We are seeing a lot of activity taking place with cryptocurrency. Much of it seems to be more of the same. That said, there is some stuff happening at the back end that is going to have an impact.
At present, the podcasting industry is going through a revolutionary change. Most are unaware but this was one that really did not innovate much over the last decade or so. A lot of what takes place dates back to before 2010.
It also became extremely centralized. The industry is controlled by Apple and Spotify. They essentially are the gatekeepers meaning that podcasters have little input into what happens. Just like with social media, those two entities have the ability to bury individual podcasters.
With the upcoming transition that is being made, Hive is right at the center of it.
Podcasting 2.0
It appears there is a movement to bring innovation to the podcasting space. Since most were happy to let the abovementioned companies control everything, it is taking a concerted effort of people who are looking to wrestle control away. They are approaching it on a multi-tiered front to update and alter the way the industry works.
To begin with, what is Podcasting 2.0?
Here is what was recently posted from a Medium article providing an introduction to Podcasting 2.0.
Podcasting 2.0 is an umbrella term that covers a collection of initiatives to advance podcasting technology and to decentralize podcasting, taking
control of the medium out of the hands of large technology companies.
These projects are all open source.
We see a lot of different people involved. This is breaking down into a variety of projects.
The Podcast Index
Podcasting Namespace
PodPing
Value-For-Value
For those who are unaware, Hive is being inserted into two of those areas.
Podping
This is something that was started by @brianoflondon and funded by the community through the DHF. This places Hive directly at the middle of Podcasting 2.0.
A number of articles exist about this so we don't need to go into detail here.
The basic premise is that the application uses the Hive blockchain to update all podcasts. Each time a new one is released via RSS feed, the URL is packed together with others and posted as a Custom JSON to Hive. This allows any company that host podcasts to get their updates at a much reduced cost.
A lot more information can be found at the @podping account.
The key is that, as Podcasting 2.0 grows, so will Podping. Hence, Hive is right in the middle of any success that project has since it is the backend application for the indexing feeds.
Value-For-Value
That is not the only area where Hive is being inserted. When we look at the value-for-value category, we see another area of major breakthrough.
Before getting into that, we need to understand what this is.
Referring back to the same Medium article, we find this:
The value for value system is a way for podcasters to receive direct payments from listeners in the form of bitcoin.
The value-for-value system uses the Lightning Network which is a layer on top of Bitcoin designed to facilitate rapid transactions and micropayments.
That is great except how does that impact Hive? Here again we see the development that is taking place.
The Lightning Network requires nodes to be open (online) to receive payments. This is not a problem for developers and technical people who spin up a node. However, for the average podcaster, this is not going to take place.
Development as well as testing, is underway to provide Hive with a bidirectional bridge to the Lightning Network. This means that Hive can be used to get Satoshis or vice versa. The later is what we are truly concerned about for the moment.
If the value-for-value system is operating yet most cannot get their money without having a node online, what good is it? The bridge is going to solve this by enabling Podcasters to receive any tips received when people are listening to podcasts in Hive.
Essentially we are seeing, through this development, not only the ability for access the Lightning Network via swapping to and from Hive, but also providing podcasters with a way to ensure they will always receive their money. Anything that comes in is waiting in one's Hive wallet, just like any other transaction. There is no need for anything to be online since that is all handled at the blockchain level.
Censorship Coming
Since podcasting is so old in terms of its innovation, it has escaped many of the censorship battle that is raging. However, that appears to be changing.
We all are aware of what is taking place with this situation. Anything that does not fit the mainstream agenda is considered misinformation. Hence, those who are driving this want anything contrary to their message shut off.
Eyes are now being turned to podcasting. Again there is no need to go into the details since it was explained very well in this article. It cites some research done by Brookings Institute.
Fortunately, this is where Podcasting 2.0 has the solution. The key motivation behind all of this is to get the centralized aspects of podcasting, notably the power of Spotify and Apple, out of the industry. This is, of course, the way to counter outside attacks.
Hive is know establishing itself for being censorship resistant. There is no way to stop what is posted to Hive once an account is open. Hence, Podping will keep going as long as it is running.
Then we have the fact that Podping is open source software. This means that it can be copied many times over, to be running on computers all over the world. Take out one, others crop up.
We also see this coupled with @threespeak. For those who didn't know, every file loaded to that site now is converted to a podcast. That means there is a RSS feed tied to each one and it can be viewed through any podcasting application.
Of course, as we know, the SpkNetwork is taking censorship-resistant to another level by establishing a way where all content is decentralized. By using IPFS as well as community hosting, we remove the centralization of video and audio storage.
As we can see, there are a number of ways that Hive is being inserted right at the core of Podcasting 2.0, which is now going to become a fight against censorship. This is something that Hive spend a number of years working towards.
There is, however, one other area that Hive can become even a bigger player. How about all comments make to people's podcasting feeds get posted on the Hive blockchain?
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So much happening right now behind the scenes. Both 3Spk and PodPing are HUGE innovations and will eventually drive massive usage into the Hive blockchain. Great write-up, as always.
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The great thing about Podping is that the traffic will not decrease. Those hosting companies that are already utilizing it are not going to change back. Hence, it is locked in.
Just need to get more using it.
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I don't mind podcast but I kind of prefer to listen on 2x speed so I generally don't bother unless its on Youtube or some other video site. But yes the decentralization from Apple and Spotify is a good thing.
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There is a huge podcasting industry outside of Apple. There have been hundreds of players in the game.
Many traditional podcasters come from talk radio.
One can created a podcast simply my recording and editing an audio file with Audacity. One can host podcast on any discount web host ... although it is usually better to use a content distribution network.
Most people who are serious about podcasting will host their podcast through a service like podbeam. Apple is just a tool used to market the podcast.
The one thing podcasts lack is a decent way to monetize their recordings.
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Apple for the most part controls the indexing. That is where the problems can come from.
This is what @podping fixes.
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I just want to make sure people understand the nature of the beast.
There is actually a huge number of independent podcasts. I usually download them from the creator's web site.
Apple and Talk Radio are Problems
Since Apple controls the indexing, they are able to limit the ability to monetize podcasts and they are able to shadow-ban the podcasts that they do not like.
The other big problem in podcasting is that the massive media conglomerates that control Talk Radio control the other half of the industry.
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Yoi! I'm a newbee in this sphere, but that really sounds exciting. It's great to hear about those developments of decentralization. We need it desperately!
I'll try to keep up and understand what you are developing here. Looking forward to the day when it all launches in full.
And great that it rests on Hive. My favorite platform :)
Make each podcast a post on Hive? Hmmm, yeah!
Have really been enjoying your recent articles going over the fundamental developments towards decentralization. It is coming together, and I really like how you highlight and give an overview of how it is coming together.
I am glad you find them valuable. It is certainly something we are seeing, pieces in many different places that are starting to come together.
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with 3speak rss option every video is now available on podcast players that use podping to get new episodes.
they are brainstorming how to get all podcasting players to have unified comments. Connecting hive accounts to it where pod apps would pull comments from the chain is doable and probably not that hard.
Hopefully they figure it out. That would be terrific that every comment made on a podcasting application is fed to Hive. It would just strengthen the system.
Having every podcast as a post on Hive would be an amazing thing to happen.
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He is a big brain but his Hive account is @brianoflondon not @brainoflondon :-)
Damn typos. Too use to typing proof of brain I guess.
Corrected.
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It's possible that I'm also @podking and @brainoflondon.
You are both of them.
Your project is leading us to a new level.
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The Podping code is so simple, yet it so elegantly replaces expensive servers that podcast hosts had to run to keep up with new podcasts with a very simple API call to the Hive blockchain (that can be run on a Raspberry Pi or $5 server).
But it goes further than that.
@brianoflondon has created a Holy Grail - a centralised point for consolidated pointer information based on a decentralised platform.
This has wide application across the internet for all sorts of peer-to-peer systems.
For example it can be used to create a central point for everyone going live on a livestream.
It can be a central point for directing people or computers to the location of information.
The same code (with very minor tweaks) can be reused for many many purposes in decentralising the internet and cutting out centralised players.
Without a centralised point to attack or control, freedom will be restored to the internet and thus to the world.
I've read this comment about 3 times and I don't quite get it.
I understand the duality of decentralization and centralized points of attacks and now decentralization is more robust. But, if you have the time, could you maybe explain like I'm a dummy what you mean by this:
Cause I don't quite get it, but I want to. What do you mean consolidated pointer? What is it pointing to or what is pointing at it, and why? Creating a central point for going live on a livestream, wouldn't that be what Vimm or Twitch is? Sorry, I was reading through the comments here and yours caught my eye so I was hoping maybe an ELI5?
Here is a more detailed explanation.
The internet was originally developed as a peer-to-peer decentralised architecture and many things on the internet including podcasting, websites and many underlying internet protocols still operate that way.
However the problem with a distributed, decentralised architecture is "How the hell do you find anything?".
It was to fulfill this need to find things that centralised search engines and later the many other centralised platforms that today dominate the online space arose.
Both people and programs need to be told where to look or where to start looking for something they need. Even when the actual content is transferred in a peer-to-peer manner, the central point is always vulnerable to control and censorship.
A practical example is Napster. People shared songs in a peer to peer manner but Napster provided the central point where people and programs looked to find the song they were looking for.
Because it was a centralised company it could be attacked and shut down.
Podcasts are peer-to-peer but people need a central place to look for the location of RSS feeds they are interested in. Many of the more popular podcast indexes such as that run by Apple are now beginning to censor content.
What is needed for podcasting and has wide applicability is a centralised point for people and programs to look for the particular type of information they want (be that a RSS feed, a livestream, a song or video or whatever) but which is on a properly decentralised platform that cannot be censored, controlled or shut down.
This is what @podping does, using Hive, very elegantly and requiring very minimal computer resources.
This changes everything.
The point re livestreaming is that it is currently all platform specific, siloed and controlled by censorious Big Tech. There is no place a person can say to the world "I am going LIVE!" in a platform independent way.
Once such a place exists then content creators can easily switch platforms from Facebook to Vimm, to 3Speak etc without being trapped in a particular centralised ecosystem. They can take their followers with them as they move to the best platform.
So the notification system is what is being decentralized, not the platforms themselves. I think I understand what you mean by a decentralized pointer now. I haven't really taken the time to look into the blogging/podcasting systems out there like RSS, and maybe I should. It'll probably help me understand podping more.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to write this out! I understand it a bit more now, even if I had to read both comments a couple times, kudos to you my dude.
!LUV3
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Thanks for that addition @apshamilton. That is great to know. The software actually has a much larger use case than we see here.
This really could become a central point for the decentralization of the internet.
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Very interesting. I don't listen to many podcasts honestly, but I always feel like I would like to. Something about listening to people talk kind of annoys me so I usually just stick with music. I know I am weird. What ever happened to Anchor? I know a lot of people were using that to podcast back in the day. I feel like it was one of the big players.
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This isnt changing where people listen, just how the updates are taking place. We are seeing a massive back end shake up underway from what I can see.
All of this is going to help insert Hive in the center of the equation.
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Ah, okay, that makes sense then. I might have missed it, but I noticed there was a massive talk between the White House and the big tech yesterday. I expected someone to be posting about that.
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All I can say is wait as this is just the start as many will see Hive for what it can actually do and does serve multiple purposes. Once everyone understands what is possible growth will happen organically.
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😉😊
Mind blowing in a great way.
!BBH
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Because this is such an awesome post, here is a BBH Tip for you.
. Keep up the fantastic work
As a long-time podcaster I am watching what Adam Curry, Dave Jones @podcastindex, and developers like @brianoflondon are doing with equal parts fascination, expectation, and bewilderment.
RSS = Freedom. Go Podcasting!
You mentioned Hive being involved in Podcasting 2.0 through Podping and Value-For-Value, both worked on by @brianoflondon.
But doesn't Hive become a de facto decentralized and uncensored podcast index, ready to be accessed by whoever wants to use it, as Podping keeps writing podcast info on the chain? I believe it does.
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Excellent write-up. As an upcoming podcast host, I look forward to seeing what the HIVE Blockchain can bring to the table, and am very excited about a HIVE-to-Lightning Bridge!
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