Search for ‘Podcast Index’

By way of comparison, there are 125,268 video podcasts using open RSS, looking through the Podcast Index data. And 14 billion videos on YouTube.

These figures were calculated from Podcast Index data in August, using the dates for the first and last episodes in the feed. Some podcast hosting companies delete free accounts when the free trial ends, so they’ll not appear on this data. The top 5 companies with new shows in January this year were Spotify for Creators, RSS, Buzzsprout, Spreaker and Acast: who between them attracted 60% of new shows in that month.

The company says that over 650,000 podcast episodes have had a comment since July. There were 44mn new episodes published between Jul 7 and Oct 24 (says the Podcast Index); which suggests that 1.5% of new episodes have attracted a comment.

Listen Notes suggests that July saw the lowest number of “new podcasts” this year - more than 60% lower year-on-year. Technically, the number refers to “new feeds”; many new podcasts have been launched on defunct feeds for shows that have ceased. There is a decline in production of new podcast episodes: that’s only down 6% year-on-year according to the Podcast Index (see the tech stuff last month).

Want to use the Podcast Index to watch for new episodes? Here’s how (from the Podcasting 2.0 podcast this week):

PodLP has migrated to use The Podcast Index, rather than its own scrapers and tools. “Four years after launch, maintaining an affordable, up-to-date index without inadvertently dropping podcasts, displaying duplicates, or going out-of-sync has proven challenging.” It means the popular flip-phone podcast app now has more than 4mn shows available.

How many active podcasts are there? As above, there are 322,004 (defined as any feed with at least one episode over the last 30 days). Podnews has kept daily data from The Podcast Index over the last 18 months (JSON), and while that number has decreased year-on-year, it hasn’t decreased by much. Interesting to note both the low-point (the end of the Christmas holidays) and the high-point (mid-March for some reason).

There was a new podcast episode posted every 0.8 seconds last month, according to the Podcast Index (visualised by the Podcast Business Journal). However, the number of active podcasts (updated in the last 30 days) dropped by 10,000 last month, to 332,511.

The Podcast Index’s Dave Jones has important information about chickens.

Pinepods is a complete podcast management system and allows you to play, download, and keep track of podcasts you (or any of your users) enjoy. The dockerized system is written in Rust, and uses the Podcast Index.

The number of active podcasts - those updated in the last 30 days - has been relatively steady since early March, suggests data from The Podcast Index.

We’re now rate-limiting our podcast pages after significant, sustained crawling from IP addresses belonging to Microsoft. You (and they) can download a complete podcast database from the Podcast Index; extra costs for us have been well over $750. Anyone got Bill’s address?

How many podcasts make it to 5 or more episodes? Only half of them, says data from the Podcast Index.

What new podcast features are creators using? Our sister publication the Podcast Business Journal now has updated numbers from Podcast Index. Over 30,000 podcasts have “super-chapters”, the more detailed chapter format that Pocket Casts has just rolled out support for.

The host of The R-Podcast, Eric Nantz, has used the R statistics software package to produce the Podcast Index Database Dashboard. The tool is built to spot duplicates in the data, and other data issues.

The Podcasting 2.0 show regularly receives boostagrams and donations to help run the Podcast Index. In total over the last few years, Chad Farrow calculates it has earned $70,319 in donations, plus a further $38,400 in micropayments.

The Podcast Index API now has a “top recommended” list for podcasts, using the podroll feature. We wouldn’t mind it if you added Podnews Daily to your podroll, if your podcast host supports it (like Buzzsprout).

There's a new endpoint to the Podcast Index API to allow developers to get value timesplits by episode. Here's a typical result from Boostagram Ball.

Should we worry? Well - a) Listen Notes data appears to also suggest that the number of new episodes could be higher in 2023 than 2022, so the amount of podcast episodes being created isn't in decline; b) we've spotted a large number of new podcasts being launched in existing podcast feeds - a new podcast taking the place of a dead one won't appear as a "new" podcast in any data; c) Podcast Index reports that the number of "active" podcasts seems to be bouncing back upwards; and d) podcast consumption appears to be increasing in every country with comparable figures.

The Podcasting 2.0 Music Top 100 is new data from the Podcast Index, showing the most boosted songs played in music podcasts. (We covered it at the beginning of September; it's now updates hourly).

The Podcast Index has released the Podcasting 2.0 Music Top 100, a list of songs played in podcasts and their earnings. The top track by Corey Keller earnt $171 during the measured period.

For a time yesterday, Substack was blocking popular podcast app Overcast, and the Podcast Index, from accessing shows hosted on the platform. The shows are hosted using the Cloudflare CDN - "Do not host podcast feeds behind Cloudflare", says Overcast's developer Marco Arment, before explaining what settings to use if you do.

Dave Jones has also launched a new API endpoint for the Podcast Index - /api/1.0/value/byepisodeguid. It's not, yet, in the API documentation.

Adam won't be playing Tiësto or Golden Earring though - not yet. The only songs played are those submitted to services like Wavlake or submitted directly to the Podcast Index, with artist payment details.

The Podcast Index spends around $620 a month on hosting fees for virtual machines, said Dave Jones in Podcasting 2.0 last Friday.

Podfans is now listed on the Podcast Index and our new podcast apps page; it's the only podcast player that supports all the new podcast namespace features. You can join the waitlist on the website.

RAIN reports that the number of new podcasts launched in June was the lowest in twelve months, according to ListenNotes. Our active podcast trend graph, sourced from Podcast Index, shows a fall for active podcasts, by about 10% since March.

In May 2018, Apple Podcasts requested that all podcast feeds should be secure, and that in future a secure feed would be required for analytics and to submit new podcasts. It's still not a requirement - but as of today, data from the Podcast Index suggests just 3.8% of the 4.1mn shows available are not served using a secure feed. In 2018, that figure was 83%! (Here's why a secure feed is important.)

Thank you to Podfans for becoming our latest supporter. Podfans is supporting us by giving 1% of all podcast support to Podnews (and a further 1% to the Podcast Index): currently in closed alpha, it is a new podcast platform allowing you to discover new shows, listen, and earn revenue. You, too, can support us here.

Podcastdata.org is a new data website allowing anyone to query Podcast Index data and produce pretty graphs from it. Here, for example, is the average episode length of all podcasts by different languages - shows in Hindi and Chinese are the shortest, while shows in Serbian and Bulgarian are, on average, five times longer.

A new podcast data website has been launched. "This will allow users to query the Podcast Index in a user friendly way, with extra data that we computed," says the website owner, Benjamin Bellamy. The initial beta focuses on French-speaking podcasts.

Podcast analytics company Backtracks is to close. An email to customers gives three weeks notice. In spite of significant email marketing, the Podcast Index showed that just 191 podcasts were using Backtracks as a podcast hosting platform in February, and 253 podcasts using the company's prefix URL. The company had raised $3.7m of funding.

We reported on Edison Research's "batting average" data a few weeks ago, suggesting that true crime is "the genre that yields the highest chance for a hit". Curious, we compared the top 200 list with all 4.05mn podcasts in the Podcast Index, rather than Edison's own comparison with 20,000 shows, just to see if it made a difference. It didn't: the top 5 genres remained unchanged.

Cross-app comments are now available on the Podcast Index website. (Podnews Daily supports them, but we see few comments… yet, anyway)

Over the last 90 days, podcasters have received at least $35,548 in "value4value" streaming sats and boosts. Here are the stats for the Value4Value podcasting ecosystem, as visible to the Podcast Index.

Over the past 90 days, at least $25,778.46 has been paid out to podcasters using streaming sats and boosts. This data is available on a new stats page from the Podcast Index.

The Podcast Index website now shows cross-app comments for individual podcast episodes, where that has been enabled by the podcaster. The Podcasting 2.0 podcast is a good place to see them.

One of the original podcasts, Trade Secrets with Dave Winer and Adam Curry, has returned to podcast apps. The podcast ran from Sept 2004 to Jan 2005, and includes discussions about the name "podcasting", iPodder, the open nature of the medium, and old-fashioned cellphones. With the permission of both Dave and Adam, to preserve our history we've given it a modern RSS feed, so you can listen in your own podcast app. (It's also available in any new podcast app that uses the Podcast Index).

Podtrics, a podcast hosting company, is to close. Owner Marc Beinder gives no reason for the closure, which will happen on Feb 28. It was launched in February last year, though by October it was only making $200 in monthly recurring revenue. The Podcast Index lists just two shows hosted by the company, and our sample has just one.

Dave Jones has added a new Podcast Index API output of feed and episode value blocks.

Cross-app comments is coming to the Podcast Index website, if you'd like to help.

While we did the above, we also added Podcast Index as a 1% split.

Spotify reckons it now has 5,523,475 podcasts, according to an app notification on Jan 13; the Podcast Index is on 4,113,645; and Apple is on 2,528,530 suggests Podcast Industry Insights.

podcast4j is an open source full implemented Java client for the Podcast Index.

In the Podcast Index API, the /search/byterm endpoint now returns the pubdate of the most recent <item> in the response.

The last Podnews Weekly Review for this year is an epic - more than two hours, including interviews with Barometer, Oxford Road, the Podcast Index and Ad Aures, and 2023 predictions and 2022 highlights from 12 different podcast folk. Sponsored by Buzzsprout, it's available now.

Podindexr is "an R package providing a tidy interface to the Podcast Index database API".

John Spurlock is showing, and graphing, Podcast Index statistics. (We're taking some data from this below.)

New today - weekly podcast stats from the Podcast Index, to help us all spot trends in production. Find them in the new "Podcast Data" section below (which would make a fine sponsorship for someone)

The service only works for shows hosted with Anchor, for playback within Spotify. Open video podcasts using RSS work across many other platforms including Apple Podcasts; Podnews analysis of the Podcast Index suggests there are now 53,952 video podcast shows on RSS, up 38% year-on-year.

Adam Curry and Dave Jones are on the last ever Podland News this week, looking back at the last two years of the Podcast Index and Podcasting 2.0. It's a long interview, but worth it; and you'll also find out what's next for this weekly review show.

Sounder has announced it is to close its podcast hosting platform, as it focuses on brand safety and contextual targeting. There are currently 5,425 podcasts hosted on Sounder, according to the Podcast Index. The company is moving "many of our largest creators" to Spreaker; Co-host is offering 6 months free (go here).

The Podcast Index now has a "only search shows in Apple" parameter.

Alby has been accused of copying "almost word-for-word" an article from Fountain. Fountain's Oscar Merry spotted the similarities in the Podcast Index social board; Alby's Michael Bumann has taken the page down, and claims he "did not do the required review".

The dump of Podcast Index data, to be found at the bottom of the Podcast Index website, now has newestEnclosureDuration as a new field. This shows the duration of the latest audio file, in seconds.

Alby has launched an analytics website for Value 4 Value, the podcast funding method from the Podcast Index. The website, called SATurn, gives a full view of payments made on the Value 4 Value system and interfaces with your Alby wallet. It's free to use, and includes a live feed much like Helipad.

Adam Curry, the "podfather", spoke with Dave Jones at Podcast Movement 2022, explaining the history of open podcasting, the Podcast Index and the features available with the new podcast namespace.

The Podcast Index has more than 4.1m podcasts in it - but aren't many of them abandoned shows not listed in other directories? No - there's an automated removal process from their database. "90 days after birth, the podcast has to have at least 2 episodes, one of which is longer than 3 minutes. This criteria only applies to the free hosting platforms."

The team at the Podcast Index have worked on a proposal for the podcast:verify tag, which would remove email addresses from RSS feeds, and instead use a simple one-click claiming process. It uses a simple token system, letting podcast hosting companies understand which services people are using, and avoiding the near-25% dropoff from email verification. It's built to be simple to implement, and great for privacy. If you work for a podcast hosting company, or a service like a directory or tool, they would appreciate your feedback on the proposal.

The July 19 dump of data from The Podcast Index now includes descriptions and categories. 369,000 shows have no description at all; most podcasts have about 22 characters; and only 44,000 have descriptions of more than a thousand characters. Apple doesn't search your podcast description field; but Spotify, Overcast, Google and most others do; so we'd recommend putting more in there if you want your podcast found.

The Podcast Index's weekly data dump will shortly contain categories and podcast descriptions (up to a character limit).

The number of open video podcasts are on the rise. In November last year, Podcast Index listed 39,194 video podcasts. As of June this year, Podnews can reveal the number had grown by over a quarter to 50,863. We measured these by looking for enclosure files with the extension mov, mp4 or m4v, the three filetypes Apple Podcasts supports. Apple has recently put video podcasts in the spotlight again; Spotify launched its own proprietary video podcasts tool in April (which we can't measure).

Curious how they sound? Listen to Podland this week for an interview with Dave Jones from the Podcast Index, and some ads automatically inserted by Buzzsprout Ads.

In Podland News this week, Sam interviews Dave Jones from the Podcast Index, with an update on the work that Podcasting 2.0 is doing.

"The former UFC commentator" is no longer the #1 person in the news according to the Podnews Ranker for the last 90 days; he's dropped to #7, being replaced by Sounds Profitable's newest partner, with a member of the Podcast Index at #2. The top five most covered companies were unchanged. Our mentions of women in the industry dropped slightly to 35% of the total.

Lightning addresses - like james@getalby.com - are an easier way to send cryptocurrency. (That's our Editor's). The Podcast Index is looking into how to support them.

Dave Jones published usage metrics for the Podcast Index over the last 30 days.

The Podcast Index have produced an "episode by GUID" endpoint. It uses episode GUIDs as set in the RSS feed. /episodes/byguid?guid=PC2083&feedid=920666 is an example. Documentation on the way, they say.

Dave Jones from the Podcast Index has posted about WebSub, and why "it doesn't scale well". The Podcast Index is using a system called PodPing, which it prefers.

The Podcast Index has merch now.

Cross-app comments were demonstrated by The Podcast Index running in both Podverse and Podfriend. (Would comments be useful for Podnews? We'd be interested in trying to code comments for our web version.)

The Podcast Index's value-for-value streaming sats service has achieved a bLIP. Similar to an RFC, it is a design document describing the format of payments made over the lightning network while listening to a podcast.

Podcast Index added 466,000 shows in the past six months. It added 3.1m this year, but that's not that surprising, given the index launched in September 2020. Unlike the above two, shows are mainly added automatically: either discovered from open RSS feeds or submitted by podcasters or others.

Listen to us using some new podcasting apps, like Fountain, and you can tip us small amounts of Bitcoin while sending us a message. These are called boostagrams - thanks to Dave, talking about Spotify's new Pod City that "Everybody’s building a podcast studio! Not sure what to make of that. 🧐"; and to Adam, who thanked us for including a donation link for the Podcast Index last week. Here's how to enable your podcast; and some new podcast apps to try.

The Podcast Index is "breaking even", but costs are around $1,200 per month. Open standards and an open directory are for life, not just for Christmas: you can donate here.

When does a "lifetime account" only last nine months? When it's a lifetime account with podcast hosting company bCast. The service, which currently hosts 630 shows in the Podcast Index, has been accused by users of being a scam. After selling "lifetime accounts" on AppSumo earlier this year, bCast has announced that all lifetime accounts will expire in just two weeks. The TrustPilot reviews (which bCast still links to from its front page) are scathing.

Do Anchor podcasters find it too hard to get into Apple Podcasts? The Podcast Index's Dave Jones reports that "726,234 Anchor feeds in the index do not have Apple iTunes IDs". The company stopped auto-submitting podcasts to Apple in June, resulting in a significant slow-down for Apple numbers. (Earlier this year, Buzzsprout told us that only 60% of their shows have bothered submitting to Apple).

Umbrel has been updated to v0.4.9; Helipad is due to be released this week by Dave Jones of the Podcast Index. The tool will show boosts and boostagrams in real time.

In Podcasting 2.0, Adam and Dave discuss the week's developments at the Podcast Index with Castamatic developer Franco Soleri - including deep thoughts on Docker Dumpster Fires and Podcast Player Audio Processing.

Castamatic is the latest podcast app to include support for the Podcast Index and value4value. It features a "machine-learning auto-leveler", a silent-skipper, and additional features.

Podcast Guru, one of the top-rated podcast players for Android, is now available on iOS. It includes integration with Podchaser and supports the Podcast Index.

The Podcast Index team has been working on cross-app comments, allowing podcast listeners to comment on podcast episodes, and view others' comments, across a number of different apps. The tool uses open, non-centralised technologies. You can join in the conversation on their Mastodon website.

Twitter has confirmed that it is working on a tipping process using Bitcoin and the lightning network. This is of interest for podcasters because it uses the same technology as value4value listening, including 'boosts'. "If every Twitter user has a lightning wallet, the listener onboarding problem gets solved overnight," said Podcast Index's Dave Jones.

A new podcast app, Podopolo, has launched on iOS and Android. It promises "a New World of Interactive Podcasting". It uses the Podcast Index as a directory, and supports the credits tag in the namespace.

Anchor now has more than 1.7m RSS feeds in the Podcast Index (1,711,303). 244,642 have updated in the last 90 days (14.2%).

It's time to hang up the egos and move beyond IP addresses, says Dave Jones, writing on The Podcast Index's blog. The post highlights a new way to get better podcast analytics, using a "ULID" URL parameter, and listen stats.

According to the Podcast Index, only 5.8% of podcasts currently don't have a valid website link. They'll still work in Google Podcasts - they just won't be recommended.

Yesterday, Podnews reported at least 1,000 paid shows in Apple Podcasts. Overnight, the Podcast Index reports that there are also now just over 1,000 value4value-enabled podcasts earning Bitcoin, too.

Podcast host Podserve is now using podping, making new episodes appear instantly on the Podcast Index and compatible podcatchers.

Last Friday, we disclosed that FeedBurner (still) powers 56,000 podcasts: a number we sourced from the PodcastIndex database. In The New Media Show, Todd Cochrane commented: "I'm not surprised. The question is, are they active?" Here's the answer: of the 56,000 Feedburner shows in the Podcast Index, 9,115 (16%) were updated in the last 90 days - including The Adam Carrolla Show, Tom Merritt's Daily Tech News Show, TED Talks Daily, The Moth, and shows from the Irish Times and Monocle 24, just to name a few.

Podcast Index now lists an "active within 90 days" metric on its stats page, aligning with the common definition of an 'active' podcast. 698,909 podcasts in the index are 'active'.

Beyond The Podcast does some analysis on the Podcast Index data. It looks at the "boom" in 2020, noting that Anchor powered much of the growth in podcasting, and has a higher percentage of dead podcasts.

There should be a new Podcast Index website shortly, too.

Podcast Index has launched a new end point by GUID. GUIDs, a permanent ID for your podcast, are pre-generated for every podcast in their database; but if you set one directly, that'll always overwrite Podcast Index's.

We've just hit 4 million podcasts in the Podcast Index. The website says 640,240 were active in the last 60 days.

The Podcast Index, at the time of writing, lists 3,999,001 podcasts. 422,354 have been updated in the past 30 days.

The Podcast Index data shows that Anchor + Megaphone host 1,603,876 podcasts out of 3,869,347 podcasts available: their owner, Spotify, now hosting 41.4% of all shows.

Do you publish a private or members-only podcast feed? Chances are, you want to keep it that way. The Podcast Index has launched an open project to collect regex patterns for your private URL scheme to stop The Podcast Index, and others, ever displaying those feeds publicly.

Not all podcasters want automated transcripts; there is a <podcast:transcript> tag for transcripts already from the Podcast Index; and live captions are available for all apps on desktop and Android mobile devices.

Like Podnews, Overcast is also submitting new shows to Podcast Index, its developer Marco Arment has said.

Use Chrome or Brave? Podnews's podcast search might save you some time. In the address bar, type podnews, hit the TAB button, and then type the podcast you're looking for. We search Apple, the Podcast Index and (if you want) Spotify.

There are now 3.7m podcasts in The Podcast Index, with 319,712 shows having posted once in the past 30 days.

Like many, we were (too) reliant on iTunes IDs, and last week's issues were a wake-up call. Podnews's podcast pages are no longer reliant on them. We use a mix of Podcast Index, Apple Podcasts and other data. Legacy links will continue to work.

Overcast has quickly integrated Podcast Index like this, so that users of that app should be unaffected.

The Podcast Index twitter account says: "Wake me up when any podcast app developer can add the Subscribe button and share a % of the revenue." Their value4value method gives revenue to independent app developers as well as podcast publishers.

Podcast Index has now indexed over 3m podcasts.

Plink has switched to using Podcast Index as its main source of podcast data, after a series of outages with the Apple Podcasts API.

There are now 2,316,555 podcasts in the Podcast Index.

The Podcast Index now lists over 2m podcasts. It doesn't automatically pull new shows from Apple Podcasts, but even so, has now overtaken the number of shows there.

Hypercatcher now supports the Podcast Index funding tag.

The Podcast Index API's documentation website has received an overhaul, thanks to Steven Crader.

The Podcast Index is now publishing their full podcast database index on IPFS, updated every 24 hours. (Listing 1.3m podcasts, today's dump is a 192MB .tgz file, which expands to 647MB. You can use DB Browser for SQLite to examine it).

Libsyn has added the namespace for Podcast Index and Google Podcasts by default in their feeds "in preparation for productisation". This work now allows advanced podcasters to hand-code additional tags into feeds at their own risk - "picture a big flashing neon proceed-with-caution light", said Rob Walch in The Feed episode 185 (47'04").

5.4% of the podcasts in our database already use The Podcast Index namespace. We highlight each in the "Information for podcasters" section in our podcast pages, and the tags they use.

Playapod, a podcast app, has had a new release on Android which uses Podcast Index as a default.

The Podcast Index has also produced a stats API. If you're logged in as a developer, it lives here, and says the index has 1,371,245 current podcasts, and 45,967,114 episodes.

On the Podcast Index, in the same episode (43 minutes in), Walch also clarified: "Any Libsyn user from day 1 can add those tags to the RSS feed. The support's already there. We just haven't added it to the UI". Rob Greenlee and Walch then set out to clarify Libsyn's view of the project.

The Playapod app is to add Podcast Index support shortly. "We have been wanting to do this for months but nothing like big tech censorship to make it a higher priority.", they say in a toot.

Podcast Index: 31

Podland has Adam Curry and Dave Jones from the Podcast Index on this week, and talks about closed vs open.

The podcast:location tag has been finalised. The new tag is intended to describe a location that a podcast is about, and will be formally added to the Podcast Index's 'podcast' namespace at the end of January.

Libsyn has said it will support the Podcast Index tags, Adam Curry will announce in the next edition of Podcasting 2.0. Buzzsprout is already supporting the new tags, and Blubrry has already said it plans to support them soon too. The podcast will have a special guest: our Editor.

The Podcast Index is suggesting a method of improving podcast download tracking statistics with a _guid parameter. The idea is to produce a random guid per enclosure, which is consistent for every listener. "Instantly, you have perfect stats," developer Dave Jones says, since it gives certainty for total download numbers without threatening privacy.

The new "podcast" namespace is now used in almost 100,000 feeds - 97,458 across 7 different hosting platforms, with two more hosting companies currently committin g developer time to implementing it. These stats were gathered from the Podcast Index database and cross-verified against the public hosting feed stats at ListenNotes.

If you are supporting a new Podcast Index namespace tag, you're asked to let the world know, by adding it to their Github.

Who supports what in the Podcast Index? This is a list showing the podcast hosts and players and what they support - so far.

Buzzsprout now supports "visual soundbites", a way to mark shareable portions of podcasts in apps and social media. A tag from Podcast Index's new "podcast" namespace, here's a soundbite from the Podcasting 2.0 show, on Podverse.

Spotify, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have all pulled an episode of the Podbean-hosted Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, after Bannon called for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray. Twitter have also permanently suspended Bannon's account. The episode in question is still available via Apple Podcasts and the Podcast Index.

PowerPress 8.4.1 was released at the end of last week. It includes a submission tool to The Podcast Index and to Amazon Music.

The latest podcast hosting company to support podcast locking is Transistor, who have announced full support. From The Podcast Index, this is a best-practice tag that aims to make podcast piracy harder than just six steps. We'd encourage other podcast hosts to step up.

Blubrry now has a tool to help you submit your podcast to the Podcast Index. (This works for anyone - no need to be hosted with Blubrry).

The Podcast Index has a new website look and feel.

Podcast Insider highlights new RSS tags being worked-on by Adam Curry's Podcast Index.

The free and open podcasting app for Android AntennaPod has released v2 on Google Play and F-Droid. A significant rewrite, it looks great, is nicely geographically aware (giving locally popular show suggestions), and offers access to searches within iTunes, fyyd and, soon, The Podcast Index.

Buzzsprout has launched a transcript distribution service and integration with Podcast Addict. Podcasters using Buzzsprout can also offer synchronised captions. The company is working with The Podcast Index to make this an official RSS tag.

Our cover story: In "The Tech Stuff" below, we highlight the most exciting news for independent podcasters for some time: the proposal of a set of new tags for RSS from The Podcast Index. For podcasters, this could mean better discoverability and accessibility, more revenue and protection against piracy.

We have added the web version of Podfriend to our list of podcast apps on our podcast pages. The service uses Podcast Index.

PODdash helps you find new episodes just published, and sort them by category. It uses The Podcast Index.

Podfriend, a podcast app that uses Adam Curry's Podcast Index, has launched a web version, which also works as a PWA on mobile.

Podfriend is "the world's friendliest podcast app". Out for Windows 10, with more platforms on the way, it's powered by the Podcast Index. We're an especial fan of the podcast they're listening to on desktop on the site's front page.

Significant movement from The Podcast Index this week, with a stats page, a Twitter-like discussion system, and a blog.

Podcast host Captivate has become the first podcast host to allow podcasters to directly add their show to The Podcast Index, Adam Curry and Dave Jones's alternative index for podcast apps. (Disclosures) Meanwhile, The Podcast Index has added a twitter-like discussion system, using Mastodon.

The Podcast Index has added a language field (taken from the podcast's RSS), and plans to add a "detected language" field in future (to catch podcasters who've not correctly set it). Joe Moraca produced SVG versions of the logo (which we now show in search). The website's development documentation has moved to pages on Github.

Add My Podcast has just added two new services - Podcast Addict and The Podcast Index. The service adds shows to a set of podcast directories automatically.

Podcast host RSS.com have ensured that all their podcast RSS feeds are now available on Adam Curry's The Podcast Index. They've also set up automatic submission to the index for new RSS feeds.

Adam Curry has launched a new, open podcast directory for app developers, working with developer Dave Jones. Speaking on a new podcast, Podcasting 2.0, Curry and Jones worry that "Apple is starting to tinker with their directory", and say that the company is "a very centralised private entity that is controlling pretty much what everybody considers the default yellow pages for podcasting." His alternative, The Podcast Index, promises that the "core, categorized index will always be available for free, for any use". You can sign up to be a developer on their developer portal.

Audioburst, the podcast indexing company, has launched Audioburst Creators, a set of promotional tools. "Transcribe, Clip, and Share your audio content for free. Just enter your RSS feed and we’ll take care of the rest!"