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Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

npr.org

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Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#81

Post by mort96 »

lintroller wrote: post #10

> 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. > “We turned them down because the unique thing about this opportunity is the mission driven nature of these organizations. They want what’s best for the podcasting space, they want to build open systems that everyone can use.” The initial…

"What's best for the podcasting space" is more scary than it sounds tho imo. A lot of business people would consider web-like analytics "the best for the podcasting space", even though it would be horrible for podcast listeners.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#82

Post by crispinb »

jccalhoun wrote: post #79
crispinb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I wrote, I'm keeping an open mind. But in the absence of information more specific than Russell's rather fluffy & evasive blog post, it's entirely reasonable to be suspicious. Don't forget that for most humans, NPR isn't just a non-profit: it's a foreign government agency (and a very corporate-infected one compared to the best public broadcasters like the BBC or ABC). @peterjlee's other post here also suggests als…

NPR isn't really a government agency. They only get about 20% of their funding from the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding And regardless, it was not solely bought by NPR but by a combination of NPR, WNYC, WBEZ, and This American Life (two independent radio stations and a program producer). I also wouldn't call NPR's app spyware by any means unless you call the vast majority of apps and websites sp…

Fair point on the group purchase. It still puts the app largely in the hands of content producers, which is a potential conflict of interest.

> I also wouldn't call NPR's app spyware by any means unless you call the vast majority of apps and websites spyware too

The 'Spywareness' that matters is relative: it's not so much a matter of whether information is collected at all, but rather how much & what information, in what form, for what purpose, and who gets access. The move from an indy content-neutral app to one owned by content providers changes the incentives significantly.

We don't know what will happen, so let's face it, anything we write is just speculation. But it would hardly be unduly cynical to suspect the direction to be towards more surveillance, and less support for the openness of podcasting.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#85

Post by vanattab »

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).

No ads. Just "messages from underwriters"..

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#86

Post by torgoguys »

Thlom wrote: post #34
jadbox wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also love Pocket Casts, particularly with the "skip pauses" feature. Often podcasts are full of short pauses... to date, I have saved 9 hours of time with the feature enabled!

I’ve saved 18 hours, and over 2 days by playing at 1.5x speed! Whoa. I listen to podcasts more than I thought!

I too am a podcast addict and listen at 2x-3x on most of my podcasts (the non fiction ones).

According to Pocket Casts, variable speed has saved me 281 days, 2 hours. Removing silence 3 days, 23 hours.

(@rustyshelf, if you're out there, how do I rank? :-) )

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#87

Post by kondor6c »

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.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#88

Post by selectodude »

crispinb wrote: post #82
jccalhoun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR isn't really a government agency. They only get about 20% of their funding from the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding And regardless, it was not solely bought by NPR but by a combination of NPR, WNYC, WBEZ, and This American Life (two independent radio stations and a program producer). I also wouldn't call NPR's app spyware by any means unless you call the vast majority of apps and websites sp…

Fair point on the group purchase. It still puts the app largely in the hands of content producers, which is a potential conflict of interest. > I also wouldn't call NPR's app spyware by any means unless you call the vast majority of apps and websites spyware too The 'Spywareness' that matters is relative: it's not so much a matter of whether information is collected at all, but rather how much & what information, in…

Its an app that downloads mp3 files off the internet. There’s not a whole lot of secret sauce there. There are dozens of other apps that you can use if Pocket Casts doesn’t suit you any longer.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#89

Post by kfnic »

fluxsauce wrote: post #67
manigandham wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The syncing in pocketcasts is not reliable, especially between web and mobile apps. Often a played episode on mobile will still register as new on the web, even days later. Sometimes forcing a sync fixes it, but that is not 100% either. Overcast has the syncing perfected, but it has a much worse web UI. Pocketcasts new web UI is much slower too, with more clicks, popup windows, and less information density. I use the…

I haven't experienced the sync problems, but I believe you. Also, I use mobile the majority of the time so it's entirely possible I just don't use that feature enough to experience that pain. > find the words inside the audio of any episode Woah, that I didn't know about!

Another annoyance about the sync is that it is only recent episodes that are synced. When you get a new device you lose the status of most of your episodes.

Re: Pocket Casts acquired by NPR

#90

Post by paragraft »

devmunchies wrote: post #47

I purchased PocketCasts app a couple of years ago but recently switched from android to iOS and never re-downloaded it. I'm sure I'd have to re-purchase it, right? or is there a way around that.

No they charge per platform. I've bought it 3 times (Android, iOS, web).
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