101 and 2.0: Extra Credit

James Cridland: 00:00:06

Adam and Dave worked very hard on this, on making it open and making it so that nobody really controlled it. So Dave worked on rss, which was already a technology that already existed, but bringing RSS and going, okay, well, what can we do?

Can we use RSS for this new thing? But then for probably about 10 years, all of that innovation stopped changing. There were no new ideas in terms of new features in rss.

There were no new concepts or anything else. And quite a lot of people felt that podcasting had got a little bit stale in terms of the features that we were offering our users.

And so, really, Podcasting 2.0 is a new set of ideas that work with any podcast RSS feed.

But if you're running a modern podcast app, then those podcast apps will understand some of these new features and unlock a whole new, interesting way of interacting with shows, of learning more about the shows that you're listening to and everything else.

Host: 00:01:20

Welcome back to Podcasting 2.0 in practice. I'm here today with James Cridland. How are you, James?

James Cridland: 00:01:28

I'm very good. I'm very good.

Host: 00:01:30

Good.

Could you please start by telling me about yourself and your podcasting background to give some context as to why I've invited you to come and talk with me today?

James Cridland: 00:01:42

Yes, sure. So I'm the editor of Podnews, which is a daily newsletter all about podcasting and on demand.

've been doing this job since: 2017

Host: 00:02:02

Perfect. Thank you. What I wanted to do with this episode is we're talking about Podcasting 2.0.

We're kind of breaking it down to try and make it understandable. And this session I see as a bit like reading around the subject.

It's a bit like further listening, because it's a bit of a background, kind of the origin story, really, of how podcasting came to be and how. Why, who, when Podcasting 2.0 came to be. So would you be willing to tell me that story?

James Cridland: 00:02:33

Yes. Crikey.

Well, I mean, I think the whole world of podcasting is always very interesting because there are lots of people who think they know how podcasting started and how podcasting got named and all of that. And it turns out that it's a very good way for argument. So it's always fun. But, I mean, essentially, podcasting started a long time ago.

It started with a blog post from a man called Adam Curry.

sting a blog post way back in: 2001

So the idea that you have a computer in your house, and at some point in the future, your computer might be connected to the Internet all the time, but you clearly weren't going to be using the Internet all the time, so what could you use that computer for? And that was essentially the blog post that Adam ended up putting together, which we managed to get a copy of for the Podnews newsletter.

It's a fascinating piece, but it is essentially something that a software developer called Dave Winer saw. And Dave Winer decided that he would. He'd like to learn a little bit more about this.

And so caught up with Adam Curry in a hotel somewhere in New York and had a number of conversations with him, trying to understand whether there was something here that was actually something that he could, you know, take and build on. And so the idea of podcasting really started rather bizarrely with a music DJ for MTV.

Host: 00:04:19

Okay, how does that turn into people like me being able to record a show and people anywhere be able to listen to it?

James Cridland: 00:04:29

There are a few things. So firstly, Adam and Dave worked very hard on this, on making it open and making it so that nobody really controlled it.

So Dave worked on rss, which was already a technology that already existed, but bringing RSS and going, okay, well what can we do? Can we use RSS for this new thing? Nobody knew that it was called podcasting at the time, but, you know, can we use RSS for this thing?

Audio blogging or whatever it was? And so really, a lot of the infrastructure behind how podcasting works comes all the way back to the world of Adam Curry and Dave Winer.

Host: 00:05:13

Hiya, future Claire. Here we will be explaining in more detail about RSS feeds and the concept of open source in a future episode.

So if you're not sure what that means right now, don't worry, we'll get to it. Back to James.

James Cridland: 00:05:31

That was interesting because then when Apple jumped in, Apple had a problem that they were selling an awful lot of iPods.

But their research was showing them that people were stopping using their iPods after they'd listened to the music that they had put on those iPods enough times. They got a bit bored with them. And so how can we get more stuff onto iPods? How can we get people to continue using those iPods?

And so Steve Jobs saw something that was essentially lots of free Content that Apple didn't need to host, didn't need to do anything with other than link to. And Steve Jobs thought, well, this is a thing that we can probably use to sell more iPods. And he was probably right in that regard.

And I think Adam ended up giving Steve Jobs the initial directory that turned into the Apple Podcasts directory. So that was really driven by the requirement from Apple to sell more hardware.

into itunes in the middle of: 2005

I mean, I have to say it wasn't necessarily the first.

ally look back all the way to: 2000

Not sure that they did, but perhaps they invented some form of audio on demand that was paid for. But there's, you know, clearly a lot of different bits of the history.

Pod got podcasting into it in: 2005

And then of course, we saw, you know, some very big shows like Serial that got a lot of people talking about it and everything else, which is always very exciting. And podcasting has continued to grow quite nicely, slowly and confidently for the last 20 years or so.

Host: 00:07:51

Yeah. So without going into the politics or the history of naming things, I'm assuming then that there is the connection with iPod and podcast.

James Cridland: 00:08:05

Yes, there is, yes. I mean, the history of the word podcast is a whole separate conversation, but essentially two people invented it.

A popular story that you'll hear is that Ben Hammersley from the Guardian was the first to get it in print, and he was. But the first person to really get other people using it was a man called Danny J.

Gregoire, who probably doesn't get the focus that he perhaps should do, who used the same podcasting word, also used the word sewed for an episode. Not sure that that one ever took, but yes.

So the idea was that, yes, podcasting is theoretically a bit of iPod in there and a bit of broadcasting in there.

Of course, podcasting is not broadcasting, and perhaps that's the benefit of podcasting in that you can focus on a particular niche or a niche and you can really aim at that sort of thing. And so perhaps that's one of the problems with the name. If you like is that it isn't broadcasting.

It is most certainly reaching small audiences, but audiences of a common interest. And that's always an interesting thing.

Host: 00:09:16

Yeah, I mean, there's still, you know this and I know this. There are still plenty of people, despite what it's called, who don't understand what a podcast is at all.

Or maybe they're already listening to podcasts and they don't realize it. Yes, but a lot. A lot of people listen on Apple as well as Spotify. Those are the ones that I hear people say, oh, can you get it on Spotify?

Or can you get it on Apple? Yes, of course you can. But there are other apps that have come around as well.

Even before we get to the 2.0 question, which I will ask you about, why have other people decided, do you think, oh, it would be a good idea for me to make a podcast app?

James Cridland: 00:09:53

Well, I mean, partially. Apple podcasts wasn't the first, of course.

One of the first was a program called iPodder, which ended up changing its name to Juice Podder because Apple got very upset at that name. So Apple wasn't the first, by any degree. If you look now, it's about a third of all podcast downloads.

It's a little bit difficult to work this out, but about a third of all podcast downloads happens on Apple podcasts, about a third of all podcasts happens on Spotify, and about a third of all podcasts happens on everything else. And there are lots and lots of different ways of consuming podcasts. One of the benefits of podcasts are that they are open.

Anyone can download my podcast, can download your podcast on whatever app that they want to do. There's no asking questions. There are some open directories.

Apple runs one, the podcast index runs another, which are open and which app developers can use to make a great app with millions of shows in there.

And I think that's one of the benefits of podcasting, is that you don't need to go to a commissioner and try and convince them that your idea is best, and they will turn around and say, well, that sounds good, but can you have a man presenting it instead of a woman? Or can you do it, but can you do it only for 30 minutes? Or all of this nonsense that you get from radio stations.

None of that happens in terms of the podcast world. So podcasting has always been open. It's always been a very open community.

And that's been the real success, I think, of podcasts in that, yes, there are big shows from the BBC, big shows from npr, big shows from CBC and from lots of other companies as well. But there are also shows from people who do shows in small rooms in their house as well. And I think that's one of the benefits that podcasting has.

Host: 00:11:48

Absolutely. This is why I love it. And we are both sat in our rooms at home, being able to communicate widely worldwide. Worldwide. It's brilliant.

In this course, we haven't gone into any details yet with rich regards to the features of 2.0. We've literally just spoken about modern podcast apps and what it means.

But ahead of getting into those tags, can you just let me know, like, why this next move has happened?

James Cridland: 00:12:20

Well, so podcasting was taken up by Apple, as we mentioned. Apple were very good at going, okay, we need artwork. We didn't have artwork before Apple came along, so Apple said, we need artwork.

We've got a list of genres that we would like to use to help organize this world. And they came up with a couple of additional features that went into the RSS feed, the thing that makes podcasting work.

And Apple were very good at basically bringing podcasting into their ecosystem to make podcasting look as good as possible in terms of the user experience.

And Apple did a fantastic job of doing that for the first few years, making sure that they really put, you know, an awful lot of thinking behind that. But then for probably about 10 years, all of that innovation stopped changing. There were no new ideas in terms of new features in rss.

There were no new concepts or anything else. And quite a lot of people felt that podcasting had got a little bit stale in terms of the features that we were offering our users.

And we saw things like YouTube and things like Spotify and things like Napster and all kinds of other things coming in.

And they had some new and interesting ways of being able to navigate through lists of shows or navigate through lists of music and lots of other things in there as well. But podcasting was kind of being left behind a little bit. So that the theory behind Podcasting 2.0, as it's called, is just as Apple did, to go.

We think there are new tools that we can do. We think there are new features that we can bring to podcast apps.

We think that there are new ways of adding additional data into the menu, if you like, that we give a podcast app so that the podcast app can go, oh, now I understand a little bit more about this show. I can show you this or that or the other. And so really, Podcasting 2.0 is a new set of ideas that work with any podcast.

RSS feed so it won't break anything.

But if you're running a modern podcast app, then those podcast apps will understand some of these new features and unlock a whole new, interesting way of interacting with shows, of learning more about the shows that you're listening to and everything else.

Host: 00:14:57

Yeah, brilliant. Thank you very much for explaining that in a very succinct and concise and understandable way.

I have a lot of meeting other indie podcasters like myself, who either will say, what is Podcasting 2.0? Never heard of it, or I've heard of it, but it just seems too big and scary and technical.

James Cridland: 00:15:19

Yeah. And I think that's because it can offer an awful lot of exciting things. Some of those things are hugely complicated to explain.

Some of those things are really easy to explain.

It's really easy to explain that for the first time, you can search for your name and you can find all of the shows where you have been a guest on, for example, or co hosted on, or you can find out who the producer of a show was. That's super easy.

That's super simple, because everybody understands credits, but not everybody understands some of the more wild and complicated things that Podcasting 2.0 will also do.

So from that point of view, I think it's important just to bring it down to the bare minimum, which is it just offers new and interesting things that new podcast apps can deal with.

Host: 00:16:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And just to be aware that those apps are there and for the podcaster itself, what their hosting company currently supports, which is where your other website comes in. Rather useful.

And I will be referring back to for people to go and find out what they need to find out, which is podcasting2.org but I will be explaining about that in the various episodes and the homeworks and things that I'm going to get people to do. But in the meantime, James, tell me how people can connect with you. Tell me how they can connect with Podnews.

James Cridland: 00:16:48

Yeah, so there's a free newsletter which comes out every day in your email, which is the best way of consuming it, and that you can get for free@podnews.net just sign up and we'll send that to you along with the other 32,000 people that we send it to every day. So that's the easiest way to get hold of me. And there's lots of contact information and everything else. It's all there@podnews.net Brilliant.

Host: 00:17:12

Thank you so much, James. This has been very enlightening.

James Cridland: 00:17:19

Well, thank you for asking.

Host: 00:17:21

Visit creativityfound.co.uk/podcasting to find out more about my guests and access lots of useful podcast resources. If you'd like to get in touch, you can send a boost, but if you haven't got to that lesson yet, feel free to reach out to me on my Instagram account.

Podcasting 2.0 in practice.