
Podcasting is getting huge - Futurebot
http://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2015/12/15/10126144/serial-podcast-huge-hit
======
jacquesm
I've tried consuming podcasts on a number of occasions. I've utterly failed at
finding a way to appreciate them, even on subjects that interest me. Reading
faster than people speak is a factor (much faster) and being able to skim and
dive in where I'm interested, ability to bookmark, to cut-and-paste bits for
my notes files and so on. Besides reading is a lot easier for me to stay
concentrated on the content rather than listening to someone talking.
Podcasting just isn't for me, but I totally understand that there are people
for who they are very useful. Any article can be turned into speech by using
text-to-speech software, it would be nice if podcasts could be turned into
transcripts with similar ease.

~~~
furyofantares
Have you tried listening at 2x speed? Takes a little bit of getting used to,
but I've found it to be well worth it. This also makes it so I can watch
lectures on youtube/coursera/etc (whereas I was never capable of paying any
attention to lectures when I was in school, and found them almost unbearable
to attend).

~~~
ultramancool
If you do this, make sure you're using something which can do tempo scaling.
mpv can do it, PocketCasts can do it and it makes 1.5-2x speed workable.

~~~
furyofantares
Have you found things that _don 't_? I didn't think to mention it because it
hasn't been an issue for me in years, it seems to be implemented everywhere,
including the default app on iOS, at least if I understand what you're
referring to correctly.

~~~
ultramancool
Regular mplayer doesn't have tempo scaling, nor did the shitty mp3 player I
used to use for podcasts, it simply sped up the audio playback. It is pretty
common now though I suppose.

------
JamesBaxter
I understand that a huge percentage of podcast listeners are based in the US
but the number of hours I've spent listening to completely irrelevant adverts
is insane.

Surely someone can make a service that takes a podcast feed and packages it
with different adverts for different markets and then creates new feeds.

I'd make it but the scaling sales end is not something I know how to do.

I suppose it depends how Apple interprets the feed as I assume Apple devices
are the most used for podcast consumption.

~~~
oliao
I like the idea.

I find the advertising inside podcasts also particularly annoying. You can't
ignore them by looking away like you would on a screen.

Maybe we need an adblock for podcasts (even if it will be difficult to
automize -> some manual stripping of the parts where they are promoting stuff)

~~~
Lewton
> I find the advertising inside podcasts also particularly annoying.

Really? Most podcast apps replace the skip buttons with "jump forward/back
15/30 sec". Hitting a button twice is too much effort in exchange for getting
content for free?

~~~
Spearchucker
Yes I could FF through ads. The point (for me) is that I can leave my phone in
my pocket and use two hands to do something, or keep them in my pockets when
trudging home through snow. Which adds to the aggravation of ads - put stuff
down, fish phone out of pocket, turn on phone, FF, stash phone. Or listen to
the ad.

Thanks, but no sale.

~~~
corobo
We currently don't have the technology to automatically transcribe podcasts
into text (good for the SEO on your podcast site) - But even if we did, how
would it know that something is an advert as opposed to part of the show? Most
of the podcasts I listen to have ads and in many cases the ads aren't just at
the start or end, they're either a live read during the podcast or a cutaway
somewhere towards the middle.

Maybe you're just not the target market for ad-funded podcasts.

~~~
scottjad
Cut any segment of 10 seconds or more that is found in more than one podcast
episode. (I think this is feasible considering Shazam)

It would remove pre-recorded/repeated ads in the middle (assuming that's what
cutaway means), but wouldn't be able to remove live reads. It would also
remove intros/exits.

~~~
corobo
That actually does sound feasible. I'm not sure how feasible when it comes to
mobile devices but definitely _possible_ if things like YouTube's ContentID
can work

~~~
dragonwriter
As I understand it, ContentID is notoriously over-aggressive in matching and
only "works" in the sense that YouTube's interest in having it isn't
particularly harmed by that, since its mostly a tool to improve relations and
avoid lawsuits from big media interests.

Without manual validation, it probably wouldn't be a good model for
identifying and removing ads from podcasts, especially using a "repeated in
multiple podcasts" model, which doesn't start with known ads.

------
bovermyer
This quote made me feel really old:

> Podcasting has been around for about a decade — the term is a reference to
> the iPod, which older readers will remember as an iPhone that only played
> music.

Now I'm in the category of "older readers." Lovely.

~~~
madeofpalk
I'm sure/hope it was tongue in cheek, but I did find that pretty amusing.

My brother is 18 and he would probably be 'one of the last' to use a scroll-
wheel iPod.

------
iagooar
Sorry for the shameless plug:

A friend and I have launched a podcast publishing platform, batteries
included, called Podigee ([https://www.podigee.com](https://www.podigee.com)).

The backend runs on Rails + PostgreSQL, the frontend is a mix of Rails and
AngularJS. Also, we run dedicated download / stream servers with some nice Lua
scripts for caching the files and reducing overall costs for AWS S3 traffic.

The nicest feature is that once you upload an audio file, we will apply some
good audio algorithms to it, encode it to different audio formats, and expose
it automatically in your RSS feed.

~~~
lewispb
If we're on the subject of plugs, I wrote Podcast Chart
([https://www.podcastchart.com](https://www.podcastchart.com))

Again in Rails, all running on AWS.

------
ptha
I'm surprised the article makes no mention of Adam Carola's podcast. Possibly
due to some of the controversial remarks made by Carola on the show
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Carolla_Show_%28podca...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Carolla_Show_%28podcast%29#Controversies).
I'm not a fan, but if you're mentioning Serial and WTF, Carola's podcast is
right up there as far as numbers go, and was involved early on in monetising
his podcast with adverts etc.

~~~
seivan
In case you missed, this article is on Vox. Carolla is worse than ISIS in
their eyes.

~~~
gnrme
Indeed. Always look at the URL before reading an article to understand the
environment in which it was written. There's lots of websites out there with
agendas - some more blatant than others.

------
DiabloD3
The problem with podcasting for me is I have no easy way to consume them that
isn't already part of my entertainment workflow.

Literally, if it isn't something I can subscribe to in Youtube, or add it to
my queue in Netflix, eventually it just gets lost and falls out of my
entertainment workflow.

~~~
jacquesm
> entertainment workflow

That's a bit of a contradiction.

~~~
riebschlager
I was thinking the same thing. If you have an "entertainment workflow" then
you are doing entertainment wrong.

------
adamncasey
I remember podcasts being pretty big sometime around 2008 - a lot of podcasts
have stopped publishing since then.

Is it ahead of where it was then?

~~~
danso
The Serial podcast is huge, and in journalism, one of the few bright spots of
success in indepth reporting...I would say that that alone has accounted for
the majority of upswing in number of media reports proclaiming the new
popularity of podcasts. So, despite the stats of increased downloads/awareness
cited...which may not be impressive at all if we compare them against the
overall uptick in phone adoption and mobile digital consumption since
2008...there's no guarantee that podcasting as an industry has real
footing...particularly in what exists for creators to create and then get
paid. At least, there's nothing on the scope of what Twitch and YouTube have
done for gaming screen casters, AFAIK

~~~
vijayr
Serial podcast was great. Tim Feriss is good, Dan Carlin is awesome. Any other
podcast you'd recommend? Excluding the self promotional internet business
types.

~~~
will_pseudonym
QOD. James Altutcher and Steven Dubner (freakonomics). They have one question
each day they talk about. Both have GREAT perspectives. It's almost always a
paradigm shifter.

~~~
icpmacdo
I cant understand how James Altutcher has A list guests and horrible audio
quality, so annoying.

~~~
will_pseudonym
Honestly I have never noticed! What are your favorite podcasts that have great
production values BTW? I'm looking for a great production company.

------
kmfrk
I'm surprised how little I've seen someone trying to sell pickaxes for the
gold rush of podcasting.

I don't know whether that's an indicator of a trend, or whether the domain
knowledge just makes such a venture unfeasible, but I'd imagine to see people
renting out recording studios and selling bundled podcasting setups with
training and the like, if this were such a huge trend.

Is anyone currently doing this?

~~~
dagw
Both Panoply and Gimlet (two popular podcasting companies) are getting into
that business to various degrees. Panoply recently co-produced and co-promoted
a podcast with GE while Gimlet seems to be more focused on doing pure "white-
label" podcasts where they'll do all the production work, but their name
doesn't appear on the final product.

Basically if you are company and want a podcast they'll make it for you (or
work with you to make it).

------
arethuza
I used to have a serious podcast habit - one of which used to run adverts for
Audible. Now I listen to audiobooks and hardly ever listen to podcasts and
never listen to the podcast where I learned about Audible.

~~~
jsmeaton
Rogan? So many ads for Audible.

~~~
evan_
Audible sponsors- or has sponsored- a LOT of podcasts. They're second only to
Squarespace in that regard.

~~~
corobo
When it comes to Audible literally anyone can be 'sponsored' by them - I don't
know if the big guys get an upfront or set amount but I was able to register
as an Audible podcast affiliate before we even had a single episode out

~~~
evan_
I know that with Squarespace at least podcasts with a larger listenership have
a completely different deal than the regular affiliate marketing channel-
though I don't know any details. I kind of assumed it was the same across the
board for podcasts on larger networks though I don't really know for sure.

------
pluma
For me podcasts fill a similar niche to TV: something I can passively enjoy
without having to focus much while doing unrelated things. The two major
differences are that I no longer watch TV and I can listen to podcasts
wherever I am.

My biggest problems are that there's too many of them and it's easy to miss
the one or two really interesting episodes in a sea of monthly/weekly content.
Even more so if you listen to them at 2x speed and rarely have the time to
stop and actively pay attention.

It's more of a form of pleasant background noise with the occasional glimpse
of really interesting information. Like overhearing a conversation between
colleagues.

------
ekianjo
Podcasting was hard at the time of the iPod ? Seriously ? Isnt't that the
other way around, it was hard until iTune made it easy to suscribe to
thousands of podcast from a single, unified interface ?

Vox has short memory.

~~~
ghaff
Listening to podcasts was "hard" until you could download over cellular and
didn't have to sync up at your computer. So I do think there was friction at
the time of the iPod. That's been one of the big changes--plus a greater range
of good content.

------
bane
I listen to a huge assortment of retrocomputing related podcasts (partial list
here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576))
using the podcast addict app.

tbh, I'm subscribed to far more than I can ever listen to, and I'm in my car
for at least 2 hours a day. Right now, I'm addicted to the ANTIC podcast which
features an almost impossible number of interviews with people from all over
the early computer industry who experienced working for a fast growth startup,
the bust that followed and the hand-off to an unexpected acquirer. It took a
few episodes to get going, but it's very addictive now.

I'm pretty much convinced that there's a selection of podcasts for just about
any interest. They act as an audio-only companion to my youtube
subscriptions...and there's even a bit of overlap between the two communities.

Everything I listen to is _very_ amateur/hobbyist produced (like most youtube
videos) and it often shows, but the enthusiasm is often enough to pull me
through.

I had completely ignored podcasts until about 3 years ago and started
seriously getting into them a couple years ago. I've even got my parents
hooked on a couple.

~~~
vram22
>I listen to a huge assortment of retrocomputing related podcasts

Interesting. I like to dabble a bit in retrocomputing in my free time (mainly
older languages, some of which I've used before, others not). Looked at that
list of podcasts. A majority seem to be for games, which I'm not much into - I
only play a few, sometimes. Only a few, like "retro computing roundtable",
seem like they may be about more general computing topics. Do you know if any
others are?

~~~
bane
I'm not aware of too many. ANTIC is relatively holistic in terms of subject
area, but focuses on Atari 8-bit computers.

I believe they've even had a couple episodes reviewing the different dialects
of BASIC available for the Atari 8-bit computer platform.

AMICast is a relatively recent show with not many episodes, but it's about the
Amiga from a very European perspective.

I'd love to know more as well.

~~~
vram22
Thanks. I'll check out the Amiga ones. Pretty interesting machine, and I'd
read earlier, very advanced for its time. IIRC, one of the designers of either
the hardware or OS of the Amiga, also later designed the REBOL language - Carl
Sassenrath. I've tried out REBOL a bit, and it's interesting, with what seems
to be a somewhat different approach from many other languages. It recently got
open sourced.

------
mrlyc
I don't have much time to read but I do have a lot of time to listen, usually
while I'm doing housework or travelling, so I'm subscribed to a lot of
podcasts and YouTube channels. When a YouTube channel has something new that
looks interesting, I download the video, convert it to an MP3 and add it to my
collection. When I come across a book I want to know more about, I look up the
author's name on YouTube to see if there's an interview with them. That
usually presents the main ideas of the book without having to read it. I
download the video, convert it then subscribe to that channel if it has other
videos I'm interested in too.

------
PhilipA
I really enjoy podcasts at work, and they excel when I am doing boring
repetitive work. I do however wish that there would be a better place for
Podcast discovery than ITunes.

~~~
escherize
I paid for Overcast by Marco Arment on iOS and it's pretty good at
recommendation (uses Twitter). He's since made it free (!) so you should check
it out if you run an iDevice.

