Proposal: <podcast:channel> (a group of podcasts)

[tomrossi7]

One of Apple's features is the grouping of podcasts into a channel. I kind-of like this idea and wonder if we could incorporate a way to do this within the RSS feed. Perhaps, we provide a podcastChannel tag that uniquely identifies the channel? Or a relatedPodcasts tag that points to a JSON of all the related RSS feeds?

[daveajones]

You beat me to this Tom. This is absolutely a good idea.

[theDanielJLewis]

Isn't this what the recommendation tag is supposed to support?

[tomrossi7]

A channel is not a recommendation, but a collection of related podcasts. A podcast could belong at most to only one channel. The should be grouped together under a name as well.

[vv01f]

a thought on naming …

channel is a name for a dedicated XML element in the feed already. so that naming is not helpful.

a bunch of channels would e. g. be an aggregation. this would also clarify the difference to recommendations.

any better wording or thoughts on that maybe?

[daveajones]

a thought on naming …

channel is a name for a dedicated XML element in the feed already. so that naming is not helpful.

a bunch of channels would e. g. be an aggregation. this would also clarify the difference to recommendations.

any better wording or thoughts on that maybe?

What about <podcast:related> since that was part of Tom’s initial wording?

@tomrossi7 Do you want to write up what a tag structure would look like that you can see implementing? If you don’t have time I can take a crack at it and submit here for comments.

[theDanielJLewis]

"bundle" could be another word to use.

But I'm still having trouble understanding what's different about this compared to recommendations/related.

[chiragnd]

But I'm still having trouble understanding what's different about this compared to recommendations/related.

I’m thinking the difference between these are our shows, ie the same network or producer vs these are things we recommend, which could be anyone’s shows? This is not to say that we can’t have it under one tag and have a field to identify things that are ‘Internal’ vs ‘external’ if that matters.

From an app perspective, I think the difference becomes how it might be shown. It’d be nice to have the option to showcase our Network shows together (similar to the channel idea or a brand page), and our recommendations to be more of a blog roll type list maybe.

[saerdnaer]

@theDanielJLewis recommendations refer to specific episodes, whereas related refers to other shows/podcasts

[douglaskastle]

I am struggling with this too. Is this meant to be a RSS way of showing podcasts that are all part of a podcast network? Or would you use it as an episode level where one might be doing a cross promo? Are there any good existing examples of where this might be used? Is it per podcast or per episode? or both?

[theDanielJLewis]

I’m thinking the difference between these are our shows, ie the same network or producer vs these are things we recommend, which could be anyone’s shows? This is not to say that we can’t have it under one tag and have a field to identify things that are ‘Internal’ vs ‘external’ if that matters.

I like this idea. Whether is a recommended or related tag, let it have some kind of grouping and order. On the channel level, this could replace both "more by this artist" and also provide a more personalized "other shows you might like" list.

Having some control over the labeling and order can help differentiate these things, too. There could be standard tags, like recommended for the related recommended shows, and withhost or something like that for grouping other podcasts hosted or cohosted by the hosts, even if not their own.

For example, my own show would obviously list my other shows (unless I didn't want a show connected in this context), but I could also list Podcasters' Roundtable, of which I'm an official cohost but it's not my own show.

Then on the item level, the recommendations/related could be to other relevant episodes or entire shows as well. For example, if I do an episode about writing, I could link to a couple other "writing for podcasters" kinds of episodes, as well as entire shows all about writing.

[daveajones]

EDIT: Updated with a newer proposal below.

cc: @tomrossi7 @KieranMcKeefery @eteubert @cio-blubrry @PofMagicfingers @dan

[eteubert]

In a perfect world each podcast would have a guid. Then we could use this guid as reference instead of a URL, which may change. But the feed URL seems like a close second choice because the podcaster has a high interest in keeping that stable or at least redirecting to the current URL.

I do like the draft. Simple enough and provides enough data for the usual display of such lists.

[daveajones]

Agreed on the UUID thing. We’re brainstorming possible solutions to that here. It’s a tough one. ☹️

Would having a thumbnail url attribute included next to the feed url attribute in podcast:relatedFeed be wise? To give apps what they need for a nice UI presentation?

cc: @MartinMouritzen @dellagustin @mitchdowney

[MartinMouritzen]

At this part of the user journey, I would most likely just look up the podcasts through the API, so at least for my purposes a thumbnail url is not necessary here.

• If we think that would open up for too many API calls, then yes a thumbnail would make great sense :)