrote: post #2

If anything there's too many good podcasts - I usually set my device to keep the five most recent, and there are good shows I simply don't get to. (I never could "zone out" and program while a podcast is on like some people, I need ambient/classical/electronic music to do that)

Where do you find them? I keep trying to get into podcasts (tech, computer science, military, history...) but I really struggle. A sea of ancient abandoned shows when I search on my iPhone, seems nothing still running? Where should I be looking?

For tech, Kara Swisher's Recode Decode is excellent.

I've yet to find any good History podcasts that serves good to great episodes on a regular basis either. The BBC's history podcast stood out as vaguely better. But I was always left craving for something more in-depth, like some of the better History lectures you can find on YouTube. That being said, there are a few great shows from time to time, like Slate's Slow Burn (on Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton) and Standoff (on the Ruby Ridge incident) or MSNBC's Bag Man (on Spiro Agnew).

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#79

Post by meowface » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

goldemerald wrote: post #16

falcolas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upping the listening speed is the only cure I know of. Quite a few podcasters can be listened to exclusively at up to 2x the normal speed without significant impairment to their content. Of course, some others talk so quickly that 1x is the best you can do.

I am one of those people who listens/watches all media at 2x speed. It takes some time to get used to and is nearly impossible without headphones. Some people do talk quickly enough that I can't listen to them while doing any complex activity (e.g. Mike Duncan's revolutions podcast). But most other podcasts aren't scripted, so 2x is easy enough for speakers like Joe Rogan and Dan Carlin.

I personally like to listen to podcasts to relax, zone out, or have some background noise on while I'm working (I work from home). If I were consuming them for informational/educational content, I think this would make sense, but I kind of like them being slower-paced and chill.

Re: We're Entering a Golden Age of Podcasts

#80

Post by emerongi » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

schnevets wrote: post #58

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 onl…

Not sure what you are even exactly complaining about. Is it the UI?

I agree that most podcast players just lack features. They're built for "dummies": you can subscribe and click play, that's mostly it.

I'm a power-user. Podcast Addict on Android is the best player I have used, it has a ton of features and extreme customizability. Still, I am now using PocketCasts which is inferior by a wide margin, but it has sync capability, which ends up making my life a lot easier since I don't listen to podcasts on just a single device.

I think ultimately there is still space for another podcast player that is not built for dummies and offers a wide range of features on multiple platforms. Nothing like that exists, as far as I know.