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Comment by glenstein | Hacker News Reader

The difference is in achieving the mass adoption of podcasting as a fully mainstream distribution medium. With podcasts, we now have an entire universe of media distribution that happens via an open protocol that is not controlled by any one company, which is a miracle.

There was no guarantee that it would turn out that way, and, as we see with RSS, or now with Activitypub, it's more than a small struggle to get anyone to care about open protocols for their own sake. It takes a moment that is ripe for it, a simple enough experience, and some sort of cultural signal that it's "for everyone" in a sense.

That was my point. I am perfectly aware that audio can be distributed in other forms.

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Probably, they are like me, meaning we seem not to be on the same page as you regarding the term 'podcast'. To me, a podcast is just an audio talk session, mastered and distributed as a digital audio file. That's it. Distribution can take many forms, but the podcast is the file. 10 or so minutes of google-based research seems to offer support to this notion.

> universe of media distribution that happens via an open protocol that is not controlled by any one company

What is this protocol that you speak of? Searching "podcast protocol" leads to absolutely no useful links on the subject. Podcasts in my experience are distributed in one of three ways:

* Download links on a web page

* Embedded streaming links on a web page

* An RSS feed

That last (RSS) could be considered a "protocol" of sorts, I suppose. At the very least it's what I would expect a podcast app to support. But you then go on to refer to RSS as a separate entity from your "podcast protocol", so I'm back to being confused as to what you might be talking about. What is this open protocol that is intrinsic to your definition of 'podcast'?

RSS can be considered a syndication protocol, or a 'standard' if you want to be strict with the term protocol, but nothing about those distinctions is pertinent to the point I was making.

Podcast can refer both to individual episodes or to the series of episodes, neither usage is more correct than the other, it's your responsibility to interpret words in good faith in the context in which they're used. And again, nothing about this distinction is pertinent to the point I was making.

RSS is not the same thing as podcasts, because while generally all podcast feeds are distributed via RSS/Atom, they aren't necessarily, and moreover not all RSS feeds are podcasts.

And again, nothing about this distinction is pertinent to the point I was making. To reiterate, Apple, with the iPod, was instrumental in elevating podcasts to a mainstream medium of content distribution. It's by analogy to this that I make the point that Google could have played a similar role in facilitating the mass adoption of RSS.

I'm not interested in any further exploration of the conceptual differences between RSS and podcasts unless you believe it has an upshot that's relevant to the original point I was making.

> RSS is not the same thing as podcasts

Well, yeah. Not only is it not the same thing, the concepts aren't related in any way.

A podcast is an audio file. RSS is a format for publishing the information that you've updated your website.

>>> With podcasts, we now have an entire universe of media distribution that happens via an open protocol that is not controlled by any one company, which is a miracle.

We had that before podcasts. You go to a web page, and you download a file. The protocol is called "HTTP", the HyperText Transfer Protocol.

Where do podcasts come into this?

> a podcast is just an audio talk session, mastered and distributed as a digital audio file

Traditional talk radio uploaded to a web page would meet that definition. And that's the stereotypical genre of podcast content but there are others, like narrative fiction (Welcome to Night Vale).

I think "a podcast" is less about the specific genre of the content and more about how it's experienced. It's a podcast if it's time-based media you can subscribe to and experience in a variety of players; otherwise, it's sparkling media.

If you have to use the Spotify app, it's not a podcast. I see "plus" subscription options in the iPhone Podcast app, if you had to use that app, they're not podcasts; if you can use different apps but only on Apple devices, I'd still consider them podcasts.

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