Podcast 2.0 apps + your new call to action

Podcast 2.0 apps + your new call to action
Audience
Podcast 2.0 apps + your new call to action

Aug 26 2021 | 00:10:50

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Episode 0 August 26, 2021 00:10:50

Hosted By

Stuart Barefoot

Show Notes

Today’s episode is all about new podcast apps + podcast 2.0. 

It’s a big topic, and a bleeding edge one for most of us, suffice to say this one episode wouldn’t do the whole of it justice. However, if there’s one thing I leave you with, it’s that you’re encouraged, as podcast creators, to go out and explore.  If you’ve been hearing more and more about this from other shows you listen to but are still left scratching your head, well, allow me to illustrate it for you. 

To do that, lets start with a quote from friend of the show Evo Terra:

“Apple Podcasts has been fumbling the ball since April of 2021. Treat their non-stop stumbling as a gift. Anchor/Spotify is now making RSS feeds optional for all new podcasters that join their platform. Again, take that as a gift.

They’re distracted. They’re doing their own things which may not align with the larger podcasting ecosystem. It’s up to you, to me, and to and the companies we pay to host our podcasting content to take advantage of these gifts and push podcasting to the next level. Podcasting 2.0, even.

As I’ve said for years on this program, please spread this idea with other podcasters and get them as excited about the future as you are. “

The podcast industry’s perfect storm

“Treat their (Apple’s) non-stop stumbling as a gift.” That’s a thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. 

Let’s face it, Apple’s backing of podcasting in the early days helped make podcasting more mainstream. Lots of us wouldn’t have jobs if _Steve Jobs_ didn’t take the stage showcasing the pod fathers first show.

Watch Steve Jobs demo podcasting in iTunes for the first time

 But the Trillion dollar brand has meandered along the last decade barely giving us a working portal to submit our shows, let alone advance the industry. A feeling which has compounded during their updates to the platform earlier in the year where podcasters were left scratching their heads: 

“Where is my show?” 

“Why are my episodes disappearing?” 

“Why can’t I submit a new podcast?” 

Questions which still don’t have answers. 

I know this because I see our support desk at Castos, and Apple’s lack of effort with transparency costs us time, money, and in some cases customers. Suddenly, “we” all start looking around and begin to question…“does apple even care?”

As the all too familiar feeling of “Oh God, another major platform failing creators”starts to set in, out on the horizon, a ray of hope appears in the form of an open-source movement called Podcast 2.0.

I talked about this on previous episodes of Audience, if you follow me on YouTube.com/castos you’ve seen me demo and explain some of the features. Features which Castos will be adopting in the very near-future. If you’re seeking out who the real innovators are, aside from podcast hosting companies, look no further than the podcast 2.0 movement + enhancements to the RSS namespace. 

If that sounds too technical for you, well, it kinda is and that’s a topic for a different episode. Just know that Podcast 2.0 efforts work to keep podcasting open, where the stark contrast of Spotify shutting down popular RSS feeds is the complete opposite.

The fact of the matter is that, when you combine the efforts of the Podcast 2.0 movement along with new podcast listening apps, you start to unlock the _real_ innovation happening in our space. 

But, we can’t have one without the other!

As Podcast 2.0 continues to make strides, so must the podcast listening apps and hosting companies. 

Hosting companies must unlock features from the Podcast 2.0 namesapce inside their software in order to pass those features to podcast listening apps, where they carry it the rest of the way. Apps can display things like funding information, host information, chapters and even transcriptions. 

Think of it like Podcast 2.0 sets the blueprint, hosting companies run the plumbing, and the listening apps have the nice fancy faucets and knobs. All for a better podcast listening experience. 

Oh, there’s this thing called “value4value” yet another topic of monetizing podcasts through bitcoin, which some apps support, again we’ll save that for another day. 

Let’s recap:

  • Apple gave us a huge advantage in podcast distribution and awareness nearly two decades ago. One thanks to their software; Two thanks to the persistence of visionaries like Adam Curry. 
  • But after over a decade the industry has become fragmented as massive players try to own an ecosystem powered by passionate creators and an open web standard. 
  • Apple rolls out a new update that highlights how brittle podcasting is and how little they care about podcasts. 
  • Thanks to the efforts of Podcast 2.0 they’ve clashed with the failures of Apple (and others who have neglected podcasting) to create the perfect storm. 
  • Many notable podcasters realize that it’s time to look for alternatives because big platforms aren’t helping us. 

Can we get to podcast apps now? Yes, but…

I said this episode was about podcast apps, but I’m not going to highlight or give you a definitive list…sort of. 

As podcasters we have to come together and recognise first that our call to action for years “Subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify and Google” needs to be thrown out. The proof is in the podcast pudding. 

So before I recommend what apps or where to find them, if you’re a podcast creator, change your call to action to tell your audience where to listen to your show. Change starts with us, and a near 20 year habit is going to be hard to break. 

I’ll give you my early take on which apps to explore, which ones look at least the most promising to me, and maybe you once you start to dig in. 

First, go to newpodcastapps.com, it’s the best place to start your research and experimenting. I’ll be up front and honest right now: the biggest challenge I have with these apps is that they aren’t smooth, they aren’t feature rich, and they aren’t sexy. 

It’ll be challenging to pull PocketCasts out of my cold dead hands. 

However, there are some that are interesting from a certain usecase, that I can picture myself using. 

Fountain is a new app that lots of people are talking about. I think because of it’s “boostagram” feature and how it makes the whole value4value, paying with Satoshis, a breeze. 

Curiocaster, looks like a great web-based listening experience with a lot of the Podcast 2.0 features. 

Sphinx chat, which I covered on the YouTube channel, has a fairly straightforward way of setting up your bitcoin payments + integrating live-chat while listening to a podcast. 

Antennapod sounds like a promising open source podcast app for Android users. 

Conclusion time

If you feel a bit overwhelmed, you’re in the right place. I am too. 

As creators, we need to play our part in helping advance the industry too. Let me restate that: As creators, _we_ advance the industry too. 

We shouldn’t throw our hands up and just give in to the Billion dollar companies competing with Trillion dollar Apple. When has that story ever played out well for us?

Give yourself some breathing room, spend some time with these new apps, see what works & what doesn’t. Give the creator of the apps some feedback. Maybe promote podcastindex.org or by all means your own website, before you push Apple or Spotify. 

If you need to setup a website for your podcast, Castos makes that easy with our WordPress plugin and special templates for Elementor site builder. 

View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Okay. It's time for another installment of the audience podcast. Did you know that the audience podcast is brought to you by Castro's a fantastic podcast, hosting and analytics platform. If you were occurring listener or a new listener, I encourage you to not only share the show with others, but to learn more about starting or moving your podcast to us [email protected]. And Hey, if you want to start a members only podcast or a podcast just for your company employees, we're pretty good at that too. Today's episode is all about new podcast apps plus podcast 2.0, it's a big topic and a bleeding edge. One for most of us suffice to say this one episode, wouldn't do the whole of it justice. However, if there's one thing I leave you with, it's that you're encouraged as podcast creators to go out and explore. If you've been hearing more and more about this from other shows you've listened to, but are still left, scratching your head. Well, allow me to illustrate it for you. Let's start with a clip from friend of the show. Evo Terra, apple Speaker 1 00:01:10 Having dropped the ball since April, 2021 is a gift anchor slash Spotify. Making RSS feeds optional. Now is a gift it's up to us. It's up to you. And to me and the companies, we pay to host our content to take advantage of that gift and push podcasting to the next level. So, as I've said, for years on this program, please spread this idea with other podcasters, get them as excited about the future as you are. Speaker 0 00:01:45 If you want more of iVOS podcast, pontifications go to podcast pontifications.com Speaker 2 00:01:54 Gas industry's perfect storm. I quote, treat their Speaker 0 00:01:59 Apples. Non-stop stumbling as a gift. That's what Evo just said in that clip. You just heard. That's a thing I've been thinking about a lot lately. Let's face it. Apple is backing of podcasting in the early days, helped make podcasting more mainstream. Lots of us wouldn't have jobs. If Steve jobs didn't take the stage, showcasing the pod fathers first show. So Speaker 3 00:02:22 Again, it's sort of like TiVo for radio for your iPod and you just subscribe to these things, right? So let me show you what it's like. This is the next release of iTunes called a release 4.9, and I'm just going to run it right now. And what we can do is we go to the music store, uh, and we can, uh, this is not a live music. This is not the music store that's live for everybody else. It's a private one for us here. And, uh, there's a little thing called podcast right here. You click that and we've got a page full of podcasts, Speaker 0 00:02:50 But the trillion dollar brand has meandered along the last decade, barely giving us a working portal to submit our shows, let alone advance the industry, a feeling which has compounded during their updates to the platform earlier in the year where podcasters were left, scratching their heads. Where's my show. Why aren't my episodes appearing and why can't I submit a new podcast questions, which still don't have answers. I know this because I see our support desk here at Castro's and Apple's lack of effort with transparency, cost us time, money. And in some cases, customers suddenly we all start looking around and begin to question. Does apple even care as the all too familiar feeling of, oh God, another major platform failing creators starts to set in out on the horizon. A Ray of hope appears in the form of an open source movement called podcast 2.0, I talked about this on previous episodes of audience. Speaker 0 00:03:48 If you follow me on youtube.com/casto, you've seen me demo and explain some of the features, features, which cast those will be adopting in the very near future. If you're seeking out who the real innovators are aside from podcast hosting companies look no further than podcast. 2.0 movement plus enhancements to the RSS namespace. If that sounds too technical for you, well, it kind of is. And that's a topic for a different episode, but just know that podcast 2.0 efforts work to keep podcasting open, where the stark contrast of Spotify shutting down popular RSS feeds is the complete opposite. The fact of the matter is when you combine the efforts of podcast 2.0 movement, along with new podcasts, listening apps, you start to unlock the real innovation happening in our space, but we can't have one without the other as podcast 2.0 continues to make strides. So must the podcast listening apps and hosting companies we'll start with hosting companies first because that's who Casto is hosting companies must unlock features from the podcast 2.0 namespace inside their software in order to pass those features to podcast listening apps, where they carry it, the rest of the way apps can display things like funding, information, hosting, information chapters, and even transcriptions. Speaker 0 00:05:05 Think of it like podcast 2.0 sets the blueprint posting companies run the plumbing in listener apps, have the nice fancy faucet and knobs that deliver us the water. It was the best thing I could come up with when I wrote this transcript all for the better of the podcasts listening experience. Oh, and then there's this thing called value for value. Yeah. Another topic of monetizing podcasts through Bitcoin, which some apps support. And again, we'll save that for another day. See the YouTube channel because I covered a little bit of it over there as well. But let's recap where we're at apple gave us a huge advantage in podcast, distribution and awareness nearly two decades ago. One thanks to their software to thanks to the persistence of visionaries like Adam Curry. Speaker 3 00:05:47 Adam Curry is one of the guys that invented podcasting and he has a podcast called the daily source. Let me go ahead and subscribe to that. And we can go listen to his one. I'll just click on it. Your daily source code Speaker 4 00:05:59 Show number 180. Speaker 0 00:06:02 But after over a decade, the industry has become fragmented. As massive players try to own an ecosystem powered by passionate creators and an open web standard that's RSS, apple rolls out a new update that highlights how brittle podcasting is and how little they care about podcasts. Thanks to the efforts of podcasts. 2.0, they've clashed with the failures of apple and others. Who've neglected podcasting to create the perfect storm. Many notable podcasters realize this. And it's time to look for alternatives because big platforms aren't helping us. Can we get to podcasts apps now? Yeah, but I said, this episode is about podcast apps, but I'm not going to highlight or give you a definitive list, sorta kinda as podcasters. We have to come together and recognize first that our call to action for years, subscribe to us on apple, Spotify and Google needs to be thrown out. Speaker 0 00:06:59 In fact, many of us have because apple changed it to follow instead of subscribe. But the proof is in the podcasting pudding. So before I recommend what apps or where to find them, if you're a podcast, creator, change your call to action, to tell your audience where to listen to your show. Change starts with us. And a near 20 year habit is going to be hard to break. I'll give you my early take on which apps to explore which ones to look at. At least look more promising to me. And maybe once you start to dig in, you can find the apps that you really like first things first go to new podcast, apps.com. It's the best place to start your research and start experimenting. I'll be upfront and honest right now. The biggest challenge I have with these apps is they aren't smooth. They aren't feature rich and they aren't sexy. Speaker 0 00:07:45 There'll be challenging to pull pocket casts out of my cold dead podcasting hands. However, there are some that are interesting from a certain use case that I can picture myself using at least in one-off environments. Fountain is a new app that lots of people are talking about, I think because of its Boostgram feature and how it makes the whole value for value paying with Satoshi is a breeze. If you laugh at the words of Toshi that's okay, the rest of us are still too Curio caster looks great as a web based listening experience with lots of the podcast, 2.0 features. I know the pike, the guys over the podcast, 2.0 podcast. Talk about it a lot. It's Fink's chat, which I covered on the YouTube channel has a fairly straightforward way of setting up your Bitcoin payments and integrating a layer of live chat to podcast, which I find really interesting. And in 10 APOD seems like a really promising open-source podcast app for Android users. Speaker 5 00:08:41 So Speaker 0 00:08:41 It's conclusion time. I feel a bit overwhelmed. You're in the right place. I am too, as creators. We need to play our part in helping advance the industry to, well, let me restate that as creators. We, the industry too, we shouldn't throw our hands up and just give it to the billion dollar companies competing with trillion dollar companies like apple. When has that story ever played out well for any of us, give yourself some breathing room. Spend some time with these new apps, see what works and what doesn't give the creator of the app. Some feedback, maybe promote podcasts, index.org, or by all means your own website before you push apple Speaker 5 00:09:21 Or Spotify. If Speaker 0 00:09:23 You need to set up a website for your podcast cast, those makes that really easy with our WordPress plugin and special templates with Elementor send us an email. If you want any more information about that, that's it for today's episode. If you enjoyed it, do me a favor search for us on pod chaser.com and leave us a review tweet at us at Castillo's HQ. Tell my boss, Craig, I'm doing a decent job. All right. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode, your channel Speaker 3 00:09:47 Infinity, serious NPR or all doing podcasts. Now, BBC, these are all free. These are all free. Newsweek is doing podcasts. Businessweek is doing them. Forbes is doing them Washington post Denver post Seattle post are doing podcasts, Philadelphia daily news, San Francisco, Chronicle Disney. When they wanted to get the word out on their 50th anniversary did a podcast. It's pretty amazing. And you Speaker 5 00:10:11 Have this subscribe unsubscribe. That's correct. Could they? I presume they could be used if you were to eventually get into selling paid audio stuff. Well, you could, you could Speaker 3 00:10:23 Try to sell podcasts, but the whole phenomenon is so great. It's free. And I think what we're going to see as an advertising supported model emerged just like free radio. And again, I have a visual exciting Speaker 5 00:10:31 Stuff. Well, you know, Speaker 3 00:10:34 I bet you'll be podcasting your column in the not-too-distant future. I need more work.

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