Search for ‘Descript’

Descript shares The best prompt for AI brainstorming, according to a study

In five ideas to give your podcast feed a spring clean, Podcast Discovery suggests updating the brand and visuals, re-recording some standard elements and refreshing your descriptions.

Adobe has launched Adobe Podcast Studio in beta to selected users. The tool looks similar to Descript, and allows you to “record, edit and enhance” in your browser.

Radiodays Europe held a podcasting summit yesterday. The opening speaker was Maria Lopenz-Bokelberg, CEO of podcast production company Pool Artists. “Podcasting is a once in a century opportunity. We are the first generation of a completely new medium. Let’s make it like we want it to be.” Other speakers included Descript’s Arielle Nissenblatt, City University’s Brett Spencer, and Podnews’s Editor, James Cridland.

Ausha has published a study about the Apple Podcasts search algorithm, including gains for podcasters who use their keywords in podcast titles and descriptions. We link to the full infographic.

Descript has released v84, including a new AI action called “Find all highlights”.

Buzzsprout has released an app for iPhone, allowing Buzzsprout customers to manage their podcasts, wherever they are. The app enables everything from ad management to correcting typos in episode descriptions. An Android app is coming soon; the iOS app, which is free, is in the App Store now. (Buzzsprout sponsors the Podnews Weekly Review).

How to Create an Effective Podcast Elevator Pitch (We Edit Podcasts). Or - how about shorter? In his book Make Noise, Eric Nuzum recommends producing a ten-word description.

Podcast editor Descript has added a new AI action, called “Edit for Clarity”. It “identifies and removes distracting filler words, tangents, and non-essential sections, ensuring your message is concise and impactful.”

Planning your podcast can be easier with a planner template: and Rephonic have produced one that’s updated for 2024. It helps with everything from goals, descriptions and interviews.

Descript has launched Find Good Clips, a tool that will “extract your best highlights” and let you share them on social media.

Popular podcast app Goodpods added AI-generated additional descriptions to thousands of podcasts without telling creators, or getting their consent. Some of the descriptions were inaccurate and misleading; the company withdrew the feature, after Podnews asked the founders for a statement.

Descript has added new AI tools for podcasters - a script generator ("Will it be perfect? Probably not. But it will give you something to work with"), a script rewriter ("to help you whittle down your early drafts"), and a blog post tool ("turn your script into a blog post to expose your content to a wider audience"). They're our title sponsor this month, but, as ever, don't have any say on this editorial.

Descript has added a set of AI Actions, tools that can help with specific production tasks; including a chapter generation tool, a summary generator, and a social post writer.

Descript has rebuilt its Overdub feature, allowing podcasters to generate AI voice clone to fix issues in production. The company says it's part of a set of new AI features to be added over the next few months.

A new premium "sleep" podcast app called Rest is charging users to listen to podcasts that are freely available on other podcast platforms. We're told that creators were unaware their shows were included in the app, and don't share in the $44.99 annual subscription. The app has also renamed some podcast episodes, and changed and removed descriptions. The app developer Evolve Global, who also make Podcast App, did not respond to a request for comment.

Among September's improvements, SquadCast has added 4K video recording.

Spotify appears to have dropped all support for unencrypted http:// links in episode descriptions. In our tests, only https:// links appear to be clickable in descriptions. We discovered this because some of our supporters, who are credited in most podcast players, have been supporters so long, they didn't have https:// websites in 2017…

At Podcast Movement, Spotify's Director of Podcast Product, Austin Lamon, announced a number of enhancements and features for podcasters, including show page customisation, creator controls for podcast previews, and a rollout of automated ads to more countries. There's a full description of the enhancements on Spotify's website

Editing tool Descript has purchased Squadcast, a remote recording service. Terms weren't given. The announcement says that the two services will continue separately for now, but Descript customers will get remote recording included immediately in their subscriptions for free; and SquadCast customers can choose to switch their subscription to Descript to get its editing capabilities at no additional cost.

Podcast editing tool Descript has launched a slew of new tools in beta. Regenerate uses AI to rebuild words or phrases; Eye Contact edits video to keep your eyes on the camera, even if you were looking somewhere else; Replace Selection lets you change a part of the audio or video you're working on without messing up the timings of everything else. The company's changelog also reveals a new web interface.

Descript's Ashley Hamer writes 3 Ways to Make Video Work for Your Podcast - without full episodes.

Descript announced a set of new tools, including AI imagery, colour pickers, new captions, video flipping, visual layers, better font control, etc. The product's clear focus is on video these days.

In the Podnews Weekly Review this week, Sam Sethi and James Cridland talk with Alban Brooke from Buzzsprout and Maxime Piquet from Ausha about their use of AI in podcasting. The title and description is produced by AI, too.

Buzzsprout and Ausha have both launched AI tools to help podcasters when publishing new shows. Buzzsprout's tool automatically builds episode titles, descriptions, chapter markers and transcripts; while Ausha has added ChatGPT to help produce social media posts. Both services are available to all customers, joining other services like Capsho.

Podcastpage share Podcast Descriptions: Why They Matter and How to Write Them

Descript has made a number of changes to its redesign, including a "scene rail", and improvements to the canvas.

Exclusive: Spotify appears to have enhanced chapter support within the Spotify podcasts app. Nic Ivanov, founder of Vizzy, notes that there's a new Chapters section in an episode page, and chapter marks and titles within a new player which is rolling out to both iOS (above) and Android. However, Spotify isn't supporting either ID3 embedded chapters, nor chapters via the new podcast namespace: instead, Spotify uses timestamps in the episode description, much like YouTube. See these chapters in action on Spotify in the Decorating by the Book podcast, which Vizzy has helped build.

In Dec 2021, Adobe revealed Project Shasta, which we noticed in Oct 2022 had rebranded to Adobe Express Podcast. It's now branded Adobe Podcast beta, and offers a mix of Descript-like "Edit words, not waveforms", SquadCast-like "Remote recording", and Auphonic-like "AI-powered audio" - and there's a waitlist on the website. But how does it compare to the market leaders? From Castos, Matt Medeiros gives it a full review.

Buzzsprout has published its 2022 Year in Review, as a YouTube video. Adam Curry, Jake Shapiro, and our Editor all make an appearance; and there are plenty of links in the description. Recommended!

Descript has redesigned and relaunched its blog: here, from it, is How to use background music in your podcast

Acast is encouraging the use of visual descriptions in podcasts, to make content more accessible for blind or low-vision people. There's an example in the blog post we link to.

Spotify's Anchor has added "audio enhancement" to its app. The company says "A single tap can automatically reduce background noise while leveling your voice and bringing it to the forefront." Alternatives are Auphonic, which is used by a number of podcast hosts, and Descript's "studio sound".

Editing software Descript has launched a new version of the program. Descript Storyboard has more than 30 new visual and AI-powered editing features. The company has also announced a $50m funding round.

Writing about Podcasting's paradox of choice, Steven Goldstein suggests making your show easily scannable by getting the description right.

Thinking about putting your podcast on YouTube? Elizabeth Hames from Pacific Content suggests making a playlist and adding SEO-friendly descriptions.

Matt Deegan writes a piece on Why hasn’t my podcast got many listeners?. A bad description is one of those things.

Blubrry has partnered with Descript to allow Descript users to publish their edited podcasts directly from the app. Blubrry joins Buzzsprout, Captivate, Castos, Hello audio, Podbean, Podcast·co and Transistor with this functionality. Blubrry publishing is also available directly from Hindenburg.

The July 19 dump of data from The Podcast Index now includes descriptions and categories. 369,000 shows have no description at all; most podcasts have about 22 characters; and only 44,000 have descriptions of more than a thousand characters. Apple doesn't search your podcast description field; but Spotify, Overcast, Google and most others do; so we'd recommend putting more in there if you want your podcast found.

The Podcast Index's weekly data dump will shortly contain categories and podcast descriptions (up to a character limit).

In July last year, Podnews published data showing what metadata different podcast apps use: noting that Apple Podcasts does not search podcast (or episode) descriptions.

Riverside has added more descriptive filenames, and has improved live video quality, bumping the default from 480p up to 720p.

Is the description "Deadhead" sometimes a bit too literal? From Tenderfoot and Double Elvis, Dead and Gone is returning for a new season. The show focuses on mysterious deaths of fans of the band Grateful Dead, and will look at three tragedies that have taken place over twenty years.

How To Write The Perfect Podcast Description

Podcast editing tool Descript has released a set of new features, including ways to make shareable video, faster rendering, ownership transferral and bug fixes.

Castopod joins Spotify, Podchaser and Podnews in adding copious amounts of JSON_LD to podcast pages. Our schema includes RSS feed addresses, descriptions and the podcast:guid.

AI voice clones could be hosting podcasts in the future, suggests Pacific Content. (We used an AI voice clone for our podcast in July 2020).

Stephanie Fuccio writes about how podcast listeners meet a new podcast. Podcast descriptions are rarely good enough, she suggests, as she discovers two podcasts (one from Africa, and one multilingual podcast in Arabic, German and English.

Following from last week's legal action against one podcast company for lack of transcripts, the audio editor Descript has added additional transcript formats to meet the podcasts:transcripts standard. Both .json and .vtt formats are now available from the service, and are compatible with supporting players. (If your podcast hosting company supports Descript, that gives you full support of transcripts, too - saving your customers, and you, from potential legal action).

A Forbes blogger looks at Podcastle, which uses AI noise-reduction technology and offers a browser-based editing tool, including audio editing using text (much like Descript).

A Sky News investigation in the UK has discovered antisemitism, racism and white supremacist material in podcasts on Spotify. Spotify has removed 150 hours of content after the news channel's report. "In some cases, explicit slurs could be found in episode titles and descriptions while album artwork displayed imagery adopted by white supremacists," the story says. The podcasts are still available on Google Podcasts, it adds.

Our own podcast pages support the podcast:funding tag, and fall-back to searching through podcast descriptions for payment links.

How to Write a Good Podcast Description - Auddy suggests that podcast descriptions can determine if people listen to your show or not.

Should you put your guest's name in the episode description, or the episode title? Mark Steadman looked at what podcast apps really index.

Podcast host Transistor has partnered with Descript as an automated publishing destination.

Podcast editing software Descript has annnounced 'season one' a number of updates: "studio sound" is graduating from beta, and now has an intensity dial to control the effect; their artificial voices feature is now improved; and they've added a number of audio processing effects, like compression, limiting, noise gates and ducking.

Should you put your guest's name in your episode title or your episode description? In the title - otherwise you won't appear in search, according to our research.

A company called DDEX, which describes itself as an "international standards-setting organization dedicated to improving the exchange of data and information across the music industry", will hold an open meeting tomorrow to discuss proposed requirements for description and communication of music metadata in podcasts.

Podnews's Editor has kick-started a "best practices" website for podcast app developers, hosting companies and other parts of podcasting's infrastructure. It currently gives expected behaviour for user agents, descriptions, episode order and audio files. Intended to be an independent, pragmatic and minimalist website, more voices would be great.

Shuffle's RSS scraper is identifying itself as axios/02.11, while Trebble is using a generic node fetch useragent for its RSS feed, and United Podcasters calls itself simply 'ruby'. We've reported these as bugs. Here's more information on RSS useragents - we echo back the RSS useragent in our show description and the bottom of our episode notes. Combining the RSS useragent as well as the audio useragent means we can identify 99.8% of apps that use our podcast.

Podcast editor Descript has launched "Studio Sound", a "voice regeneration" service that claims to reduce noise, remove room echo and to "make it sound like you're in a studio". There's a little demo on the website; it's in opt-in beta.

Exclusive: Do podcast apps use your podcast's description to help people find new shows? Should you put your guest's name in your episode title? Which apps search which bits of your RSS feed? Three weeks in the making, Mark Steadman from podcast studio Origin has catalogued what every big podcast app indexes, and how to help listeners find your podcast.

For the first time, all major podcast apps display episode notes in the same way. As Podnews testing now reveals, in the <description> field, all major podcast apps now support <a href links, <p> paragraphs, <ul><li> bullet points, and make URLs clickable automatically. You should keep episode notes below 4,000 characters, though, to ensure they display everywhere (Apple has a limit of 4,000, Google Podcasts has a limit of 5,000).

Apple Podcasts has reinstated HTML links in podcast descriptions. The server-side change appears to be live for Podnews, PodClock and for The Feed by Libsyn: it seems to be a recent change with the RSS parser used by the company. HTML links are important for podcasters to allow additional reading, affiliate links, sponsors or support: they broke with the rollout of the new Apple Podcasts infrastructure in late April.

Podjobs, our jobs board, has integrated Podcast Taxonomy role descriptions into the service. The change now makes it easier for job hunters to understand job roles, and easier for people posting jobs to ensure the description is correct.

In Apple Podcasts for iOS 14.6, we've spotted that the app no longer refuses to display a <description> if there is an <itunes:summary> present. Instead it displays the summary as expected in the episode list; and the description in the episode page. We've updated our advice.

In Podland, economist Will Page discusses the economic future for podcasting after Apple and Spotify's recent announcements; and Sam Sethi talks to Descript.

Apple Podcasts on v14.5 has changed how show and episode descriptions work, as detailed in a Podlove discussion.

Buzzcast from Buzzsprout unveiled new "dynamic descriptions", and went into detail about how they made the special show about their DDOS attack.

Podcast host Captivate has announced new integration with Descript, allowing you to upload directly from the Descript interface. Megaphone has launched a unique listener performance tool, allowing "elegant, real-time visibility into podcast impressions, downloads, and listener engagement".

Justin Jackson from Transistor is doing a YouTube series looking at artwork and player descriptions, and how shows appear in search. Here's an example for Tech Unlocked.

Editing software company Descript has raised $30m in a funding round.

The podcast:location tag has undergone a small, breaking, revision before its adoption into phase 2 of the podcast namespace. For clarity, it now uses osm rather than osmid, has an optional link to the revision number within OpenStreetMap, and the humanly-readable description is now a node value rather than an attribute.

Move over podcasting - Netflix is rolling-out an audio-only mode to their Android app. The app also has variable-speed playback, and a feature called audio-description, which, on selected shows, tells you what's happening on screen. The company will hope you don't listen to a podcast, when you can listen to a movie or TV show instead.

The Podcast Taxonomy Consortium has posted its first white paper, proposing a standard for job descriptions in podcasting. The product of five months of work, it enables all of us to know the difference between a Technical Director and an Audio Engineer, for example. They welcome further participation, especially in translations to other languages.

Wanting to upgrade to Big Sur? Descript isn't compatible yet, but everything else appears to be though - unless you know better.

It's not podcasting, but Netflix could soon allow you to listen to, rather than watch, your favourite shows, according to new code in the app. Back on January 31, Podnews reader Ken Randall noticed that TV shows with audio description would make for a great podcast. We'd agree.

Descript has added a video editor. Like their audio product, the service allows you to edit media as if you're editing a word document.

Exclusive: Anchor's tools make it easy to copy someone else's podcast without them ever knowing, Podnews has discovered. You don't even need to confirm your own email address to produce a new, pirate podcast feed, hosted by Anchor, that you can publish in other places, with your own show description. We take you through their six easy steps to pirate a podcast, and discuss how it ought to work.

Descript have unveiled some new "Overdub stock voices", allowing you to use synthetic voices in your podcast - including a movie voiceover. They've also added a keyboard-based service called Composer to speed up editing.

On August 17, we reported that Anchor was hosting pirated podcasts. Aaron Mahnke is the latest high-profile podcaster to publicly criticise the platform, after discovering a pirated copy of his new podcast American Shadows on Anchor. "Same art, same description," he adds.

Spotify now supports HTML formatting for show notes. It appears to use <description> and, unlike others, does not prefer the <content:encoded> field where that exists.

Descript, an "audio word processor", has added Overdub for Descript Pro users - a tool that synthesizes your own voice, allowing you to make small edits or even full podcasts without recording. The system, which lets you edit podcasts as if it was a Word document, has improved removal of, you know, like, kind of filler words, and a revised set of subscription plans. There's a free seven day trial.

Forget SEO. For a podcaster, it's all about ASEO says James Burt, discussing the benefits of writing good copy for your show notes and episode descriptions.

Audio description has come to Australian public service television, allowing people with vision impairment to enjoy TV programs and movies. Our thought: wouldn't these audio-described shows be great as podcasts?

Descript, a "edit podcast audio as if it was a word document" tool, has a number of new features in v3.6, including remote recording and an integration with Buzzsprout and Headliner.

Gracenote has launched a podcast database. Called Gracenote Audio On Demand, the company offers standardized podcast titles, descriptions and imagery across more than 900,000 podcast series, and additional data including celebrity links. The company already powers music, sports and TV data across the world.

Mobycast looks at how four different podcast hosts deal with podcast episode descriptions.

The most popular way of choosing a podcast is the show description, according to The Podcast Host who have published the results of their survey, Podcast Discovery in 2020. They discover that most people just use the search in their podcast app to find new stuff to listen to.

Disappointingly it doesn't display full <content-encoded> HTML show-notes: using the <description> field instead, and stripping out any HTML (following the standard).

Podcast descriptions are probably more important than you think. Our podcast pages already highlight short ones (and notes you should probably make them a little longer); Dan Misener from Pacific Content examines the art and science of podcast descriptions: how they look in different browsers, their average length, and what you ought to include.

Audio descriptions: A bright idea from Ken Randall on Friday - that TV show soundtracks with audio descriptions would work quite well as podcasts - prompts Daniel Newman to tell us a trick to listen to Netflix with the screen off. I’ve done this while running, and it works great. Agreed that these would work surprisingly well as podcasts! Daniel also points us to this episode from Twenty Thousand Hertz, which he calls an "excellent introduction" to them.

We've updated our how episode notes display article, adding support of content:encoded vs description to the full results and re-testing the top podcast apps. Only Stitcher is failing to follow the specification; though Spotify does not support HTML episode notes.

Don't put HTML in your description tag. That's the result of Podnews research on every popular podcast app out there, to help you to get beautiful HTML episode notes into podcast apps. In short: put HTML into the content:encoded tag. Podcast apps that support HTML episode notes always use it. Apps which don't support HTML, like Spotify, always fall back to the description tag instead.

Descript has released a new update. It features "um-detection", and a way to remove all those "um"s and "er"s with a single click. It can also deal with audio levels, including setting a correct LUFS level. (We've more on LUFS here).

Artemis is a steamy retelling of the classic Greek myth of Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt. The first five episodes of thrilling adventures, complete with love, loss, and turmoil, are everywhere - and the description tells you how you can listen to all 16 on Himalaya+. (Megaphone)

Descript has also launched Overdub, a way for you to "correct your voice recordings by typing", using artificial intelligence to reconstruct your voice. It's worth giving the demo a go. It's a carefully-designed tool that only works on your own voice, not other people's - so you can't use it for deepfakes of the US President saying ludicrous things, for example.

Spotify appears to be generating automatic episode images from episode descriptions, we notice today. This week they're rolling out podcast playlists to everyone: Dan Misener wonders what you could do with them.

Opinion and advice: Episode descriptions and headlines are crucial in attracting podcast audiences, writes Australian radio publication RadioInfo. Brit McGinnis knows who the next big audience for podcasts is.

A new podcast app, Podcrypt, enables you to "automatically or manually donate to verified podcasts based strictly on time listened": the service uses crypto currency. Podnews is here on this service, and our Ethereum ID is in our main description as requested.

Job: Podcast Executive Producer for the New York Post. How important is podcasting to the newspaper? It's a part time role, and lasts just six months.

How to be less awkward, a podcast from Laura Merli and a guest, generally a fellow comedian, revealing their most awkward encounters, is back for a new series. The description tells us it's "cringeworthy, heartwarming, and hilarious". (Libsyn)

Launching today, Let's Get Civical is "made up of equal parts civics class and comedy show". The podcast description promises: "This stuff is confusing and we’ve made it our mission to break it down so we all understand what the FDR is going on. It’s like being in American Government class with your BFFs! But no exams. We promise!" (More Banana Productions / Libsyn)

Too Late To Die Young claims it's one of the first podcasts to be aimed at an over 60 audience: hosted by Nina Miskow, each episode interviews a high-profile guest who is at that time of life when they are closer to the end than the beginning. 'If you want to know about living your best life, learn from those who have lived theirs', says the description. (Audioboom)

Job: Resonate Recordings are looking for a Sales Representative in Louisville KY, USA.

Becoming a parent can be the greatest and the hardest thing you’ll experience, says the description of Navigating Parenthood, a new podcast from Australian health insurance company HCF, hosted by broadcaster Gretchen Miller. (Hardie Grant Media / Nearly / Omny Studio)

Apple is removing podcasts who abuse the title or description by adding tons of keywords. The Audacity to Podcast was one of those removed; the author of that podcast, Daniel J Lewis, explains what happens next.

Our podcast pages now include prominent Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts buttons. (Here's an example). We're also parsing descriptions for Patreon links, to help you support the podcasts you like.

Advice: "Mind your metadata" - Wil Williams highlights best practice for titles and descriptions; meanwhile, Circle270Media says that publishing your podcast notes is more important than you think

Anchor highlight how to market podcasts. Interesting: "Using the word “podcast” or your show’s title in the description could prevent it from being promoted on third party distribution platforms."

English musician George Ezra now has a podcast of his own - not much there yet, excepting a long and very personal description. His first guest is Ed Sheeran.

Apple are hiring! The job is opaquely called Digital Supply Chain, Technical Producer and the description says: "The Apple Podcast and Siri Audio News team seeks a Content Producer to be responsible for the health of the podcast and audio news catalogs and act as our front-line point of provider support". You'd be working in the Santa Clara Valley in California, USA for exactly "40.00" hours a week.

First covered on Dec 13, journalism website Poynter discovers Descript, a tool that makes editing podcasts just as easy as editing text

On the heels of Sonix and the BBC's Discourse tool, Descript: a(nother) "wordprocessor for audio". The man behind this, Andrew Mason, is formerly of GroupOn. Takeaway: raw editing of speech is no longer a skill.

One of the reason why Reddit is so popular - one redditor writes a list of his top 100 podcasts. "Meticulously ranked, with links and descriptions." Another, in the comments, links to the subreddits for each podcast mentioned.

A great tip on Facebook - how not to start your podcast episode description. So obvious you'll kick yourself.