Listener Experience

A Podcast Listening App You Can Proudly Recommend

We know that the podcast listening experience matters. And we know the big podcast apps don’t seem to share that sentiment. It’s time for working podcasters like you to do something intentional about it.

August 19, 2021

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When I go to a new restaurant, I almost always ask my server for their recommendation rather than picking something that reads good from the menu. I figure I’d much rather take a recommendation from the person serving the food instead of taking my chances on the copywriting skills of whoever assembled the menu text.

Almost invariably, I get one of three answers:

“Oh, you know... everything is good!”, which is the same thing as a non-answer. I assume the people preparing the food in the back aren’t intentionally making bad food, so that’s not helping me narrow down my choices.

“Oh, see… I don't eat [X]”, where the subject might be meat, carbs, green things, or other various food avoidance peculiarities, either medically necessary, cultural-observing, or ethnically-minded. I respect your choices (or necessities), but I didn’t ask what you don’t eat.

“The salmon, definitely”, where salmon might be substituted with ribs, a club sandwich, or the mushroom risotto, depending on what is truly worthy of the recommendation.

The last is the only answer anyone wants. Yet it’s the one we rarely get. And yes, this is the part where you start wondering—again—what any of this has to do with podcasting.

Biggest ≠ Best

I don’t have to tell you how important it is for your podcast to be distributed everywhere people may choose to listen to podcasts. With very few exceptions, adding one more destination point for your podcast is a one-time action that is a simple form-submit away.

Yes, I think it’s important that your podcast be listed on Spotify even though you have strong feelings about how Spotify is trampling on podcasting as we know it.

Yes, I think it’s important you find a way to get your podcast on YouTube because that’s the most-cited place for podcast listening. And your podcast hosting stats will never show it.

And yes to Amazon, iHeart, and every other directory or app. If it’s a serious distribution point for podcasts, your show needs to be there.

But just because your show is there, you don’t have to listen there. And you certainly don’t have to remind people that your show is there.

Just like a good server at a restaurant, you should have an opinion on which apps someone should use to have a great experience with your show. Yes, they can listen anywhere on anything. But which one do you think is best?

Regime Change Begins At Home

The big podcasting apps don’t have your best interests in mind. To speak plainly, I don’t think they are putting podcasting’s best interests ahead of their own.

There’s plenty of evidence to back up that strangely contentious claim. Apple Podcasts continues to be a trainwreck as they stumble forward with an emphasis on paid subscriptions, even though the scuttlebutt is about increased workload and questionable results. Spotify continues to go down the exclusivity route, locking up podcasting as much as they can. Even new-ish entrant Amazon seems to be less interested in advancing podcasting and more interested in taking their slice of the ad revenue pie.

None of those actions say “we have podcasting’s best interest in mind”, do they?

Yet many podcasters continue to pay fealty to these and other big players. On the surface, that seems to make sense, and we pat ourselves on the back for emulating the experience most of our listeners have.

But that’s wrong for a lot of reasons. Part of it has to do with momentum—change is hard—and some stems from misleading data that isn’t critically reported as such by our podcast hosting companies. And it’s wrong because the actual listening experience on those apps is getting demonstrably worse, not better.

So let’s return to our hypothetically helpful restaurant server who doesn’t waver when we ask for their recommendation. That’s the position you need to be in. You’re going to have to leave your comfort zone and put yourself in a listener’s shoes for a bit. Specifically by trying out some new podcast apps.

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Your Assignment: Taste Testing

You need to find an app you can proudly recommend. Maybe you already have one. If you’ve made that selection recently, then good for you. But if not, then it’s time you looked around again.

It took me a long time to move away from Apple Podcasts. I still have the app, and I still follow all of my clients’ podcasts in the app. Because yes, it is important for me to understand that listener experience, degrading as it is. But it doesn’t mean I’m personally stuck with it. Neither are you.

You and I, working podcasters, need to be bold in our recommendations. We can afford to be bold because, as mentioned earlier, we’re smart enough to make sure our podcast episodes are distributed everywhere. That’s our safety net. It means there’s no risk for us to try out something different.

So that’s your homework: try out a few new—at least new to you—listening apps. I’m going to focus my time on the apps listed at NewPodcastApps.com. That's where all of the new, fresh, and wild thinking about podcasting—particularly making podcasting better for listeners and creators—is taking place.

One caveat as you begin your search, and I’m saying this as much for my benefit as yours: keep an open mind, and don’t measure these new apps by their ability to replicate the exact same experience you have with your current app.

Instead, try to adjust your thinking to the way the app was designed. If you’re anything like me, you’ve developed a host of shortcuts and workarounds to get the app your using right now to perform the way you want it to. Try—and I know it’s hard—to put that aside for a bit and let the app does what it was designed to do. And if you hate it, move on to the next!

I’ve a list of “must-haves” for podcast listening apps that none of them are doing right now. No, not even the big ones. My old process of waiting for them to fix it and then griping when they don’t doesn’t seem to be working, so I’m changing tactics. I'm going to find an app that gets close to my lofty expectations, and then I’m going to see how open the developers are to implementing solid changes. There are lots of unknowns about this approach, but it’s a step I’m taking.

YMMV, and you may have less time to fill out support tickets and plead your case. Truth be told, I’m a terrible beta user, mostly because I’m impatient. But I recognize I have a big blind spot when it comes to podcast listening apps. Time for me to fix that. I hope you’ll take this opportunity to do so as well.

Because if we're serious about making podcasting better, then we need to have an informed opinion on what makes for a great listening experience. Listen to it wherever you want should be our fallback, not our opening offer. We can do better.

If you’re intrigued by this idea and you wish to return some of the value I just gave to you, then please go to BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra and buy me a virtual coffee. Or better yet use one of those newfangled Satoshi-powered listening apps which are all set up for value for value. And gimmie a boost!

Happy app hunting! I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra. He’s on a mission to make podcasting better. Allie Press proofed the copy, corrected the transcript, and edited the video. Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.

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We know that the podcast listening experience matters. We also know the big podcast apps don't seem to share that sentiment. It's time for working podcasters like you and me to do something intentional about it.

[Sponsor message]

Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

When I go to a new restaurant, I almost always ask my server for their recommendation rather than reading the entire menu. Most of the time, I get one of three answers. First one, "Oh, you know, everything is good." Not helpful. Why would you put not good things on the menu? I understand that. Not helpful.

Or they will say, "Oh, see, I don't eat X" - whether that's meat or pasta or carbs or green things. Also not very helpful. There's an entire section of the menu you're not helping me with.

Or the third answer is, "Try the salmon." Or whatever else. Definitely. That's the one.

Now, the only right answer out of those three clearly is the last one. This is the part where you say, "Great, Evo. Now we understand your eating habits. What does this have to do with podcasting?"

Allow me to elucidate that for you. Look, I know that you're smart enough to put your podcast episodes everywhere someone might want to listen. We do that, right? Yes, that includes Spotify, even if you don't care for Spotify's politics and privacy issues. I get it, but people listen over there. That also includes YouTube because we know, we've been told, a ton of podcast discovery, maybe not listening, but a lot of podcast discovery happens on YouTube. We need to be there as well.

But you don't have to be agnostic like that server when it comes to what app you prefer, you recommend people utilize to enjoy your show. Just like that server above, I think you, as a podcaster, should have an opinion on which app someone should use, which are the best ones. Because I think really that regime change begins at home, to borrow a phrase.

Look, Apple continues to fumble the ball with Apple Podcasts. And reports are that the big bet they're making on paid-for subscriptions is causing significantly more work for a lot of podcasters than many podcasters want. If you're making money with Apple Podcasts subscriptions, good on you. But if you're not? Hmm.

Spotify continues to go down the exclusivity route, locking up creators, locking up podcasts, and being very, well, Spotify about this whole thing. Much as many people did fear would happen is exactly what is happening with Spotify.

Amazon was the big hope for some. Me particularly, I was thinking they might really be able to be one more big presence into podcasting. But as the last reports I read, Amazon's really only in this to get their share of the advertising revenue. So I don't know how much they're going to be forwarding podcasting all over.

And yet, we podcasters continue to pimp the big players, at least the first two I mentioned. We do that largely in part because we're told that's where people are most likely going to be listening to your show. But that's a false assumption. As I've talked about before, and as you've read before, auto-downloads are skewing the numbers that you and I see, causing us to confuse downloads with actual listens.

So let's put our minds back into the - or put our bodies into the shoes, if you will, of that mythical restaurant server once again. Only we are the server. We are the waiter, the waitress, the person taking the order, whatever you want to call us. That's our job. We're the podcaster, and even though the listener didn't say it exclusively or explicitly, they're asking us for a recommendation. We are the ones that need to provide a recommendation to people.

So here's your homework, here's my homework. And that is find a new listening app that you can proudly recommend. If you're already using one of the big apps, I'm suggesting you move away from them. It took me a long time to move away. My argument in my brain was, well, most people listen on this, so I need to understand that experience. I now realize that's wrong. I realize that's wrong. There's not a lot we can do about that. So what I've decided to do is shift away, break the dependency on the big purple app and go to something else. And that's what I want you to do as well.

Keep in mind, you and I are going to continue to make our podcast available on every single platform. That is super key and important. But what I want you to do this weekend, and the same thing I'm going to do this weekend, is spend time trying out some new podcast listening apps. We're going to start there.

My focus is going to be on the new apps available at newpodcastapps.com. That's where all of the new and fresh and wild thinking around podcasting and how we can extend podcasting is taking place, super smart people who are looking to advance podcasting. That's where I'm focusing my efforts. You might do something else.

But I would suggest that you resist the temptation, while you're doing your search, and when you start finding things, resist the temptation to look for an app that does exactly what your current listening app does today. That's trying to find a replacement for what's happening right now, and you're probably missing some of the other cool things that are happening.

Take it from me, I've got some very strict requirements on what I expect apps to do, and none of them really do it very well. My old process was wait, gripe about it, and hope it would eventually get better. But then that's not going to happen. So instead what I'm going to be doing is find an app that I think I can work with. And I'm going to make my case and chat up the developers to see if I can get the app to improve. I'm not doing that because I have some special powers. I'm a user. I'm going to be using it. I want you to use it. And I want you to find out where the flaws are in the process and figure out what's going to work.

We've got to be open to trying new things, trying a different way to do things. I think this is an important step for us to take to get away from the bigs, to really get back into what it means to listen to our show and what kind of experience we can give. And are we recommending the things that will give them the best experience, or are we saying, "Listen wherever you get your podcasts."

I really do think this regime change to get people to shift begins with us, the power users, the creators. If we're serious about making podcasting better, I think we need to have at least an opinion on what makes for a great listening experience. And listen wherever you want isn't that opinion we need. We need an opinion. We need to be able to share proudly and recommend that opinion.

Well, now what Evo? We found the thing, what am I supposed to do? Well, we'll talk more about that in future episodes. But right now, go find a new app. Spend the next three days seeing if you can find a new app.

Now, if you think that's a good idea, and you want to return some of the value I just gave to you, then please go to BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra and buy me a coffee.

Or better yet, use one of those fancy new-fangled Satoshi-powered apps. What's a Satoshi-powered app, you might say? Well, they're out there. And that's what I'm gonna be playing with this weekend. And if you've got one right now, give me a boost!

With that, I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra. He's on a mission to make podcasting better. Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes section of your podcast listening app. A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected transcript, both created by Allie Press. Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media. Find out more at Simpler.Media.

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