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I feel like Podcasts were revolutionary in media and yet I don’t understand the system for how all these apps stream them

BAD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,565
USA
I googled Podcasting and got a world of varying info...

it seems like there were early ideas of RSS Audio Feeds... but then Apple came along and said they'd make the platform in iTunes.

but how do podcasts work these days? Like do you just publish them to Apple's system and then all those random ass third party apps just skim the servers and show you what you'd already find on Apple's apps?

or is there some other system ?

It sounded like people basically all use Apple Podcasts as the main upload system or did at one point?
 
JeffGubb

JeffGubb

Giant Bomb
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
842
RSS, my man.

RSS is an older tech that enables sites to create a link that people can subscribe to. All podcasts have an RSS feed that other podcast apps simply latch onto to get the updates as they roll out.

This is one of the reasons podcasts are so important because it's one of the best ways to make money on the Web with media content without having to exist on a platform owned by Google or Facebook. No one owns RSS.
 
Infinity Times Two

Infinity Times Two

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,103
Sweden
What I like about podcasts is that each client basically has all the podcasts, so it's just a matter of choosing the one that has the best UI.

But I heard that Spotify and Apple may do exclusive podcasts, which fucking sucks.
 
whatsinaname

whatsinaname

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,067
JEFFREY GRUBB said:
RSS, my man.

RSS is an older tech that enables sites to create a link that people can subscribe to. All podcasts have an RSS feed that other podcast apps simply latch onto to get the updates as they roll out.

This is one of the reasons podcasts are so important because it's one of the best ways to make money on the Web with media content without having to exist on a platform owned by Google or Facebook. No one owns RSS.
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TarpitCarnivore said:
It's just a giant RSS database. The clients point to the feeds and they pull down the audio file
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Right, but I guess the nuances escape me.

I would previously grab an RSS feed from a website and add those to my Readers.

But for Podcasts (and how a search in an app is able to find almost any podcast), I don't think the apps scrape every RSS feed and index the list. Is there a central aggregator (maybe iTunes)? Does that mean there is a single point of failure?

If someone creates their own Podcast feed, do you 'submit' that link to iTunes like how one submits sitemaps to Google Search?
 
poptire

poptire

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
9,981
Yeah, you have to physically submit your RSS feed to all the services. None of those platforms (Apple, Spotify, etc.) host your actual files.
 
night814

night814

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 29, 2017
15,040
Pennsylvania
Infinity Times Two said:
What I like about podcasts is that each client basically has all the podcasts, so it's just a matter of choosing the one that has the best UI.

But I heard that Spotify and Apple may do exclusive podcasts, which fucking sucks.
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There's already a bunch of podcasts that are on only 1 or 2 out of like 15 apps. I would listen to Conans more but the only app I use that has it is stitcher and I rarely open it.
 
mbpm

mbpm

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,617
Infinity Times Two said:
What I like about podcasts is that each client basically has all the podcasts, so it's just a matter of choosing the one that has the best UI.

But I heard that Spotify and Apple may do exclusive podcasts, which fucking sucks.
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Click to shrink...
I think I heard about a podcast trying to make thing exclusive to their platform. Seems kinda wack
 
Aomame

Aomame

Member
Oct 27, 2017
475
whatsinaname said:
But for Podcasts (and how a search in an app is able to find almost any podcast), I don't think the apps scrape every RSS feed and index the list. Is there a central aggregator (maybe iTunes)? Does that mean there is a single point of failure?

If someone creates their own Podcast feed, do you 'submit' that link to iTunes like how one submits sitemaps to Google Search
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Many platforms do scrape Apple's database; others maintain their own and podcasters must manually submit their feeds to each. Some also will allow users to submit the feed for indexing so that it is searchable and accessible, then allow the owner to claim it later.
 
whatsinaname

whatsinaname

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,067
Aomame said:
Many platforms do scrape Apple's database; others maintain their own and podcasters must manually submit their feeds to each. Some also will allow users to submit the feed for indexing so that it is searchable and accessible, then allow the owner to claim it later.
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That clarifies things a lot, thank you.

I guess I never really thought about it much before because there haven't been any podcasts that I couldn't find on Pocketcasts aor Apple Podcasts. Maybe I just listen to the popular ones which are everywhere.
 

LudicrousSpeed

Member
Nov 2, 2017
2,243
whatsinaname said:
Right, but I guess the nuances escape me.

I would previously grab an RSS feed from a website and add those to my Readers.

But for Podcasts (and how a search in an app is able to find almost any podcast), I don't think the apps scrape every RSS feed and index the list. Is there a central aggregator (maybe iTunes)? Does that mean there is a single point of failure?

If someone creates their own Podcast feed, do you 'submit' that link to iTunes like how one submits sitemaps to Google Search?
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Click to shrink...
Yes, Apple's Podcasts app and feature works through an Apple database that is getting data from the original RSS feeds.

Things like Overcast do the same thing, creating their own data source that consults their RSS feeds

Every so often, you can find that this rehosting of data causes a lag. Like, say the Giant Bomb twitter posts a tweet that their new podcast is up. If you're subscribed via Apple Podcasts, you may not see the new episode yet, because Apple's yet to scrape the feed with the new episode included, whereas people who are directly subscribed to the root RSS can access the file.

Apple actually used to be slower on this, to where an episode of something would releas right before I went to drive home, but they hadn't caught it yet, so I'd listen to the podcast by navigating to the direct RSS feed and dig the podcast link out of that.
 
Aomame

Aomame

Member
Oct 27, 2017
475
whatsinaname said:
That clarifies things a lot, thank you.

I guess I never really thought about it much before because there haven't been any podcasts that I couldn't find on Pocketcasts aor Apple Podcasts. Maybe I just listen to the popular ones which are everywhere.
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IIRC Pocket Casts is one of the services that scrapes Apple's databases. So anything that's on Apple should theoretically be on Pocket Casts.
 
Orb

Orb

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
9,465
USA
iTunes is just the largest directory of podcasts, and many podcast services use iTunes' metadata to populate their own directories. Nothing is hosted by Apple. They're still run by raw audio files on some server somewhere listed in RSS feeds. When you subscribe to a podcast you're saying "check this feed for any new files posted, and if there's something there, download the audio file."

There's some newer technology that adds fancy stuff on the back end like dynamic ad insertion, but ultimately it's still pretty much the same technology that has existed for over a decade now.
 

Jie Li

Alt account
Banned
Dec 21, 2018
742
ITunes's system is actually the worst "system", about 2/3 of the entry in their iTunes U no longer work.

Ideally things should work like youtube playlist.
 
bozhangles

bozhangles

Member
Nov 6, 2017
38
Apple kind of controls everything since most podcast apps scrape the Apple Podcasts database for RSS feeds. Spotify is making a push to be podcast platform, but in essence, every podcast service is just pointing to wherever you host your file (i.e. Libsyn)
 
Ultima_5

Ultima_5

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,673
the weirdest part about podcast is the portmanteau of it. i cant imagine younger generations knowing that the pod comes from ipod
 
Tezz

Tezz

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,269
Anthony Hopkins said:
What am curious about is do Google have permission of the podcast owners, because some podcasters rely on tge added traffic of ppl coming to there site to listen to there podcast
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One of the podcasts I listen to, at the end of the episode they list the platforms their show can be listened to on, and they only recently added Spotify to that list. Google Podcasts isn't mentioned so I don't know if they're aware of it.
 
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