Notices by James Cridland (james@bne.social)

Just posted a thread on Twitter explaining why I don’t post threads on Twitter. https://x.com/jamescridland/status/1852980105267519704

It pains me to see so many otherwise bright, rational folk still posting over there, keeping Elon happy.

Now I understand what's behind the rush to video in podcasting... ad revenue. That's it. Just ad revenue.

Google wants you to do it because they couldn't earn money out of Google Podcasts, but they *can* shove ads in front of your listeners/viewers if they use YouTube.

And Spotify wants you to do it because they can sell video advertising more easily and earn more money doing it.

Forget what audiences want. This isn't about them.

https://podnews.net/update/spotify-ad-revenue-2024

Wondering out loud…

So, Mastodon doesn’t support the “listen” activitypub verb.

Does that mean that Mastodon strips it from the API results, so you won’t see it in @IceCubesApp or @phanpy ? Or does it just mean that Mastodon strips it from its own UI?

If it’s still visible in the API results, then that means you could still do some fun things with the “listen” verb in third-party apps. Including podcast apps. And all the while, not flooding the fediverse with “listen” activities (especially for music listening).

Who might know the answer? @samsethi @evan @js

@js @samsethi @evan @IceCubesApp @phanpy Aha. That’s a shame. Thank you.

@evan @samsethi I would see it as a great thing if Truefans used the correct verbs here, paving the way for AP client support for them.

Oddly excited about Kamala Harris running for US president: such a good choice against Trump. Can they have Pete Butt-cheeks or whatever his name is as VP? He seems good too. #uspol

Google Podcasts is now turned off - everywhere. It would be interesting to see a special chart from @js ’s OP3, showing download traffic to Google Podcasts dribbling away. This is Podnews Daily’s data for “all time” (but, naturally, Google have deleted most of the data already). What a squandered opportunity.

Still wondering how @Podnews might use the fediverse (more than we do). First step might be to allow signin using the fediverse - if there is a standard way to achieve that on ActivityPub. (I am assuming there is only a standard way to do that with the Mastodon API). I’m also a little dubious of social sign-ins, since I think too many people forgot how they signed-in. I wonder how else…

What a great way of explaining federation. Never thought of it this way. Brilliant.

From: @evan
https://cosocial.ca/@evan/112531361324308766

This is the BEST THING ON THE INTERNET. The Ghost team, documenting getting their product working with ActivityPub. What an excellent thing. I don’t understand much of it, but it’s still an email I’m already looking forward to.

https://activitypub.ghost.org/day3/

@tchambers @dave @adam Yes. Or there’s services like Rephonic which just guesses. (But it does a decent job guessing).

I didn't realise that OP3 kept data on podcast apps and their overall share of downloads. But it does. And so, now does the Podcast Business Journal. I should seek out more stats for this. https://podcastbusinessjournal.com/data/podcast-apps/

And an interesting stat - "The big three - Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music - currently account for 74.02% of all downloads."

As an aside: this is the first time I've actually seen data suggesting that Spotify is #1 for downloads (rather than #1 for total listeners).

I've also added some of the data from the Podcast Index's stats here, under the guise of "new podcast features" - https://podcastbusinessjournal.com/data/podcast-features/ - which suggests that shortly we'll hit 2.5mn episodes with creator-supplied transcripts.

Oh, exciting - my keynote from Podcast Movement Evolutions has been published. Here it is! No pictures of my fancy suit though. https://youtu.be/Pz_5IS2IkFg?si=zofrWlo0eVDZkRlz

@tchambers @andypiper @agates @evan @laurenshof @Podnews @227573 Thanks. I guess I need to work out what the best thing is to promote - “Fediverse” or “Mastodon” (I know, I know).

@agates @evan @laurenshof @tchambers What should I be doing for @Podnews - linking to pages like @227573 for a start I suppose. Is there a recognisable fediverse/activitypub logo?

Very good news.

Libsyn's podcast platform stats look odd for December. A big (10%) drop for Apple Podcasts. And a massive 7x increase for... Firefox. Not sure I buy it. https://livewire.io/libsyn-stats-visualized/