Episode 225: Snake Bite

Podcasting 2.0 June 20th 2025 Episode 225: "Snake Bite"

Adam & Dave are joined by the PodDoc, Franco Solerio, developer of the Castamatic app

ShowNotes

We are LIT

YouTube Isn’t Dominating Podcasting - Signal Hill Insights

Franco Solerio

He mends bodies and souls, he's the developer of The Castamatic app and the official PodDoc

True Fans iOS app

Spotify support Transcripts

Hostig Companies - Funding, LIT , Podroll, PodPing

NOSTR Metadata

This week in Vibe Coding - TWIV

-------------------------------------

MKUltra chat

Transcript Search

What is Value4Value? - Read all about it at Value4Value.info

V4V Stats

Last Modified 06/20/2025 14:16:29 by Freedom Controller  

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Podcasting 2.0 for June 20th, 2025, episode
225, Snakebite.
Hey, everybody, it's time once again for Podcasting
2.0. That's right.
You want to know what's going on in
podcasting?
Disregard everything you read or hear about about
YouTube.
None of it's true.
We are ready to talk about the latest

(00:22):
and the greatest.
We are in fact, the only boardroom that
sends out a bat signal when we start.
I'm Adam Curry, here in the heart of
the Texas Hill Country, and in Alabama, the
man who will source your podcast straight from
your feed.
Say hello to my friend on the other
end, the one, the only Mr. Dave Jones.
Having some kind of tooth problem.

(00:44):
Tooth problem?
Yeah, I'm having like a dental, a dental
crisis here.
Oh, well, you are talking to the right
guy.
I am, the doctor is in.
What can I do for you?
Is it, does it hurt?
Yes.
Oh, well, sorry.
That sucks.
It hurts.
Which, which one, which number is it?
12, 14?

(01:05):
I think it's nine.
Number nine.
Is that next to your canine?
I don't know.
Well, which I don't know.
I just made up a number.
Which tooth hurts and what kind of hurt?
Does it hurt when you drink different temperature
liquids?
No, not really.
It's the gum is swollen, like right next
to where it is.

(01:25):
Periodontitis.
Yes.
Periodontitis.
Gum disease.
Did you make that up?
No.
Well, I think it's probably the wrong word,
but it's a gum disease.
I don't have gum disease.
Yeah, it can go away.
Here's a handy trick.
Do you have any cloves in the house?
Cloves?
Do you have a clove?
I have like a clove.
Yes.
You could actually.

(01:45):
Like one of the, not the ground one,
but there's just the whole clove.
Yeah, you can put that right in between
the two teeth, the one that hurts and
the pain will subside.
Oh, well that actually cure it or just
make the pain?
No, no, no.
It'll just make the pain go away.
It's not going to cure anything.
You're screwed.
I didn't even notice it until like, uh,

(02:08):
like right before the show, I'm like, man,
you know, my chew on this side is
kind of hurting.
And then I feel back there and it's
like the gums all swollen.
Well, that could just be something that you
might've scraped it or.
Yeah.
I'm going with that for now.
Were you eating dog food?
Biscuits?
Anything sharp by any chance?

(02:28):
No, no dog food today.
That's usually how I get it.
By eating dog food.
I, there's nothing I've given my dog that
I haven't tasted myself.
Please tell me that's not true.
No, absolutely.
If it's, if it doesn't give it to
the dog, I'm going to try it myself.
She has these really nice.

(02:49):
She gets a biscuit at night, one biscuit,
one dog biscuits.
And, uh, it says the latest one is
green apples and yogurt.
I mean, that stuff's good.
It's and it's such a, it's so balanced,
nutritionally balanced.
And my fur is gleaming.
Let me tell you, those bowel movements are

(03:10):
just perfect.
They're perfectly formed.
Everything's good.
Everything's moving.
Hey, right off the bat, since, um, uh,
since I don't have iOS, I believe it's
on Android, but I haven't gotten anything from,
uh, from the Seth Meister.
How's the true fans iOS beta?
Um, so I have instant feedback for Sam.

(03:34):
Um, let me open it up here.
Hey, it always using it opens.
That's a good start.
Step one open.
Yes.
Uh, so I was listening to pod news
weekly review this morning on true fans.
Yes.
And, uh, as I was doing my walk

(03:54):
and then, uh, and I got, um, a
ways into it, maybe 10% into it.
And then I got, I had to go
back to work and then, so I worked
a little bit and then I was going
to listen to a little bit more on
the way home for, uh, for lunch to
do the, to do the show.
And I got in the car and it
looked like that.

(04:17):
It just, it had to like refresh the
app.
Okay.
So it's, it looks to me like this
is sort of a wrapper around, um, around
the PWA around the PWA.
Yeah.
I thought you weren't allowed to do that.
Um, I know it's, it's more than that.
It's, it's, it's more than that.
It's, it's got, like, it's got definite controls

(04:40):
and stuff.
It's, it's doing native stuff, but it's, I
think it's like an adjust.
I think it's getting its main body of
content from the app, from the PWA and
it's putting its controls natively sort of on
top and bottom.
Uh, so I think, but it looked like
the, like the app got ejected out of
memory.

(05:00):
And so it had to reload.
And when it came back, it lost my
spot.
I, it started the episode over.
Oh, that's one of the hardest things.
Yeah.
So I'm not sure where they're at in
the troubleshooting process yet, but that's good feedback.
Yeah.
So that, that's, that was my experience this
morning.
And I'm thinking that maybe it might be

(05:22):
that what I did notice was that it
was very resilient to like disruptions in network.
So I'm thinking they may be downloading the
full episode into local storage and playing from
there.
Right.
Uh, so that's good, but that did have
that hiccup, that hiccup.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was, I was testing the Godcaster app

(05:43):
and I actually, I was listening.
I think it might've been, it might've been
pod news.
And, and so the, my phone died, it
ran out of battery and I kind of
let it do that.
I'm like, Oh, let's see what happens.
It came back and it came back in
the same spot exactly where I left off,
which is amazing.

(06:04):
I'm like, Whoa, it's hard.
It's hard to do that stuff sucks.
It is.
Yeah.
Especially when, especially when you're trying to live
a hybrid world between native and web.
Yeah.
Like that, that's a, you know, cause P
I don't, I don't know the structure of
the app.
I'm assuming it's using the PWA as sort

(06:26):
of like the main workhorse and then you
got to like extend it into the native
and that's just such a pain.
Painful.
Yeah.
Hey, do you feel the shift?
Do you, do you, do you feel the
shift this past week?
A shift in the, in the atmosphere, in
the, in the podcast atmosphere?
Did you feel it?
Could you feel it?
Could just like, like a fresh wind blowing
through everything?

(06:48):
Oh, uh, wait, Dreb said he didn't get
the bat signal.
Did you send the pod ping?
Yeah.
Let me double check.
Um, yeah, I'm live.
Yeah.
Oh, wait, wait.
No.
What?
Hold on a sec.
Favorite feeds.

(07:09):
Podcasting 2.0 live episodes.
Huh?
No, I sent it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I see it.
You see it.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I have, I changed the GUID.
Yeah.
It should be there.
You got it.
Oh, wait.
Nevermind.
Nevermind.
Okay.
Real-time feedback is wrong.
Uh, Dreb, Dreb then corrected himself and said,

(07:31):
nevermind.
He got it.
Oh, okay.
Thanks.
I was about to, I already had a,
I already have my, my, my shell open.
I'm like, ah, I'm going to get in
here.
Yes.
You're like, wait, hold on a second.
SSH space.
The shift.
I did feel a shift.
Yes.
The shift for me was real.
Everybody is like, ah, you know, YouTube isn't

(07:52):
all that.
And I love it.
And it only took one piece of research,
which was nice.
Thanks again.
Uh, signal Hill insights.
And right away, YouTube parays like, well, you
know, podcasts that are already successful benefit even

(08:12):
more by doing a video on YouTube.
Yeah.
The, I love how he said, uh, in
that, uh, by he, I mean the, um,
yeah, the, the YouTube dude.
Yeah.
He said he was like, um, you know,
people looking from the outside may see podcasts

(08:33):
on YouTube as an overnight success dot, dot,
dot.
I was like, uh, who's, who's said that?
Oh, that's funny.
I'm not aware of that being people's mind.
It's not a thing as far as I
know.
And then we also got more and I'm
just going to say something to the Spotify
folks.
I'm sure some are listening who would do

(08:54):
something somewhere.
Um, when you do things like support transcripts
from your own hosting company to go out
to other apps, but don't support them coming
in from RSS feeds that you ingest, you
are going to lose.
And, and you're trying to do the same

(09:15):
thing that companies have done over and over
and over again, just give up, give in,
join the party.
You know, just don't, don't be short-sighted.
The, the, the, the road, the podcasting trail
is littered with failures like this.
I think they will be doing that.

(09:35):
I read, you know, I read between the
lines of what, uh, I read between, I
read between the lines of James reading between
the lines.
Yeah.
And, and when he talked to the Spotify
people and they were basically saying, you know,
we have nothing to share, uh, at this
time, but they, their response was worded in

(09:56):
such a way that it's like, yeah, we're
doing it, but it's just not going to
be right now.
You know, and it's, it's common.
It's just saying, I mean, I think it's
like a not invented here syndrome and you
know, it goes right along with I'll never
forget.
Let me see.
Do we still have that guy?
The Spotify dude.
Let me see if I have that.

(10:16):
Which one?
It was, I'm looking it up.
See if I can find it now.
The Spotify, the Spotify chick.
I don't know.
There was a Spotify.
He was, um, I think he was one
of the founders.
He was a engineer.
Oh, Oh, the guy talking about the black
box of the DRM.
No, no, maybe.

(10:38):
But if I'm going to paraphrase, he was
saying, you know, artists, you should just be
happy that we put you on our platform
at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was that guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, I think he was the guy
that created the DRM that, that just powers
like all of that stuff.
Well, that attitude is just, it's not going

(11:01):
to be successful for you.
Not saying it because I care what you
do.
Well, I do.
I actually, I do care.
I want you to be successful.
You, you spent a billion dollars and, uh,
that didn't work on talent and Hollywood people.
Hello, Yahoo.
And, uh, and now just be open, be

(11:21):
open.
Come on, join the water's warm because I
peed in it, but it's good and yellow.
No, it turns green.
Cause we got chemicals put in to trace.
So did you have anything else, uh, from
the past week that you wanted to discuss
before we bring on our special guest today?
Um, yeah, well, we had, uh, I mean,

(11:43):
speaking of Spotify, they're on the apps list.
Now they podcast apps.
Oh, they made it at the bottom.
I presume at the bottom.
Uh, they're pretty close to the bottom along
with Apple podcast apps.com.
Let's see.
Scroll down, scroll down, scroll down.

(12:05):
Uh, captain sweatpants.
Now we heard you.
We heard you.
The thing was you were so annoying with
repeating it over and over again that I
just started skipping what you were saying.
If you're going to troll, do it right
now.
He said, I kept saying that on the
last episode, they're not ingesting podcasts.
Yeah.
I saw you.
We were just basking in the glow for

(12:26):
a moment, basking in the glow.
Okay.
So Spotify is third from the bottom.
Apple is seventh from the bottom.
So they're not, yeah, not, not as, you
know, well in kudos to, uh, hosting companies
who continue to support, uh, some of the
important tags.
Uh, I forget who it was now.
James was talking about it.
Uh, hosting company added the funding tag, really

(12:49):
the ones that, that I think are the
most critical for almost any app to just
have is funding, uh, pod role, the lit
tag.
I might even put lit before pod role,
but it's cause it's, it's just not that
hard to implement.
I don't think you have plenty of examples,
plenty of feeds coming through and, uh, and

(13:10):
then the use of pod ping.
And if you guys support that, wow, what
a different world we'll live in.
You will.
We, we did.
Speaking of pod ping, there are two, I've
got, I have two requests in my inbox,
uh, today for pod ping tokens.
Uh, one from a pretty sizable outfit that

(13:32):
I think everybody will be.
Oh, you cannot disclose who that is.
Um, I do, I, I, I'm sort of
hesitant to do that.
All right.
That's my next week.
My next week bombshell.
Yes.
Okay.
That's my side podcast that I do on
Saturday nights.

(13:53):
Is it an app or a hosting company?
It must be an app, I guess.
Uh, it's a hosting company.
Oh, hosting company.
Sort of, sort of, sort of.
Yeah.
Sort of.
I mean, yes, it's yeah.
I'm, I'm hesitant to like, no, don't say
it, but spill the beans.
Cause I think sometimes they like to have

(14:14):
an announcement and do a blog post.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Good.
All right.
We don't, we don't want to do that.
And the other one, but it'll be, it'll
be a good thing.
And the second one.
Um, it's, it's sort of, I mean, it's
like a normal, um, I don't know how
big they are, uh, but it's just a,
you know, hosting company.
Okay.
It's not a well, yeah, I guess they
are too, but it's sort of, it's a

(14:36):
more niche hosting platform.
Oh, interesting.
Oh, lips.
No, it's not.
Hey, but that's good.
No, if it was, if it was lips
and I would have definitely said lists, we
would have brought out the party horns.
Yeah.
Um, that's good though, because the more hosting

(14:57):
companies support it, the more people won't be
able to get around it.
And we'll just say, what are we, what
are we stupid?
Right.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's a big, I mean, pod
paying is, is a big deal.
Anybody, anytime anybody jumps on that board, it's
great that that makes everybody's life easier.
Um, but I mean, I, I thought that

(15:19):
I thought, uh, speaking of, uh, the YouTube
thing, I thought James had a good, he
used a good phrase, the tyranny of video.
I think that's a good, I think that's
a good way to look at it.
I'm sad.
I didn't come up with that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, he had this whole interesting analysis, which

(15:41):
we could also do for pod paying, which
is how much more climate change, uh, Spotify
is Spotify is creating by adding video.
I thought that was pretty funny.
Like, look at the, look at the climate,
look at the carbon footprint of Apple polling,
all of these feeds all the time or
Spotify for that matter.
You know, Apple may be using pod paying

(16:03):
already and we just don't know it.
Oh, good point.
Nah, they're still, they're still slow.
They wouldn't tell us if they were doing
it.
Why would they?
Why would they?
That's, that's, that's not the jobsy in way.
No, you want to announce it, make everybody
go, Oh, Apple, you're the best.
And then tell everybody you're holding it wrong.

(16:23):
Well, if you want to put in, if
you want to, if you want to know
for sure, if they put in lit live
support, then we'll know for sure that they're
doing pod paying.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
The two go hand in hand and man
lit is people have no idea what they
can invigorate.
Well, we do because we've, we're actually seeing
it in, in real time soon to be

(16:44):
released.
We're seeing it in real time.
What, what happens when you add lit and,
uh, and podcasts and you combine the two,
man, you just gave radio a whole new
lease on life.
Yeah, it really is.
It's phenomenal.
It's phenomenal.
Well, speaking of lease on life, ladies and
gentlemen, our guests for today, he men's bodies

(17:05):
and souls.
He's the developer of the Castamatic app and
the official pod doc.
Say hello to Franco Solerio and Aguri Aguri
with the new app.
There it is.
That's all my Italian.
That's pretty much what I speak with my

(17:26):
brother in law.
Yes.
Yeah.
Franco, how are you doing brother?
Oh, I'm doing well.
So happy to have you on and appreciate
that you're taking time out of your extremely
busy schedule.
I know it's late for you.
What is it?
Uh, no, it's 8 p.m. 8 p
.m. Yeah, it's no problem.
Well, shouldn't you be watching the football?
Not today.
Right now we have to stay awake at

(17:48):
night because we moved all the football, uh,
uh, train over to the USA to your
country.
They're playing the, the, the, the, the, the,
the world cup.
Oh yeah.
That's right.
That's right.
Yes.
Is that the FIFA cup?
Is that the FIFA world cup?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, who do you think is going to
win?
I don't know.
I really don't know because, uh, it's, it's

(18:11):
a little joke because they get a lot
of money if they win, but right now
all a good, uh, European teams are on
rest because they just finished the day, their
championships.
So all the, all the, all the players
are either broken, are waiting to go for
vacation.

(18:32):
It's a little difficult to break, but so
my team is Juventus.
So I, I, I hope they will go,
we would go well.
We, uh, it's been a while.
It's been a hot minute actually, since we've
had you on the show, it's been a
poop probably a couple of years.
Uh, so it's good to have you back.
If you don't mind, just give everybody a
little background because you are an actual, uh,

(18:54):
I think functional medicine doctor, if I recall
correctly.
Yes, yes.
That's good.
Uh, I work at as a doctor, uh,
in the spare time when I don't do
podcasting and when I'm sorry, I can't, I
can't save your life because I'm, I'm a
podcast thing.
Come on, give me a break.
I got stuff to do here.

(19:14):
And then I have to fix bugs and
then I may, may fix you.
Is there, is there a, um, do you
feel like, let me put it this way.
I've always found that some of the best
software developers are musicians, particularly bass players for
some reason are really good software developers.
Do you feel that when it comes to
stomping bugs and stuff, is there a parallel

(19:36):
or a crossover between what you do in
diagnosing people and, uh, and healing them?
Yeah, maybe, maybe, uh, it's the brain is
a mystery.
So you, you, you never know what skills
can come out.
And, uh, in, in healing people, you have
to, to, to, to keep an open mind.
You have to study analytically and then you

(19:58):
have to examine holistically a patient and understand
what he wants, uh, even before what, uh,
what he's telling or the tests are telling
you.
So maybe, maybe musicians are, are good for
that.
I know a lot of musicians.
It would be great if people had a
log file, you know, but it doesn't work

(20:19):
like that.
Let me just, let me just parse the
log here.
Grip depression, grip infection.
Oh, there you go.
There's, there's your problem.
Yeah.
So Franco, um, congratulations, man, on the, I
know you just released a new version.
I am not an iOS user, but tell
us, cause you just announced it, uh, coincidentally

(20:39):
before your appearance on the board meeting, uh,
tell us about the new release.
Oh, news release.
Uh, finally custom attic is going lit.
Uh, it was a longer, a long stretch
of work, uh, a long time thinking about
it because my app isn't really, wasn't really

(20:59):
supposed to go to go in that direction
because it's, uh, uh, it was completely on
device.
I, I didn't have a server backend, uh,
like a lot of other apps do.
It was a philosophical and a necessity because
I am, I am, I have no experience
in coding for, for servers.
Uh, but to, to, to watch pod pings

(21:22):
and alert people of live shows, you, you,
you need to have some sort of, uh,
of a server component.
And so I, I coded, uh, uh, a
mini server that, uh, where, where every, every
copy of custom attic can register to and
say, hello, I, I, I'm my, my, my
master is, is listening, is subscribed to this

(21:45):
podcast and this and this.
And, uh, the, the microserver looks for pod
pings relative to those, uh, to those, uh,
podcasts and then sends, uh, uh, push notifications
to the, to the device that, uh, that
are subscribed to that.
So I had, I had to, to, to
create a whole new component.
It's a microserver.
I have no experience in managing servers, uh,

(22:08):
apart from a small web server for my,
for my podcast and, and little things like
that.
But right now it's, it's going okay.
So let me, let me ask you, let
me pick your brain on this.
So your, your server is, um, is sending
push notifications to Castamatic, uh, to the Castamatic

(22:31):
apps.
How hard was that for you?
How hard was it for you to set
up that?
And how expensive is it?
Is it costing you a lot of money
each month to run that?
Right now it's, it's really not expensive because,
uh, uh, it runs, uh, uh, as a
little Docker component.

(22:52):
Uh, it's, uh, it's a small Linux Docker
container, uh, who runs this app in, in
Swift, uh, which is really, really, really small.
It doesn't, in my original idea, it, it
shouldn't have done nothing more than, uh, keeping

(23:13):
track of the subscriptions of each device, listening
for pod pings and sending notification to, to
the Apple's push notification server that, uh, then
relays the notification to the devices.
So it, it, it's very, very lightweight.
I had to, to, to make a little,

(23:34):
um, uh, one more step because I realized
pod pings are much more, uh, numerous.
Uh, uh, we, we, we, um, hosting companies
send a lot, uh, more pod pings than,
than, than are required.
Uh, because usually every time, uh, the, the,

(23:55):
the, the producer of the show modifies something
in their backend, even a comma in a,
in a, in a description of a, of
a, of an episode of two years ago,
they send a pod ping, Hey, something updated
to check this.
And look at me, look at me, look
at me.
Yes.
And Apple doesn't like that because, uh, it,

(24:16):
it, it puts a limit of the number
of push notifications that you can send to
each device.
And so, and so, uh, if I received
the 10, uh, 10, 10 pod pings for,
for your show, and, uh, I tried to,
to send the 10 pod pings to, to
the devices, to the, to the user subscribes

(24:38):
to the, to your show, uh, then, um,
Apple refuses to, to send many of those.
And so I, I, I had to add
another, another, another step where the server, every
time that it receives a pod ping, it
has to check for the feed for their
RSS feed and check if there is actually

(24:59):
a new episode or a new live show
and only then send the push notification.
So this grew a little more, but right
now it's running on, on, on a online
node on $10 a month.
Right now, but I've been running that only
for test flight users, uh, until one hour

(25:22):
ago.
Now I have to check when all the,
all the devices that run customatic will try
to subscribe and obviously running with C source,
probably everything, but, but I'm here to fix
it.
And it's not, uh, uh, the, the app
on the device doesn't crash.
If my server overloads, it might just be

(25:43):
a little slow to, to receive notification until
I fix this.
So wasn't the reason code supposed to help
with that, Dave?
Yeah, well with, with live, I mean, so
you only have you there's a, it doesn't
get so ingrained and tell you what changed.
It doesn't do like a diff.
It just says, you know, it's either, it's

(26:03):
either update or live or live end.
You know, this is just telling you kind
of like at a high level, whether this
is just a feed update or whether this
is a live event.
So that, I mean, it does help, but
you know, if all you're looking for is
live, but if you're looking for more than
just live, if you're looking for actual feeds,

(26:23):
feed change signals, like new episodes, then you're
going to have to check everyone.
And you're doing that Franco, you're doing a
new episodes as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And doing new episodes, but it's important for
me to check for updates because updates tell
the app that there is a new pending
live show that it might not be live

(26:45):
in this moment, but they want to show
it on the device.
So the users know that in a couple
hours or in a couple of days, there
will be a new live show.
Right.
So are you, are you, are you surfacing
that?
Are you showing the pending episodes?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nice.
There's a, there's a special place list that
appears on the, on the first page of

(27:06):
the app when there are live shows scheduled.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's a really great way to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought it could, I would like, I
would like to educate podcasters that do live
show to, to publish the, the pending episodes
with some days in advance, or maybe when

(27:29):
they, when they end the previous episode already
to schedule in the, in the RSS feed
that the new episodes.
So I can, I can show, uh, in
the live, uh, in the live playlist, uh,
the, the, the, can see all the live
shows that are scheduled in this week.
And they can tell, uh, no agenda will
be on Thursday and then podcasting 2.0

(27:52):
will be on Friday.
Just like, uh, just like, uh, the, the,
the schedule for, for a radio or a
television.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's perfect.
I mean, when, when I saw what you
were doing, that temporary sort of a temporary
playlist that comes and goes, and it always
gets your attention because it's right at the
top where the playlist section is.

(28:12):
It gets your attention that there's something there.
And so every, every time I would open
up Castamatic, I see like, it's visual, it's
a visual change.
So I see, Oh, well, and I'll, I'll
check it and see which episodes are listed.
So like the more days in advance, you
could get those in there, the better it
would be.
Cause then you have a head, like a
heads up if you had, so did you

(28:34):
have, did you have, uh, excuse me, did
you write the server part in Swift?
Yep.
Yep.
With the vapor framework.
Yes.
Which is really nice.
And I vibe coded some of that because
it can be, it can be useful if

(28:57):
you, if you do, if you keep the
leash short and check what, what, what it's
doing, um, it can be a useful resource.
So you, that probably, I'm assuming that that
helped you when you had to go the
extra step to create the server side feed
parser, because you could reuse your Swift code

(29:19):
from Castamatic to get that up faster.
Yes.
Yes.
And, and, um, it was really simple that
part because I don't have to parse every
little thing and every little quirk of the,
of the RSS feeds, but just check for
new items and live items and, uh, and
store the last one at the last update

(29:40):
in the database and the check for that
every time.
So does that also help?
I'm thinking you used to be purely on
device.
And so does that now that you have
push notifications for all of the pod pains
being checked that I'm assuming that that would

(30:01):
make the feed updating faster on device because
now you don't have to wait until the
next time the app launches to check all
the feeds.
Yes.
The minute the pod ping comes, I give
a silent, I send a silent push notification,
which is another kind of notification that is

(30:22):
not shown to the user, but only to
the app.
This is even more, uh, strict and limited
by Apple.
You don't, you don't, you, you must not
send a lot of the, of those, but
when I, when I can, when I send
a silent push notification, the app refreshes that
feed in the background.

(30:43):
And so usually when everything goes okay, the
app surfaces the, the, the new episode in
two to five seconds after the pod ping.
And the pod usually comes in about 20
seconds, uh, from the, the, the time that
the, the, the, the producer sent it.
That's, that's so cool.

(31:04):
That's like a, that's even better because I'm
assuming that if you, so if the, when
the push notifications comes in, there's a handoff
that happens where it, uh, the, where iOS
wakes up, wakes up your app, lets it
do a thing and then put in and
it goes back to sleep.

(31:25):
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
Yes.
But you have to refresh just one feed.
And so if the, if there is no
problem with the network connection between the device
and the internet, it usually, it's usually enough
time to, to download just that RSS feed
that the pod ping notification said, uh, it

(31:47):
was to update.
So are you on a timer?
Once that, once the, once the, once iOS
wakes your app, wakes up Castamatic, is there
a time limit before it's going to kill
it again?
Yes.
But, uh, it's a classic Apple style.
There is a timer, but it can change
anytime, every time.
And you don't know what the timer is.

(32:09):
Oh, great.
Wonderful.
Perfect.
That's coding for iOS.
What is the, what is the limit of,
uh, of notifications, silent and non-silent that
you can send?
Does Apple even tell you what that number
is?
No, nobody knows.
Man, those guys.
And, uh, uh, silent notification are very limited.

(32:33):
I, I estimate that if I send more
than a 10 in an hour, I get
limited total or per app per device.
Yes.
Um, uh, usual push notifications are not limited,
but that they don't wake the app.
So they just alert the user that the,

(32:56):
the, the, the, the classic push notification, which
is the one I use when, when, when
a live pod ping comes just are, are,
are only received by iOS and iOS displays
the banner to the user, but the app
isn't awaken or run until the user clicks
on the notification banner.

(33:17):
They're doing that for power management, for all
that other stuff they're collecting on you.
Yeah, I get it.
Um, and does that cost any money each
time you send that?
Or is that a service you get as
a developer?
No, you get it as a developer and,
uh, and as a user, yes, there's no
limit and there's no fee on that.
Nice.
Yeah.
That's good.

(33:41):
That's, that's good because you have, you know,
if I was them, I don't blame them
really the same reason we don't publish, like
I don't publish rate limits for the podcast
index API.
I mean, there are, there are numbers I
can, you know, I know that the numbers
are right now, but I don't put them
out in public because when you put them

(34:03):
out in public, the thing that happens is
everybody tries to run right up to the
limit.
Exactly.
Yeah.
If you, if you say you can only
put out 10 notifications per hour, everybody's going
to put out 10 notifications per hour.
And like, if I was them, I would
actually go one step further and, and just
like change it slightly all the time just

(34:23):
to keep everybody on their toes.
Cause otherwise you'd get flooded.
They probably are.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't blame them cause that,
especially when it's a free thing and you're,
and you're trying to do power management.
I mean, that's probably really complicated.
I imagine back in the early days, they
probably found that out the hard way that,
you know, they probably initially didn't have as

(34:46):
strict a limits as they do now.
Yeah.
And they can't, they don't know in advance
how many apps, how many apps each user
has installed on the device.
And that can change a lot.
Right.
Yeah.
That's a good, that's a good point.
Yeah.
That that's mobile, you know, mobile app development.

(35:07):
So is Castamatic, was it released initially back
like pre-Swift and Objective-C or did
you start in the Swift world?
No, no.
This started as my first Swift project.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you, so that was probably iOS 7,

(35:30):
I think it was, if I remember well.
Wow.
Okay.
So that's a little far, that's probably eight
or nine years ago then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is.
Okay.
So it's been around, yeah, that's been around
a while.
So you've seen, you've, you've been through a
lot of Apple transition.
Is the new iOS 26, is that gonna
really hurt you?
Yeah, it is.

(35:54):
I don't know, but I don't like it.
I saw all the, all the, all the
presentations from, from Apple and I'm, I think
they're pushing a little too much.
They, they, they really want this, this vision
pro thing to succeed.
They want everything transparent and, and also the,

(36:15):
the Mac and iOS to, to, to, to,
to push people towards transparent user interface.
Well, now I have, I have a question
about liquid glass.
Do you think it's gorgeous?
I don't like it.
It's, it's, it's good in the, it's good
in the pictures.
If you, if you, if you curate the,

(36:38):
the, the, the, the screenshot in where the
text is aligned and the good place and
you have no super imposition of, of colors,
it can look gorgeous.
Gorgeous.
But yeah, sorry.
The minute you, you, you, you, you move
the, the, the user interface a lot of,
but this, this is a beta.

(37:00):
This is the first beta.
A lot of things can improve right now.
I, I, I really prefer iOS 16, 18,
but it was the last one.
Yeah.
So you think that all of that is
being done for the, for the Apple vision
pro.
That's why they want everyone to move in
that direction.
I think so.
I think so because the, the, the, the,

(37:21):
the, the first, uh, uh, the first, uh,
uh, user interface that, that was really transparent
is the one from, from vision pro for,
from two years ago.
And now all other systems are going in
that direction.
So I think that a strong push is
made because of that.
I can be wrong, but.

(37:43):
Yeah, that makes, well, I mean, it makes
sense, but are you, so on, on your
pod ping monitoring, did you write your own,
uh, hive watcher or are you connecting with
an existing piece of software?
No, I'm connecting to the, to the, um,

(38:06):
uh, to the web, the sub.
Uh, oh, Spurlock Spurlock Spurlock.
Yes.
Oh, nice.
Yes.
Uh, interrupt everybody.
We have interrupt kind and it makes me,
it, it, it, it, I don't know if
I could do the same thing without, without
that service because, uh, uh, all the libraries

(38:28):
for, for pod ping and for hive, which,
uh, for the hive blockchain, which pod pings
relies on are all on Python and there's
nothing for Swift.
So I, I, I would have had to
work on a very low level.
And, uh, with that, um, uh, I have

(38:49):
to do web sockets, but web sockets are,
are not that, that difficult.
You know, that really needs, that's something that
needs to change.
There needs to be, uh, that's a real
deficiency that I'm, that I'm seeing is we
need more, uh, example, we need more libraries
to, uh, for other languages for pod ping.

(39:11):
Um, yeah.
Yes.
The adoption.
Yes.
Cause I mean, Python is you, Python is
universal.
Python is my jam, Dave.
It is my vibe jam, baby.
But it is for, for servers, for, for
mobile devices.
Uh, it's not.
No, I got you there.
You got you there.

(39:31):
Yeah.
And when you, you know, Python is universal
on every, almost every Linux and max system
and installed.
But when you actually have to run it
as a server service, you need, you need
to know what you're doing and people who
are not fluent in the Python world, that's

(39:53):
going to be a challenge for them because
then you, because as soon as you get
into, and I've been down this road before,
and Alex can vouch for my utter confusion
when it comes to things that are Python
related.
As soon as you get into running Python,
um, software as a server side service, you
have to, you know, you, you immediately get

(40:15):
into things like poetry and UV.
You have to, you get into the world
of all the, the Python frameworks and sort
of supporting software.
And you have to know what the, it's
sort of like when you, it's the same
thing as when you run like a node
JS application.
Yes, you can just install node, but there's

(40:38):
all this, a lot of things expect you
to run like node ENV and these other
supporting packages that make versioning better and have
the package main and do package management.
So it's, it's a little different.
If we had a set of libraries that
were just native to all the different languages,

(40:59):
that would be, that would be pretty helpful.
And I'm thinking like Swift, PHP, Rust, just
all, it just hit all the, all the
high points.
I think there was a JavaScript library that
Steven Crater wrote, I believe.
Um, I think he was the writer of

(41:22):
it, but then, but I think it drifted
some of the last person I know that
tried to use it said that it was
not working well for them.
I think that was Jason over at podcast
guru.
Um, so I don't know.
Anyway, it's just, I think it's a deficiency
and hearing you talk about it.
I think, I think we should focus a
little bit of time on that if we
can.

(41:42):
So what now about running Python on the
server?
We need more COBOL.
I gotta tell you, man, I'm running everything
as a service system.
D go for it.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Well that, so I think the, the, the
issue comes in with, um, how do you

(42:03):
keep your version of Python?
Yeah.
When you updated the system, everything.
I just don't update.
I'm on three dot one, two, and that's
it.
And that's, and Python screaming at me where
this is going to be deprecated in the
next release.
I don't care.
I'm not upgrading.
It works.
We're stuck in this version as good to
go.
It's sort of like you put your Python

(42:24):
in a jail.
I put my Python a lot of places,
but not in a jail.
Baby, he's awake.
Yeah.
It's like you, you, you, you jail the
environment so that everything, so that when this
copy of Python runs it, it, it always
has the same environment.

(42:45):
And that, that can be pretty important depending
on, you know, what you're doing.
Yeah.
Especially with your import, your modules and what
you have, they run everything in an environment.
Yeah.
What are you, what is it using?
Is it a UV?
Venv.
Venv.
Okay.
That's the virtual environment.

(43:06):
I'm not sure what that is.
You're asking the wrong guy.
Yeah.
So that, that's, that's where it gets into.
Yeah.
And versioning is like dash June eight, uh,
working copy, uh, that's final.
Oh man.
Ls.
Ls star dot final.

(43:27):
Okay.
I always love it when there's like three
of those.
There's like dash final, dash final, dash final.
Oh, that makes me feel good.
I'm not the only one.
Final working really good.
Good.
All uppercase.
Yeah.
This is the one, this is the one
dot P dash last Oh, feels good to

(43:52):
have a engineering humor in me.
Oh, that's good.
Never expected that.
Oh man.
Do you find the, do you find that
the vapor, uh, ecosystem is decent?
Cause I've worried about that world cause there's
so little of Swift on the server.

(44:13):
Um, there is enough that goes into the
training data for LLMs. So, and so, and
so they, the, the, the, if you ask
chat GPT or windsurf, they can, they can
answer enough, uh, uh, much more than, than
we quit soap or stuff like that.

(44:35):
Uh, so no, yes.
Yeah.
There is a good community.
There's a, um, a discord server where you
can ask for help.
And, uh, uh, it, it, it wasn't the,
the, the hard part for me, uh, to,
to, to move from, from a classic iOS,
uh, SDK to, to vapor to, to run

(44:57):
on the server.
Um, it was a very smooth experience.
Okay, good.
Is that, is that, um, well, I mean,
now that you've, uh, crossed the rind, you
know, are you, are you, and you have
a server now as there's now there's other
stuff that you can do as sort of
like a mental shift for you, right?

(45:19):
Yeah.
But I want to keep the, the, the,
the most of the functionality on the device
for, uh, a lot of good reasons, at
least for me, I want to, uh, uh,
it's so the customatic is a one man
band.
I want to go on vacation and yes,

(45:40):
and I don't want to be awakened by
any male saying my server is down and
nobody can use the, the, the, the app.
If, if, if, if the, the, the service
goes down and I call it custom ping,
if custom ping goes down, there are no
notification for live episodes, but everything else in
the app continues to work.

(46:01):
And, uh, hopefully the users are not so
annoyed that I can, that I have to
stop my occasions and get back to work.
Right.
You don't want to have to stop the
vacation to reboot a server.
No, that's not, never a good idea.
Boy, I wish for those days, huh, Dave?
I think the last time that was true
for me, I was, was probably 1996.

(46:27):
I remember it fondly.
Do you remember the pagers, the days of
the pagers?
And then if something would go down, every,
everyone would get a ping and then the
morning your battery would be empty because something
just went down.
It was all night.
Your pager was vibrating.
You didn't hear it.
And just this horrible, horrible mess of page

(46:49):
messages.
I get the same from human beings, from
patients.
Oh, sure.
Yes.
Oh, doctor, doctor, help me.
Help me.
Oh yes.
Reboot, please.
Doc, can you reboot me?
That's great.
That's great.
So let's talk about, um, the elephant in
the room, which is wallets.

(47:10):
Wallets, okay.
Then I, then I need to ask you
some, a little thing about, uh, let's talk
about wallets first.
Well, no, why don't you go first?
You're the guest, please.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Uh, I would, it's a little thing.
I would like you to fix podcasting.
Uh, I'm at your, at your service.

(47:31):
How can I, how can I be, how
can we be of service to you, doctor?
Okay.
No, there's an issue that I, um, I
keep getting into from different direction.
And, uh, it's the, the, the fact that,
uh, uh, podcasts are not, um, identified by
their, their RSS feed.

(47:54):
Um, when, uh, um, when I get a
pod ping notification from pod ping, uh, I
receive the pod ping and it has an
RSS feed for that.
So I can send, uh, all the notifications

(48:14):
I need to all the users that are
subscribed to that RSS feed.
But there might be, and there are a
lot of users that are, that are subscribed
to that show with another RSS feed.
Uh, for the classic example is me.

(48:35):
Yeah.
No agenda.
No agenda.
I know exactly what the problem is.
Yeah.
Or just sometimes they put the address, uh,
with the keyboard, right.
In the, in the app.
So they put it with the HTTP.
Sometimes the, the, the, the correct addresses, HPP,
HTTPS.
And so it's different.
So I have to store the, the, the,

(48:57):
the RSS feed the URL with, without the,
the, the scheme, but it's not like that.
For example, a lot of some users are
subscribed to a podcasting 2.0, uh, via
the IPFS address of the RSS feed.
Yes.
And, uh, and, uh, I can't send them,

(49:19):
uh, the notification because the notification says that
there's a new episode or live episodes for,
uh, podcastindex.org slash pc2o.xml and, and,
and, and not for, for the IPFS.
And so this fact that, um, uh, RSS

(49:40):
feeds were, were, were invented for blog posts
and that there was no need to uniquely
identify one blog post, uh, between different, uh,
URLs because the people just received those and
read those.
With podcasting, it's getting more and more important

(50:00):
for, for other service like podping to, to
identify that one podcast that there might be
10 different addresses that all point to the
same podcast.
And so, um, the, the, the, the, the
GUID is the, the, the right idea.
It is in the, in the, uh, in
the, uh, specification, but not everybody uses that.

(50:23):
And podping doesn't specify the, the, the GUID
of the podcast.
And I think that might be useful either
or specify that the GUID of the podcast
in the podping or maybe, uh, improve the
podping tag.
Uh, it's called, uh, uses podping, I think,

(50:47):
but nobody used this.
That's, and, uh, I think it should be
mandatory and specify over there with what is
the canonical URL that will be advertised in
the podpings.
I, uh, I yield the rest of my
time to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama.
No, I've, I've, I feel your pain.

(51:09):
I know, I understand the problem.
Exactly.
I think, um, you know, my, my first
inclination is to fix this.
It's okay.
Let's step back for a second because the,
the same way that you don't, that you

(51:31):
sort of have a, you have an ideology
of keeping the app on the device being
self-sufficient, the Castamatic needs to be able
to function by itself without having to need
a server.
If it has a server, great, but it
shouldn't have to have one.

(51:53):
And it's sort of the same thing with
the index, you know, podcasting, uh, podcasting 2
.0 features need to be able to function
without the index.
We can't, we can't implement, we can't implement
new functionality and new features into podcasting that

(52:17):
depend on our API or the podcast index
to exist.
And so the, the idea behind the GUID
was that if the GUIDs are in there,
if the GUIDs are in the feed, then
we can all, then we can all track

(52:38):
them over time in our own databases.
And we don't have to depend on some
sort of central, uh, repository of like a
central resolver, but the, the index has become
sort of a central resolver because we, because

(53:01):
it was sort of a bootstrap situation where,
you know, not, not, not, not a lot
of feeds in the beginning had GUIDs.
And so we began, you know, we had,
we sort of created them all.
And so we've kind of ended up in
this position where I don't, we've ended up

(53:23):
in a position that I don't like very
much, a position where we, we are sort
of the central resolver for GUIDs, but that's
not the way it's supposed to actually work.
And I'm not entirely clear how to, how
to kind of rewind out of that or
unwind that problem.

(53:43):
But, but I, you know, I guess my
first, taking one thing you said, GUIDs in
the pod pings, that makes sense.
So, well, let's talk about GUIDs for a
second.
Like another idea behind the GUID, not just
having decentralized identifiers that we would all stay

(54:08):
in, in where all the directories could stay
in sync with each other.
It's not just that it's also that if
you're going to reference an item somewhere else.
So if we think of, if we think,
if you think of, of RSS podcasting as
a directory itself, like without a database, you

(54:30):
just think of, okay, every record can be
identified by a key.
Every episode can be identified.
Every episode is an object.
And that object can be addressed by a
key.
And that key consists of a URL and

(54:51):
an episode GUID, a feed URL and an
episode GUID.
Well, that, that's fine.
But then we all know the problem is
the URLs change.
And so once the URLs change, if somebody
moves from one hosting company to another, then
that now that link is broken.
It's sort of like an RSS sort of
like a website link when the web, when

(55:11):
the blog, a link to a blog article
and the blog changes its domain name.
So the GUID is supposed to take the
place of the, of the feed URL and
say, okay, now I have a consistent value
that'll never change.
And that GUID relates back to some feed
and I can follow the redirects in my

(55:32):
own directory and always know what that thing
is.
So the, the problem that we run into
consistently, and this is something that I was
meant to talk about last week, but I
know is, has caused people problems, lots of
people problems with the podcast index itself.

(55:55):
Is that we try to stay in sync
with Apple's directory.
If, if we didn't do that, it, if
I, if I didn't care about staying in
sync with Apple, then what I would do
is just always follow 300, you know, 300
level redirects and everything would just always update

(56:17):
it.
We would always have the most current URL
for every podcast, but because I've always taken
this stance of staying in sync with Apple,
with Apple's directory, sometimes people will change, will
move from one hosting company to another, but
then they don't go into Apple podcasts, connect
and change their URL there.

(56:39):
So Apple's directory will say that it's the
old URL for sometimes weeks or months afterwards,
even though they've actually changed to a new
feeder URL.
And it's gotten so, it's gotten to be
such a problem that I'm really considering just,

(57:00):
just stopping that and letting our directory drift
away from Apple's directory.
But because I, I mean, I want, I
really want for someone who looks up an
iTunes ID on Apple and us, I want

(57:22):
it to always return the same, the same
URL for that iTunes ID.
That's why I want that.
But it's, but the having to keep that,
having to keep that in place is causing
these other problems.
And I'm, I'm just, I guess I'm just
not sure that it's worth it anymore because

(57:43):
what, you know, do you have a, I
mean, do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, right now it's, it's, it's already not
working because if you, if you look for
podcasting 2.0 on a podcast index, you
get the feeds.podcastindex.org address.
If you look it on the iTunes API,

(58:05):
you get the mp3s.nation.com address.
Let me just explain two things there.
One is I think we still have a
temporary redirect and that's my mistake.
I should change that to permanent.
It's permanent.
It's permanent.
But Apple doesn't, doesn't, doesn't.
Right.
Well, the second thing is we didn't add

(58:25):
that to Apple's database.
Someone else did, which is of course should
never happen, but it did.
And we don't know who did it, but
someone added that.
But I think just by saying on this
podcast that that needs to be changed in
Apple's index, it just might happen.
Okay.
Might.
It might.
Okay.

(58:46):
But you know, at this point, I'm not
so sure that it matters that much if,
and by the way, I'm laying all this
out as groundwork because I want to get,
I want to actually answer your question, but
I want to make sure we all understand
the, the full extent of, of all the
problems.
But like, I'm, I'm starting to wonder, you

(59:07):
know, it may not matter that much if
these things drift because the other problem, what
I mean is if our directory drifts away
from Apple's directory, because the other problem is
the, is when, when we, when we have

(59:29):
one URL and Apple has a different one
and we stay in sync with Apple, then
if somebody adds the same podcast again with
the new URL, now there's a duplicate in
the, in the podcast index.
And so, and it all.
Yeah.

(59:49):
Right.
And so like we, we actually had, I
have multiple deduplication scripts that run 24 seven
that are trying to fix this problem.
And the, the Achilles heel is always the
iTunes directory.
Because what, what the first thing I do

(01:00:10):
when somebody, when, when a new, when I'm
checking a new podcast that gets added is
I look to see if that podcast is
in iTunes.
And if it does, does it have an
ID that matches an ID we already have?
And if that hit matches, then it deduplicates
it, but it's always going to be pointing

(01:00:31):
to it, but it's pointing to the wrong
place.
So we have, so there's this discrepancy because
we are, you know, that I just think
it's okay.
So if we solve this problem, if I
just say, okay, forget it, the iTunes IDs,
they're just going to be what they are.

(01:00:52):
I can't keep them in sync.
Then maybe what we, maybe that will make
this other process easier where we could do
something like, um, do a lookup when the
pod pings come through to get the GUID

(01:01:12):
and insert the GUID along with the, the
pod ping.
Um, I think that may help, you know?
Yes, but it makes it a little more,
more reliant on, on, on, uh, on the
index.
If I have to, to, to look up

(01:01:33):
for the GUID on the, on the index.
Right.
Or, or we could deduplicate the URL when
the pod ping, if the pod ping comes
through, we could do deduplicate it there and
make sure that we always give you the
most recent redirect URL instead of just always
finding the thing to match Apple.

(01:01:54):
I'm not sure that this, um, solves the,
the every, every issue because if on the,
on the app, the user is subscribed to
the IPFS address, for example, uh, there, I
don't know how Customatic can listen to pod
pings for another feed URL.

(01:02:16):
Uh, you know, this, this disambiguation can happen.
I think it can happen only on the,
uh, on the RSS feed, because if Customatic
knows you are subscribed to IPFS.com, blah,
blah, blah, uh, the applicant can, can ask
the index, what's the GUID for IPFS.org

(01:02:39):
podcasting 2.0. And the index doesn't know
about it because it stores the, the, the,
the correct URL.
But, uh, the, the, the easiest thing, uh,
from a technical standpoint should be to, to
express the canonical feed URL in the RSS

(01:03:00):
feed, which is a thing that, uh, Atom
used to do.
Uh, there, there's a, uh, a Atom link.
Uh, the old Atom wars.
Yeah.
I remember those.
Yes.
That's the only thing that they did good.
Simply every RSS feed specified, Hey, I don't
know which URL you downloaded this RSS feed

(01:03:23):
from, but you have to look for updates
on this one, which is the canonical feed
URL that my publisher chose.
And you should look for that.
And you should look for pod pings that
express this canonical feed URL independently from where
you downloaded this feed URL.

(01:03:44):
And that, that, that could be, could, could
solve it.
Or, uh, I don't know if it does
solve it though.
The Franca is so let me give you
this scenario.
This here's, here's another thing that can happen.
And that does happen is I have a
podcast on bus sprout and the podcast.

(01:04:09):
And I continue to have that podcast on
bus sprout, even though I'm actually, I've moved
it over to rss.com.
And now I have two identical podcasts, one
on bus route, one on rss.com.
I stopped updating the bus route podcast, and

(01:04:29):
now I'm putting new episodes in the rss
.com podcast.
But in that, in, in, in the scenario
with a, with a canonical URL link in
the feed, they're both going to point to
themselves.
Yes.
So now you still have to do podcasts.
Right.
Right.
Well, sometimes they, sometimes they actually continue updating

(01:04:50):
both.
Yeah.
And they should be, I think that those
should be considered two different podcasts.
Right.
Yeah.
And they'll have, they'll have two separate iTunes
IDs, even though they're actually identical and they
send content and everything.
They are on different servers.
They can be updated independently one from the
other, and they should be considered two different

(01:05:12):
ones.
But if you have one file, one original
feed with a lot of addresses, but they
all point to one file, one rss feed,
those must be considered one podcast.
Right.
Yeah.
That's Daniel saying the solutions to redirect the
old feed URL.
Yeah.

(01:05:32):
I understand that Daniel.
And we do that.
But that doesn't fix the IPFS issue.
Right.
That doesn't fix the IPFS issue.
And it doesn't fix the issue where people
don't update, don't update Apple, their Apple podcast
connect URL.
And then sometimes they'll have two, you know,
they'll have two separate IDs, two separate iTunes

(01:05:53):
IDs pointing to the same feed URL or,
you know, there's, it's, it's so much that
what I'm saying, I I'm saying, Daniel, that
I agree with you that they, if we
stop trying to stay in sync with, with
Apple's directory, then we'll, we will just always

(01:06:14):
follow the redirects and never check with Apple
to make sure that it's okay.
But that can be an opportunity.
We can be better than the Apple's directory
and fix these kinds of things.
And maybe more apps will use the index
instead of iTunes API because they are more

(01:06:34):
reliable.
I don't know.
Well, you know, you may be right on
that too.
You know, you may be right on that,
that the, if the, if the standard is
moving hosts means doing a HTTP redirect, then

(01:06:55):
having that be the only thing, the only
way to solve the problem or the only
way that the index considers solving the problem,
that's more true to what RSS podcasting is.
Yeah.

(01:07:16):
I mean, we just, we need to, I
totally understand the problem.
We're going to have to figure out how
to fix this.
Yeah.
I know I put you in a difficult
position.
No, I just, we've needed to talk about
it for a while and it, you know,
there is a solution.
We just have to find it.
Yeah.
Um, you know, we just, we're going to

(01:07:38):
have to figure, I think something like a
unique identifier that follows a podcast everywhere from
host to host, from news, from, from location
to location is the way to do it.
You just, I just don't want there to
have to be a central resolver.

(01:07:59):
Yeah.
I agree with that.
That makes it harder.
100%.
Yes.
Yes.
I agree with that.
So I'm, yeah, well, I think we'll, we'll
figure it out.
I, the, the IPFS thing is a good
point.
Cause I don't know how, yeah, that's a
tricky, tricky one.
Um, at that point, cause it really, it's,

(01:08:19):
it's not a separate feed at that point.
It's really just sort of passing it through
some other, it's almost like a proxy.
Well, that solved nothing.
No, no, we're, we're, we're no better than
we were.
We're more aware of the problem.
Yes.

(01:08:39):
Yes.
Yeah.
It's a good one to bring up though.
That's for sure.
I appreciate that.
It's definitely something we ought to work on.
Well, you know, if Daniel's saying people don't
need to update their Apple podcast connect URL,
well, if that's the case, well then why
are they different?
Sometimes there, there are definitely feeds in Apple's

(01:09:03):
directory that, that are, that do not have
the current URL that followed the redirect.
Yeah.
We've seen that for sure.
Well, I mean, ours is a perfect example.
Ours is, ours is a redirect, you know,
and it's still got the, it has the
non-redirected URL in Apple's directory.

(01:09:25):
So something is not always, that can't always
be the case.
Now there may be that there has to
be a redirect and an iTunes new feed
URL tag, but, but our podcasting 2.0
feed has been in there forever.

(01:09:45):
I mean, it's been in there for like
three years now and it's always been the,
it's always been the, you know, a redirect
to this other feed.
Um, so I don't know.
We'll, we'll just have to figure it out.
I don't want to get too bogged down
in the weeds, but I mean, something, something

(01:10:06):
is not right because I see this problem
too often to, for it to be as
simple as they're always following redirects.
I just don't think they are.
I think there are, I think there are
certain scenarios where for some reason that doesn't
happen.
Um, and I don't know what those conditions
are.

(01:10:27):
If I'm wrong, they don't know.
Yeah.
They don't tell you if I, if I'm
wrong, that's fine.
And, and, and maybe I'm just misunderstanding what
I'm seeing, but I'm, I'm 99.9%
sure because I see the problems happen in
real time.
I think they just don't follow the redirects.

(01:10:48):
They just, they just look for the new
feed URL.
According to Daniel J.
Lewis, uh, podcasting 2.0 is using the
feeds.podcastindex.org slash two O PC two
O dot XML feed.
So maybe that just got updated while we
were talking.
Maybe it's possible.

(01:11:10):
It's possible.
Yeah, this, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll have to
investigate to what is happening because it's something,
there is a, an inconsistency here that I
do not understand.
Um, and I, I don't know my, my
gut feeling is that sometimes my gut feeling

(01:11:34):
is that there are certain conditions, uh, that
are not, how do I need to say
this?
No, knowing not just Apple, but knowing how
lots of these things work, including our directory

(01:11:54):
there, everybody's directory has a set of conditions
they're looking for to know when to make
a change and when not to.
This is very similar to any sort of
like, um, trying to keep things in sync,
uh, Dropbox, OneDrive, all these cloud storage things
that sink between multiple computers.

(01:12:15):
It's a difficult problem because when you, whenever
you say there's not one source of truth,
there could be multiples.
Now you have to have a set of
conditions where if this and this and this
are true, but not this other thing is
true, then make a change.
But if these other set of things, you

(01:12:36):
know, if those things obtain, well, then don't,
don't change anything.
And as soon as you start adding all
these conditions, it's always going to be possible
that there could be a set of conditions
that are being met that are non-obvious
where a change is not being made when
you think it should.
So we just have to figure out what
that is.

(01:12:57):
Um, but I am thinking that we probably
should just let, just stop trying to be
so obsessive about keeping the directories in sync
because if we have an iTunes ID and
somebody, you know, we, we sort of mimic
the Apple API as well so that people

(01:13:17):
can use us as a fallback.
If iTunes API lookup goes down and you
know that, I guess if we're at the
point where we're being used as a fallback
and you do an iTunes ID lookup with
us, I guess I need to start looking
at it as well.
You just kind of get what you get
at that point.

(01:13:38):
Um, you know, you're going to get, you're,
you're, you're already on plan B.
So we can't guarantee, you know, we can't
guarantee purity at that point.
Can we, um, just take five minutes on
wallets?
Cause I know Dave, you're going to be
limited in your time pretty soon.

(01:13:58):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Wallets.
Yes.
Go out there.
They're often broken now.
They are all, this is very difficult.
Yes.
But I think it's a point of transition.
Where's your head at right now?
Cause I know the biggest problem is, um,

(01:14:21):
because you're standalone app and even worse, there
is no strike or any LN wallet type
service available in Italy.
Yeah.
Uh, yes.
Just like that.
Why is that?
Not available in Italy.
Is it?
I don't know.
A striker continues to, to, to, to send
tweets saying that strike is available all over
Europe, but it is not because in Spain,

(01:14:41):
in Portugal, in Italy, I don't know, maybe,
I don't know.
Some other countries is not available in Brazil,
in Japan is not available.
So I, I, I sent them tweets.
I sent them an email.
Nobody answers.
So I really don't know what they're doing.
Hmm.
Can you hang in there though?
Do you, are you, are you okay for

(01:15:02):
now?
Yes.
Customatic works okay with, with Albi.
Uh, it needs a little extra step to,
to install, uh, Albi hub, which is really,
really not difficult because, uh, uh, it can
run on, on a server.
It can run on your, on your PC

(01:15:23):
if you leave it running and connected to
the, to the internet.
Yeah.
Uh, or you, or you can pay, I
think $8 a month and, uh, or $10
a month if you are desperate and the
guys in Albi will host it for you.
Right.
So the, the customatic runs.
Okay.
And to, to, to, to go the way

(01:15:45):
of, uh, for value, the users need to,
to do this extra step.
I, I, I have to say that when,
when Albi went that way and, uh, uh,
went from the, the, the, the hosted wallets
to Albi hub, uh, I didn't see a,
a bigger decline in the wallet users on

(01:16:07):
customatic.
Good.
Good.
And that's just because Dave is using it
for everything.
Well, I would like it to be, to
be easier and to be automatic.
What I don't want to do is host
the wallets myself.
I bet I will never.
No, you don't want to do that.
So if, so what do people, what wallets,

(01:16:30):
I'm not talking about podcast stuff anymore.
Like if I just, if I'm an Italian
and I want to ho and I want
to just have a Bitcoin wallet and buy
some Bitcoin, what do you, what do you
use?
I don't know that there are some, but
I'm good with, I'm good with Albi for

(01:16:52):
my, for my users.
So, uh, sometimes I check other things that
there's a wallet of Satoshi, I think.
Okay.
Yeah.
There, there, there are many, there, there is
a, there are some apps like blue wallet
that can interface with, uh, with a lot
of different service or you go, you can
do maybe some, some hosted service.

(01:17:15):
Uh, I think it's not Coinbase.
It's the, the other one where the one
with the black UI, uh.
Black UI?
Yeah.
The black website.
Like Kraken or Black Lives Matter?
Kraken, Kraken.
I think Kraken can, can, can, can host

(01:17:36):
lightning wallets, but they don't have APIs for,
for, for other apps.
So if you, if you want to, to
send the lightning.
And Coinbase, you have, do you have Coinbase
in Italy?
Yes, but I don't think they do.
I think they, I think they, I think
they do have a lightning.
I think they have a lightning API.
I could be wrong.

(01:17:57):
It says kraken.com slash Italy.
It says Kraken is committed to Italy.
There you go.
There you go.
With who?
Kraken in Italy.
Yes.
But I don't know if, I don't think
they have APIs for developers.
Um, I've been watching, I've been looking into
NWC, which is Noster Wallet Connector.
Right.

(01:18:17):
It's, it's a, it's a nice API.
You need to do web sockets, which is
not so, uh, so easy on a mobile
device, but you can do it.
Uh, and that might make it, uh, more,
the apps more portable because if many wallets
implement that the user can, can pick the,

(01:18:40):
the, the wallet they want to use.
Yeah.
CoinOS is one that we have in Italy
and you know it, it works with, it
can work with Noster Wallet Connect.
You can do the, the, the, the double
jump and connect, uh, uh, CoinOS to Albiab
and Albiab to, to, to whatever you want,

(01:19:01):
but CoinOS doesn't support, but they don't support
KeySend.
Ah, that's too bad.
Okay.
And, and I think that's where, uh, I
think that's where we probably, I think that's
really the core of what's really wrong at
this point is that everything is going to
wallets.
Everything is transitioning to wallets that don't support

(01:19:23):
KeySend.
Right.
That's exactly it.
Yeah.
Probably.
I, I don't know because yes, I, I,
I, I don't have a lot of experience
with a lot of wallets because there aren't
that many here in, in Italy, but.
Yeah.

(01:19:43):
Bolt, Bolt 11 is, you know, Bolt 11
invoices are, or the LNURL.
That's probably, that's just where we're going to
end up.
And you know, that's.
We need to, to standardize the, the, the,
the justice system to send the, to send
the, the, all the metadata we need for,

(01:20:03):
for value, for value to work.
Yeah.
Right.
Once we have a, a, a, an easy
way to implement that.
Well, all the, the fountain guys are using,
uh, the Noster protocol, not Noster, the network
itself, but that seems to be working pretty
well for them.
Oh, I think they're using the Noster, a
Noster relay, maybe a private relay.

(01:20:25):
Yeah.
It's a private relay.
Sure.
Sure.
It's a private relay.
Exactly.
It's not the most, uh, it's not the
easiest thing to do for a, for a
developer because you, you need to host.
Oh, I'll send you a relay.
I'll send you a Python script.
It'll be fine.
Okay.
Well, but I can buy a cold one
in a couple of minutes.

(01:20:46):
Maybe, maybe an end point.
Yes.
I'll give you an end point.
Yeah, sure.
An API and, and everybody can implement that.
Yes.
A non-bearer token authorization.
Yep.
All of that.
No problem.
I'm, I'm, I'm well versed now.
We got to thank some people.
Franco, can you hold on for a couple
more minutes?
Of course.
All right.
Let me, we didn't have a lot of
boostage coming in because everyone was enthralled, obviously.

(01:21:09):
Uh, 1025 stats from Salty Crayon who says,
uh, more wallets to be continued in the
pipe.
All right.
Dreb Scott with a, uh, mini Striper boost,
77, 77 pre-show boost.
Just realized I never posted the chappers for
chappers.
The chapters for podcasting 2.0 last week.
Oh, just published now.

(01:21:29):
Sorry about that.
Life was, has been giving me the one
-two punch quite a bit lately.
Luckily I'm pretty good at the duck dive
and dodging thing.
And things are on the upswing on a
positive note.
I'm now down to nine, I'm now down
19 pounds on my journey to drop 45
pounds.
All right.
Go podcasting.
Way to go.
You're making Franco the doctor.
Very happy.
Ah, that's good, man.

(01:21:50):
Don't worry about it.
That's the beauty of, uh, of, of cloud
-based chapters.
You do it when you get to it.
It's all good.
Yep.
Uh, and a mini Striper boost from Steve
Webb, the OG Godcaster.
He says, uh, I believe that I've gotten
boosts to work again for the Lifespring Audio
Bible Rewind.
That's right.
We saw you had a problem with the
handy little alert icons on the podcast index.

(01:22:11):
Thanks to anonymous for their booster gram on
episode two to four, the boardroom spurring me
on to fix it.
And to Adam for pointing me in the
right direction on fixing the problem.
Yes.
Uh, we here at podcast index may aim
to please all the time, but the boosts
begin.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yes.
I hope this email finds you well, definitely.
Yeah.
And a delimiter at time already.

(01:22:33):
Oh, okay.
Uh, well we've got, while, while you were
talking, I got an email from true fans
saying, uh, the new version is ready on
test flight in iOS and it says, it
says what to test and in the what
to test section, it says nothing new.

(01:22:53):
So I'm not sure exactly what, what, what
lever Sam is pulling over there, but it
did something.
They pulled some got pulled.
Yeah.
The lever you've pulled is not active.
Name the podcast, name the podcast.
The lever you have pulled is not, I
have no idea.

(01:23:14):
Uh, this week in Bitcoin.
Oh, it's not in my rotation.
Oh, it's in this heavy rotation.
For me, brother, heavy rotation.
I gotta, I gotta put it on there.
Yeah, I gotta get it.
Hold on.
There's Sam, Sam boosting in with seven, seven,
seven.
What a nice and funny man Franco is.
Well, there you go.
Well, he's, he's in the split.
So he saw that message himself.

(01:23:35):
Beautiful.
Um, we got one, uh, we got one
baller boost and that is from bus sprout
$1,000.
Uh, thank you very much, boys and girls
at bus sprout.
We highly appreciate your support of the project.
That is very, very kind of you.

(01:23:57):
Every month they do it, Dave, every month.
Is it just me or have they been
kind of quiet lately?
Oh, they're coming.
I'm sure they're in a six week sprint
and something's coming out.
We're all going to be blown away.
Yeah.
They're going to pop.
They're just going to pop up from behind
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
They're going to pop up and go, look
at this.
And we got some boosts.

(01:24:18):
We got, let's see who we got.
Oh, there we go.
We've got, uh, Jeff Scott striper boost 77,
77 through podverse.
He says pre-show boost.
I just realized that I just heard that
one.
Wait, how did you get, Oh, you're reading
from the pre yeah.

(01:24:41):
Okay.
You're Yeah.
Yeah.
You did the reach around.
Yeah.
I'm known for it.
That's what you're known for.
Mike Dale, 1701.
That's a, uh, Star Trek boost through a
Castamatic.
There we go.
Castamatic says testing my new Albie hub way
more trouble than it should be.
Huh?

(01:25:01):
Quite easy for me, actually.
I like, there's a discrepancy here because, uh,
because Franco said it was no problem, but
Mike says it was a big problem.
So Chad F just boosted a 33 33
great hearing Franco on the show.
Castamatic is a top tier PC 2.0
app.
And he boosted from Castamatic and I can

(01:25:22):
reply because Castamatic supports that.
So I'll say thanks.
Thanks.
Nothing to test.
I wait.
I hope this boost finds you.
Well, uh, the ugly quacking duck, that's Bruce
22 22.
The podcast guru says thank you both.

(01:25:43):
Howard to the podcast.
73 73 and in nine UQD, the ugly
quacking duck.
Oh, 73 is kilo five alpha.
Charlie, Charlie.
That sounds suspiciously like a vanity call.
That is ACC.
Adam Clark Curry.
Yes.
I would say so.
Brian Intzminger 1653 sass, the podcast guru.

(01:26:05):
He's Brian says, uh, maybe I misunderstood, but
if you're trying to calculate global audience size,
I don't think you can take median downloads
time, number times, number of active shows to
get listener count.
You'll get something closer to downloads per month,
but many people like me listen to multiple
shows on a regular basis.
So I would expect actual listener count to
be lower.

(01:26:26):
Well, that may be in response to what
we were talking about with no agenda from
OP three on the last show.
And honestly, uh, I don't put, I don't
put any value to any of this, but
I feel if I'm just looking it up
now, if I look at the OP three,

(01:26:47):
it says unique audience.
Um, that's just, I'll just use that number.
You know, as long as everyone's using the
number, who cares?
It's all fuzzy.
Um, so I'm not sure other than that,
like, you know, so that's just the unique
audience and I'm sticking to it.
Franco, are you, is your past, are you
still podcasting?

(01:27:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Digitalia is my podcast.
Digitalia.
Digitalia.
Yes.
It's all in Italian of course, but you've
been going for many years, right?
Oh, it's a 16.
And before that it was a broadcast Italia.
Nice.
Five years before that.
Yes.
Wow.
How many episodes?
Uh, right now Digitalia is a seven, seven,

(01:27:32):
eight.
Congratulations.
Staying power.
Yeah.
Uh, comic strip blogger, 14 one 45 dilemma
delimiter through fountain.
This time he says, howdy Adam and Dave.
Today I'd like to recommend a podcast, the
audacity to podcast that's celebrating its 15th birthday.
With an introspective episode entitled 15 regrets from

(01:27:55):
15 years of professional podcasting.
And you can't believe what item eight is
a banger that can make you a millionaire
quickly for shizzle.
Don't miss number eight bros.
No joke.
So visit www.the oddest, the audacity to
podcast.com or search for the audacity to

(01:28:17):
podcast in apps.
Yo CSB.
I think that's on your stream, isn't it?
Uh, I've got the future.
You've got the future.
Yeah.
Future podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I bump into that from time to
time.
Like, Oh, that's a pretty good show.
And see, we've got some monthlies.
We got, uh, thank you.
CSB.

(01:28:37):
We got a new media productions.
That's a Todd over there.
Uh, $30.
Thank you, Todd.
And we got a Timothy voice, $10, Michael
Hall, $5 and 50 cents.
Jeremy Gertz, $5.
Gene Liverman.
Hey, Gene, that's $5.
And Oystein Berha, $5.
Oystein Berha, of course, will be on the

(01:28:57):
stream right after we close down the boardroom.
Thank you all very much for supporting us.
Value for value is highly appreciated.
Every dollar, every sat goes right into the
podcast index.org kitty.
And, uh, we save it there, uh, for
a rainy day so that we can keep
everything running.
Uh, it's all a 100% for podcast
index.org.
You can go to that website, podcast index

(01:29:18):
.org, scroll down to the bottom.
There's a big red donate button.
If you want to send us some fiat
fund coupons, uh, in the form of PayPal.
And of course we always accept your booster
grams, your streaming sats.
And if you want to send us a
Bitcoin or two, no problem on chain.
Welcome.
Always welcome.
And, uh, and, uh, you're going to need

(01:29:38):
a Bitcoin.
You're going to need a Bitcoin.
That's for sure.
Franco, so good to have you on, uh,
in the boardroom again, brother, really appreciate, uh,
what you've been doing for podcasting, especially in
Italy.
Uh, you were there way before everyone got
all, all giddy about, Oh, Spotify, Spotify, podcast,
podcasting, Spotify.
Um, and, uh, and of course for Castamatic

(01:29:59):
brothers, really, really good to have you, uh,
to have you in the band.
Thank you.
Uh, it to Castamatic wouldn't be what it
is now without all the, uh, you all,
the both of you and all of podcasting
2.0, uh, people on the, on the
social.
And so thank you, everybody.
And thank you for everybody that runs the

(01:30:21):
beta and, and, uh, as their lives, their
podcasting lives destroyed by sometimes, you know, that's
what betas are for, man.
Is it, is it out?
Is it in the app store yet?
Or still in beta?
No, it's in the app since one hour
ago.
Oh, there we go.

(01:30:43):
You know, I always, I always have mixed
feelings because I run the beta.
I go back and forth between the test
flight beta and the app store version, because
when I'm in the test, even though I'm
a premium subscriber to Castamatic, when I'm in
the test flight, it tells me that I'm
not, and it bothers me so much that
sometimes I have to go back.

(01:31:03):
It's difficult to avoid that.
Yes.
Because Apple makes the, the, the, makes the
subscriptions on the, on the test flight version
expire every two hours to test that.
So, so you can subscribe in the, to
Castamatic, uh, the, the paid version in the,
in the test flight version, it doesn't take
any money from your credit cards, but it

(01:31:26):
works and it expires after a couple of
hours.
So it's really, well, if it worked, I
would have subscribed twice because I would like
you to get paid twice.
Anybody who uses Castamatic, be sure and do
a premium and that goes for all podcasts
apps.
Yeah, exactly.
Support your, support your developers.
Thank you very much, Franco.
Uh, brother Dave, are you going into the

(01:31:47):
woods again this weekend?
No, not in the woods this weekend.
That's, that's coming up, but I'm, but I
will be, I will be sending pod pain
tokens shortly after the show.
And make sure you don't hang up yet,
Dave.
I want to know who it is.
He'll share it with me.
I'm sure.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Boardroom.
Thank y'all very much.
This was a, uh, there we go.
We closed the board meeting.

(01:32:08):
Thank you for being here.
I don't want that.
There we go.
We will be back next Friday with another
board meeting of podcasting 2.0. See y
'all there.
Bye-bye.

(01:32:32):
That's not that cool.
You have been listening to podcasting 2.0,
visit podcastindex.org for more information.
I just love this show.
So sexy.