Castamatic and Boosts

Castamatic and Boosts

Byrichard

Recently I have been Lunix Unplugged and Self-Hosted. It’s by listening to self-hosted that I decided to experiment and learn about Linux by experimenting with Pis and projects created for Pi such as PhotoPrismPi, Pi-Hole and Nextcloud, to mention just a few.

These podcasts kept mentioning boosts, sats, value for value and compatible apps such as Castamatic, among others. I haven’t played with the others but I have played with Castamatic. It behaves like other podcasts and you can choose between using the iTunes podcast list or the Podcast Index podcast list. I used the Apple Podcast list, for now.

Castamatic uses a system called “listener engagement” to determine which podcasts are eligible for boosts. Listener engagement is calculated based on a number of factors, including the number of times a podcast is played, the number of times it is downloaded, and the number of times it is shared.

Quantifying Attention

With conventional podcasts apps you download podcasts but there is no way of seeing whether a podcast was listened to, shared and more. With Castamatic, among other apps listening time and shares are quantified by the app, which benefits both the podcast producers, and listeners. It benefits podcast listeners because podcasts they enjoy listening to become more visible but it also helps podcast makers because they can quantify engagement more easily, than without the app.

You can go further, if you use Value for Value but I haven’t touched this. It’s tied in to bitcoins and satochis and I don’t want to touch them. If they had another way of tracking listening time and payment then I would consider it.

Just Another App

If I oversimplify things then this is yet another podcast app that gives you the choice to add podcasts from the Apple Directory or the Podcast Index. It works with Apple Watches and Car Play as I saw this morning. If you just want to change podcast app then this one is worth playing with. If you export your library from the Apple Podcast App then you can add it to this podcast

My Issue

Recently I have come across two problems with podcasts. They’re too long. I want half an hour to an hour, not one and a half or more hours. The second issue is that they often have bad adverts. I find that I can listen to plenty of Late Night Linux Family podcasts consecutively because the ads are at the right point in the show not to be a nuissance. I hate podcasts that start with an advert.

Jupiter Broadcasting

With Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts the idea is that they are listener funded, so the more listeners contribute the more resilient the podcasts become. You can contribute by Sats, by boosts via specific apps, but also by monthly memberships. I’m contributing by listening via Castamatic, and mentioning the concept, rather than financially.

The concept is interesting. At the moment you can pay for Spotify, Audible or YouTube Premium to access certain podcasts. This is similar but at an independent level. You’re helping podcasts directly, rather than monoliths.

And Finally

For years I used Pocket Casts for podcasts but eventually stopped when they encouraged paying for the app, but also because when the app was updated it required us to log back in. I slid over to the Apple Podcast App and used that for a while and now that I heard of Castamatic I decided to try it, because of the new concept. An app that quantifies listener engagement is useful.

If the more I listen to a podcast, the better it does, then I’m happy. I don’t like writing reviews or giving stars. Id rather actual attention be counted, and that’s what the app does. That attention could become a few satochies per minute. Of course there is the membership option, seperate from the App. I am still new to these podcasts so time will decide

A Podcast App

This is yet another podcast and so far I haven’t noticed any specific flaws with the app.

X-Istential – Podcasts and Where We Find People
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X-Istential – Podcasts and Where We Find People

Byrichard

Yesterday Twitter decided to re-brand as X. X.com redirects to Twitter.com. Within the next few days, weeks, months twitter will change its name and brand, and the URLs will be wrong. All twitter links, all embedded tweets, everything will become dead links. When we look for something on Twitter, we will be redirected to X.


The Podcast Legacy


Every single website, every single CMS, every Static Website, everything, will have to be re-written to point to the new domain name. Plenty of content will not be updated and will be a reminder of the past.


I’m thinking of all the podcast episodes and conversations that speak about Twitter, all the guests that mention their Twitter accounts. All of those “where can we find you?”, “where can we follow you” will turn to nothing. Suddenly mentioning Twitter accounts will be a reminder of the past.


Happy to Have Broken From Twitter


I am happy that I already broke my ties with Twitter, because this change would make me really sad. It’s the end of a culture, it’s the end of an era. It’s the end of an important part of web history. Musk has destroyed an important cultural symbol. “Pour des Prunes”, as the french would say. “For nothing, as the English would say.


Don’t Complain


More than once I have been told not to complain, to filter what I don’t like, and just to accept what I can’t change. Yesterday I was unhappy about a pop up that appeared twice, trying to teach me how to use Mastodon. I expressed my disgust, and was told not to complain. The thing is, I am a heavy social media user, so I am more sensitive to toxic changes, on social networks than most, because I live and breath these networks.


Hashtags


I complain about hashtags because I have seen them destroy conversations on twitter, and undermine communities. If people had listened, Twitter might not have become such a toxic place.


I am happy to see that you can go for toots, before seeing hashtags being used, and that’s great, because the moment hashtags saturate timelines is the moment the community will be dead, and the time to move on will have come.


Kbin


Yesterday I decided to take a break from the Fediverse and went to Kbin but all I saw in the threadiverse were people complaining about Spez and reddit. If those users could, I know that they would return to reddit, because that is their home. They’re expats, refugees. They moved because staying put was no longer possible.


I have been complaining about Twitter since Jaiku was around, but the critical mass were on Twitter so I had no choice. Google + was great, but it was destroyed by Google because they destroy anything that is niche, rather than mass appeal.


Slow to Adapt


It’s interesting that the Web is so slow to adopt to the new social networks. I don’t see that many sites that encourage people to add Mastodon, Kbin, Lemmy or Firefish accounts. They’re sticking with Twitter and Reddit, despite the clear shift by an active part of the social web, from one set of platforms to the next.


Frozen in Time


I was looking at one of my twitter accounts and it has been frozen in time. The last post that was sent from my Wordpress Blog marks the end of Jetpack talking with Twitter. That account is now frozen in history. Until I update a post.


Worth Returning?


I considered returning to Twitter yesterday, because it’s easy to use, smooth and fast compared to fediverse instances. The problem is that every little change Musk makes, to destroy Twitter, is heartbreaking, if you have good memories of the old Twitter.


I left Twitter because I didn’t want ads to be injected every four posts, into my stream. I left Twitter because I don’t want an algorithm to choose what I see, rather than me. I don’t want to be on a site that I consider, is run by a morally bankrupt individual.


And Finally


Twitter has been mentioned in blog posts and podcasts for more than a decade. It has been mentioned in almost every podcast too. By dumping Twitter as a name X is destroying its own legacy. How many people will type x.com rather than Twitter.com? X is not a good brand name. X is just a letter, nothing more. Will people be x-ing? If they’re exing are they crossing? “Are you going to X that later”? X is having an x-istential crisis.

Podcasts and Social Media
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Podcasts and Social Media

Byrichard

When you listen to podcasts, and you read articles, and you visit websites you always see Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram, to name the giants. In every podcast episode you hear the guests say “You can find me under this name on this network, and the same name on that network.”


The Shift to CrowdFunded Media


With the recent shift from Venture Capitalist Social Media to crowdfunded social media I expect to hear about a shift in where people can be found. I expect that we will soon hear “And you can find me on Calckey at this address, on Pixelfeed.eu with this username, and peertube.social. 


I expect that there will be a shift in where people can be found on various websites and I expect that Twitter, Instagram, and other websites will fade away. 


Dormant


I haven’t deleted Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other accounts, but my eyeballs are no longer there. If something is shared on Twitter, Facebook Instagram or other sites there is a chance that I will never see it. I don’t want to use Venture Capital funded Media anymore. 


VC Funded Media is Declining


Venture Capital Funded Media thinks that users are addicts, rather than valuable users, and this attitude is why they get away with appalling behaviour. Huffman is the most recent one to treat his subredditors and redditors with scorn, rather than respect. Without the user community social media giants are just websites, nothing more. 


A Thought


Decades ago we heard “and you can find this information on Teletext or “and you can find this information on your minitel at 3615…”. Those days are gone, and those mentions are part of a different age. I think that we are going to see the shift away from Twitter, Instagram and other handles, to Fediverse linked accounts. I think we’re about to enter a new era. I look forward to it. 

The Unedited Podcast

The Unedited Podcast

Byrichard

There was a time when I wanted to listen to hours of podcasts a day, and I did. I would listen on my walks, on my commutes to work, while driving and more. I would love listening to podcasts so much that I would wish I had more time to spend on listening to podcasts. That, unfortunately changed, as podcasts became livestreams, and thus unedited.


Too Long For Casual Listening


It’s not that I don’t like listening to people talk, but that when a podcast goes from being fourty five minutes to an hour long, to being one and a half to two hours long then it becomes too long for a walk, and too time consuming to listen to more than one podcast a day. It gets worse. The problem with This Week in Tech, and that entire network of podcasts is that by being unedited they waste our time. Instead of getting tech news we get personal stories. Instead of analysis and context we get opinion and sidetracked. They used to joke about rat holes. By being live and unedited, when shared as podcasts, they become irrelevant.
Hiking podcasts, programming podcasts and others all make this mistake. The result is that listening to podcasts is less engaging than it was. What makes this worse is that podcasts are sponsored and funded, so as they become profitable they become less engaging for the listener.


Using A Running Order


I was thinking about this yesterday, when listening to a French podcast by France Culture. The podcast was organised, with a running order, various sound bytes. It kept on track and it was about something specific. Podcasts have value because they are specific, because they offer information efficiently. When podcasts get sidetracked they become a waste of time.


What Changed


The first thing that changed is the pandemic. It made listening to normal people have normal conversations, whilst in self-isolation deeply unpleasant. I couldn’t listen to people living “normally” when I felt so isolated due to the pandemic still going on.
The second reason is advertising and promotional messages. When a podcast is young people are talking about the topic they’re about. Eventually, with time, they become about self-promotion and advertising. If you listen to one podcast a week, then that’s fine. I don’t. I would listen to a podcast episode or more every day for weeks. Eventually I burned out on adverts and self-promotion. I have the same complaint about YouTube content. They’re breaking the fourth wall.


Audio Books


Paradoxically the fact that podcasts have become so time consuming and long winded has encouraged me to do two things. The first is to listen to more audio books once again. If I’m going to spend hours listening to something it might as well be a book. I have been listening to The Practicing Stoic, Eye of the Beholder, Journey (by Tony Blair) and The Cult of the Amateur. I find it hard to stick to just one book at a time.


Nature


I also listen to nature. I listen to the sound of traffic, and I walk without earphones for up to an hour at a time. Somehow by podcasters losing focus, I have found the time to walk more mindfully, to day dream, to think and just to be in the moment, in space and time.


And Finally


I am looking for podcasts that are worth my time, that are 45 minutes to an hour long at most, that are worth listening to. Walking without distraction is a good thing, anyway. Walking, in the moment is good.

Day 41 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Reverse Journey
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Day 41 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Reverse Journey

Byrichard

Today I ran and then walked a reverse journey of what I did yesterday. I wanted to take a picture of the corkscrew tree. It would have required for me to wait for two slow walkers and their dog to pass and because they insisted on walking two abreast it made more sense to turn around and take an alternate route.


Slight increase in the number of cases in Switzerland.


Although my attitude may seem extreme there has been an increase in the number of cases. At least three times today I would have been within people’s personal space if I had not turned around, found a snicket through a forest, or stepped into a field. I look forward to the weekenders being back in their home offices on Monday. They shouldn’t be allowed in the wild. They lack common decency and courteousy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbm50zj0POQ


I watched Darwin speak about how quiet the AT has become as a result of the order for everyone to vacate the trail being given. This season will be a different one, if it takes place at all. It’s a shame that thru-hiking isn’t allowed. In theory they could easily sleep in tents and eat take away on the rare moments when they’re in town.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJduf7v4Wwo


I also watched this fifty minute video of a successful thru-hike in 2019. It looks like this was more of an adventure than other videos I’ve watched. It also looks like a lot of fun. I still dream of doing multi-day hikes again.


I also listened to the Thru-Hiker episode with Tip Tap as an interviewee. I’ve been watching the videos but I’m


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRY2Ys5ILL8


I think i finished the journey videos but I’ve lost track as a result of watching so many videos on this topic.


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Woman on her daily run. Maybe.

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Podcast listening and more

Byrichard

Since I finished my dissertation my biggest time sink has been listening to podcasts. For some reason, I download the entire series of podcasts and work through them one at a time until there are no more. It’s a way of relaxing. It’s also a way of getting information quite easily.

In London, I hardly ever leave home without the iPod whilst in Switzerland due to my driving I can’t listen to podcasts when traveling by car. When it’s on foot however I can.

I found a loop that I do that’s about an hour’s walk and if I chose to I can make that loop last a shorter or longer amount of time depending on which paths through the fields I’ve chosen. Over the past few walks, the rain started falling onto me but it was warm enough and the rain so weak so as not to inconvenience me.

During this podcast listening, I’ve learned a lot about technology and the opinions of a team of people. I’ve seen the evolution in attitude between various podcasters. We see the evolution from being fairly new at certain podcast programs to being quite weathered in by the entire process. As a result, the content is more relaxed and feels more familiar. It’s more familiar to me as well. I know these individuals now, as they’ve talked over time. It’s not quite as remote anymore.

As I listen to podcasts I’ve started to think that they’re not that innovative. They’re doing what radio did years ago but rather than concentrate on music and other such topics they concentrate on technology and those behind the scenes. In so doing there’s been a shift from a celebrity culture of films and music to one of the bloggers, web developers, and more. We’re in a time when being online is so easy and so normal that everyone is there. Within the past 8 months, Facebook has gone from having two or three of my friends there to over 200. That’s quite a big shift, quite a change.

The online world is no longer the realm of the geek. In fact, it would seem that being online is no longer a geeky pastime.

I was also thinking about how social networking websites have become the new portals. Remember yahoo, Altavista and others attempting to become portals, the starting point for most people’s web experiences. Now Facebook, at least within my real-life circle of friends, seems to be the most important. Everyone seems to be there now, or almost. How long will Facebook remain popular?

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From One Culture To Another Through Podcasting

Byrichard

At the moment I’m listening to a lot of podcasts. Probably 5-10 a day on average. I go through one collection of podcasts and once that one is finished I move onto another. As a result of this, the culture of those I am listening to is sinking through.

Yesterday I listened to four or five of NBC’s meet the press and I found them interesting. I wasn’t always paying attention to what they were saying but it did make a change. I recently listened to the whole of the Net@night series and the previous series on the RSS feed as well. As a result, I’ve learned quite a bit about new technology. It’s been fun. It’s about web 2.0 and how everything is “innovative” although ten years ago people were doing the same it was called differently. It’s all O’reilly’s(sp?) fault.

Today I listened to something quite interesting. It’s the Mac break weekly recorded in Dolby headphone surround or some similar tech. It’s interesting because it does paint an auditory landscape. Leo Laporte was in front whilst the girls on that podcast, Justine and Kendra were to the right, and the guests, whilst two others were to the left.

Walking to the shops with that sound was a little disorienting at first but I grew used to it and it’s more fun. I want to hear more podcasts recorded with that technology.

I am going through a phase of cultural assimilation. I watch and listen to all these podcasts that are coming from the US and as a result, I’m starting to absorb the culture. I’m telling myself that I should move to SFO where municipal wifi is a reality rather than a dream. We’ll see what I do once university is finished and I have the rest of my life in front of me.

We may find that the work experience module teaches me to think more creatively about getting a job. If it does then it’s truly worth writing up tomorrow when I get up.

I’m rambling so I’ll leave you to wait for the next post.

Ciao ciao

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A Larger Readership Than The Student Newspaper

Byrichard

A few days ago I was with a friend discussing the student media within my university. I’m not speaking about the content created by those in the various courses but rather about the student newspaper and television channel. It’s gone downhill over the past year.

In my first year at uni although people poked fun at the student magazine they used to get it in order to get all the events listing. It meant that you knew a month in advance what was going on what night and so university spirit was stronger. At the same time, some second-year students of the time decided to create a student television program in which they got up and running external to the student union. In so doing they guaranteed success. Last year the student magazine coasted along and the first discussions about it becoming a newspaper happened.

Since then it’s been downhill. We’ve gone from having a glossy magazine coming out once a month with all events listed to having recycled paper as a newspaper. Rather than having people fighting to get their articles published an apathy seems to have formed around the project. There is no features editor, no listings editor, no main editor, and no layout person. This is a uni with 23,000+ students of which 10,000 full time. You’d be led to believe that they could produce some content without too much difficulty.

The one thing that’s doing relatively well is the student radio but it’s not independent of the Student Union, therefore, it seems to run better. If they had kept podcasting as they were doing last year then I’d still be downloading and listening to those programs as I walk around London.

I’m ready to leave university and get on with other more interesting projects. I’m ready to get back to the world of work. I only have about three weeks left of work.

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Too much listening to podcasts.

Byrichard

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts over the past few days. i had to catch up with all those I haden’t taken the time to listen to over the last few months.

It’s amusing. in “96 I began working on my website, in 2007 I uploaded it and since then I’ve been following everything that’s happened. I’ve seen as some new things became old and old things became new again with time.

How many people remember Geocities, Angelfire and other projects? I remember them. I remember when I started trying to get people to contribute to my website because I didn’t have time to produce the content. It didn’t work. That was web 2.0 several years before the time.

I remember 6 degrees.com, a website that attempted to do something which is becoming more standard as new social networking websites come of age. Look at myspace, look at youtube and Flickr. Each one concentrates on your interest, whether music, video, or video. Everything the youth enjoy. Rupert Murdoch is attempting to join the fun.

It bothers me that people are putting so much content on myspace without attempting to put that content onto their own domain names and websites. Why should I create content only to have a billionaire make a little extra money when the content is mine.

The challenge for me is to find how to create content, host it myself, and then make money through other people showing interest. Over time it should improve.

A site I like at the moment is Facebook because of how much information is available. The user interface is good, the add ons are interesting. If I create a post in a blog on my own website it’ll automatically be synchronized with Facebook for people to come to and read.

It’s also where people I haven’t seen for over a decade re-appear and I can see how things have evolved since last time. We’ve grown up.