Pocket Casts gets transcripts

• One of the most popular third-party podcast apps, Pocket Casts, now supports creator-made transcripts. If you’re producing your own transcripts on a supported podcast host, they will now automatically appear within Pocket Casts on both Android and iOS. Transcripts are searchable and show speaker names where provided.

  • Pocket Casts is using the Podcasting 2.0 transcript feature, also used by Apple Podcasts and other apps. More details in The Tech Stuff, below.

• Acast has partnered with /influx, a French podcast producer. “Together, they will maximize the reach and profitability of content created by /influx talents, by integrating tailor-made audio and video solutions.”

• Hear Me Out, a podcast from Slate, publishes its last episode today. Its title, “Podcasting Is Dead”, suggests that “most hosts and producers now are struggling to stay afloat or they’re getting laid off.” The host, Celeste Tedley, is joined by Nick Hilton, who “freelances as someone who writes about what a terrible state the industry is in.”

  • The podcast argues that expensive shows like Serial are dying, while cheap celebrity chatcasts are not; that a small number of shows get disproportionate amounts of money, and that things like the “BBC Sounds” proprietary app or the NYT Audio app are trying to kill open RSS. You can read a transcript here. (Slate, or its host Megaphone, doesn’t follow the open standard so the transcript isn’t in the podcast feed).

  • Station is a new “engagement platform for podcasts”, reports a tech website.

• “Podcasts are a liberating platform for creatives,” say Armchair Expert’s Dax Shepard and Monica Padman. The pair won the “Creative Impact in Podcasting” Award from Variety.

• The upcoming NAB Show in New York will have a bookable podcast studio.

People News

• Audion has named Élodie Bui as the company’s Head of Publishers.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• Pocket Casts uses the standard podcast:transcript feature in your podcast RSS feed. It doesn’t generate transcripts for you: like your thumbnail image and your audio, it’s all in your control. Podcast transcripts are supported by a number of large podcast hosting companies, including Blubrry, Buzzsprout, RSS.com, Transistor, Spreaker and others.
• If you roll your own RSS feeds - while Pocket Casts supports SRT, VTT and JSON formats, if you have to choose one, we’d recommend VTT files. They let you mark speaker names and support formatting; work natively in web-pages; and work great in Apple Podcasts, too. There’s a validator here.
• The Tech Stuff is sponsored by RSS.com, who offer free transcripts for every one of their hosted podcasts. Move your podcast to get six months free.
• If your podcast hosting company doesn’t give you free transcripts, here’s a free tool. Audio editor Hindenburg also produces them, and so does Eddy by Headliner, Descript and Alitu.

Tips and tricks - with Ausha - next gen podcasting 🚀

• Boost your podcast’s discoverability with Ausha’s tips on choosing the best keywords.

• Learn how to secure the #1 spot on Apple Podcasts with Ausha’s in-depth study.

• Here’s how Apple Podcast transcripts work. Podcasts using creator-produced transcripts also have their transcripts appear in many other apps.

Podcast News

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Launching across podcast platforms today from Wondery, Criminal Attorney recounts the rise and fall of ruthless defense attorney Paul Bergrin, who, in early 2000s Newark – one of the country’s most violent cities at the time – represented a range of famous and notorious clients involved in heinous acts like prostitution, murder, drug dealing, and gang leading. Bergrin somehow always came out a winner - even if it meant becoming a criminal himself.