@erikclundberg@jcbator this looks interesting! Was chatting with Erik about this a few months back, but the app has more functionality than I was expecting. Podcast discovery is definitely a problem so I'm on board with the idea behind it. How do you plan on attracting podcasters to use/endorse/recommend your app to their listeners vs others like Overcast.fm ?
@joshmuccio Hi Josh, thanks for your interest! We think a tighter knit podcast community is going to serve both creators and listeners far better than the current RSS tech. These are our initial thoughts: As a listener, I wish I could stay engaged with the shows I follow between episodes. If podcasters had a dedicated space to post previews, soundbites, and their own recommendations then I imagine we would see an increase in dedicated listeners even between episode releases. Also, we can help podcasters learn about their audience because we’re a full-stack podcasting platform as opposed to another podcatcher. As a creator yourself, we would love to hear what else you think is missing from podcasting tech. How can we help make your life easier as a podcaster?
I’d like to piggy back off of Joe’s question by giving a quick intro to Fireside.
We here at Fireside are huge podcast fans, and this app was born out of our frustration with attempting to share our favorite shows. It seemed impossible to convince a friend to subscribe to a podcast even if we knew they would love it. So we thought we could make a simpler, more enjoyable way to share and discover podcasts.
With Fireside, you can share soundbites of the best shows as you listen, and you can also recommend your favorite episodes to your friends and followers. We can’t wait to hear what moments you decide to share, and as always, we love hearing what shows are piquing your interest (two of our favorites are Radiolab and Startup). For those of you who already listen to podcasts, post some of your favorites below to help podcasting newcomers find a good place to start.
Thanks for checking out Fireside - we hope you enjoy it. Post any questions you have and we’ll get right back to you!
@jcbator cool stuff. I'm a dedicated podcast listener and would love to share clips with friends. I think I would totally start using your app everyday if I could do 1.5x and 2x listening and you had the podcasts I want to share. Search in the podcast list and a fuller inventory would really help for that (I've already requested a couple like a16z). How do you think about your target market? Seems like there's a small # of dedicated listeners and a huge # of ppl who've never subscribed to a podcast. Which do you optimize for? Also, is there any way to bootstrap your app off of Apple's Podcast app? I seem to recall some music Apis expose the podcasts I currently have downloaded. Keep up the great work!
@jfilcik Thanks a ton for the feedback! Glad to hear you're interested. You're absolutely right that the catalogue of shows is limited at the moment, but thanks for requesting the ones you'd like to hear (they're being added as we speak). Ramping up the catalogue is a top priority, and we think crowdsourcing the shows is the quickest way to build it out. We weren't planning on including the faster speeds, but it seems like people really do appreciate saving time when they listen. I'll look into it to see how well it will mesh with the soundbite recording! The goal with Fireside is to provide a slick experience that can be useful for power listeners and newcomers alike. We would love to expand the listener community by having a simple way to start enjoying shows, but we also don't want to bore our power users. To keep this balance, we have a ton of cool features that we're building out to help power users get the most out of the experience, but we'll do our best to maintain a clean, intuitive interface. Stay tuned for some cool new things we're building in :-). As far as tying into the Apple app, I'm definitely in favor of helping people make a smooth transition to Fireside. However, Fireside isn't built on the old RSS tech, so at the moment there isn't a good way to import or share episodes between the two. I'll keep you posted if we find a better way to integrate the two. Thanks again for your thoughts, and feel free to reach out anytime. I would love to be able to build something you truly enjoy, and your feedback helps a ton!
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