Notices by Sam Sethi :pc2red: ⁂ (samsethi@podcastindex.social)

I think all podcasting 2.0 apps support HLS. PodToo has enabled HLS today in the Alternate Enclosure.

Congrats @russell

Hubhopper will turn on their HLS support soon. Who else? RSSBlue. Podhome, Blubrry?

FYI:YouTube supports HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) for live streaming.

However, YouTube only supports Media Playlists for HLS ingestion and ignores Master Playlists, which define different resolutions.

Netflix supports LL-HLS but Spotify does not support HLS.

1/6 - Activitystreams are the W3C standard we need to accurately measure and share podcast listening metrics?

1. The Problem
Counting downloads is a legacy metric of Podcasting 1.0. Like the Monty Python parrot, it's dead - remember a download is not a listen.

Equally the recent proprietary play count measurement suggested by Spotify, Apple and YouTube is inconsistent between these apps and thus not comparable. And with each app enabling auto-plays, did someone really play your podcast?

4/6 - The Solution
TrueFans has already implemented Activitystreams. We have 20+ activity verbs to track listener behaviour such as play, comment, share, follow etc.

Users can choose what activity verbs to display Listeners can also choose to make their Activitystreams public or private.

They can choose to share their Activitystreams to the social web e.g Mastodon, BlueSky, Threads or X. You can also export your Activitystream by picking the verbs and months you want to download an XML file.

@tchambers @benpate

Hi Tim

I really want to demo but away from 1st -6th June.

TrueFans build native ActivityStreams using 30+ verbs to track user behaviour. Play, Follow, Share, Watch, Comment etc.

We show this in the user Activity Tab e.g Sam listened to Podnews Weekly for 60 mins., percent completed 80% and value paid §100 sats

We also allow the user to publish some or all of their activity via ActivityPub. So I might want to just share my play activity to the social web. #fediverse

@tchambers @benpate

We have also built something called SecureRSS aka L.402 to enable creators to mix freemium and premium content in the same RSS feed.

In two weeks on Podnews Weekly Review I will be interviewing Oscar from Fountain Blue about how they have used L.402

Hosts need to adopt this asap. Paywall sites like Patreon will disappear why manage two feeds and two accounts your hosting account and your Patreon account.

I wrote about it here.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samsethi_securerss-is-the-future-of-podcasting-activity-7330230763335921665-YvVF

1/3 - I'm excited to announce TrueFans has launched not one but two new podcasts.

A few weeks ago, we launched our training course podcast called Fanzone, which is a bi-weekly series of eighteen 3-5 minute episodes covering every aspect on how to use TrueFans from a user's perspective.

The podcast is produced and hosted by Claire Waite Brown, who also created the highly successful Podcasting 2.0 in Practice course.

1/2 - MasterCard enables Stabelcoins

"Mastercard will enable stablecoin spending via traditional cards through partnerships with platforms. Consumers can use stablecoins stored in their wallets at over 150M merchant locations worldwide. Mastercard Move also facilitates withdrawals of stablecoins to bank accounts."

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/zahid-ali-9b899a40_stablecoinspendingandsettlement-enhancingtheuserexperience-activity-7322918497620021248-9iuc

Good news TrueFans has been approved by Stripe to now payout creators.

We are connecting the updated API so Creators on TrueFans will be able to withdraw funds from their TrueFans wallet either via direct payment to another lightning wallet or now to their Stripe account in a Fiat currency.

@evan have you seen TrueFans is 100% built on the Activitystream format. And we apply micropayments to the 30 verbs in TrueFans for gamification. So we have leaderboards, badges, and superfans.

We also publish to X, ActivityPub, Bluesky, Threads and Linkedin the users activity.

2/2 So I exported my data from ActivityPub/Mastodon, and to my surprise the export is in ActivityStreams.

@evan @chris @dave

1/2 - TrueFans now allows you to export your podcast activity in the W3C ActivityStreams 2.0 format.

We use the AS2.0 structure - Actor, Verb, Object format. e.g Sam (Actor), Plays (Verb), Podnews Weekly (Object). plus attributes Listen Time, Percent Completed, Value Paid.

We enable users to auto publish their activity to X, ActivityPub, BlueSky, Threads and Linkedin.

We allow Creators to do the same.

https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/

/cc @evan @chris @dave

@tchambers @russell @nathan @dave @adam @StevenB @steven @james @merryoscar Hi Tim we have integration in and out of the Fediverse e.g Auto-posting my activities to TrueFans.social and others can follow my account. Auto posting to BlueSky and Threads. We also aggregate comments into TrueFans from ActivityPub/Mastodon, X, and BlueSky. I am not sure what people would like to see at Fediforum? So I have not applied.

Tune.FM is an interesting new company. It compares to Wavlake and LNBeats. They also use a micropayment system based on a platform called Hedera Hash???

They use JAM Tokens for direct to musician payments from fans. They use gamification, social networking plus rewards.

This is worth reading. We have many similar ideas for TrueFans. i.e fans pay creators but also creators can pay fans.

WhitePaper
https://tune.fm/public/landing/images/Tune.FM(JAM)WhitepaperV4.pdf

Hedera Payments
https://hedera.com/

@adam @dave @james

On this week's Podnews Weekly Review @james Cridland and I talk about:

1. Spotify for Creators sends out their first video cheques.

2. Acast posted their year-end financials but are they profitable yet?

3. Fox News Media gets into podcasting and Netflix is following them?

4. Transistor.fm integrates with Bluesky Social.

1/2 - New Feature: Pinned Playlists

We have our new native apps coming soon but no harm pushing out a few cheeky features while waiting.

Now you can PIN any playlist to the top of your homepage.

You can quickly ADD episodes or music to your default 'My Queue'. You can LIKE any episode and we will automatically add it to your playlist called 'Liked'.

Or you can create a 'New Playlist' of your own. TrueFans playlists can be either STATIC or DYNAMIC.

A dynamic playlist updates automatically.

According to a new leak, Apple has pulled the plug on a project that allegedly hoped to produce lower-cost augmented reality glasses after the project seemingly couldn't meet executive expectations.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/01/31/apple-reported-to-have-killed-the-project-to-create-mac-connected-ar-glasses

Is there anything Apple can innovate on and get to market without Steve Jobs?

Seems to me that they can't. Search, AI, Cars, Folding Phones, VR and no AR all failed.

As of fiscal year (FY) 2024, Apple had around 164,000 full-time employees.

Seriously what do they all do?

Now live. You can now just click one follow button on TrueFans.social to follow their activities on TrueFans.fm

Before you had to do a search on your Fediverse instance to find their TrueFans.social account.

e.g https://truefans.social/@sam

One click makes it much easier. /cc @adam @dave @james

P.S We are adding Threads and Bluesky support next.

Should we add X?

We have started creating our Creator Portals.

We are going to turn TrueFans podcast pages into Creator Portals that can be customised by the podcast/music creator.

Today we added the option to turn off comments either for the whole podcast or individual episodes.

Tomorrow we will enable creators to reorder or hide tabs on the creators portal.

Next we will allow you to change the URL to your own domain.

1/6 - TrueFans now has multiple new ways for you to customise our app.

1. Country
When you sign up, we use your IP address to pick your local country.
We use your country to show "Home Grown Hits", "Recommendations" and "Country Charts". You can pick another country to see a different perspective.

2.Playlist
By default, when you click "add to playlist", episodes are added to "My Queue". Additionally, you can create your own playlists and then make one of those your default playlist.

I can't wait, we are back with a new episode of Podnews Weekly Review.

@james and I did our highlights show for 2024 and our predictions show for 2025 but normal service is resumed this Friday!

This week we talk about:
Spotify, Meta, Audioboom, BBC Audiolabs, Global, Substack, Mastodon, Triton Digital, Shure and much more.

I'm equally thrilled because on Friday I will also be a guest on Podcasting 2.0 with @adam and @dave.

No idea what we will talk about. ;-)

#backwithabangin2025