[…] being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.

What podcasting holds in the promise of its open format is the proof that an open web can still thrive and be relevant, that it can inspire new systems that are similarly open to take root and grow.

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[–] victorz@lemmy.world 52 points 9 months ago (18 children)

Could someone explain to me (I'm a developer so use whatever terms you like, maybe), how does the massive amount of podcasts reach the world? Say if I wanted to make a podcast app (I don't, I love Pocket Casts), where would I sync the massive list'o'casts? Does it work like that? Or do you scrape the entire internet? What is happening?

[–] s0ckpuppet@kbin.social 85 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It's done via RSS feeds that the podcast creators then submit to aggregators. Then apps pull that information down from said aggregators. This website explains the gist of it.

https://rss.com/blog/how-to-create-an-rss-feed-for-a-podcast/

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So how do the aggregators sync with each other to get all the podcasts? Or is it up to the podcast to "post" to all the aggregators?

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The aggregators don’t sync with each other. The podcast creators upload the new show to each aggregator (or use an app that uploads to multiple).

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Okay cool, that I think explains everything I've wondered about this topic lol. Awesome, thank you!

[–] NightAuthor@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And they don’t even have to go through an aggregator, it’s just for ease of use and discovery, pretty much every app will let you put in an rss feed url, so podcast could be self hosted only reliant on having an internet connection… well, hell…. Only reliant on having a shared network connection with your target audience

[–] capital@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The one paid podcast I pay for does this.

You pay on their site and then you get a personal RSS URL to put in your catcher.

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