The biggest thing missing for me getting started is a reddit-like "feed" showing where discussion is actually happening. Like the reddit logged-out homepage (/best, not /new).
The value of Podbabble is the intersection of podcast episodes that 1) people are talking about and 2) I have listened to. Right now the only way for me to find that intersection is to start from (2), searching for every podcast I can think of, looking at several of the latest episodes and seeing there's no comments. It would be great to start from (1), so I can see right away which episodes people are discussing and see which ones might be relevant to me.
Also, it seems like the only way to add a podcast to "my podcasts" is with an RSS feed link? Not from a link on the podcast's page I searched for? I'm unsure on what the desired setup workflow is.
100% this ^. I listen podcasts daily, am interested in discovering new ones, and do not create any podcasts. Looking at the home page I'm not sure how to find any content. Definitely not interested in creating an account just to see what's there.
I recommend reading Reddit's origin story. There needs to be interesting content to get the first users to create content.
Maybe the goal is to sell podcasters and get them to bring their audience? Even then I think you need a good home page experience to hook those listeners.
Why would anyone want to recreate Reddit? Discovery can be its own app that is very good at recommending podcasts. This can be for discussions, like how forums used to be.
Keep them separate, because the world needs to get back to what we had with forums where people interested in subjects sought ought a place to discuss them. Back then actual discussions happened and the entire world wasn’t a giant flamewar.
I like that I can read a comment for a podcast I've never heard of before and jump into the exact timestamp being discussed with a single click. I also like that I can read comments without logging in, so I can judge the quality of the discussion before deciding to sign up.
Things that could be improved: the site is a bit slow and I got at least one broken image - I imagine it is getting HN'd right now, though, so I'll check again later. I also agree with the main page being unfriendly - if it weren't for the side bar, I would have probably never tried it. I also wanted to go to a show's full list of discussions, but I didn't find a way.
$29/mo seems high for the vast majority of podcasts, which are labors of love run on shoestring budgets. Of course, it's peanuts for the high traffic sites. Did you consider a Dropbox-like pricing model, e.g., free for low-traffic sites?
Especially if podcasters will bring their audience a free tier can boost growth. Then charge for power tools. Find the things that professional podcasters need that amateur podcasters don't and charge for those.
Promising once it has a volume of users. At first though, I imagine it would attract relatively new podcasts that don't yet have established communities.
That said, until it reaches some critical mass which adds value to creators in terms of discovery and community, asking small time creators to fork out 360USD per year is quite a big ask.
> …asking small time creators to fork out 360USD per year is quite a big ask.
Especially given that (1) podcasters would be the primary driver of users to this service, and (2) podcasters will also be doing all the moderation work.
I think the host sign-up flow is a bit odd. I can enter any podcast name and have that trigger an email to the authors of that podcast (multiple times? I hope not).
Seems like it would make more sense that an author could create an account on the site and then link podcasts to it. Triggering an email to podcast authors because I selected their podcast in a drop down feels a bit spammy.
Site QC: I clicked on the Twitter link in the footer. It references podbabble1, an account that doesn't exist. https://twitter.com/podbabble exists though.
I love the idea and monetization model, trawling through the rest of a subreddit to find the thread for a recent episode can be tedious.
Congrats on the launch, I have a couple of questions. Is it only for discussions around recent episodes? Or is it just that the specific podcasts i've searched for don't list all episodes?
It really depends on the podcast. We run it of the podcast's RSS feed, some of which include the entire archive, some just a number of recent episodes. Some podcast players create their own archive to patch this which is something we might need to do as well.
Readit News
The value of Podbabble is the intersection of podcast episodes that 1) people are talking about and 2) I have listened to. Right now the only way for me to find that intersection is to start from (2), searching for every podcast I can think of, looking at several of the latest episodes and seeing there's no comments. It would be great to start from (1), so I can see right away which episodes people are discussing and see which ones might be relevant to me.
Also, it seems like the only way to add a podcast to "my podcasts" is with an RSS feed link? Not from a link on the podcast's page I searched for? I'm unsure on what the desired setup workflow is.
I recommend reading Reddit's origin story. There needs to be interesting content to get the first users to create content.
Maybe the goal is to sell podcasters and get them to bring their audience? Even then I think you need a good home page experience to hook those listeners.
Keep them separate, because the world needs to get back to what we had with forums where people interested in subjects sought ought a place to discuss them. Back then actual discussions happened and the entire world wasn’t a giant flamewar.
Things that could be improved: the site is a bit slow and I got at least one broken image - I imagine it is getting HN'd right now, though, so I'll check again later. I also agree with the main page being unfriendly - if it weren't for the side bar, I would have probably never tried it. I also wanted to go to a show's full list of discussions, but I didn't find a way.
Overall I like it.
That said, until it reaches some critical mass which adds value to creators in terms of discovery and community, asking small time creators to fork out 360USD per year is quite a big ask.
Especially given that (1) podcasters would be the primary driver of users to this service, and (2) podcasters will also be doing all the moderation work.
Seems like it would make more sense that an author could create an account on the site and then link podcasts to it. Triggering an email to podcast authors because I selected their podcast in a drop down feels a bit spammy.
Congrats on the launch, I have a couple of questions. Is it only for discussions around recent episodes? Or is it just that the specific podcasts i've searched for don't list all episodes?