podcast - IndieWeb
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information.
podcast
is an episodic series of
audio
and/or
video
posts that can be subscribed to and downloaded for
offline
listening/viewing.
You may also be interested in:
podcasts about the indieweb
Why
Why should you have a podcast? Some people like listening to them when:
walking / running /
exercising
in general
driving, e.g. on a roadtrip
commuting (by any method)
How
How to publish
Publishing a podcast usually involves publishing an RSS feed with episodes as items and linking to the audio file in the RSS .
Once you've created the podcast RSS feed, you can submit it to one or more directories like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or you can give the feed URL to people directly and they can add it to most podcast player apps.
How to consume
Podcasts are RSS/Atom/XML feeds where, normally, the media of the podcast is linked to with an enclosure tag
eg:
However, most podcasts also include a number of other iTunes specific tags to ensure iTunes will subscribe to them easily, eg . Some of these iTunes tags are usually just replications of the data in other tags in the item.
Most podcast players both consume podcast feeds and play podcast audio.
iTunes
is the primary podcast player on OS X and iOS. Other platforms have other players, e.g.
BeyondPod
and
AntennaPod
on
Android
. (See also
podcatcher
Some podcasts only publish on iTunes. You can subscribe to them in other players with hacks like
Feed Flipper
IndieWeb Examples
IndieWeb examples of personal podcast publishing and consuming
Ben Werdmuller
has published podcasts on werd.io using
Known
First 2014-11-02:
An RSS feed of all posts tagged #podcastsunday:
Acegiak
Ashton McAllan
consumes podcasts through her reader
Whisperfollow
which aggregates RSS and, if they are marked up with podcast media tags, embeds the media for consumption and provides a link to save or open in another window
gRegor Morrill
gRegor Morrill
has published a podcast on
using
ProcessWire
First 2015-05-07:
Includes
h-feed
microformats
Generating the RSS feed
[1]
on the same domain so that we can control the canonical URL of the feed after submitting it to iTunes.
Using
archive.org
to host the MP3s.
Using URLs on the same domain that redirect to the archive.org MP3s, again so that we control the canonical URL of the MP3. This also gives us the ability to roughly track the number of streams/downloads of each episode.
Jeenas Excellent Encounters
Jeena Paradies
is publishing a podcast on
using his own implementation with Ruby on Rails
It's marked up with a h-feed h-entry and u-audio
It also has a RSS feed for iTunes and other podcast managers
Marty McGuire
Marty McGuire
is publishing a podcast at
static site generated with
Hugo
index marked up as an h-feed with h-entry and u-audio
Build process also creates an RSS feed for iTunes and other podcast managers
Marty also hosts an IndieWeb-centric podcast
This Week in the IndieWeb
part of a static site generated with
Jekyll
index marked up as h-feed with h-entry and u-audio
Build process also creates an RSS feed for iTunes and other podcast managers
Colin Walker
Colin Walker
is publishing a twice-weekly microcast at
self-hosted using WordPress
episodes approx 3 minutes long, recorded on iPhone and posted using Workflow
includes h-feed, h-entry and u-audio markup
local RSS feed and via iTunes
Aaron Parecki
Aaron Parecki
publishes a podcast at
self-hosted using home-built tools
episodes are about 3-6 minutes long
marked up with h-feed, h-entry and u-audio
has a local RSS feed published via iTunes and other podcast directories
Greg McVerry
Greg McVerry
self publishes poembox and 2toPonder
uses microformats to mark up
converts feeds to RSS using Granary
Other Examples
Microcasts
For additional examples of short podcasts, see the
microcast
page.
Main article:
microcast
Wavelist
Wavelist
is a collection of podcast episodes curated into playlists by individuals.
Chris Aldrich
Because of the way
Chris Aldrich
formats his
listen
posts (using the
Post Kinds Plugin
) and includes html
audio
tags marked up with
u-audio
, the feed for these posts at
can be subscribed to like a traditional podcast. Because this feed is meant more to help other's discovery of content, he calls this non-traditional podcast a "faux-cast". More details
here
Ryan Barrett
Ryan Barrett
publishes a list of podcasts he listens to:
Silo Examples
Cast
Cast
provides a paid service to allow you to record, edit, publish, and host your podcast.
Anchor.fm
Anchor
is a
silo
for
audio
posts and
podcasting
Distribution
There are number of services for distributing your podcast without having to make copies (thus different from
POSSE
/ syndication in general).
Huffduffer
Huffduffer
is a bookmarking service for podcasts and audio / music / speech in general.
To submit your podcast to Huffduffer, create an account, submit your podcast with various tags.
Users of Huffduffer can then find your podcast by tag.
iTunes
iTunes
is a service and application from
Apple
for music, video, podcasts and other multimedia. Podcasts distributed by iTunes are made easily discoverable and subscribable in:
MacOS "iTunes" application
iOS "Podcasts" application
Submitting to iTunes for distribution
See:
How to Submit a Podcast
at apple.com
When submitting a podcast URL to iTunes, be sure to submit a URL on a domain that you control. For example, if using
Libsyn
to host your podcast mp3s, don't submit the RSS URL that they provide. Instead, host a page on your domain that sends a "302 Found" temporary redirect to the Libsyn URL.
The HTTP client that Apple uses to fetch your podcast feed does not support
SNI
or
Let's Encrypt
certificates. If you don't have the ability to host an https URL on a dedicated IP address with an SSL cert from a supported CA, then you will have to give Apple a non-https URL for your podcast feed.
Changing podcast hosting providers
Podcast URL under your control
If your podcast URL is on your own domain, then you can just change the 302 redirect to point to the new hosting provider.
Podcast URL not under your control
If your podcast URL is not on your own domain, then the ability to change your URL is limited by whether your current host allows you to.
Libsyn has a writeup of
how to change your feed URL
Essentially the process involves setting an additional property in the feed URL.
http://newsite.example.com/podcast.rss
Services
Unmung
Main article:
unmung
unmung
will turn podcast feeds into playable HTML5 audio with microformats markup eg
In Our Time
Granary
Main article:
granary
granary
converts podcast h-feeds and h-entries to RSS with enclosures, including iTunes extension elements. It reads and writes the
duration
mf2 property.
Details.
Brainstorming
How to podcast with h-feed
Based on the examples, a podcast h-feed would be an h-feed of h-entry and may have some of the following.
Minimum properties
audio - the url of the podcast file.
name - episode name
Additional h-entry properties
summary - representing a summary of the episode meant to be displayed in players
content - Used by several as HTML contents of episode page. May include audio tag, summary, length, download link etc, and may be used as a fallback for readers that don't have special handling for audio.
photo -
Marty McGuire
uses this as the poster image for the episode, however, it might be better to use featured for this.
published - Publish time of the episode
category - Categories for this episode
Currently Proposed Properties
size - The size of the audio file
duration - The duration of the episode
Areas Not Covered by current properties
episode/season - Episode and season numbers for podcasts current have no vocabulary. In media files, it is common to use SXXEXX(Season and Episode number).
Chapter/Scene information. This can be done with media fragments, but how to mark these up?
h-entry has a concept of authors, but in podcast context, this is who uploaded the episode. We need vocabulary to cover contributors...such as hosts, guests, etc.
Episode Type - iTunes markup has the concept of episode type, being full, trailer, or bonus content. If a trailer and no season or episode number, this represents a show trailer, otherwise, a season or episode trailer/teaser. If a bonus, and no season or episode number: a show bonus, but if it has either a season or season and episode number, a bonus representing the season or the individual episode. Feed has a concept of type which allows for episodic or serial.
The other issue is a multi-format podcast...if you have a video and an audio component, or multiple file formats of the same type, and how to mark this up.
Indieweb Examples
Aaron Parecki
publishes an h-feed for his podcast:
The top-level object is an h-feed with the podcast description
Each episode is an h-entry child of the h-feed
Each episode h-entry has the following properties:
name - the episode name
length - duration of the episode in seconds
size - the file size of the audio file "17.43mb"
audio - the link to the mp3 file of the episode
url - permalink to the episode's HTML page
published
summary - episode summary, intended to be displayed in players
Marty McGuire
publishes a podcast with h-feed.
The top-level object is an h-feed. The podcast description is contained in the author property of the h-feed as an h-card:
url
name - name of the podcast
note - summary description, similar to what appears in a podcast directory
photo - poster image similar to what appears in a podcast directory
Each episode is an h-entry child of the feed, with the following properties:
name - title of the episode
summary - episode summary, intended to be displayed in players
audio - the link to the mp3 file of the episode
content - HTML with the summary text and


Poembox


A boombox of bad poems




(un)Celebration







Please note that an RSS feed from Granary will not be compliant with ITunes Validators
This feed uses the SSL certificate authority “Google Trust Services”, which is not compatible with iTunes.
How to create a subscribe link
It is important to make it easy for people to subscribe to your podcast.
Jeremy Keith
uses the following code, as of before 2018-04-23, to allow people to easily subscribe to
Huffduffer
feeds:

This list is very iOS centric, but the “Subscribe in Podcasts app” (with the
pcast
scheme) also works for some Android applications:
Pocket Casts
(verified by
Martijn van der Ven
, 2018-04-23)
AntennaPod
(verified by
Chris Aldrich
, 2018-04-23)
WordPress
recommends
the
itpc
scheme “to make life easier for iTunes users”. They make no mention of which
podcatcher
may support it.
Sessions
2015/Podcasting
2019/Online/mf2podcasts
See Also
audio
video
microcast
podcatcher
podcasts about the indieweb
Indieweb Podcast Club
Screech
Audiogram
transcript
Displaying Listen Webmentions
2018-03-31
Hacker News thread about podcasts and business models
I work for a company that tried to do exactly this [a YouTube for podcasts] and we ended up pivoting to enterprise once our technology matured. The money just isn't there, that's why this service doesn't exist. Podcasts are cheap to host and easy enough to produce that nobody is going to invest serious money
useful guide
"I just found out that an old RSS feed for Flash Forward is no longer redirecting which means pretty much anybody who subscribed during Season 2 of the show is no longer getting episodes in their feed which is a LITERAL NIGHTMARE. Plz check your RSS it should be this one:
@roseveleth
August 13, 2018
"cool cool cool cool Acast's refusal to do a 301 redirect on my RSS feed means that people who listen on Stitcher haven't been getting episodes either cool great yep great no problem"
@roseveleth
August 16, 2018
"So apparently what happened is that Acast didn’t set up a 301 redirect, they setup 302 redirect. Which doesn’t tell any of the apps like Apple that the feed is permanently moved. Then they deleted my feed since I was no longer with them and they thought it was old and no longer in use. That means that anybody who subscribed to the Acast feed got bumped from the show. Which explains why I went from 80-90k downloads per episode to 30-40k. Excuse me while I go throw up."
@roseveleth
August 16, 2018
- UI creates short audio clips/movies
- live group social streaming service
- silo service that does high quality audio recording
"Actual thing a luxury apartment broker told me yesterday: tenants have come to expect soundproof recording studios in new buildings so they can all record their own podcasts."
@AlexNitkin
February 28, 2019
it seems to be falling prey to the same phenomenon that has bedevilled the web – the thundering herds motivated by corporate greed. In that sense, it may be subject to the pernicious cycle first noticed by Tim Wu in his landmark book, The Master Switch – in which a medium starts out glorious
Captivate.fm
- a fee-based podcast host and infrastructure platform with player and analytics
The Podcast Index
aims to be a permanent open index to podcasts. Its two goals are to "preserve podcasting as a platform for free speech" and to "re-tool podcasting to a platform of value exchange that includes developers with podcasters and listeners".
an open source project for self-hosting podcasts
BBC MakerBox: Adaptive Podcasting
2022-09-06
Rebecca Stagg
Adaptive podcasting - the future of personalised podcast experiences
archived
Informational wiki hosted on GitHub
2022-09-18
Ian Forrester
Adaptive podcasting is public and you can get it now
archived
Apple technical guidelines for publishing a podcast feed (note, no mention of their
Atom
support)
Apple iTunes / Podcast apps do apparently support
Atom
feed podcasts. Example and recommendation to embed cover art in the actual MP3 file:
Retrieved from "
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