Comment by book-sandworm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by book-sandworm | Hacker News Reader

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Gave Adam Curry's content (No agenda) a shot a couple of years ago. They created content that was at least flirting with creating their own dimension (figuratively). It seemed more like they were interested in their ego's then actually doing real research. To me it seemed fuel for unfounded conspiracies and provoking for provocation sake.

Not sure how people this disconnected with the rest of the world are able to create an "open podcast directory".

Pretty much seams like there is a platform wars going on when it comes to podcast. Looking what youtube did to video content as a platform I think companies like Spotify (Gimlit) smell blood when it comes to podcasting. Think that would be a shame for that industry, podcasting collectives like Radiotopia are awesome because of that, they have to lean on quality and content. Not on some fancy algorithm that tries to keep you engaged as long as possible. Looking at the content he creates, seems like the complete opposite.

What made podcasts awesome was that the platform was fairly neutral (rss feed). Yes you have Apple podcasts, but I don't know anyone that really likes podcasts and still uses that app.

The amount of sheer stupidity and science denial that emanates from the No Agenda podcast is mind blowing and terrifying as the podcast has a huge cult following. The amount of societal damage from media of this kind is real. Yes it's a niche market still but collectively the mongers of bullshit are overrunning the airwaves.

As someone here put it aptly, these days journalism is paywalled while bullshit is free.

I use Apple Podcasts for simplicity. Is there a better app that still enables Indie self hosted podcasts to proliferate? I’ve never run into any problems with Apple Podcasts, it’s a low tech solution for a low tech problem.

Overcast is cool (http://www.overcast.fm)

Overcast is my current choice. (For iOS, I don't have Android so can't comment.) I tried them all. I don't particularly like any of them.

I've requested a feature and reported a bug via their Slack. I'm hopeful they'll get added and fixed, respectively.

I still don't have a way to easily binge on some large archives. Like History of Philosophy without any Gaps. https://historyofphilosophy.net

And Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History doesn't sort correctly in any podcast client I've tried, making it even harder to binge.

What I really want is a NetNewsWire (RSS client) that can play audio (directly).

I also want client-side metrics and listening history. To help me remember when I heard something, better determine if I'm actually listening to misc content, etc.

Castro has listening history. But it doesn't handle in-order bingeing of podcasts any better than any other client I've tried.

It's puzzling how no one has done this yet:

- play podcasts in chronological order, keeping x of them downloaded and getting the next one when one is finished.

Castro is another. I like its "Inbox" structure and switched to it from Overcast after subscribing to both for a year. The Inbox is where all subscribed podcasts go by default for you to decide whether to add to queue or skip. You can also have select podcasts go straight to queue. I subscribe to a few podcasts where I only listen to the occasional episode (Joe Rogan, e.g.). You can also drag episodes from the queue back to the Inbox if you want.

I could never quite master Overcast's playlists and smart playlists, but did love its exceptional polish and just how tiny and privacy focused the app is.

I wish I could get the best parts of both those apps.

Just chiming from the Android Side. I enjoy Castbox (castbox.fm). Although , the one scummy thing they did recently, is they look for silence gaps then insert their own ads. I still use it, because I haven't found a good alternative on the Android side of the world

If you're looking for something that runs on both Apple and non-Apple devices: Pocket Casts https://www.pocketcasts.com/

I've come across few podcast apps I can use on any device that does podcast synching like pocketcasts does.

I use an app called iCatcher which seems to have a directory of podcasts and will also let you enter rss/urls to download from host sites directly if the podcast creators distribute that way.

Been using it for years because it gives pretty fine grain controls over streaming vs downloading the entries, how many entries to maintain, how often to check, etc.

All podcast apps still primarily use the Apple Podcasts Directory to index/search the shows and episodes.

"Indie self hosted podcasts" are still predominantly listed in the Apple Podcasts Directory.

Launched a podcast recently ( https://thexyzpod.podbean.com/ ) and we were surprised to find most traffic by far coming from Spotify ( https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2oovdoty9hf0TI67ZYb1?si=D68k... ). What's nice on Spotify is the sharing episodes to Instagram stories works well - if you share from Spotify to Instagram you get a "play on Spotify" link at the top of the story - actually amazed Instagram gives that away for free given that linking to most things off-platform costs money. Anyway helps with the marketing to non-Podcast-nerds

Pocket casts

"Unfounded conspiracy theories and provoking for provocation sake" comes pretty close to a description of the social environment of the whole internet.

Yes. there's some overlap with his audience and the audience of a couple other podcasts that I like that record live on twitch. I've tried No Agenda twice and it was full of conspiracies and borderline racist.

I've said this before on HN but No Agenda started off as a great podcast. It wasn't until Obama ran for president that it descended into a infowars knock off with their non stop talk about the Clintons are really lizard people, sarah palin is a rockstar and we gotta stop pizzagate.

Someone sent a link to a recent episode and I didn't hear any of that. Maybe I just got lucky? In fact I heard more mocking of those type conspiracies than promotion of them.

Biggest turnoff for me was the "private jokes" or terminology that seemed to intentionally create a barrier to understanding without investing a lot of time to learn their language. Like being the newcomer to a group of people who have been hanging out for years.

What I did appreciate was the podcast notes which were like a full-fledged bibliography of every article discussed. Including the text of the articles.

As an example of what I would call mocking conspiracy theories, they used a "rain stick" and claimed to have accidentally caused floods and storms. It was pretty clear they didn't actually believe in rain sticks, but were having fun and kind of mocking such beliefs because it was all so over the top. But I could see someone taking their words literally.

>Someone sent a link to a recent episode and I didn't hear any of that. Maybe I just got lucky? In fact I heard more mocking of those type conspiracies than promotion of them.

I haven't listened since Obama ran against McCain, it's entirely possible they've changed their MO since then. However much like the question if Dovak really thinks Apple should cancel the iPhone or if he's just seeking attention, I just fine constant bad takes uninteresting and annoying. It's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to Rogan.

While they mock some beliefs, they’ll subscribe to the dumbest conspiracy theory as long as it attacks the right people (hint: it’s not Republicans.) To give you an idea of how dumb: they used to promote the ‘joke’ that Michelle Obama was secretly male and would make fun of Biden’s many procedures.

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