Hello everybody, welcome here at Phastam at the Lightning Talks.
I want to introduce to you Benjamin Benjamin and the talk about celebration open standards
how podcasting 2.0 shaped the future of podcasting, give him a warm welcome and a joyful talk.
Hello everyone, the world is a mess, fire everywhere, floods everywhere, species becoming extinct
every day.
On top of that are private data who were stolen by big US corporation or no being stolen
by big IA US corporation then stolen by European IA corporations then stolen by IA Chinese
corporation.
So if you came here to hear me complaining about the way the world goes during the wrong
room because I'm here to tell you a story about hope and love.
So I'm Benjamin, I love podcast, I love free and open source software, I'm the father
of cast-op-odd which is an open source podcast hosting platform connected to the
failures with activity pub and so today I'm going I'm here to tell you a story, no big deal
just one story but I think it's a story that is worth telling since I have only a few minutes
I'll go straight to the point.
So almost 14 billion years ago the big bang, burst of the universe which is kind of
importance.
Then for a billion years ago formation of the earth then life on earth then extension
of the dinosaurs which is a pretty important thing because I told you many species are
getting extinct.
First human two and a half billion years ago then burst of language which happens to be
kind of important when we are talking about podcasting but we'll see that later invention
of writing then probably the most major event from this timeline the first podcast being
published so here let's take a break because it's worth knowing what is it that's
we're talking about here so what is a podcast who knows what is a podcast here
almost everyone so does this looks familiar to you where's your hand if it's familiar
okay so like a half so podcast is an audiophile usually MP3 or AC it can be other format
but these are the most common ones posted on the web syndicated through RSS feed and
containing metadata to tell what this is about so let's have a flashback two years ago
I was here at first them talking about what is a podcast and this is what I showed does
it bring you back to anyone here so this is a podcast it's an RSS feed meaning anyone
any platform any app can read it can share it can do whatever they want to so you're
free your content is not locked in a silo or in a closed platform this is not a podcast
because it's not available anywhere outside of this platform so again this is a podcast
not a podcast let's go back to the timeline so in 2005 Apple launched iTunes podcast
which is a big deal because basically for 15 years Apple sustained the podcast ecosystem they
didn't get any money from it except the fact that probably they stole some iPods but they
made the podcast ecosystem alive but they did not touch it there was not a single feature launched
between these 15 years between 2005 and 2020 which when you think about it is really weird
because during that time we had social networks DSL connections 3G 4G and so many things but
the podcasts did not evolve at all 2012 extension of Google Listen which was a platform for listening to
podcasts and then Google leader who replaced Google Listen also got extinct and then Google
play music who replaced Google Listen also got extinct I told you many spaces disappear
so now in the summer of the year 2020 two guys Adam Curry and Dave Jones started to
I think getting bored of Apple not doing anything regarding podcasts so they decided to start
a movement and ecosystem a family there's no strict definition for that which they call podcasting
to point O which is just a new DT meaning a way to add new features to podcasting
and they introduced the transcription tag which is something very basic it's just a way to say
in an RSS feed this is the audio content let's say an MP3 file but there's also next to it's
an SRT file or text file with all the transcripts which is a huge deal because
as long as the MP3 file are alone you just have the metadata to tell you what's in it and we know
that metadata are not always filled the same way for everyone and sometimes there's almost nothing
just a title so knowing what is actually inside the MP3 file becomes very easy once you have
the transcript so it changes everything but only for people using it and so at that time
they were only a few of us implementing this within six months several dozens of software and
company use that which I was really really gladly surprised with that but let's face it it was just
the small players not the big ones so two years ago I was here to tell you about how podcasting
2.0 would eventually change the face of podcasting but after admits now I was lying I was hoping
that it would but I knew deep inside that we were too small we were fighting against giants
big tech and we were trying to make everything compatible with each other with interoperability
and at some point you have to be realistic and face the truth that it will work with a small community
but that's it but last year in a very alternative events Apple podcasts added transcriptions
to their platform and the thing is the way they did it is probably the best that we could dream of
they added their own servers to actually provide the transcription and make it but if your podcast
is hosting some place with the transcript tag and if you are already providing the transcription
with your own servers and because you'll do it yourself Apple will fetch it and will publish it
to their platform so if they had asked me they hadn't but if they had asked me how should we do
it I would probably have told them to do it the way they actually did it so we have to acknowledge
that what they did is really fair and goes into the right direction obviously
why eventually they did that especially Apple who invented the not invented here system
is probably because now they feared that they have competition with Spotify who is
releasing new features so probably they had to do something but eventually we have to
to see that this is something really, really nice so what importance here is what should we
conclude from this by embracing podcasting to point all the podcast ecosystem can say
independent innovative and resilient and it works for real now the fact that Apple podcast
implemented the transcript tag of course many many companies will cope and say oh this is for real
so we have to implement it as well so right now there are 63 platforms implementing the transcript tag
and transcription of course is not the only feature that's podcasting to point always adding
there are many many more so we can bet that more of them will become widely accepted by the
the whole podcasting ecosystem so if you want to know where to get information there are many
many ways the easiest if probably to go to podcasting to dot org where you'll find everything
whether you're a listener a podcaster or a developer so this is the URL you should probably
write down and of course I said that podcasting to point all is a community
everyone is welcome if you need a feature that does not exist anyone can ask for a new feature
to be developed and adopted and maybe it will work maybe it won't but anyone can play a part
one last thing last year google podcasts also got extinct so one question remains
when will youtube podcast extinct so thank you that we all for me if you want to know more about
podcasting and how we can make this ecosystem enjoyable and sustainable we'll have a talk tomorrow
at the board of the third trick a and we'll talk about web monetization thank you
okay thank you for your talk