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: more like ad dot

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently, Apple, Google, and Facebook have colluded to censor views with which they disagree by removing authors from their platforms. The populist right wing in particular communicates by podcasts, and Apple and Google recently removed some, including some very popular ones, from the podcast indices that their walled-garden apps provide. TFA higlights the lengths to which Apple and Google go to make their indices seem the only avenue for surfacing content to users of their default applications, although the underlying technology is in fact open and accessible outside those indices and apps. That openness provides an avenue for resisting censorship, but the viability of that resistance relies on users understanding something about how RSS works.
In a wider context, this is also important in the overall contest between open standards like RSS and the closed approaches of centralized tech. Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al. despise RSS because it is impossible for them to monetize or censor and replicates much of their functionality. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ are all built around the idea of a feed/wall/stream, which is basically RSS. The tech companies would love to kill off RSS and provide ad-filled, censored, feeds/walls/streams under centralized control instead of decentralized RSS feeds that anyone can publish. Hiding the RSS in podcast apps may work towards that goal.

Yes and No

[Hydrian]

A podcast client is a bit more than a web browser with RSS support. People are looking for more than that anymore in an podcast client. They want to be able to stream or download it. They want to be able to speed up / slow down playback. They want to support both audio and video podcasts. They want cross-device placement/bookmark sync. They want intelligent downloading so they don't blow their data caps (particularly with cell data). That's a bit more than just a web browser with RSS support.

But I do agree with you on the big players trying to take a chunk out of RSS podcasts and RSS in general. I talked about that in https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10677653&cid=54511965

But here is the thing, content rules. If people can't get the content that they want on big players app they want, they'll use a different app. Encourage you're content creator to stay platform agnostic. This doesn't let the draconian big players isolate content. If the big players want that content, force them to add support for open standards like RSS in their apps.

Re:Not going to happen

[cayenne8]

You mean curated/filtered services, if you have conflicting views/interests with these services you will not find the content you are looking for.

Yep, just ask Alex Jones.....

I mean, I'm not a fan of his, it was a bit of a whack job channel on YouTube, but wow....he just got booted.

Strangely, however.....I've not see a lot of other high visibility channels on either side of the spectrum that were as bad if not worse than AJ get booted.