Podcast "listening lists" discussion

[scripting]

I just wrote about "listening lists" on my Ideas for Podcasting page.

If you have questions or ideas you want to share, I've opened up this thread on the repo for my blog on GitHub. Be respectful, I block people as soon as they get personal or too self-promotional. Keep the spam and abuse out of these discussions, thanks. 😄

[domchristie]

Really interesting to hear your ideas on this. I am working on a (web-based) podcast client as a side-project and had been riffing on a similar idea.

I have been wondering if the episodes from curated lists could be published in their own RSS feed? That way, users (and not just podcasters) could created their own feeds, listenable in any app

[scripting]

@domchristie --

1. I think your idea of having one RSS feed with the aggregated shows of all the feeds in the listening list seems to be a really clever way around the difficulty in implementing dynamic lists. Now all you have to do is manage one feed. And it's totally something that could be automated. Sometimes ideas like this have hidden traps you don't see until you try to implement, but I think it's a great idea and totally worth pursuing and doesn't even require a user interface! Brilliant.

2. Also, i didn't meant to imply that users couldn't create their own curated lists. I explained it the way I did help get influencers to think of it as something they could use for promotion, and for the client developers as a competitive advantage in a sort of crass way. But as a user, I totally want to do this. And I imagine the user-managed lists will probably be the best, but otoh they will likely be hard to discover.

[craignicol]

So, updating blog rolls for the modern web? I like the idea, and I can think of a few podcasts I listen to who might want multiple listening lists (e.g. "I'm a US tech podcast focused on marginalised communities, here's my US pop culture list, here's some great tech podcasts, and here's some great marginalised creators you should support")

Is it also worth proposing a HTML meta definition so that podcast apps know what to look for when they pick up the recommendations, same as the existing RSS metadata? Makes it as easy as "share/copy this URL into my podcast app, and it will do the right thing"

[scripting]

updating blog rolls for the modern web?

We actually have been working on just that.

https://blogroll.social/

[jamescridland]

The "blogroll" idea for podcasting is actually already implemented using a RSS namespace extension.

Called a "podroll" (which I'm not a massive fan of, but names don't matter), it is a simple tag in a podcast's RSS feed that links to others. As a podcast creator, I can say "these are other shows I think you'll like if you like my podcast".

It's already supported by a number of podcast hosting companies, and a few podcast apps including Podcast Guru and Podfriend. All open, all using RSS.

To link to a podcast, it doesn't use an RSS feed address, because those change; but instead, a GUID that's built programmatically from the first RSS feed address that the podcast ever had (and can also be placed in the RSS feed). Not perfect, but seems pragmatic. There are look-ups for that GUID if you need them, that turn a GUID into its current RSS feed address.

Of course, you can produce some listening lists from this - especially those that are two-way (so if you're a fan of podcast X you could get a listening list of "all the shows that podcast X recommends" but also "all the shows that recommend podcast X themselves".

The spec is good, and the functionality it already gives is great.

[scripting]

OPML lists predate the “podroll” idea and feed urls are the feed identifiers everyone uses. That and it comes from the group with the obnoxious name. Ugh. No thanks.

[scripting]

James I have not been "away from podcasting" -- and I don't allow personal comments on any of my sites, so you've been warned which is more than I usually do. You can write whatever you want in your space.

http://guidelines.scripting.com/

[FictionCasters]

I've been helping a little with an RSS namespace project that started specifically for fiction podcasts, but would be equally useful for blogs, and other categories. It's in alpha testing now

There's a cool little tool there that generates code for specific shows, so it could be copy/pasted into the show's RSS code.

Briefly, something from Scripting News helped me see how a friend's index could be used to generate a namespace that could help with podcast discovery. This is a small step.

[FictionCasters]

Also re: the aggregated RSS Feeds, as Scripting News shared a few weeks ago

Sort of the opposite of how podroll works, at the AudioFiction.co.uk website, in the resources menu, there are two aggregator feeds, one for select trailers for fiction podcasts, and another for first episodes for new fiction podcasts. Or search in a podcast player / index for Audio Fiction Releases (for the first episodes) or Audio Fiction Trailers to see how the feeds work.

One thing The Cambridge Geek does to make those feeds extra useful is put the RSS address for the source show in the episode notes, so you can copy/paste it in the search bar. Having a one-click alternative to copy/past built into the app would be awesome.