Podcasting is Not Walled (Yet) (rakhim.org) 86
Rakhim Davletkaliyev, a software developer, writer and podcaster, recently launched two new podcasts. One of the things he was asked by people following the launches was "but how do I subscribe, it's not on iTunes/Google Podcasts?" He writes: Podcasts are simply RSS feeds with links to media files (usually mp3s). A podcast is basically a URL. And podcast clients are special browsers. They check that URL regularly and download new episodes if the content of the URL changes (new link added). That's it, no magic, no special membership or anything else required. The technology is pretty "stupid" in a good way.
Ever since tech companies started waging war against RSS, podcast distribution became visually RSS-free. What do you do to subscribe? Easy, just search in the app! For the majority of iOS users that app is Apple Podcasts, and recently Google made their own "default client" for Android -- Google Podcasts. It looks like podcast clients are similar to web browsers and just provide a way to consume content, but the underlying listings make them very different. Corresponding services are actually isolated catalogs. When you perform a search on Apple Podcasts, you aren't searching for podcasts. You are searching for Apple-approved podcasts. And if the thing you're looking for is not there, then... well, you get nothing.
Most Podcast clients still accept RSS. Apple Podcasts, iTunes, PocketCasts, OverCast, PodcastAddict. Google Play Music doesn't say anything explicitly, but you can just put RSS URL into the search field and it works. For now. I won't be surprised if these apps gradually and silently remove this feature.
Ever since tech companies started waging war against RSS, podcast distribution became visually RSS-free. What do you do to subscribe? Easy, just search in the app! For the majority of iOS users that app is Apple Podcasts, and recently Google made their own "default client" for Android -- Google Podcasts. It looks like podcast clients are similar to web browsers and just provide a way to consume content, but the underlying listings make them very different. Corresponding services are actually isolated catalogs. When you perform a search on Apple Podcasts, you aren't searching for podcasts. You are searching for Apple-approved podcasts. And if the thing you're looking for is not there, then... well, you get nothing.
Most Podcast clients still accept RSS. Apple Podcasts, iTunes, PocketCasts, OverCast, PodcastAddict. Google Play Music doesn't say anything explicitly, but you can just put RSS URL into the search field and it works. For now. I won't be surprised if these apps gradually and silently remove this feature.
Re: more like ad dot (Score:5, Interesting)
Recently, Apple, Google, and Facebook have colluded to censor views with which they disagree by removing authors from their platforms. The populist right wing in particular communicates by podcasts, and Apple and Google recently removed some, including some very popular ones, from the podcast indices that their walled-garden apps provide. TFA higlights the lengths to which Apple and Google go to make their indices seem the only avenue for surfacing content to users of their default applications, although the underlying technology is in fact open and accessible outside those indices and apps. That openness provides an avenue for resisting censorship, but the viability of that resistance relies on users understanding something about how RSS works.
In a wider context, this is also important in the overall contest between open standards like RSS and the closed approaches of centralized tech. Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al. despise RSS because it is impossible for them to monetize or censor and replicates much of their functionality. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ are all built around the idea of a feed/wall/stream, which is basically RSS. The tech companies would love to kill off RSS and provide ad-filled, censored, feeds/walls/streams under centralized control instead of decentralized RSS feeds that anyone can publish. Hiding the RSS in podcast apps may work towards that goal.
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OOH OOH!!
I got it...
Podcasts on the Blockchain!!!!
YISSS!!!
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If you've got a needful, he's the one to do it. Do not have one doubt!
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You do know that anyone can censor stuff right? It's not restricted to the government.
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registering his podcast with the normal services which delineate podcasts
Which services are these? Where can I find one?
Re:Not going to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you know how many walled gardens there are for podcasts? I've helped a couple people list their RSS feed and I didn't post to anywhere near this number of services. If this were part of an open web, they would simply be indexed by search engines and no manual submission would be needed. You don't have to explicitly submit your web site to Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc, so why should podcasts be any different? Sure, you can prefer manually-submitted entries. But expecting every podcast to know of every directory is insane.
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Podcasts are a different beast - one podcast doesn't really "link" another.
There are well-documented RSS publishing standards using <link rel="alternate" ... /> in the associated web site's HTML - you don't link one podcast to another. You link the podcast to its related web site, probably the domain the actual feed is on.
Perhaps if you own a website you can link to the podcast and thus get into the big directories through normal webcrawling, but if you don't publicize it, it won't get picked up.
Podcasts don't exist without a web server to serve the RSS feed over HTTP. That's likely going to be a web site right there. And if you don't link to your own podcast from your own web site (or if a podcast as a service system doesn't do the same), then
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Yeah. Get smothered in apple/google love until you can't breathe. And you'll do it listening only to apple/google approved podcasts. And you'll like it. Is that what you want, you ignorant shit-stained starbucks fag? 'Cause that's what you're advocating.
Re:Not going to happen (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, just ask Alex Jones.....
I mean, I'm not a fan of his, it was a bit of a whack job channel on YouTube, but wow....he just got booted.
Strangely, however.....I've not see a lot of other high visibility channels on either side of the spectrum that were as bad if not worse than AJ get booted.
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Seconded. He's practically Lenin!
Re: Not going to happen (Score:1)
Agreed, he's a jackass and he's cancer, but he has as much right to free speech as anyone.
No, companies like Google aren't required to give him a platform. But we had a wonderful free speech platform with the internet, and this is another step away from that. We're moving more toward an internet where a relatively small group of content creators who are approved of by the major tech companies produce all the content, and you consume it.
Do we really need to make another cable TV? Is this what people really w
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he just got booted
Yep, for terms of service violation. He's still free to spout his garbage, but no private entity is required to provide him a platform. This is not a freedom of speech issue here, just basic contract law.
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Can you find where it is posted the TOS that he broke form Apple and Google simultaneously?
I thought they just didn't agree with his content.
I mean, I don't either, but he should be allowed to spew it....I"ve seen it before and it was whack job stuff, but I didn't see anything in it that it should be banned and booted from YT....
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I've not see a lot of other high visibility channels on either side of the spectrum that were as bad if not worse than AJ get booted.
Got any examples?
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I've not see a lot of other high visibility channels on either side of the spectrum that were as bad if not worse than AJ get booted.
You apparently have no examples of high visibility channels that are as bad as AJ and didn't get booted. This does not surprise me.
Re: Not going to happen (Score:2, Interesting)
If this guy can't go to the trouble of registering his podcast with the normal services which delineate podcasts, I can't be bothered with tracking it down nor listening to it.
What if the "normal services" denied him listing because he held dissident political views that the "normal services" wanted to suppress? RSS is a decentralized technology that resists censorship; centralizing publication into the hands of a few "normal services" increases the risk of censorship.
The censorship has already begun. [cnbc.com]
If podcasting apps remove the ability to subscribe to unlisted RSS feeds, corporate control of one media channel will solidify, as will censorship. The last paragraph in TFA expresse
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You do realize that they are only removing the listings from their own podcast apps? Nothing is stopping people from downloading a standalone RSS reader from the respective app store (there are quite a few on Google Play). If you created your own podcast app it would be more than within your rights to limit what feeds you would like to carry.
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Sure they could remove all RSS readers but I really don't see that happening. If it did you could still use a browser (or RSS reader on a computer) and download the podcast as an mp3 (or mp4 for video?) and play on an appropriate player.
But if you are so paranoid that Google/Apple are going to remove all RSS/podcast apps I think you have other problems.
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P2P on mobile is just generally a terrible idea. You use up limited data, and the app has to keep waking up and connecting, eating into battery life and free memory.
Ideally you'd have have a home connection with a decent uploaod and leave $100 device in the home for P2P with a 1or 2 TB hard drive that can be have a remote queue to preload episodes, maybe even using AI to predict which shows you'll actually want to download.
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The bulletin board days are behind us, neck beard. Get your shit together and join the real world. Stop acting like some social misfit. Nobody wants to hear about your 20 sided dice anymore.
Is this "real world" you speak of the world where the information you consume is controlled by the garden you happen to be in? If so, this is the world where the First Amendment doesn't apply because the garden owner can limit whatever speech it deems unworthy for you to hear. This is how we loose our freedom of speech -- by giving the control of all speech to those that aren't bound by the Constitution.
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Yes, there are IOS drones (the walking dead) who have never seen anything that isn't distributed on iTunes. That doesn't mean you have to cater to them.
BuT mUH mOnETizATioN
Re: visually RSS-free (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the author means "visually." If you look at Apple's Podcasts app for iOS, for example, you will see a "search" function that surfaces (approved) content for those looking to discover new podcasts. There is no visual indication--no icon, no label, no indication whatsoever--that you can hand the app a RSS URL that you have independently discovered and subscribe to its feed. You can, in fact, subscribe that way by clicking on a pcast:// URL in Safari or another app, but you have to do that from outside the
War was declared against RSS? (Score:2)
I must’ve missed the news stories about this “war”.
Or, perhaps, podcast apps decided to add a different, easier way for the average user to subscribe to podcasts because the average person doesn’t find RSS to be particularly user-friendly.
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Google Reader closing not ringing any bells? [slashdot.org] Firefox removing built-in RSS support? [slashdot.org] Slashdot posting about how RSS was dead? [slashdot.org]
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I must've missed the news stories about this "war".
Hopefully this will have less negative consequences than the War on Drugs.
Or, perhaps, podcast apps decided to add a different, easier way for the average user to subscribe to podcasts because the average person doesn't find RSS to be particularly user-friendly.
Well, it is Really Simple Syndication...
Yes and No (Score:5, Interesting)
A podcast client is a bit more than a web browser with RSS support. People are looking for more than that anymore in an podcast client. They want to be able to stream or download it. They want to be able to speed up / slow down playback. They want to support both audio and video podcasts. They want cross-device placement/bookmark sync. They want intelligent downloading so they don't blow their data caps (particularly with cell data). That's a bit more than just a web browser with RSS support.
But I do agree with you on the big players trying to take a chunk out of RSS podcasts and RSS in general. I talked about that in https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10677653&cid=54511965
But here is the thing, content rules. If people can't get the content that they want on big players app they want, they'll use a different app. Encourage you're content creator to stay platform agnostic. This doesn't let the draconian big players isolate content. If the big players want that content, force them to add support for open standards like RSS in their apps.
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A podcast client is a bit more than a web browser with RSS support...They want to be able to stream or download it. They want to be able to speed up / slow down playback. They want to support both audio and video podcasts. They want cross-device placement/bookmark sync. They want intelligent downloading so they don't blow their data caps (particularly with cell data).
Um, doesn't Chrome do pretty much all of that?
Stream or download? check.
Change playback rate? can be accomplished via html code or in-app (like a media player)
Audio and video? Yup, web browsers do that.
Cross-device bookmark sync? Hello, Google!
Intelligent Downloading? Again, can be handled by either the browser or OS, depending.
That's a bit more than just a web browser with RSS support.
Or... it's exactly what modern web browsers do. Changing playback rate is about the only questionable thing there.
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Stream or download? check.
They mean the ability to pre-download podcasts while on wifi or charging (or whatever) and have them available for listening offline.
Change playback rate? can be accomplished via html code or in-app (like a media player)
Yes, we understand that you can write code to do it on any platform, including a browser.
Cross-device bookmark sync? Hello, Google!
They mean the ability to sync downloaded content and playback location so I can drop one device and pick up listening at the same spot on another device.
Or... it's exactly what modern web browsers do. Changing playback rate is about the only questionable thing there.
A web browser isn't an app. It's a platform for running apps. You might be able to write an excellent podcast app for a browser, but who
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Hypertext pages aren''t apps.
First, it's not 1993 anymore. Almost every web page has javascript. Which is, you know, code?
Second, WTF is your point? It's the OP that claimed a browser could perform all of these functions, if so coded. If you code a browser page to do things like playback audio slower or faster, that's an app. Go tell the OP that browsers don't run apps if you want to fight that battle.
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"app" is short for "application."
Literally all software is, by definition, [techterms.com] an app.
Can you run an app in an app? You bet your ass you can - hell, with a virtualization app like VirtualBox, you can run a whole operating system and corresponding apps... within an app!
Seriously, though, "Web browsers aren't apps" is the worst semantic argument I've seen in a long time.
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Seriously, though, "Web browsers aren't apps" is the worst semantic argument I've seen in a long time.
I guess you don't understand how browsers even work. Here's a hint though. The source code for chromium doesn't include slashdot. Think about it.
Yes, a browser is a program. A program that exists to run other programs. A lot like Windows exists to run Windows programs. Or the python command runs scripts. Or Android runs Android apps. Or the JVM runs Java apps. Their main (in some cases only) function is to facilitate a runtime environment for other programs.
Do you hear people saying "python is the best podc
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I think you're misunderstood the features.. While most modern browser can sorta do most of these things, a browser isn't the right tool for the job.
* Most browsers, even modern ones, don't really allow you to schedule a download without extenstions, let along let you have logic for if you're on a cell network or local lan.
* Changing playback rate, can be managed in a local media player, but then means you just disconnected the usage, from at app so the next feature can't be monitored
* Timestamp syncing - ak
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Seems legit, lol
Thanks for the clarification, when you put it that way it does seem like web browsers wouldn't be the appropriate software for such practices.
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Most of us are happy just having one that downloads and plays our podcasts. Not many people need fancy features.
He's right but his solution is wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
What with the censorship by Google, Twitter et. al., I really don't want mega corporations telling me whom I may and may not listen to.
Using Safari to listen or watch a podcast doesn't cut it for a variety of reasons.
It's time to resurrect dedicated rss players and bypass the Internet's censors.
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I really don't want mega corporations telling me whom I may and may not listen to.
At the rate they're going you won't notice what they don't want you to hear.
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Well that's too bad because mega corporations own and run the Internet. They own the telecoms that transfer the data, they own the server farms that hold the data, they own the sites where everyone gets their content from.
People paywall themselves (Score:3)
RSS is good (Score:4, Insightful)
RSS and things built on top of it like Podcasts are good for users. But the technology is bad for advertisers. If you see criticism of RSS, look closely at where it comes from. If it comes from someone trying to sell you something, take their advice with a grain of salt.
It's been said before that advertisers and ad brokers are at a disadvantage with RSS. But Web 2.0 developers that wish to sell frameworks and services are also at a big disadvantage too. You'll see self-described web experts that disregard RSS as being primitive, limited, or no longer relevant. But I have to wonder if this has more to do with such "experts" trying to compete with a free and established technology.
Still, I believe it is inevitable that RSS will die. Take Usenet newsgroups for example, that is basically dead, at least in terms of being a widely used communication hub as it once was. What replaces it? A fractured set of isolated web forums (that includes /. and Reddit). Instead of having a huge global network of message boards, we have tiny isolated communities, and even that medium is dying out. Replaced by the top post schemes of Facebook groups, Google+, and Twitter.
Why did Usenet die? There are many factors, but one of the big ones is that it's hard to get ad revenue from running a news server and easy set up on a web forum.
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But the technology is bad for advertisers. If you see criticism of RSS, look closely at where it comes from. If it comes from someone trying to sell you something, take their advice with a grain of salt.
This. Lots of criticisms of RSS come down to personal preference. But the ones that are legitimate issues are nearly always from the point of view of the publisher. As a listener, I'm perfectly happy with how it works now.