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Don't fear asking listeners to download another app. If it costs money people may pause, but a free app that's just a couple of steps away isn't much of a barrier.
if it's free, and it's just doing a couple of things to jump downloading an app or something like that, I don't, I don't know that that's the he. It's just not that big of a barrier.
Podcasters can just recommend and link to the apps that do what they need. People will download them. Dave is learning to live with the discomfort of being opinionated.
I think we're a little afraid to be opinionated, I guess, and so. And I'm learning to sort of live with that discomfort.
As people create their own podcast-namespace tags, Dave proposes a spec 'appendix' listing tags seen in the wild that aren't formally adopted, so developers know what they might run into. As long as everyone works from the same reference implementation, everyone can read the same data.
Hey, these are not things that have been formally adopted into the namespace XML and s document, but these are other tags that are in the wild that use the podcast namespace. So they here are some. Here are some other examples of tags that we have seen that we know are in use,
Whichever AI API a podcast host or app calls, it probably leads back to OpenAI or Anthropic. If the AI economics crash, they may crash fast, and you may have to rip out and replace the feature. Have a backup plan.
They've built some really cool stuff on AI, I guess I would just warn to have a backup plan, yeah, for how, because all of the, all of the material that's coming out of the no matter who you're at, no matter who's API you're calling, you're ultimately probably calling open AI or anthropic.
Dave rejects the argument that value-for-value support has too much friction. If 40% of No Agenda's donations come from people who sit down with pen and check and mail it in, that's about the most friction possible, and people do it anyway.
I never want to hear that people that this something is, quote, too much friction. If, if somebody's if 40% of your donations are people that have sit, sat down with a with a a pen and a check and then mailed it to you. Yep, that is some serious that's about as the most friction as you can possibly get.
Watching the Hurricane Helene response in western North Carolina, Dave notes a change within his lifetime: disaster recovery used to be community-led, and now everyone waits for the government, which (as with Katrina) often can't respond well from the top down.
This change from when a disaster happens, you the community recovers. As as switch to when a disaster happens, everybody looks to the government, waits for the government.
A Bible-in-a-year feed used day numbers like '15.267' as GUIDs, and the parser read them as numbers, merging day 26 and day 260. Dave doesn't blame the publisher: as a business, the Index needs to handle whatever feeds throw at it.
if they had put something else in there, like, like, even one single letter in the GUID, then it would not have parsed that way, but, but we need to be a business. Is not their fault. We need to be able to handle whatever's thrown
Dave opposes policing AI clips inside shows (a slippery slope into misinformation fights) but has no problem with a general tag saying a whole feed is auto-generated, like the bot flag on fediverse accounts. Knowing something isn't human is sometimes helpful.
I don't have a problem with a general tag that just says, this is, this is all AI. I mean that to me that sounds because we do that. That's similar to what happens on the Fed averse when you can tag an account as a bot
Information without meaning isn't really information, and energy without direction destroys rather than builds. Inject raw energy into a system and you increase entropy. Think hurricanes, solar flares, or a beautiful wooden chest left in desert sun for years.
energy without direction, is destructive. It's not constructive. So if you just inject energy into a system, you're more than you're more likely to kill the system.
Saying 'AI is not viable' is inaccurate because there are real use cases. Its shortcomings need careful, nuanced description.
You have to be so nuanced in how you describe its shortcomings and its and its limitations. Because if you just say, AI. Is not viable. That's not exactly accurate.
Past a certain level, your audio is more than adequate, and compared with most of what's out there it's a relief to hear. Don't obsess over problems nobody else can hear.
yes, you can be too critical of your audio. Although I tell everybody, like, if you compare yourself, I mean, if you compare your there's a certain level, your audio is just completely acceptable, like, it's just more than adequate,
So many podcast apps look the same. To break into an area with incumbents like Pocket Casts, Overcast and Apple Podcasts, you have to do something different, as Fountain did with Bitcoin and Nostr and True Fans with PWA and ActivityPub. People are habitual and won't leave their mental model unless they see something different.
if you're, if you're wanting to break into some of these incumbent areas, I think you just have to do something different. Well, you know, because people are habitual, people just are less.
Nerds fall for the idea that with a good algorithm, more input data always yields better output. More information, like more of anything, produces more entropy, not better outcomes. More pages wouldn't make search better, and more podcasts don't make shows easier to find; it makes everything harder.
we? We fall victim to this idea that the more as long as the algorithm is good, then the more information you feed to it, the better the output that is not correct,
Generating images for a logo, Dave noticed that each round of 'variations' made results worse, never better than the first. Like model collapse, where models are trained on their own output, you really only get one shot.
The more times you keep doing that, this thing gets worse and worse and worse, right? Like it's never better than the first time you did it. And so I was thinking that you really only get one shot at this whole thing,
Dave doesn't think tag names matter much to developers. Many programmers don't even read English, and they still learn what things look like. Nobody knows what JSON stands for. 'Nobody knows what any of this stuff is until they need to know it, and then they go learn it.' So don't bikeshed over naming.
This is all just stuff. Nobody knows what any of this stuff is until they need to know it, and then they go learn it. So I just don't think it's a problem,
Some features sound great in concept, like letting feeds set banner colors that apps must overlay text on. Putting them into production turns into a nightmare of edge cases (contrast calculations and more). Even Apple, with the best designers, struggled with the colored macOS menu bar.
This is one of those things that the concept is, is really good. And you're like, Oh yeah, that would be great. And then, like, the actual putting in, into into production, becomes this sort of nightmare of edge cases and difficulties.
Dave encourages anyone running a podcast API to mirror the Podcast Index's API format. A compatible replica can act as a backup, and developers don't have to learn something new.
it would be kind of cool if, if it mimicked sort of our API format, so that it could be sort of like a backup, sure,
Many people dislike PWAs because mobile web pages rubber-band and scroll in unwanted directions, which breaks the illusion of a solid app. Native apps have no viewport to wander around in. Eliminate that wonkiness and the browser is actually a nice platform, since media keeps playing with the screen off.
Native apps feel solid because they don't have left to right wonkiness. Yes, yep. The the problem the the inherent problem with mobile browsers and putting something on a mobile web page is that there's many different ways that you can make that thing scroll in ways that you don't want it to.
With Podping, there's little reason left to poll RSS feeds. Dave tempers 'never poll' to 'only poll if you have to', for example to route around censorship. Otherwise, 99% of the time, podcasting can reach a post-polling world.
The reason, the only reason to poll is if you have to, that's a better way to say it. If there's a, if there's something, if something happened where there was some sort of, you know, censorship, or something that was needing to be avoided. You know, sure, poll, but, but I don't for 99% of the time.
Responding to complaints that podcast apps are clunky, Dave grants the criticism is valid but notes that fitting relevant information onto a small device without it looking jumbled is a genuinely hard problem.
it's easy to criticism is easy. Solutions are hard, of course, and you know, and so I understand it's a valid criticism that she says that, you know, these, these interfaces are clunky,
Advertisers pay more for host-read ads on conversational shows (Rogan, Call Her Daddy, Lex Fridman) because the audience feels it's hearing what the host truly thinks. A deeply edited, scripted show creates distance, so its host reads won't get the same return.
when you're listening to an edited show that's clearly edited and clearly scripted, there is no sense of connection there. You're not gonna, you're not gonna be able to get the same type of, sort of return on a host red from that type of show,
Public radio's real problem isn't commercial vs. non-commercial content. It has isolated itself in an ideological corner with scripted, unexciting content, and even hard partisans get tired of hearing their own side all the time.
the real issue is they've isolated themselves. They've isolated themselves into, like an into an ideological corner. There it is. And your content is scripted and not very and not exciting.
If a hosting company knows a show was removed from a major platform like Spotify, it has an ethical duty to tell the podcaster rather than wait for them to notice their show is missing.
you would feel like that's your duty to tell them, because they've been just removed from a major platform, you know, and you're hosting their show.
We grew up with hardware whose logic was in tubes and chips, so we still expect gear like a mixing board to just work. Today the logic is software running on general-purpose chips. A modern mixer is a computer with a screen and some levers, so glitches and reboots should be expected.
Nowadays. It's the the the logic is, is buried in software which is running in a general purpose chip,
Dave is annoyed by spec websites that spend ten pages on marketing terminology before you reach the actual spec. Developers just need to know what the thing does: show the code.
It really annoys me when specifications and things are written and and people develop an an a website for a spec, and then they spend the entire, like, 10 pages of material you're trying to get to the actual spec show, show me the code Marketing,
Podcasting is going to be local, and Dave intends to add local podcast search to the Index. Use the location tag only when location is what the show is about. A Birmingham-based guitar-lesson show shouldn't tag Birmingham, and that restraint keeps local search from getting polluted.
We need to have a way to find the local shows. Yes, and I will, and I have, I fully intend to put a local podcast search into the index.
We live in a world where people 'launch' products. Podcasting 2.0, value for value and the namespace were never launched. They grew organically over time, so judge them that way rather than by launch-day hype.
We also live in a world where people, quote, unquote, launch products, yes, yes, exactly. That's not what this thing has ever been,
Big companies have corporate goals and processes. They participate in podcasting, but you can't rely on them to lead, and waiting on them goes against podcasting's core idea: open delivery that's wonky and available everywhere.
they're a participant in podcasting, but you, you cannot rely on them to be the leaders of podcasting, and if you wait on them to do stuff, you're that's just, that's, that's completely antithetical to the core concepts of what, of what podcasting is,
In the friction between Podcasting 2.0, Libsyn and the Podcast Standards Project, Dave points out that each party is doing what's best for its own community. Rob at Libsyn is settling his customers down; the PSP is talking to hosting companies. Read their messages with that in mind.
Everybody is just trying to do the thing that's best for the people that for their own community. And I mean this Yes, an accurate use of the word community,
Every open protocol hits a catch-22: one dominant platform (Mastodon for ActivityPub, Apple Podcasts for RSS) and nobody wants to extend beyond what it shows. Dave's view (one he says he won't die on) is to take the protocol at its word, add a namespace to extend it as Podcasting 2.0 did with RSS, and just do it, even if the dominant app doesn't display it.
I feel like doing AP correctly means taking it at its word, just like we did with RSS and putting a namespace in just to extend its functionality, and just doing it if Mastodon can't see the post, well, then, I mean, who cares? Whatever.
Podcasting was born in open source, then spent well over a decade closed. When Podcasting 2.0 arrived, it took people a couple of years to get comfortable releasing their ideas and code in public, because openness is an attitude and an ethos, not just a license. Now it's common.
podcasting was born in open source, but then quickly it just went, it became closed source, and it lived in that world for, you know, a decade, 17 years.
Without scarcity, ads go the way of banner ads. Part of the problem is in the advertiser's head: when inventory is unlimited, they don't even know what to buy.
I think there's a problem mentally with the advertiser as well. When you have unlimited inventory, you don't know what to even buy.
Podcasting 2.0 can't force anything on anybody. Adoption is everyone's choice. Dave contrasts this with Apple and Spotify, who carry a 'tree trunk size stick' and tell everyone to get on board or go pound sand.
we can't force any. We can't force any of our stuff on anybody. No, it's everybody's choice. There is no stick. There's no there is absolutely no stick.
A common confusion: value for value doesn't mean satoshis or Bitcoin. No Agenda, the original value-for-value show, doesn't even take Lightning payments for its hosts. V4V is the model; Lightning is just one way to pay.
this is a constant source of confusion, is the is value for value is not Satoshis correct that it is not Bitcoin. It is not value for value. It two, two examples, two easy examples, value for value, no agenda does not, does not, does not do, uh, lightning payments.
The namespace spec is intentionally written in plain English, with its goals and methods spelled out. Critics who get it completely wrong simply haven't done the research. Read the source document before you weigh in.
the namespace spec is intentionally written in plain English. It's not a bunch of tech jargon, right? It's not a hard thing to understand those documents and the goals and methods behind each one. So, I mean, the only way you could be that dead wrong and everything is if you just literally done no no research at all.
All the opt-out syncing and tracking infrastructure (like UID2) exists only because of programmatic ad insertion. If you run host reads or coupon codes, you don't need any of it.
if you do host reads or coupon codes or anything like that, you don't need any of this nonsense. No, it's all based on programmatic ad insertion.
Lots of audiobooks exist, but hardly any are tagged with the podcast medium tag as audiobooks. So Dave took it on himself, narrating public-domain Clark Ashton Smith stories and publishing them as properly tagged RSS feeds. That also taught him firsthand what creators go through.
there needs to be more content out there that's actually tagged as medium audio book. Yes, I agree. So there's this. There's lots of audio books out there, but not but hardly any of them are tagged appropriately with the medium tag. So I've taken it upon myself to do this work.