”The Program” first results – how I used HN to launch a fiction podcast | Hacker News Reader

”The Program” first results – how I used HN to launch a fiction podcast

programaudioseries.com

60 pointsI-M-S22 comments

I've not heard of this before. The premise sounds incredibly appealing to me, and I am going to try listening:

> For those who haven’t heard (of) The Program audio series before, imagine Black Mirror as a podcast. Every episode is a standalone story set in a future in which Money, State, and God have been fused into a single entity called the Program. The world of the Program is neither a utopia nor a dystopia, as the new system produced both winners and losers - ordinary men and women who are sometimes heroes and sometimes the villains of their own lives. And to them, it is not this future they find terrifying - but our present.

For what it's worth, describing it as a "fictional podcast" is quite confusing. I think it would be better described as a fiction podcast. A "fictional podcast" makes it sound like you were promoting it as if it existed, without actually having made any episodes, i.e. the podcast is fictional rather than being a podcast of fiction.

I think 'audio drama' has become a popular name.

Ha, you are right. Even though I think launching a totally fictional podcast would fit even better in the HN ethos :)

I too was confused when I read the title. "Fictional podcast" meant that there wasnt actually a podcast - which piqued my interest. I am still glad that I clicked the link to find out more about this podcast!

Ok, we've edited the title to be less fictional above.

Hello HN! After unveiling The Program audio series on HN in June 2018 [1], and officially launching in November 2019 [2], I wanted to give the community a quick update how this unusual fictional podcast was doing. So I wrote a blog post containing the numbers and the story of the show's reception so far. Hopefully it helps someone (thinking of) undertaking a similar endeavour.

Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback, either regarding the blog or the show itself. The discussions on this site are a constant source of inspiration for my writing, and I would be especially curious to hear of any submissions you think would make fertile fodder for future episodes (fun fact: episodes 8 and 10 contain comments that have been incorporated into the show almost verbatim!)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17425278

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21704417

Haven't listened to an episode yet, but this looks great!

One small suggestion: a direct link to download the MP3. It's easy to find, no question there, but I use the NoScript add-on and had to enable it, and then had to figure out that I should use the menu in Chrome's audioplayer to get to the download.

I understand, but a vast majority of people listen to The Program through a podcasting app or Spotify - the amount of listening that happens on the website is minuscule!

Perhaps they haven't found the download link? :-)

I get that the change won't affect many listeners, but it also couldn't hurt, considering that the change itself is of the smallest proportions.

Small bit of feedback: The title "The Program" is great, but unfortunately (as I'm sure you are aware) there is another podcast called "The Program" and while yours has "The Program audio series" (note the lack of capitalization on audio series) as its title (at least in Overcast, my podcasting app) makes it harder for people to communicate orally. I understand if you feel like it is too late to change, but if you could find a title that was more searchable I'm sure it would help. The Program Arises or something like that.

True, and yes, if I had a clean slate I would probably opt for a different title. But if you google _the program podcast_ first three hits all lead to The Program, so maybe the other one should consider changing the name ;)

The first batch is really great, sound quality, narrative and voices are top notch! The characters and the stories moved me a lot, I'm going to listen to the others for sure. Many thanks!

Regarding ideas: - I was wondering what HN would be like under the Program, what transformations would occur? (related to the threads about moderation, or the ones thanking the community) - would the Program have "cognitive" biases like the current machine learning models? - would Apple still create iPhone SE ? How would the company react to a Steve Jobs bot created from all the digital content we has from him? (related to a thread about bots speaking like dead people made from analyzing all digital content)

Thanks again!

> related to a thread about bots speaking like dead people made from analyzing all digital content

Could you please send me the link to this? It sounds like that Black Mirror episode ("Be right back"), but I never liked how they treated the subject and was thinking of giving it a go myself

I cannot find the HN thread, but here is an article on the topic: https://www.theverge.com/a/luka-artificial-intelligence-memo...

Thank you for the detailed account of what you did and what worked. I had to skim through some parts of the post, but I came off more informed than before about podcast promotions. I will be checking out your podcast even though I’m not a regular podcast listener.

I really loved this podcast, but I had listened to it on your website and thought it had concluded. Had I not read this post, I would not have known there were 4 more episodes out, and 2 more on the way. Definitely subscribing in a podcast app now.

Curious, why had you thought it concluded? I'm getting similar reactions from some people now that I got to episode 10. I'm confused because the story was never supposed to wrap up or anything

Not the OP, but I mentioned this after your last relaunch post - IIRC your initial post had one podcast feed and your relaunch had a new feed. I think ideally you should have kept the same feed, or published a short clip episode telling people to resubscribe. I came very close to missing the new eps myself if your relaunch post missed me. Hindsight is 20/20 :)

Thanks for all the work you and your performers have put in. Can’t wait to listen to the new eps.

The three parter felt like a finale. Also in this time of strong marketing messages, there wasn't a clear "tune in next week for the next episode" style call out in either the audio, nor after the last site listing. The current site shows the "Coming Soon"episodes which I think is a helpful approach.

I want to give this a shot but my podcast app on the iPhone has a bug: it tells me I need to enable explicit content to subscribe. And whatever I do (enable it or disable it, allow explicit content in iOS restrictions etc) it will always tell me I have blocked explicit content.

Has anyone had this issue?? How to fix it?

fictional -> fiction

indeed. my parsing of the title (and description on the site) was "a podcast that does not actually exist"

which is a pretty cool concept all by itself.

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