James Cridland @jamescridland@podcastindex.social

Interesting stats:

Podcast Index: 1,371,245 current podcasts, and 45,967,114 episodes

Apple Podcasts: 1,788,031 current podcasts, and 43,887,770 episodes

25% fewer shows; 5% more episodes.

(Apple data from podcastindustryinsights.com courtesy @theDanielJLewis)

Interesting. Apple Podcasts to come to Windows. https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/14/apple-working-to-release-music-and-podcasts-apps-on-microsoft-store/

"A unified standard that all Podcasting 2.0 apps adopt for a link to a show or episode." - @brianoflondon makes a splendid point. This isn't a new tag - it's just a standard way to link to a show and episode. I wonder how we can move this forward?

Apple is to plan a podcast subscription service. I've written my analysis for Monday's Podnews over here - free to read!

I suspect there's something to be said about how Podcast Index fits into this, too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Podnews/comments/kz1jto/apple_plans_a_podcast_subscription_service_bad/

I *so* like the fact that Podcast Index's website source code is open. It means I don't have to suffer the OCD anxiety about the ugly "Developer Login" button on the far right, but instead I can just fix it myself. https://github.com/Podcastindex-org/web-ui/pull/41

Sad to see Pocket Casts is losing money - $2.4m!!! - and is for sale. I've written a few thoughts why: and I think it's a differentiation issue. And yes, Podcast Index could have helped. (On mobile, so no access to the non-metered link: shout if you can't see it and I'll find that later)

https://jamesrcridland.medium.com/pocket-casts-for-sale-where-did-it-go-wrong-ba7d551cd1d9

(I checked - they allow you to add any old RSS to the <channel> element, but don't allow you to add anything to the <item>. But I'm not sure I fancy an argument.)

Podnews will publish, later:

On Libsyn’s view of the Podcast Index, Rob Walch also clarified: “Any Libsyn user from day 1 can add those tags to the RSS feed. The support’s already there. We just haven’t added it to the UI.” Rob Greenlee adds: “We want to make a smart and informed decision about how to implement these - if we’re going to implement these.”

Fascinating listen at 43 minutes in. Rob Greenlee continues to sound positive and supportive of the Podcast Index; while Rob Walch takes no time to criticise two of the tags and sound dismissive to the rest, and to the directory. Pretty clear here what's going on in Libsyn - Rob vs Rob. Fascinating. https://blog.libsyn.com/2021/01/12/184-privacy-acquisitions-and-the-podcast-index/

Noticed I wasn't appearing for Podnews in the @podcastaddict people search - so have implemented the people tags in https://podnews.net/rss - here's hoping I'll be there tomorrow!

@dave It should also not just append a _from=podcastindex.org to the audio URL; it should replace any existing _from querystring with this value. At present it's sending two.

Hi, @dave - bug report for https://podcastindex.org/podcast/227573 - this is downloading the whole file upon page load, which isn't the done thing. It should load metadata only.

In Podnews in 30 minutes, this rather disappointing news... https://podnews.net/update/greenlee-to-step-down

Removed Chartable from my RSS feed. I've enjoyed using it, but the data I get from my own stats is now rather better than that available from Chartable, so that's one less third-party I need to use.

If you use Sphinx to listen to podcasts, you can listen to Podnews that way too - and support us with cryptocurrency. Find us at https://tribes.sphinx.chat/ if you've got the Sphinx app. (I think)

Sphinx tribe chat activated for Podnews. I think this helps you get there?

But I don't know how to get the podcast into it. If anyone can let me know how...

Today's random fact. Last month, Podnews's RSS feed was requested 485,000 times and responsible for 238GB of bandwidth. 95% of requests were cached (and we deliver every user-agent a separate version, you'll be astonished to know). It cost $23 to serve.

Interesting* fact of the day: 30 months after Apple Podcasts said they wanted HTTPS feeds - and threatened they'd stop supporting HTTP ones altogether - 85% of podcast feeds are now using https. The main podcast hosts that haven’t switched: SoundCloud (38% of all HTTP feeds), and Feedburner (20%).

* Interesting to me anyway

Interesting fact, particularly for @adam who has made a few points about this recently...

Just seven companies host/control 75% of all podcasts in Apple Podcasts: Anchor, Buzzsprout, Feedburner, Libsyn, Podbean, SoundCloud and Spreaker. SEVEN.

(I've got hold of a recent Apple Podcasts database, and am having fun doing queries on it)

I wrote a thing about Apple Podcasts and its pisspoor privacy. I can't work out whether it's clear enough for non-techs. https://jamesrcridland.medium.com/apple-podcasts-poor-for-privacy-db7a826a6123