Episode notes
Podcasting 2.0 Episode 271 - "Foot Terminal"
Adam & Dave have their SCBA's on and go deep into index refactoring and ad loads!
<b>ShowNotes</b>
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00 - STEP TWO OF THE SCARY STUFF — THE ENDPOINTS FLIP TO THE IDENTITY LAYER
<b>Last week the table went in. This week the API started using it — one endpoint at a time, four days running.</b>
<b>Sat 12 Sep:</b> "#api I'm running a script to sync up podcasts.id and newsfeeds.id so that when a new feed is born they are in sync. During the cutover to podcasts.id as the canonical form, there were <b>about 11k feeds that drifted away from being in sync</b> with their podcast because of a gap in the auto_increment values. This isn't strictly necessary, it just will make human review a little less cumbersome."
<b>Mon night 14 Sep:</b> "#api Making some final refinements to the new api endpoints before deploying. These will be the first ones using the new podcast identity layer. "
<b>Tue 15 Sep — the first flip:</b> "#api The <b>podcasts/byfeedurl</b> endpoint is deployed with the first changes to the new podcast identity layer. <b>We will do these one at a time, watching for problems.</b> You will see nothing different in the response shape under normal circumstances. The response 'feed' object's <b>`id` property now means the podcast ID</b>. The <b>`feedId` property now means the underlying feeds table row</b> that podcast is treating as canonical."
@dave — byfeedurl flips (15 Sep)
"It's not ideal to have the podcast id be represented as feeds.id in the new responses, but <b>anything else would have broken existing apps</b>. And, the meaning is still faithful to what it was before. That was always meant to be the ID of the podcasts. We just didn't have a way to logically express that."
<b>Same day:</b> "#api The new <b>podcasts/byfeedid</b> endpoint is deployed. That's all for today. Will watch the logs until tomorrow." · "#api First run of the <b>itunes ID 404 reconciler</b> under the new podcast identity regime. "
<b>Thu 17 Sep:</b> "#api The <b>podcasts/byguid</b> and <b>podcasts/batch/byguid</b> endpoints are now flipped to the new db schema." · <b>Fri 18 Sep, this morning:</b> "#api The new <b>podcasts/byitunesid</b> endpoint is live."
@dave — byitunesid live (18 Sep)
<b> The app developers noticed.</b> Mitch (Podverse): "listening to last week's P2.0... the <b>nextgen Podverse schema (and ogen) relies heavily on the Podcast Index IDs as basically the authority on feed uniqueness</b>. It sounds like we may need/want to do a substantial rewrite to account for how Podcast Index API nextgen will handle ids?… after it is settled, <b>I'd appreciate any documentation</b>."
@mitch — the Podverse question (15 Sep)
Dave: "If I do my job right, <b>you will see nothing different and will not need to do anything</b>. I made sure the starting point for every canonical podcast index 'podcast id' is the current live feed id. If you see some sort of drift or problem it would be a bug I need to fix… <b>the existing podcast ID's have always identified feeds, but now they will identify podcasts. The ID's themselves will not and have not changed.</b> I'll definitely be producing docs to flesh this out further though."
<b> Then the drawing:</b> "It's actually kind of confusing to explain. It's easier if I draw it out on paper. It sort of needs to be visualized." → "#api These might be very hard to follow. There are <b>two 'entrances' into the redirection chain</b> and the Index follows whichever one you come in on." → "<b>Paper and pen was faster than some AI agent.</b>"
@dave — the two entrances, drawn by hand (15 Sep)
The rule as Dave wrote it: "If you come in on the <b>'byid'</b> path, you start at the podcast layer and follow the redirection to the correct feed and serve it. If you come in on the <b>'byurl'</b> path, you start at the feeds layer and follow up the chain to the podcasts layer and then follow the redirection to the current canonical feed and serve that."
<b>And the MCP ask, parked:</b> @csb asked for an MCP server. Dave: "Have to get through the rollout of the new schema first. <b>Adding MCP now would just be too much confusion.</b> It's on the list for after all the new endpoints are delivered."
<b>⭐ Board questions:</b>
<b>1.</b> Four endpoints flipped in four days with nothing caught fire. <b>Which endpoints are left</b>, and which one are you most worried about — search? episodes? podping?
<b>2.</b> Walk the two entrances on air. If I hit <b>byid</b> with an old feed ID that has since been merged into another podcast — what comes back? The new canonical feed, silently? A redirect flag? Nothing?
<b>3.</b> Mitch's question is every app developer's question: <b>when do the docs land</b>, and is there a test endpoint where a developer can throw a redirected/merged feed at it and see the new behaviour before it hits their users?
<b>4.</b> The itunes-ID 404 reconciler — what does it do now that a podcast can outlive its feed? Does a dead iTunes ID move to the podcast row or stay with the feed row?
<b>5.</b> The 11k drifted IDs — human review "a little less cumbersome." <b>How many merge decisions are sitting in the conflict queue</b>, and who is the human?
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08 - OMARCHY, AND THE 'AI SUMMARIZER' EVERY PODCAST WEBSITE NOW HAS
<b>Dave went Arch.</b> Sat 12 Sep, to Aleck Gates ("Why is everyone using Omarchy? Did I miss something important? My Fedora desktop just keeps chugging along"): "There is no doubt some of it is <b>the DHH spell</b> some people are under. I find him irritating so my draw was just having an easy starting point (config-wise) into Arch… I also wanted Hyprland and after I went to Ubuntu 24 on that box I saw Hyprland maintainers recommend against using it on Debian distros. It came down to Arch or Nix after that." (You told the NA audience on 1901 to give the kids an old laptop and "install Omarchy.")
@dave — the Omarchy thread (12 Sep)
@csb's Omarchy facts of the week: "Lex has just reviewed Omarchy Linux creator" · "uses Slavic-made font: JetBrains" · "creator is EU citizen creating Omarchy in EU, you are welcome, Americans" · "can be installed from USB stick under 60 seconds." @jaybrunet shipped an <b>llm-insert</b> plugin for the micro editor — "non-destructive, precise editing of config files when you don't want to send your whole config to a model on OpenRouter."
<b> Dave Winer, 11 Sep 2001, reposted by JS on the anniversary:</b> "Someday soon every home will have a weblog, and we'll have great aggregation tools that allow us to quickly assemble lists of loved ones who survived. A new button on cellphones that says 'I made it' and it flows the fact to all your concerned friends."
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03 - PODCAST WEEK NYC — WEBSTER'S 'FRONT OF THE STORE', THE IAB SAYS NO NEW FRAMEWORK, AND A 99-SECOND PNWR
<b>The week:</b> Sounds Profitable Business Summit (Mon–Tue, 400+ people, 200 buyers), the IAB Podcast Upfront (Wed), Podcast Movement (Thu–Fri). Podnews was there all week; PNWR was 99 seconds.
<b> Tom Webster's keynote — 'Are podcasts at the front of the store?'</b> Previewing The Podcast Landscape 2026: "for the first time, <b>the top three places where people have 'ever' consumed podcasts are not dedicated podcast apps</b>. YouTube, Spotify and Netflix don't show podcasts front-and-centre… Webster compared <b>Netflix's podcasts category as the equivalent of the CD range in a Walmart</b> — just the most popular titles in a small selection which is hard to find; while a real podcast app like Apple Podcasts or Pocket Casts was the equivalent of <b>Tower Records</b>." Rob Walch, separately: "Netflix lists just <b>1 in 67,547</b> podcasts. (And doesn't list yours.)"
Podnews — Are podcasts at the front of the store? (18 Sep)
<b> The IAB: a new framework is 'not needed'.</b> Jason Adamski at the Upfront: the IAB "appears to reject a medium-agnostic measurement standard like the recently-released <b>AMP Accords</b>, saying 'the solution is not to build a new framework from scratch', and instead suggests… two separate standards from the IAB Tech Lab — the Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines v2.2 and the Digital Video Served Impression Guidelines." Cridland: "The guide — and even the full press release for it — <b>requires a registration with your email address to read. That's not how you set standards.</b>" He hosts the PDF himself.
Podnews — IAB: a new framework is 'not needed' (17 Sep)
<b>Dave asked the question on the instance</b> (16 Sep): "@samsethi <b>Do you still have to pay to see the actual spec?</b>" James: "You've never had to pay to see the spec. (This isn't v2.2 — which has been out for a few years — just a guideline that as far as I can see rejects the AMP Accords entirely)." Dave: "I could have sworn there was something you had to pay for. The IP block lists or something maybe?" James: "<b>Certification and I think the IP blocks as well…</b>"
<b> The Podcast Study 2026</b> (Summit): "<b>45% of podcast listeners would be 'at least somewhat likely' to pay for a subscription tier to remove ads</b>; and <b>64% would sign up for email</b> from their favourite podcasters." Edison: topic, hosts and guests decide what people pick; trailer and cover art least.
<b> Video, still not a platform:</b> Podscribe at the Upfront — "<b>not one of the top 500 shows are available on all video platforms</b>: YouTube, Spotify, Rumble and HLS via open RSS." Amazon Music adds ART19, Triton Omny and Flightcast video (via the <b>alternateEnclosure</b> tag, HLS), six countries. Podscribe–Rumble attribution is "the first video platform to support all the signals required… under the <b>AMP attribution specification</b>."
<b> Machine Gods:</b> Kevin Roose and Casey Newton leave the NYT's Hard Fork for <b>NPR</b> — a video show from October, on member stations from next year; the first deal under NPR's new content chief. ("We guess they like tote bags.")
Podnews — A new home for Roose and Newton (16 Sep)
<b> Money moves:</b> Substack adds a podcast tab — creators "collectively earn <b>over $200 million per year on Substack</b>"; Spotify Partner Program expands to 35 more markets, "total monthly payouts to enrolled shows have increased by more than a third"; Megaphone quietly raised SPAN's bar to three published episodes, undocumented, no comment; Giggly Squad's SiriusXM renewal "multiple offers around $150 million"; a <b>Disctopia patent</b> that checks whether you are listening by asking you questions mid-episode, "part of any payment to creators."
Podnews — Substack podcast tab, $200M a year (11 Sep)
<b> Tooling:</b> <b>Podpage Agent-Built Websites</b> — "work with an AI agent, like Claude or Codex, to design your websites; and then use Podpage to make it properly hosted"; PodAnalyst v3 lets you "connect Iris to your own Claude or ChatGPT account"; Headliner auto-clips for YouTube; Threads now unfurls Apple/Spotify/iHeart podcast links; the <b>Podcast Standards Project</b> met Thursday 12:30 ET near the venue, open to non-members.
<b> Our people at PM:</b> Mike Dell (Blubrry): "I'm headed there too. Speaking about podcasting 2.0 stuff." Matt Medeiros was going "bearing Podcasting 2.0 gifts — I'm advocating for the <b>funding tag</b>… Forget views — get the funding tag!" then: "Sadly I had to cancel my trip to podcast movement. But I'm thinking of doing a virtual event around fundingtag.link." Sam Sethi: "we featured you on Creators from TrueFans and talked about the three steps you need to undertake to make the Funding Tag work."
<b>Sam Sethi's thread (15 Sep), the Creator Portal:</b> "The old model was simple: one creator → one podcast → one audio app… the next generation of creator platforms will look less like podcast apps and more like Creator Portals" — TrueFans newsletter launching next week, subscriber/open/click data to creators; roadmap: custom domains, native iOS/Android, CarPlay/Watch/TV, <b>stablecoin support</b>.
@samsethi — the Creator Portal thread
<b>⭐ Board questions:</b> (1) Webster's Walmart-vs-Tower-Records: is the Index's answer to Netflix a better front of the store — newpodcastapps.com — or is it that we never wanted to be in Walmart? (2) The IAB keeps its guide behind an email wall and its certification behind a fee; the AMP Accords are open. <b>Does the Index endorse a measurement spec, or stay out?</b> (3) Substack's $200M and Spotify's payouts are both closed-loop money. <b>Where is the V4V number for the week</b> — stats.podcastindex.org/v4v.
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