It's fun to break the rules. Podnews has broken some quite difficult stories for the industry over the past few weeks - so today, it's all good news! All of it!

As long as you don't look too closely at the last main story.

All of it!

https://podnews.net/update/good-news-power

One for excellent people using @nprofile1q... - https://radar.rss.io/#globe shows podcasts that are made in, or about, places on earth. The data is free and open. Most have full OSM references as well!

@nprofile1q... #podcasts #openstreetmap #osm

So - in the last two weeks, I’ve caught Spotify’s ad-skipping tool “skip ahead” (which they claim isn’t an ad skipping tool); caught Spotify giving people entirely unskippable ads in podcasts (which they claim are absolutely not unskippable ads, they don’t do those); called out Spotify for delaying their EQUAL podcast announcement by a week (which they strenuously deny even though the evidence is clear); and now it transpires that YouTube’s “views metric continues as the engaged views metric in YouTube Studio” is *also* a lie - the numbers are different - and the YouTube 30” figure that we all thought a ‘view’ was is, in their words, “simply not true”. (Story to come in Podnews ).

Time was when the podcast industry was collegiate and friendly. And then Spotify and YouTube waded in. They lie to me. They lie to you. It’s all nonsense. Podcasters don’t know where they’re going now - because these large companies are just flat out lying, or being deliberately obstructive with the truth.

An interesting way to learn more about #Australia. Balgowan seems to have a lot of houses for just 64 people, which is what the ABS thinks the population is (the place's website claims 100 permanent residents, mind you). Lots of holiday houses, then.

And - no store. For anything. (There's a seasonal store, but that's it). The closest store is 35km away in Maitland.

Heaven knows why the AP have only just published this. But I love how Count Binface answers questions that could be answered with “yes” or “no” … with “yes” or “no”. It’s brilliant. The poor interviewer has to then follow-up with a decent question. “Can you explain your manifesto?” “Yes.”

https://youtu.be/YxUd-quCmuY

Excited about this new account (which I helped, a little, appear). As bidden by the bot, I went to do some mapping in Yunta SA, to discover that it had already been quite well mapped by others today!

So far, we've had a few VIC, a few WA, and now one SA. I'm looking forward to a QLD town soon! :)

#openstreetmap #mapping #australia

So if you’ve ever wondered what a “play” really is for a podcast, here’s a tediously exhaustive article all about that.

https://podnews.net/article/what-is-a-podcast-play