Ask HN: Best way to search and collect platform-agnostic podcast links? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best way to search and collect platform-agnostic podcast links?

50 pointsgooseus36 comments

I'm looking to introduce my parents to some podcasts I've been listening to in an effort to expand their minds and stave off their inevitable senility (kidding [kinda]).

I listen with the terrible Apple Podcasts app (open to suggestions here too), but my parents use Google and so I'm not going to link them to the Itunes page.

However, I can't seem to find a good search engine that will allow me to search "Philosophize This!" and get back links that they can use to subscribe and start listening easily.

Does such a service exist, or is there a better approach I can use?

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https://gpodder.net allows you to synchronise various (partially/non-overlapping) podcast lists to multiple devices and easily add new podcasts you don't find on the service's website. So you can actually just set up compatible podcast clients on the devices of your parents and let them enjoy new episodes without even bothering them with the actual links and the whole process of subscribing to new feeds (unless when they explicitly want to do it either through the client or manually on the website).

there are clients for meego, webos, symbian, maemo, and a native client for osx, but no ios client ?

https://gpoddernet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/clients.htm...

nonetheless it looks like there are some possibly decent curation / search features, certainly better than the apple podcasts app / itunes.

Their logo/mascot is kind of obscene when you think about it.

I'd recommend Pocketcasts as a multiplatiform podcast app. It has recommendations, trending, and search. If you want to leave it you can export an OPML file with your subscriptions.

It's not free (pay once per platform, including web app), but worth it to me because I'm a podcast junkie. I was using it on Android for a year, switched to iPhone, and all my subscriptions are there.

I switch back and forth between the web app and iOS frequently, and it syncs across them.

Podcast Addict [1] is great, has a search feature and is awesome on Android. Free too.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bambuna.po...

There's a podcast search engine called Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/

I just tried a search for "Philosophize This!" and it did indeed find some episodes, and you can even play them right on the page.

I'm the maker of Listen Notes. Thanks for sharing Listen Notes here :)

Early this year, I was hoping someone could build a very basic podacast search engine that allowed me to search the whole internet's podcast episodes -- searching meta data is good enough; no fancy AI needed. I didn't want to subscribe yet another podcast -- I've subscribed to way too many podcasts already... I wanted to find episodes, listen, then move on.

Of course, I couldn't find such podcast search engine, so I built Listen Notes. The first prototype of Listen Notes was indeed a "I can build this in a weekend" type side project :)

Can't recommend PocketCasts enough, it's really all you need.

One of the nice things about it is it will sync episode progress across devices, so if you pause on one app, you can resume playback on another.

After testing several podcast apps for Android, this was the one that stuck.

The ability to quickly scroll through unfinished episodes was the killer feature that others are lacking. I listen to different podcasts depending on what I'm doing (running, cooking, preparing to sleep, etc), and all other apps, at best, required several clicks to find an unfinished episode from the previous day.

I've used PocketCasts for quite a while now and would move away from it if there was a decent (cross-platform) alternative. It has some serious problems downloading (I think it actually hits their mirror of all podcasts, and the downloads will stall out for several minutes at a time). And for some reason streaming a podcast is the app's worst fear and it has a UX to do everything it can to stop you from doing it.

I use PocketCasts on iOS and web. If you both switch to a platform-agnostic option like that, then sharing should be easier.

Pocket Casts is great. Platform-independent listen progress sync alone is worth the few bucks it costs.

I'm not sure I understand your Q, but if you are looking for basically a subscribe link that will work for your parents on Android, just find the RSS feed for that podcast (should be easy enough), and then plug it into this service: http://subscribeonandroid.com

It will create a link that will subscribe them on their chosen podcast app on Android. If they haven't chosen an app yet, it will provide them a list of options.

Hope that helps.

This obviously works, you can even use iTunes as the source of the RSS feeds, there's not really anything proprietary to how Apple did podcasts, its just a database of the RSS feeds - just right click the podcast search result in iTunes and click "Copy Podcast URL".

However, copying RSS feed links is a pretty terrible way to discover content. Most normal people want a search or recommendation engine of some kind (you liked x, you will probably love y), which is why virtually every podcast app offers access to searching some kind of RSS feed database of podcasts within the app.

If you were to go with your approach, I'd personally still consider using iTunes as the search engine for the RSS urls, most podcast app makers seem to agree Apple's database is pretty much the most complete out there, probably largely by dint of being the first to really focus on building a database of these feeds.

As to format: virtually every podcast feed in existence is constant bitrate MP3 (confirmed by several different podcast directory maintainers), so this isn't really a concern. There are various technical reasons why historically podcasts have had to avoid VBR/other audio formats. CBR MP3 is guaranteed to playback without issue on almost anything, including your car stereo from 10 years ago.

I just really hate that there doesn't appear to be any way of getting RSS links to podcasts from Apple's database using just a browser. I have no other reason to have itunes installed and won't be installing it just for this.

Apple has an API

https://affiliate.itunes.apple.com/resources/documentation/i...

You can use this service to extract the RSS link from iTunes podcasts.

http://itunes.so-nik.com/

I use this all the time! A lot of podcasts hide their RSS feeds for some reason. Either that or they're using SoundCloud, and they really don't make feeds easy to find over there.

Pocket Casts is by far superior in my experience. Will cost you $9, but worth it.

https://www.overcast.fm - search bar at the top, finds podcasts.

free app available, though it's iOS only. Syncs with web version though.

overcast also supports audio file uploads landing in an "uploads" playlist; if the OP wants a super low-friction way to seed the parents' listening, that could be one way. just grab the mp3 versions of a few episodes and drop them in there, don't have to mess with getting them to subscribe to things.

an annoying misfeature I have noticed with a lot of podcasts is that the feed URL only includes the latest N (usually 100) episodes, and if you want to listen from the beginning you have to do so "by hand" by visiting each episode's web page and either downloading the episode or listening in the browser. For one podcast with a predictable URL format for episodes, I pieced together an .xml file by hand that referred to all the episodes. It was super janky but I was able to pretend that it was the actual podcast's URL just fine.

On Android, AntennaPod is open-source and provides integrated search of iTunes, FYYD, and gpodder.net . You can also copy/paste a URL, for example if you were to find the URL for them and send it to them.

Its interface takes a little getting used to, and search results don't always hit (which I view to be a matter of the sources searched, rather than the app).

That said, it's a quite solid app. And free of crap-ware.

Seconded.

AntennaPod supports the two ways I want to add a podcast: search and by url. Haven't run into the problem of it not finding anything either (but if I did, I agree that it's not the app's fault).

Recommend it 100%.

https://www.podchaser.com is a sort of IMDB for podcasts, if that helps.

I used to use itunes.so-nik.com to extract podcast urls but it looks like it's down right now. Thankfully they posted the code on github so you can just run the PHP script yourself:

https://gist.github.com/christophermoura/d02370349c9f06e597f...

https://www.audiosear.ch/

"Audiosear.ch is a one-stop search and recommendation engine for podcasts. We transcribe, timestamp, tag, cluster, and collect ratings and reviews for thousands of shows."

They're shutting down soon though, so probably not the best recommendation.

I would highly recommend signing up for http://banter.fm . It's limited to a small group right now, but once they launch, your parents are going to love it. Very easy to consume and engage.

Can you explain what it does? I signed up for the beta, but there isn't much explanation on the site and I haven't received an invitation yet.

It's a social network for podcasts which helps me discover new and interesting episodes without actually subscribing to those shows; I really enjoy being able to discuss each episode with my followers. Banter is also a sexy podcast players that makes listening to shows enjoyable.

I started using https://www.breaker.audio/ (iOS & Android) I really recommend it

Maybe Stitcher? It has a web app: https://app.stitcher.com/

Pocketcast's search is pretty great. Check out this screenshot of searching for "Philosophize This". https://goo.gl/EM2wdj

In order to subscribe, you just click on the + button.

[shameless plug follows]

I am working on a revolutionary new podcast app, Voce. It's a podcast player that unlocks multimedia content buried within your favorite episodes and makes expert curated show notes available in real time.

Check it out here: http://voceapp.com

BeyondPod is good on Android.

Breaker.audio

libsyn

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