Still smarting from the closure of Google Podcasts and the wholly inadequate replacement that is YouTube, I’ve been trying to find a decent podcast app.
If you’re someone who both makes and listens to podcasts (you can listen and not make, but if you make and don’t listen, who even are you?), the act of listening is intimately tied up with production. So I had been using Spotify to listen since I have also used Spotify for Creators (formerly Anchor) as my podcast host. But Spotify does not understand that podcasts are not music in the same way Youtube doesn’t understand that podcasts are not (just) videos.
If you listen, you’ll hear recommendations around the place, and one I heard a few times (mostly on Podnews) was Pocket Casts. And after Sabrina Ricci of I Know Dino wrote a post for Pocket Casts that mentioned my pod, I figured it was time to leap there. Pocket Casts is part of Automattic and has all the features needed in a good listening app, bar one – a single-click add to playlist button. It takes only two clicks to put something in your queue, though, so not a major drawback.
And then where to host, if I was no longer satisfied with Spotify? Again from Podnews, I had heard a bit about RSS.com. Named for the open feeds that power podcasting, RSS.com is a commercial host. They have flexible plans and incorporate most RSS 2.0 features. They also have six months free for transferring pods. So, RSS.com it is.
With Riverside as my main recording and editing tool, Pocket Casts for listening, and RSS.com for hosting, that’s my podcast stack, at least for now.