Podcasting is Not Walled (Yet) (rakhim.org)

Rakhim Davletkaliyev, a software developer, writer and podcaster, recently launched two new podcasts. One of the things he was asked by people following the launches was "but how do I subscribe, it's not on iTunes/Google Podcasts?" He writes: Podcasts are simply RSS feeds with links to media files (usually mp3s). A podcast is basically a URL. And podcast clients are special browsers. They check that URL regularly and download new episodes if the content of the URL changes (new link added). That's it, no magic, no special membership or anything else required. The technology is pretty "stupid" in a good way.

Ever since tech companies started waging war against RSS, podcast distribution became visually RSS-free. What do you do to subscribe? Easy, just search in the app! For the majority of iOS users that app is Apple Podcasts, and recently Google made their own "default client" for Android -- Google Podcasts. It looks like podcast clients are similar to web browsers and just provide a way to consume content, but the underlying listings make them very different. Corresponding services are actually isolated catalogs. When you perform a search on Apple Podcasts, you aren't searching for podcasts. You are searching for Apple-approved podcasts. And if the thing you're looking for is not there, then... well, you get nothing.

Most Podcast clients still accept RSS. Apple Podcasts, iTunes, PocketCasts, OverCast, PodcastAddict. Google Play Music doesn't say anything explicitly, but you can just put RSS URL into the search field and it works. For now. I won't be surprised if these apps gradually and silently remove this feature.

Comments

Re:Not going to happen

[omnichad]

Do you know how many walled gardens there are for podcasts? I've helped a couple people list their RSS feed and I didn't post to anywhere near this number of services. If this were part of an open web, they would simply be indexed by search engines and no manual submission would be needed. You don't have to explicitly submit your web site to Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc, so why should podcasts be any different? Sure, you can prefer manually-submitted entries. But expecting every podcast to know of every directory is insane.

RSS is good

[OrangeTide]

RSS and things built on top of it like Podcasts are good for users. But the technology is bad for advertisers. If you see criticism of RSS, look closely at where it comes from. If it comes from someone trying to sell you something, take their advice with a grain of salt.

It's been said before that advertisers and ad brokers are at a disadvantage with RSS. But Web 2.0 developers that wish to sell frameworks and services are also at a big disadvantage too. You'll see self-described web experts that disregard RSS as being primitive, limited, or no longer relevant. But I have to wonder if this has more to do with such "experts" trying to compete with a free and established technology.

Still, I believe it is inevitable that RSS will die. Take Usenet newsgroups for example, that is basically dead, at least in terms of being a widely used communication hub as it once was. What replaces it? A fractured set of isolated web forums (that includes /. and Reddit). Instead of having a huge global network of message boards, we have tiny isolated communities, and even that medium is dying out. Replaced by the top post schemes of Facebook groups, Google+, and Twitter.

Why did Usenet die? There are many factors, but one of the big ones is that it's hard to get ad revenue from running a news server and easy set up on a web forum.