Proposals for new podcast tags in RSS unveiled

• Our cover story: In “The Tech Stuff” below, we highlight the most exciting news for independent podcasters for some time: the proposal of a set of new tags for RSS from The Podcast Index. For podcasters, this could mean better discoverability and accessibility, more revenue and protection against piracy.

• Amazon has bought two domain names: podcast.com and podcasting.com. They both forward to Audible, which doesn’t have third-party podcasts on it. (Amazon Music does, in four countries).

• US radio personality Howard Stern was apparently approached by Spotify, claims Bloomberg. His contract with SiriusXM seems close to renewal, however.

• Black women in podcasting can now apply for a microgrant from the Black & Brown Podcast Collective. Grants can be between $250 and $1000.

• The Edward R Murrow Awards were awarded. Winners included an episode of KBIA’s Show Me The State, WABE’s Buried Truths, WNYC’s Dolly Parton’s America, KGET’s The Man With A Thousand Faces, KXAN Catalyst, The Dropout from ABC News, Entercom’s Pineapple Street Studios’ The Catch and Kill Podcast with Ronan Farrow, and the LA Times/Wondery production Detective Trapp.

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• Podfriend has added a “Tinder for podcasts” feature, allowing you to listen to random new episodes. Swipe left for “nope”; swipe right to add to a list of podcasts you’d like to be a little more, cough, acquainted with.

• Spotify are not allowing use of their API to transfer music playlists to other platforms. For podcasts, we’d note the The Podcast Index’s new podcast RSS namespace includes a <podcast:id> tag to allow podcasters to link to their shows on other platforms without use of Spotify’s API.

  
  Aug 28 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Is it time to kill reviews in Apple Podcasts? Tanner Campbell thinks it might be - replacing it with a simple 'love’ button.

  
  Aug 28 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

It’s a public holiday in the US today - so Sounds Profitable, our weekly ad-tech newsletter, will be published tomorrow. Expect some uncomfortable truths about podcast privacy: and a solution to move us forward. Subscribe today

The Tech Stuff - with RSS․com

• The Podcast Index has unveiled a first draft of a new, “wholistic”, RSS namespace for podcasting. The specification includes additional tags like location, a locking mechanism to protect feeds against piracy, links to this show on other podcast apps, transcripts, multiple enclosures and funding. The namespace is to be done in phases, allowing full industry contribution; and it’s fully backwards-compatible with existing feeds. There’s more in their podcast.
• JSON Feed v1.1 has been released. A simpler, easier-to-parse alternative to RSS, this has support for multiple attachments (“enclosures”, to use RSS terminology), and for extensions (“namespaces”). We’ve updated our JSON Feed.
• Apple Podcasts rejects new podcasts with show images bigger than 500Kb, or bigger than 3000x3000 pixels - but you can change that image after you initially publish. So, congratulations to the Canadian podcast Entreprendre Ensemble for managing to have a podcast in Apple Podcasts which has an image measuring 5833x5833, and is an astonishing 102MB large! Wow. No wonder it’s broken our page… (h/t Mike Kelley)
• PodcastPing - an upcoming “monitoring system just for podcasters” - has worked to integrate Podcast Index into its service.
• PodcastAddict now offers multiple podcast search engines, including The Podcast Index.
• Libsyn appears to have started automatically forwarding insecure RSS feeds to their secure HTTPS versions.

Tips and tricks - with True Crime Reporter from PAR

• How to get multiple pieces of content out of one podcast episode (Rachel Corbett)
• How to use commercial music in your podcast - can you put up to thirty seconds of music into a podcast without the record companies minding?

Podcast News - with cabana

From audiochuck: A murder case has many layers: the victim, the crime, and the investigation. Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger get to the heart of it on Anatomy of Murder, a new weekly true crime series launching October 14th. Ad sales by cabana, an AdLarge company.

Stuff of Legends is new from ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia. Hosted by Christian O’Connell, it features interviews with people like Russell Brand and Ricky Gervais sharing their three most treasured items. It’s also being aired on ARN’s radio stations, too.

RomComPods returns for a second season today. The scripted romantic comedy features a full cast of voice actors and immersive sound design: “Vote for Love” is the title of the new season.