Hey PH,
I'm Danny, I'm the founder of Echo. I built Echo because I wanted a better sense of what podcasts my friends were listening to, what recommendations they had, and a convenient place to chat about these podcasts.
I find listening to podcasts to be a very solo endeavour. It’s me, my headphones and the awesome world the podcast host has created. I'm trying to add my friends to that group as well.
Echo is me, my Facebook friends and some beta users. I've been building (developed the iOS, Android versions) over the last 9 months and been iterating over user's feedback and believe it's time to invite others into the community.
A couple of the cool features:
- You can easily import your podcasts from Apple Podcasts or an OPML file to build your podcast profile.
- You can see a list of podcasts every friend in the app is listening to. (This is one of the most popular screens)
- You can "echo" out a podcast (and add some text for context) to tell your friends which episode from a podcast is great and they should check out.
- You can search by podcast or by episode. I've found the episodic search quite fun because you can search for ex) Malcolm Gladwell and get every podcast interview he has done.
- There is a similar podcast button on the podcast screen that finds you similar podcasts to the podcast you are currently viewing.
Edit: Hey peeps, just an FYI, we hit iTunes Search API limit today. working on a fix, but the search screen doesn't work as planned atm. Should be working shortly.
I really like the ability to see podcasts that your friends recommend. Are there any plans to add the ability to listen to podcasts within the app? If I could listen AND see the feed, that would be killer.
@dhomann I prioritized building the community side first because my vision was that no matter what podcast player you use, it would be good to have a place to talk and share the best episodes with your friends.
I'm curious are you an iOS or Android user? I say that because on iOS it will deep link into the Apple podcast app so its pretty easy to play a podcast you find (It's not easy to do that on Android as there is no default podcast player) But curious to know if you want to find a replacement for a podcast player or want a easier way to play an episode you find on Echo.
@dhomann@dmathewwws I would want a replacement podcast player because if I wanted to recommend an episode or comment on one for a friend I'd want to do it as I'm listening or right when it s done. (so I won't have to remember to jump to another app.)
@dmathewwws I'm an Android user. Also, I want to be able to both play AND recommend directly from the app. I am less likely to go to the app if I then have to leave to go listen to the episode. If you can get the ability to play podcasts within the app though (easier said than done I am sure), then this would be amazing.
Hi Daniel!
Thanks a lot for your app. Love your "community centric" approach for podcast lovers!
I loved listening podcasts and discovering new ones from very famous podcasters to small and specialized.
Do you plan to build a functionality to make the support from listeners to the maker as easy as possible? I think it is still a big issue today and your app my deal with it.
@vincent_monet Thanks for the kind words. Do mean monetary support? I would love to help podcast host earn more so that they continue making great content.
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