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Google Entertainment News

Google Has A New Podcast App. It Also Hopes To Diversify Podcasting. (buzzfeed.com) 105

Posted by msmash from the marching-forward dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google now has its own podcast app called, well, Google Podcasts, and if you have an Android phone, you can head over to the Play Store and get it right now. Google Podcasts does most things you would expect a podcast app to do. It lets you subscribe to and download podcasts; it learns from your listening history and suggests new ones you might like; and, if you're a podfaster, it lets you speed shows up. Most of these have been things you can already do right from within the Google app on your Android phone -- but now you get a shiny new app to do it with. For Google, the app represents an ambitious goal: to double worldwide podcast listenership. [...] Google is working with an independent global advisory board and industry experts to bring in more creators from underrepresented backgrounds such as women, people of color, and people from other countries into podcasting. Other players in the space such as Spotify and WNYC have already made efforts to spotlight these voices in the podcasting ecosystem. As part of this new program, Google will create curriculums to teach people podcasting basics, develop training programs, and also lower barriers to entry by helping out with equipment like microphones. Details about the program and specific plans to diversify outreach were not yet available. Google says it currently has no plans to release the podcast app to Apple's App Store.
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Google Has A New Podcast App. It Also Hopes To Diversify Podcasting. More

Google Has A New Podcast App. It Also Hopes To Diversify Podcasting.

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  • When I hear the word "diversity" ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quenda ( 644621 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @10:47AM (#56809878)
    I reach for my Jordan Peterson podcast.

    • Re:When I hear the word "diversity" ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ichimunki ( 194887 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @11:12AM (#56810050)
      When I hear the words "diversity" and "podcast" in the same sentence, all I think of is help for hard of hearing and deaf people getting access to audio-only material. So I'm mostly curious in what they're doing around automated transcription.

      • When I hear the words "diversity" and "podcast" in the same sentence, all I think of is help for hard of hearing and deaf people getting access to audio-only material. So I'm mostly curious in what they're doing around automated transcription.

        Apparently their goal is make sure that information from non white males will now also be inaccessible ...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So you are a moron. Got it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      He is on the wrong side of history.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by davek ( 18465 )

      Where are my mod points!

  • Instead of just being in on the endpoint side, that the app also did the recording and mastering side as well. A nice, all-in-one solution. Now that I'd pay money for and use.

    Otherwise, I have no reason to use this. I have an app and when it can grab the podcast, I can find it somewhere on the web. It's not hard. And I'd rather have recommendations from word of mouth over some algorithm telling me what I should like. I never know what new and interesting thing someone would tell me to listen to.

    • It appears you cannot subscribe to podcasts without enabling Google's web and activity tracking, so on the surface, this app appears to be nothing more than a blatant data grab.

    • I don't think an app could do a really good job of curating podcasts, and also help you create them... those seem like two very different apps to me.

      What does seem more useful is a set of apps, one for listening, one for creation, where you can basically "beta test" your podcast quickly in the listening app as if it were a published podcast, so you'd get exactly the experience your listeners will have before you publish.

  • Important note (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @10:53AM (#56809908)

    It's not "improve" podcasting, it's "diversify" podcasting.

    If you want things to be better, you need to turn away from people who don't care about things being better.

    • Re:Important note (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @11:43AM (#56810224)
      To Google (or the subset of the company in charge of this) those words are synonymous. They apparently seem to believe that the color of a person's skin is more important than the content their podcast.

      I doubt this will have much of an effect in the grand scheme of things. You can't sell a product that no one in the market wants to buy. If there were more demand for the things that Google were trying to push, people would naturally move to fill in that demand and Google would need to do very little beyond making sure that they weren't damaging the market through their own actions. At most they might identify and help to address a supply side issue, but that assumes that one must exist to be solved.

      I also think that most of these efforts are halfhearted at best anyways as it isn't really about solving problems, but having the appearance of doing so in order to appear virtuous. It's essentially just another mega-church that neither feeds nor clothes the homeless. Perpetual failure to remove the problem simply means you can continue to proselytize about it ad infinitum.

      • Re:Important note (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @12:02PM (#56810336)

        They apparently seem to believe that the color of a person's skin is more important than the content their podcast.

        . . . a rather amusing fail on Google's part:

        I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

        It seems that this diversity obsession is doing exactly what Dr. King wanted to eliminate.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          On a side-note, I wonder what effect this will have on future generations. Imagine being a young, poor kid not from one of the acceptable groups, and being constantly told how not only are you directly responsible for other people's problems, but that as a poor person you would be even worse off had you not had so much privilege. You suck and can't even claim someone else caused it.
          It has to be soul crushing. I also think it may account for the rise in white nationalism.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 )

        Diversity is synonymous with quality when bias excludes entrants. Take women in the work force. Assuming men and women are relatively equal then picking the top 1% of N samples will produce an inferior team than the top 0.5% of 2N samples.

        Inclusivity means you can be more picky in the quality of your selection. If only an arbitrarily narrow cross section of the population is participating in a contest of ideas then you can be certain that you're not getting the best ideas.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Kohath ( 38547 )

          Anyone can podcast. There are zero barriers to entry.

          So, by your definition, diversity is not a synonym to improvement in podcasting.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          Take women in the work force. Assuming men and women are relatively equal then picking the top 1% of N samples will produce an inferior team than the top 0.5% of 2N samples.

          There is a problem with your assumption. Even where men and women are almost equal on average, men can be strongly over-represented at both the top and bottom extremes. So picking the top 30% while excluding women may be very bad, while if you only want the top 1%, it may make little difference. Google has found this with hiring engineers, and is feeling guilt.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That's a very odd interpretation of wanting to increase diversity. Surely the must believe the very opposite - that colour doesn't matter when it comes to podcast quality.

        • That's a very odd interpretation of wanting to increase diversity. Surely the must believe the very opposite - that colour doesn't matter when it comes to podcast quality.

          If you really believe that color doesn't matter when it comes to podcast quality, then your efforts to increase diversity should be focused on helping ensure that basic, user-friendly and good-quality podcast creation tools are freely available--so that people are not blocked from participation for lack of software. (Targeted giveaways of the basic hardware as well as helping people find out what the good low-cost options there are would also help.)

          If it doesn't matter when it comes to podcast quality, the

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Some communities just don't seem to have much of a podcasting culture. A bit of effort to develop one seems reasonable.

            • Some communities just don't seem to have much of a podcasting culture. A bit of effort to develop one seems reasonable.

              That's precisely why I suggested making the tools needed easier to get. If there's not a podcasting culture already, the main hurdle is getting yourself started--do you need a separate mic or is the one on your computer good enough? If not, what kind of mic? What about headphones? Which software is essential, which is optional? On that last one, can you manage to find good FOSS or at least free programs or should you expect to be shelling out money on software too just to get started?

              If you're just wan

    • It's such a baffling thing to say. Diversity can be limited only when there is a barrier to entry. Podcasting has one of the lowest barriers of entry of any entertainment medium. By trying to bring in "underrepresented" demographics wouldn't you actually be going against the wishes of those demographics? I mean to say, nothing is keeping black, gay or female people (or any other demographic) from podcasting right now except their lack of desire to do so.

  • Yeah forced "diversity" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ackkamoto ( 4886149 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @11:05AM (#56810000)
    Can I just listen to what I want without the big Google diversity d$ck slapping me in the face all the time. I don't fucking care about your politics.

  • No thanks. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @11:06AM (#56810012)

    I'll stick with PocketCasts.

    Not because I don't think Google can make a better product technologically - but because I don't want the software to suddenly change its policies and randomly do something I don't want because it has a chance of making Google some money.

    I don't want to be listening to a carefully researched discussion touching on the tragedies of Nazi Germany, the suddenly have the next MP3 be Glenn Beck by association - then have all my adverts everywhere suddenly be pro-Trump propaganda.

    Google is legitimately good for searching for things (Google scholar is great!), but living in a nation with 40+% Trump supporters has completely messed up the associations and logic behind targeted advertising - it's kind of made it poisonous along with the nation at large.

    Ryan Fenton

    • I'll stick with PocketCasts.

      Not because I don't think Google can make a better product technologically - but because I don't want the software to suddenly change its policies and randomly do something I don't want because it has a chance of making Google some money.

      I don't want to be listening to a carefully researched discussion touching on the tragedies of Nazi Germany, the suddenly have the next MP3 be Glenn Beck by association - then have all my adverts everywhere suddenly be pro-Trump propaganda.

      Google is legitimately good for searching for things (Google scholar is great!), but living in a nation with 40+% Trump supporters has completely messed up the associations and logic behind targeted advertising - it's kind of made it poisonous along with the nation at large.

      Ryan Fenton

      I followed a link to some silly UFO news article once. For months thereafter Google Now kept sending me every ridiculous UFO alien conspiracy theory on the web.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

        William F. Buckley Jr.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I'll stick with PocketCasts.

      Not because I don't think Google can make a better product technologically - but because I don't want the software to suddenly change its policies and randomly do something I don't want because it has a chance of making Google some money.

      I don't want to be listening to a carefully researched discussion touching on the tragedies of Nazi Germany, the suddenly have the next MP3 be Glenn Beck by association - then have all my adverts everywhere suddenly be pro-Trump propaganda.

      Google

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I used to use Google Listen, and I'm not making that mistake again. I'm happy with DoggCatcher.

  • it does even more (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @11:07AM (#56810018)

    Google Podcasts does most things you would expect a podcast app to do.

    And it no doubt censors content that Google management, their political cronies, or their specially trained AI disapprove of.

    Thanks, but no thanks.

  • So if you're an older white male, your podcast doesn't reliably appear in lists? :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      AC The AI detects and then ensures diversity will the search result.. reliably.
      • It would be interesting to see how an AI does this. I suppose that you could perform an analysis on the voice to determine sex and where a person is generally from. Certain dialects are much more likely to be found in specific ethnic groups, so you could probably infer race as well. Wouldn't such a system naturally drive people to culturally appropriate ethnic mannerisms (worse yet, it would probably mean that overexaggerating unique aspects of a dialect yields a better score) in order improve their ranking

        • It's simpler than that. People in certain groups will learn adding keywords will get their podcast moved up the rankings.

          • How does that help with diversity at all. If everyone claims to be a black lesbian midget in the metadata then it becomes useless. It's the same kind of SEO crap that's been plaguing the web. If you're using content-based keywords, I fail to see how that does anything for diversity either unless you believe that there are some things that men won't talk about or that white people don't discuss. But even if you do believe that, it doesn't mean that pushing more of that content means that anyone actually want

  • ... is that they also hope it helps train their conversational AI.

  • I'm currently using Google Music to manage my podcasts. So should i stick with the old Google app that will be unceremoniously terminated by Google at some point in the future, or switch to the new Google app that will be unceremoniously terminated by Google at some point in the future?

  • So an app now needs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @11:17AM (#56810072) Journal
    an AI, global advisory board, industry experts to ensure diversity.
    Remember when programs just had to do something well.

  • Among all the two people who still own IPods.

    • Among all the two people who still own IPods.

      I have never owned an iPod. I listen to the BBC podcasts and several others. Cheaper than subscribing to Sirius for the BBC world service. And doesn't use up my data like streaming would.

      I can use it in the subway because it doesn't care I don't have 4G or wifi down there. I can use it out in the country in an area with no 4G coverage. I have never owned an iPod or any other apple device; I use podcasts daily.

  • Then bring back Vine, goddamn it. It was very diverse, super accessible, and I miss it.
  • Downloading the application it appears one still cannot subscribe to arbitrary URLs and since not all podcasts are submitted to Google its still not a viable solution. The application looks pretty but I can't see why one would use it over podcasts in Google Play Music which also works on the web - this feels more like internal political infighting spilling out again.

    • No subscribing via url. No opml import/export. No playlists. It has the advantage over Google Play Music that I can actually use it (I'm not in the US) but I'll stick with Pocket Casts for now.

  • I've been waiting for non-white non-males to say "um" a lot for a LONG time now!

  • If you want podcasts to be more "diverse," than you should probably avoid suggesting podcasts that fit in the same small bubble. Of course, it's generally more profitable for a service to tell you what you like to hear, as opposed to exposing your to uncomfortable worldviews.

  • Early Android podcasts listeners may recall Google Listen, a podcast playback app. They deprecated that, so I moved to BeyondPod. I also recall the loss of Google Reader and having to move elsewhere for that. Aside fro core apps (email/Calendar) I have a hard time taking up a new Google tool and becoming reliant on it knowing Google giveth and Google taketh away.

  • I'm open to switching players. Doggcatcher has this annoying habit of just up and starting playing every now and then. At least it did; I haven't seen that happen in a while. Maybe a recent update fixed it. Hugely annoying when I've got a bunch of podcasts queued in the order I want to listen to them, "Hey, is that a voice coming from my phone? ARGH! It's been playing for three hours and lost my whole queue!!"

    Again... hasn't happened in a while; maybe it's fixed.

    Other than that, I like Doggcatcher a l

  • Podcasts don't need diversifying. (Score:3)

    by pecosdave ( 536896 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @02:17PM (#56811174) Homepage Journal

    By the very nature of podcasts they are open and available to literally anybody who wants to make one. The only barriers to entry are very basic technological ones and bandwidth to upload it with. I could literally make a reasonable podcasts that I could upload to the modern web on a Pentium 75 using no hardware components made after 1998 and I might even be able to get away with audio codecs from that era as well. I remember playing with MP3 for the first time in 1998, so that would work. If I wanted I could even upload that 1998 tech MP3 with an analog modem from the era, the server I uploaded it to would do all of the distribution work.

    My point:

    Why are we trying to arm-twist people who don't want to make podcasts into podcasting? I see it like I see the modern push for women in STEM - clubbing them over the head and trying to drag them into learning and doing things they're not interested in.

    I've noticed that women stereo typically prefer something other than a sit in a chair and make a radio-style podcast format. Diamond and Silk are the first examples that spring into my mind. They produce lots of regular content, and it's their own style of commentary, but they tend to do video based content. Julie Borowski, again, lots of content, almost all video, and very high-quality self edited videos at that.

    Instead of trying to force these very talented square pegs into round holes why don't they develop a new type of app that appeals to the way women commonly like to send out their message - in video?

    I've covered women - yes I'm hetero white male giving commentary on what I've observed - rocks are to the right torches are to the left and pitchforks are available at the tractor supply store two blocks away. As for minorities - diversifying that way - I have no real input. If they're culturally American I don't consider them much different that I see myself or my friends or family. If they're culturally something else - well once again - Google is trying to claw their way into other cultures and beat the idea of making podcasts into their heads if their culture doesn't embrace it. Just make the tools available, offer help when asked, and continue to make the tools easier to use to increase accessibility on that front. You know, maybe try to invent something other than the modern podcast to appeal to people who don't like to podcast.

  • "It Also Hopes To Control the Podcasting Media"

  • I would hope that it is as good as the previous Google Podcast app.

    However, I suspect that it will be more complicated and harder to use than Google Listen which Google happily dropped for no good reason that I ever heard. With that history, potential users should be wary...

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