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This is a value for value post: see the explanation in the footer.
I wrote the following as a pitch for myself on podcasts. Let me know if you listen to any good development podcasts who you think I can tell the story of @podping (and Hive of course) to.
The Elevator Pitch
Podping is the internet's @everyone message bus. Podping has been running in production since mid 2021 and makes 3,000 announcements per hour.
Podping was spawned by PodcastIndex as part of Podcasting 2.0. 3000+ new podcast episodes per hour are announced via Podping. It is now also being used to announce podcasts going live in a completely cross platform, decentralized way.
PodcastIndex is an open source project to reduce over-reliance on Apple, Google and Spotify: the three proprietary and biggest indexers of open RSS feed podcasts. The Podcasting 2.0 Podcast is the weekly board meeting about the project.
What is Podping?
Since the beginning of podcasting, podcast listeners have had to wait an indexing system to just "find" a new episode: this happens by either their when a listener's client app (old school) or a third party indexer like Apple, Google or Spotify periodically scan (polling) all the RSS feeds in their index for new episodes. This can take anywhere from minutes to hours or sometimes days, depending on how often the indexer scans the feed and how smart their scanning algorithm is.
But why can't podcast hosting providers just notify the indexers when a new episode is published? There were attempts at this in the past, but they all relied on centralized systems which were controlled by a single entity. Or they required hosts to contact each indexer separately to set up a private notification system.
Podping changes this by using a decentralized, and completely open access system as a global, public message bus. It's like @everyone for the internet.
When a Podcaster publishes an episode, a large number of the top podcast hosting providers participate by sending a "Podping" to the PodcastIndex system, which is then recorded on the Hive blockchain. This allows any indexer to easily watch a continuous stream of new Podpings and scan feeds which they know have new content. This dramatically reduces the time it takes for new episodes to be discovered and made available to listeners.
Because the Podpings are recorded on a public blockchain, anyone can participate as an indexer without needing permission from any centralized authority. Any watching system can also look back in time (if a machine reboots for example) it can easily catch up on all the Podpings it missed by simply by looking back a short time.
You can watch a live stream of Podpings here: tiles.podping.org.
code: https://github.com/brianoflondon/podping-tiles
Is Podping a New Internet Protocol?
I asked Grok, and it said Podping is "almost" a protocol but falls short due to its reliance on Hive and focus on podcasting. Grok's take:
Podping is a groundbreaking system that elegantly solves the RSS polling problem for podcasting, offering a decentralized, censorship-resistant, and efficient notification mechanism. It exhibits many characteristics of a protocol—standardized data format, interoperability, scalability, and adoption—but its niche focus on podcasting, reliance on the Hive blockchain, and lack of formal standardization prevent it from fully qualifying as a new Internet Protocol in the traditional sense. Instead, it is better described as a specialized application-layer protocol or a de facto standard for podcasting notifications, with the potential to evolve into a broader protocol if it expands to other domains or gains formal recognition.
Who is Brian of London?
Are you still reading...? Brian of London (but living in Israel now) is the creator of Podping. After demoing a proof of concept, he worked alongside Alex Gates and Dave Jones he worked on the first implementation.
He is a long time podcaster and, after a 20 year break following his PhD in computational physics, he became a developer again. He is a big proponent of decentralization, open source software, and using blockchain technology for something other than just cryptocurrencies and finance.
Why do I want to be on a podcast?
I've got no financial interest in PodcastIndex or Podping. I just want to help build a better internet for podcasting and I think Podping is genuinely novel and interesting. We'd love to see Apple, Spotify or Google start using it to reduce their reliance on polling.
Value for Value
For the last few months while building @v4vapp I was generously supported by the DHF. Going forward I have a much more modest support which covers direct server costs and a little of my time.
If you appreciate the work I do on and around Hive, you can express this directly: upvoting posts on Hive is great. Also consider a direct donation (there's a Tip button on Hive or a Lightning Address) on all my posts.
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Has to be a Podcast that is best dedicated to tech and blockchain and decentralised content. There is this guy on Nostr who is an ex Twitter Dev who has started a quite new show that could fit. Name is „Rabble“. I give you the Links below, that could be a good fit.
https://primal.net/rabble
He comes from the BTC corner but I am sure hebis interested in new Podcast Developments that is not dependant on the big Techs.
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Come be a guest on Hive Thrive and we can chat all things @brianoflondon
The show is every Tuesday at 6 UTC
Our next slots are early December 😎
I’ll reach out in DM too
For sure, lets set this up!
@brianoflondon this is lovely. I’d also like to resume my podcast. It is called “5 hive questions” it would be lovely to have you on it.
Thanks for all you and nice to see your updates and Goodluck. Always nice to draw inspiration from you.
It will be great to have you on the podcast because I am so sure that you will definitely deliver and you might even use it to give more exposure to hive Blockchain