When I talk to non-listeners about podcasts, I hear two things:
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1. "I don't know how to listen to podcasts."
2. "I don't know what to listen to."
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There are many great podcatching apps out there, and for those of us who "get it" and are motivated to listen to podcasts, it seems like Pocket Casts, Overcast, even the default Podcast app for iOS are easy to use and understand. Yet apparently they aren't.
Discovery is another issue altogether. NPR One, Pandora, Stitcher, et al have tried to do some level of podcast recommendation, but the lack of thorough metadata and text transcripts make it difficult to apply the kind of algorithm that works for blogs or music.
What makes it easy for the average non-techie to use a browser to read blogs, an app like Spotify for music, or their Facebook app, but not to use a podcatcher app?
Is it simple lack of familiarity? Or do we need an entirely new approach? I wish I knew the answer.
> it seems like Pocket Casts, Overcast, even the default Podcast app for iOS are easy to use and understand. Yet apparently they aren't.
That boggles my mind, at least in the case of Pocket Casts, with which I have experience. It has a "Discover" section, which makes it fairly easy to find at least a few that should interest anyone, and I find the best way for me to find new podcasts are recommendations by hosts of other podcasts (or better yet, where a segment of the podcast in question is replayed). Once you're in the ecosystem, I think the available interesting (to you) podcasts increases exponentially over time, as you listen to more podcasts and get more recommendations.
I imagine people complaining about being unable to find anything to listen to are more likely having problems committing a small portion of time to actually try something new, which is not a new problem.
I'm not convinced by what people say. It might be partially true, but i think there's something deeper behind it: blogs, music and video are addictive for the right people. Hence they'll spend a bit of effort to ask around what app to use, and ask about good tv, etc. Also because they're addictive and the barrier for sharing is much lower, they'll get shared much more often, talked about much more often - so you get discovery.
Podcasts aren't addictive(and i like podcasts). Lectures are boring by nature, and demand tons of focus(something we we may have more than the average guy). And even in fields that could be addictive(and don't demand great focus), like comedy, the quality is terrible - most comedy podcasts don't even come close to professional comedians doing standup.
Here's one idea: build a podcasts comedy site that curates only consistently great podcasts, and enables extremely easy sharing including sharing of very short segments.
Make the transition from the using the site to using it while driving easy and habit forming.
I think doing that you can get users "addicted". And once they are, they'll get your app, they might listen to other podcasts, etc.
> What makes it easy for the average non-techie to use a browser to read blogs ... but not to use a podcatcher app?
A podcatcher is like wget running recursively; it downloads a lot of stuff and organises it logically, but doesn't help the user in determining where best to allocate their limited time in consuming that data.
I can quickly assess whether it's worth my time reading a blog post by scan-reading for key points. Is it a fluff piece or technical? Does it just aggregate other information or present first-hand experience?
But with a podcast I can only assess its value by downloading it, making time to listen and then giving it my attention for several minutes even when playing on double-speed and jumping forward. I have probably prematurely stopped and deleted about 90% of the podcasts that I've ever downloaded.
Not even the best podcast app can help with such subjective assessment, unfortunately, and I just don't have the time to invest in searching for good podcasts so I tend to ignore them all.
For Discovery, we've worked on human-powered curation to solve this, dividing into hundreds of niches - you can see the top-level topics here https://player.fm/featured/topics or search for them.
Transcripts will happen at some point, but it's arguably less useful than user recommendations and signals from what people are actually playing.
I think the average non-techie was probably scared off in the past. It was legitimately hard work when podcasting began. And the word still conjures up a geeky pastime, not a serious form of media. But with modern smartphone apps, it's become pretty darn easy - no need to faff with RSS or sync with iTunes on PC. And it's growing fast for that reason, as well as the improved content that comes with the audience.
I have a podcast of my own and in a position to consolidate a dozen or so similar podcasts into a network I could start. Hadn't really thought about it before this thread though. Would you be willing to share a bit of your experience with me about your podcast network?
When I talk to non-listeners about podcasts, I hear two things:
----
1. "I don't know how to listen to podcasts."
2. "I don't know what to listen to."
----
There are many great podcatching apps out there, and for those of us who "get it" and are motivated to listen to podcasts, it seems like Pocket Casts, Overcast, even the default Podcast app for iOS are easy to use and understand. Yet apparently they aren't.
Discovery is another issue altogether. NPR One, Pandora, Stitcher, et al have tried to do some level of podcast recommendation, but the lack of thorough metadata and text transcripts make it difficult to apply the kind of algorithm that works for blogs or music.
What makes it easy for the average non-techie to use a browser to read blogs, an app like Spotify for music, or their Facebook app, but not to use a podcatcher app?
Is it simple lack of familiarity? Or do we need an entirely new approach? I wish I knew the answer.