WEBVTT

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*33C3 preroll music*

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Welcome to this talk on, err, Funkwhale
and, err, the importance of decentralized

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podcasting. Erm, it's just something
that, erm, I'm doing as, as just a little

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'outreach' thing. Umm! *chuckles* So who
am I? Err, my name is Ciarán Ainsworth; I

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am a, erm, member of the the Funkwhale
Association, erm, who are the, erm,

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arbiters of the Funkwhale Platform. We
have been developing it, err, for a few

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years now. Err, I joined Funkwhale a
couple of years ago as, err, primarily, a

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documentation writer. So, I installed,
err, Funkwhale, err, after looking for

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some self-hosting tools, and I approached
the project and said: "err, your

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documentation isn't particularly great -
err, would you mind if I, if I, helped

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rewrite it?" and from there on, I've
kind of got more and more involved in

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different bits of the project. Err, so,
I've been doing a lot of work with, erm,

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Front-end Development, Documentation, err
Community Management, and, err, my role

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on the sort of Board is that I'm a member
of the Steering Committee, which means

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that I am responsible for helping with
development of Roadmaps, erm, and sort of

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Research & Development into different
features that we might want to add, err,

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at some other time. So, what is
Funkwhale? First and foremost? Erm, as

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you can see there, very nice little,
*chuckles* sort of interface design! Err,

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Funkwhale is essentially a music, an
audio platform, erm, to put it very very

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basically. Erm, but more specifically, it
is, erm, a Free and Open Source project.

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Erm, it's a self-hosted server software,
with a, erm, front-end web application

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for playing music. And, err, the thing
that kind of sets it apart is that it is

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'federated'. So, it's built on the same,
err, software as other federated, erm,

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applications such as Mastodon, Pleroma,
Pixelfed, PeerTube, Reel2Bits and all the

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others. We all use the same, erm,
software to interact with one another,

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err, something called the ActivityPub
protocol, erm, and basically it just

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allows us to be a bit more interactive
with, erm other Funkwhale servers and

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also other, erm, software in the
Fediverse. And when Funkwhale started up,

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it was primarily focussed around music;
Erm, the name comes from the fact that

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the original developer of the software,
Agate Berriot, wanted a free, self-hosted

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version of Grooveshark, something that,
erm, she could put music into and then

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create playlists and radios from. Erm, so
that's kind of where the pedigree came

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from, we come from that music background.
Erm, but nowadays we're focussed on...

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many things. Music collections are still
part of it, but we also have, err, audio

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publication tooling, err, and content
sharing as part of our, sort of, genetic

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makeup. So, a little while ago, erm, we
were looking at our Roadmap, so around

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about, erm, September/October 2019, we
started to look seriously at "where did

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we want to take the project?" At the time
we had just moved away from having Agate

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as essentially the 'Benevolent Dictator
for Life", and were looking at moving

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towards a more 'democratic' system of
governance, where we would ask the, err,

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users to provide us with insights and,
erm, sort of guidance on what they would

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like to see in the platform. And, when
we started, err, approaching them with

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options, one of the things we found was
that podcasting was a very, very widely

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requested feature, erm - which was
something I don't necessarily think we

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were expecting. But it was definitely
something that people were very

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interested in. Err, at the time, the
Fediverse in general lacked a, erm,

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lacked a proper, sort of, erm, platform
for things like podcasting. We had music,

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we had, erm. Sorry, I'm just going to
adjust my volume; somebody's saying it's

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a little bit low. Erm, we had, err music,
we had video, we had, erm, things like

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microblogging, and we had image sharing,
but we didn't have podcasting. So that

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was something that people seemed to be
quite interested in. So, when people came

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to us, erm, and sort of suggested that,
that fitted in quite nicely with another

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thing that we were looking to do in
general, which was, erm, content

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publication. So, we sort of looked at it
as an opportunity to develop, erm, an

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entire new structure, not just around
podcasts but also around music

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publication, so that we were moving
away from, erm, just hosting your CD

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collection, erm, and maybe some bits and
pieces that you had done yourself, to,

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erm, actually publishing, erm, content
and putting it through to the Fediverse

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directly. So that was kind of, err,
the background as to why we got into

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podcasting in general. Umm, very quickly,
err, we saw that there were going to be

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a lot of challenges with this particular
bit of work; the biggest one really was,

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erm, we as a, as a collective, didn't
really know all that much around, err,

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podcasting. None of us were podcasters,
erm, we listened to podcasts sometimes,

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but not very often; I myself only
listened to a few, erm, so we very soon,

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quickly realised that we were going to
need to approach people who did this sort

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of thing all the time. We were going to
need to ask people who knew about this

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stuff, had sort of, err, experience
working with lots of different bits and

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pieces, err, in the current climate, err,
in order to build something that fit with

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their expectations, and also addressed
some of their frustrations that, you

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know, anything that, anything that
frustrated them. The other problem was,

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as I mentioned before, we... are a music
publication platform; or we were a music,

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err, sort of hosting platform, so - this
podcasting and publication stuff was not

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in our DNA. It required quite a lot
of, erm, sort of 'architecting' on the

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backend to, really, get something that
would work for publication. Erm, we

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needed to kind of rethink a lot of
things, because we'd been making

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assumptions about, audio, in general,
erm, based on music collections, err,

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which of course is a very different thing
to, to podcasting. Erm, the other thing

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we didn't really know or understand was
"what should it look like from beginning

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to end, err, for a podcaster to publish
something?" Erm, we kind of understood it

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for musicians, erm, it was a bit simpler.
You know, you'd have albums, and you

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have tracks that go in those albums, but
we didn't really know all that much about

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podcasting. So, in order to get that
information, we decided to form a

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podcasting, err, 'Taskforce' as it were.
And this taskforce basically consisted of

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erm, members of the Funkwhale
association, and, a group of people, from

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the, erm, Podcasting Subreddit, from the
Fediverse, erm, people who make podcasts

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all the time. Erm, and we basically
brought them all into a chatroom, and we

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said: "OK, so if we're going to design
this, what do we absolutely need to do,

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what do we need to hit? What do you want
to see, and what would, erm, kind of

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encourage you to come over to using our
software, to publish your podcasts, if

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that's something you'd like to do?" Erm,
and it was something, err, the other

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thing we needed to work out was, erm, you
know, we didn't really have an insight,

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as people who didn't publish, into what
the competition was doing. So, I say 'the

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competition' - *chuckles* - what other
people who made this stuff were doing, so

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we very much needed to get that
information from a first-hand experience.

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erm, and sort of pull that in, to make
sure that we were doing it correctly. And

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what we found, was, erm, basically:
podcasts are hard. They're quite complex

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things, where, especially the, erm,
particularly the complexity exists on the

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backend; it exists within the software,
but the user should be really getting a

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very simple frontend to do things with.
So, we found that basically, whereas with

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music, erm, Funkwhale really didn't
handle a lot of the more complex stuff

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like tagging, erm we let MusicBrainz
handle that; if we were going to be

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publishing, we needed to start actually
taking on board that complexity, and sort

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of facilitating it in our publication
layer, err, and podcasts of course

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offered, erm, a slightly different way of
doing things because there was less

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metadata to be included, erm, and it was
less sort of catalogued than something

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like music. The other thing that was very
very strongly put forward by the people

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who we talked to, was that, there are,
there exist in the podcasting world,

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standards. We have certain ways of doing
things, and that has to be retained, no

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matter which tool we use. So, for
example, erm, we need to use RSS; we

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absolutely have to include an RSS feed;
erm, images need to be correctly sized;

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the RSS feed must be consumable by tools
such as iTunes, erm, and, Apple Podcasts,

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which means we have to include certain
fields that only exist for iTunes and

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Apple Podcasts. Erm, the other thing we
kind of came to realise was that people

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were gonna be using us as a podcast
publication tool, but we also needed to

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act as the podcatcher. Because our, you
know, our sort of, erm, current makeup at

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the time, was to be a music hosting tool
but also an application which played

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music, we needed to give that same
experience for podcasts. It needed to be

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that people could publish content, but
also take the content they already liked,

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and put it into Funkwhale. Erm, and then,
the other, the last sort of big thing

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that came from this was, the sudden
realisation that, erm, if you're gonna

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have two or more servers talking to each
other, a lot more, umm, you're gonna need

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to really strengthen the, err, moderation
tools that you have in place. Especially

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when we're talking about user-generated
content, the scope for abuse on that is

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quite significant. So we needed to give
users tools to be able to report things,

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we needed to give people tools to be able
to block certain stuff, we needed to give

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administrators the ability to use things
like 'enable lists', so that they could

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prevent federation with certain, erm,
other platforms, erm, and we needed to

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give them the ability to sort of ban
users, take down channels, that sort of

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thing. Erm, so, this was a whole lot of
architectural design, for, erm, podcasts,

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which had, you know, it was, it really
the podcasts that drove us to it. Umm,

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and what we came out with was basically,
erm, a hybrid of a traditional sort of

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podcast overview and a Fediverse channel.
So in our world, we have podcasting

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channels, err, and music channels. And,
from what you can see in that sort of

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screenshot, it gives some, sort of, basic
information; you get your artwork, you

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get your episodes, we can split things up
into series which was a big request that

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people had, was the ability to create,
err, different series within the same

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channel, erm, we have the ability to
subscribe, erm, which I'll go onto in a

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second, and obviously if you're the
channel owner, upload new content, make

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sure everything is working, err, as
expected. Erm, the important bit here

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that we have is the, erm, information
about, what's in that channel, so in, in

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this channel, this is mine; ignore it;
it's terrible, erm, *chuckles* but,

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there's one episode, and it's been
listened to 13 times. And this was

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important information that we, we sort of
worked out was needed in order for people

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to get a grip on like "how are people
interacting with my content?" Umm, but

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taking that on board, we went ahead with
the subscription capabilities, and as you

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can see in the screenshot we have kind of
three options in every case; the first is

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if you already have a, err, Funkwhale
account, you can subscribe using your

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Funkwhale account, to that channel, and
it will be, it will be one of those, erm,

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things that appears in your feed when a
new, err, episode is uploaded, you'll get

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notified that there's a new episode in
the frontend. Erm, the other thing you

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can do is subscribe via RSS. So going
back to what we were saying earlier, erm,

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we took a lot of, we put a lot of effort
into making sure that our RSS feed, erm,

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was compatible as, as much as possible,
and that anybody could go onto a, sort of

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an open Funkwhale channel, and subscribe,
without having to sign up to Funkwhale.

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'Cos, one of the things we very quickly
realised was, we, we don't want people to

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feel like they have to sign up, we, we
want people to be able to enjoy the

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content no matter what, and that really
should be up to them where they listen to

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us, whether they listen to us on
Funkwhale or some other podcatcher. And,

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the last one is, erm, subscription via
the Fediverse, so, that enables users to

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follow a channel in much the same way
they would follow a Mastodon account, or

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a Pleroma account, or something similar.
So, we're trying to hit all sort of boxes

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there of how you can keep up with
somebody's content. The other thing that,

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err, I've been doing some work on
recently is more front-end stuff, but

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erm, it's just making sure that we sort
of point people towards, erm, adding new

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content where possible, either by
themselves, erm, creating new channels,

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or, subscribing to things, err, via RSS
or via the Fediverse - so, really pushing

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people towards that more, erm, it's
really pushing people towards that more

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sort of, erm, you know, creation element.
We want people to create. So, that's with

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the basics in place, erm, this was the
development work we did over the past

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sort of year or so; it's, it's been a
wild ride - umm! *chuckles* There's been

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a lot of content that's gone in, a lot of
changes made, erm, there's still some

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changes to come; the most, the current
release doesn't have some of the newer

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tools that are around podcasting, such as
dedicated podcast searching, umm, and

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sort of wider accessibility of, erm,
subscription tools. Erm, but, were not

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finished. There are still things, there
are still items on the roadmap that we

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would like to complete, and still items
that are not currently on the roadmap

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which may need to be added in future,
err, to really help us to get involved

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with podcasting more, because what we
found is this is a, err, this a market

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that we very much have enjoyed working
in, and erm, it's one that actually has

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proven quite popular with people, you
know people see Funkwhale as a podcasting

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platform now, *chuckles* umm, even if you
know it was originally supposed to be

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music, this is how it's kind of evolved.
So, what do we have, erm, to kind of

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consider next, to take Funkwhale to the
next sort of level of, erm, you know,

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being a proper, sort of, erm, alternative
to what's currently out there. Umm, the

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first thing that strikes me as necessary
is, umm, Funkwhale currently allows you

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to import RSS feeds from external
podcasts; it currently allows you to

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follow, erm, podcasts on the Fediverse,
on, erm, Funkwhale; and it currently

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allows you to publish your own. But what
we don't have at the moment is any way of

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finding external podcasts. You still have
to leave Funkwhale to go and find, err,

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the RSS feed that you're looking for.
Erm, you still have to, you know, go and

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see where, erm, things are, go and find
them on something like iTunes, or Fyyd,

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or Spotify, and grab the RSS feed and
bring it back to Funkwhale. Which of

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course from a User Experience point of
view... ...is not great; umm, it's, it's

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basically meaning that Funkwhale is not
yet the one-stop-shop for, err podcasts

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that we might want it to be. Erm, so, one
of the things that I would quite like to

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see, you know, coming in future, is
podcast discovery, for an external

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storefront; I have built myself a, erm, a
kind of proof-of-concept of how we might

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do this using the iTunes API, but there
are different, err, things out there,

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such as Fyyd and others, that we might
want to consider looking at. Erm, the

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other thing is an improved, sort of,
publication workflow. At the moment, err,

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the publication workflow, err, it works,
things go in, you get *chuckles* you get

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a podcast out of it; it generates an RSS
feed for you. But, we have had, err,

00:19:10.600 --> 00:19:16.600
people raise issues with it, erm,
specifically around, erm, 'how do I edit

00:19:16.700 --> 00:19:22.600
metadata during that upload process?'
Erm, the problem I think is because the

00:19:22.700 --> 00:19:27.000
way we designed the frontend, it was more
of a, it was more in line with how we'd

00:19:27.100 --> 00:19:31.100
worked with music previously, which is to
say, upload many files which have been

00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:37.600
previously tagged, and just kind of let
them be. Erm, whereas of course if you're

00:19:37.700 --> 00:19:43.200
doing an upload of, of podcasts you want
to basically upload an episode, title it,

00:19:43.300 --> 00:19:48.150
tag it, put some artwork with it, give it
a license, do all of that stuff, erm, and

00:19:48.250 --> 00:19:51.800
then move on to the next one. Or, if you
know you're gonna be uploading multiple

00:19:51.900 --> 00:19:55.300
episodes of a series you might want to
have a tool, say, that you can, you put

00:19:55.400 --> 00:20:00.150
them all in a series and say number them
all automatically; erm, at the moment we

00:20:00.250 --> 00:20:03.600
don't have that. You, if you upload
multiple things, a pencil icon appears

00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:06.400
next to each one, and you can click
through and edit them all, but it's not

00:20:06.500 --> 00:20:10.400
very obvious how you do that. So that's
been raised as something, erm, that needs

00:20:10.500 --> 00:20:13.950
to be addressed, and we've had some
designs submitted for how we might go

00:20:14.050 --> 00:20:18.500
about doing that, which looks to be a lot
better. Erm, the other one is something

00:20:18.600 --> 00:20:22.400
I'm gonna come onto in the sort of, the
second part of this, and that is, the

00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:27.700
introduction of links to donation
services erm, at the moment, hosting

00:20:27.800 --> 00:20:33.800
your podcast on Funkwhale is, is err, is
great - erm, but it's the same as hosting

00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:39.600
it anywhere else. Erm, what we need to,
err, what we sort of want to be, sort of

00:20:39.700 --> 00:20:43.300
pushing people towards or sort of
encouraging, is this idea of supporting,

00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:48.900
err, people who create. Erm, and the best
way to do that in our, in our eyes, is to

00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:53.800
kind of, err, promote the idea of
donation services and promote the idea of

00:20:53.900 --> 00:21:00.500
helping, to support the podcast that you
like. Erm, we don't want to be a payment

00:21:00.600 --> 00:21:03.500
handler, obviously, we wouldn't,
*chuckles* but we do want to sort of help

00:21:03.600 --> 00:21:07.200
make it a lot more visible when there is
a service that you can actually put money

00:21:07.300 --> 00:21:10.200
towards. And the last one, it's been on
the roadmap since channels were

00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:16.300
introduced, it's very, very complex, umm!
*chuckles* As, as somebody who does not

00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:20.400
work on the backend, I don't really have
the tech, technological knowledge to go

00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:25.000
into it, but there is this idea of
'channel claiming', where, if somebody,

00:21:25.100 --> 00:21:29.500
err, uploads some music to a channel, and
it's not their music, the person who's

00:21:29.600 --> 00:21:35.200
music it is should be able to claim that
channel and take control of it. Umm, as

00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:39.800
you can imagine, that's a very very
complex thing to do, particularly over

00:21:39.900 --> 00:21:44.100
federation, erm, because you have all of
the different implications of the wider

00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:50.000
Fediverse to take into account there.
Erm, so, it's our biggest boom; it's also

00:21:50.100 --> 00:21:56.800
our biggest, erm, challenge, day-to-day
is working with that federation. But,

00:21:56.900 --> 00:22:02.100
that moves on to, moves me on to my next
point, which is all about sort of

00:22:02.200 --> 00:22:08.900
decentralized podcasting. Erm, this may
seem like a strange concept to people who

00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:18.200
do podcasting, because, err, podcasts are
decentralized by design, really. Erm, I

00:22:18.300 --> 00:22:22.500
didn't know a lot about podcasts, going
into this. As I say, it was a very much a

00:22:22.600 --> 00:22:28.000
learning experience, erm, but the more
reading I did into podcasts as part of

00:22:28.100 --> 00:22:32.800
the research that we did for this, the
more fascinated I became by how they work

00:22:32.900 --> 00:22:40.200
and how they're set up. And, the thing
that struck me was, erm, podcasts have

00:22:40.300 --> 00:22:47.000
this, err, uni - they occupy this unique
space of being very very, err,

00:22:47.100 --> 00:22:53.700
disruptive, low-tech, erm, you know,
certainly audio podcasts, err but video

00:22:53.800 --> 00:22:59.400
as well, disruptive, low-tech,
standards-compliant ways of communicating

00:22:59.500 --> 00:23:06.800
a lot of information. So, podcasts can be
hosted anywhere; err, as long as they

00:23:06.900 --> 00:23:13.200
generate a valid feed anybody can capture
them into a podcatcher and play the files

00:23:13.300 --> 00:23:19.600
linked, using a relevant, erm, piece of
software. Erm, that means that the, the

00:23:19.700 --> 00:23:24.500
potential listener-base is enormous, erm,
much more so than, you know, anything

00:23:24.600 --> 00:23:30.900
based on, erm, you know, a single
platform, a centralized platform. And,

00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:34.900
this was one of the reasons that, when we
were designing, err, the podcast

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:41.400
publications tools, we were so emphatic
about being a part of that existing

00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:46.200
infrastructure, making sure that we
didn't try to, sort of lock people into

00:23:46.300 --> 00:23:51.700
our way of thinking, but instead follow
what podcasting was already doing,

00:23:51.800 --> 00:23:55.400
because it already seemed pretty
great: we had, you know, things like RSS

00:23:55.500 --> 00:24:02.400
feeds, erm, we had sort of, good, erm,
encodings being used like MP3, which

00:24:02.500 --> 00:24:07.400
could be so widely used it's, it's, it's
kind of ubiquitous at this point! Erm,

00:24:07.500 --> 00:24:12.600
and, and, that's kind of a really
important part of it. And the reason that

00:24:12.700 --> 00:24:16.900
this came to my attention was, during
some of the conversations we were having

00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:25.200
with podcasters, err, and specifically
when we were looking at, erm, Funkwhale

00:24:25.300 --> 00:24:30.100
as a podcatcher, so something that
consumes RSS feeds and plays them back,

00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:35.200
erm, somebody had said something about a
specific podcast, I think it was called,

00:24:35.300 --> 00:24:40.400
the, The Last Podcast on the Left. And
they said, basically, "it's a shame, I

00:24:40.500 --> 00:24:44.600
won't be able to play this through
Funkwhale because they are going

00:24:44.800 --> 00:24:50.600
Spotify-exclusive, and so they're not
producing an RSS feed anymore." And,

00:24:50.700 --> 00:24:58.000
*sighs*, this, worries me slightly; erm,
it, it's, it's a concerning kind of, err,

00:24:58.100 --> 00:25:04.400
tr- trend away from what podcasts stand
for, fr- from, from my understanding of

00:25:04.500 --> 00:25:09.400
what podcasts stand for. Erm, because
when you go exclusive to something

00:25:09.500 --> 00:25:16.400
like Spotify, you have the introduction
of DRM, and sort of, erm, you're sort of

00:25:16.500 --> 00:25:21.400
creating a walled around content, and
certainly for content that used to be

00:25:21.500 --> 00:25:25.400
free, and- and open, so, you know, it
used to follow the same rules as

00:25:25.500 --> 00:25:30.900
everything else, for it to suddenly go
into a, a platform-specific, erm,

00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:37.500
publication, is a big break. And there
are a couple of reasons for this, but the

00:25:37.600 --> 00:25:44.400
primary one is, let's say that, with
podcasting the only limitation for a user

00:25:44.500 --> 00:25:49.200
is that they have a machine that has
software that is capable of, of listening

00:25:49.300 --> 00:25:52.900
to that podcast; it's capable of reading
the feed, and playing back the, the

00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:58.800
audio. That's your limitation. If you put
it onto, err, something like Spotify, you

00:25:58.900 --> 00:26:05.600
actually divide this into four - four
different experiences. The first two are,

00:26:05.700 --> 00:26:13.900
users who live in a country, that have
access to Spotify, erm, and those people

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:19.500
will have two experiences; one, they will
either listen to an ad-supported, erm,

00:26:19.600 --> 00:26:25.200
err- version of the show, and the second
one is that they pay for a, erm, a

00:26:25.300 --> 00:26:32.000
subscription to the actual, erm, *typing*
the actual podcast. Err, sorry, to the

00:26:32.300 --> 00:26:41.000
actual, erm, erm, platform. Then you have
people who go into other, live in other

00:26:41.400 --> 00:26:47.600
countries, erm, which don't have Spotify
served up to them. And those people have

00:26:47.700 --> 00:26:53.300
more experiences; one is that they have
to pay for a VPN, and, err, basically

00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:59.000
access Spotify externally, using the ads,
and then again, access externally using

00:26:59.100 --> 00:27:03.200
a subscription. And then there's that
lost fifth one, which is, they don't have

00:27:03.300 --> 00:27:08.500
the money for any of this, so, they can't
listen. So we've fractured the user-base

00:27:08.900 --> 00:27:16.400
by centralizing the, erm, by centralizing
the content into a certain place, and the

00:27:16.500 --> 00:27:19.800
problem with something like Spotify is
that, that point, when you've done that,

00:27:19.900 --> 00:27:24.000
and you've taken that, sort of, erm,
you've taken that decentralized nature

00:27:24.100 --> 00:27:28.500
away, what you have left is not a
podcast, it's essentially corporate

00:27:28.600 --> 00:27:33.700
radio, and, like I say, for something
that started off as a podcast, as

00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:38.800
something that started off freely
available, having it move in that way is,

00:27:38.900 --> 00:27:44.600
somewhat concerning. But, at the same
time, we have to look at 'why does that

00:27:44.900 --> 00:27:51.200
happen?' And, and generally the answer is
*chuckles*: podcasting is expensive. Erm,

00:27:51.300 --> 00:27:57.200
everything that takes up peoples' time,
is expensive. And podcasting, from the

00:27:57.300 --> 00:28:02.800
little I have done of it, is very
expensive. You've got to take the time to

00:28:02.900 --> 00:28:09.200
script, and record, and edit, and work
with, erm, you know, all of that audio

00:28:09.300 --> 00:28:13.200
and video, you've got to find a place to
publish it, you've got to do all of the,

00:28:13.300 --> 00:28:18.600
erm, you know, promotion around it, and
if you are looking to make money off of

00:28:18.700 --> 00:28:23.200
it, you have to search around for, err,
you know, sponsorships, and ad deals, and

00:28:23.300 --> 00:28:27.700
things like that. So when a company like
Spotify comes along and says: "We'll take

00:28:27.800 --> 00:28:30.700
all of that complexity off of your hands,
and we'll give you a good portion of

00:28:30.800 --> 00:28:36.900
money, erm, to pay your staff, and to, to
make sure you can make a living", it's

00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:42.400
very, very tempting. Erm, and you can
kind of understand why it happens. And,

00:28:42.500 --> 00:28:47.000
one of the things that we kind of found
was that, erm, the Free Software

00:28:47.100 --> 00:28:52.000
community, in general, is not always in,
best equipped to deal with that kind of

00:28:52.100 --> 00:28:58.100
thing; we don't, erm, we can't make a
counter-offer to that. Erm, our weapon

00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:03.500
here and what we can do about this, is,
as I've said before, kind of try as much

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:09.900
as possible to make it easy for people to
make the decision to continue listening

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.500
outside of those platforms, make it easy
for them to continue to support, their,

00:29:14.600 --> 00:29:20.300
erm, their favourite podcast directly,
erm which means, lowering the sort of

00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:25.600
barrier to entry for, erm, payments,
lowering the barrier of entry for

00:29:25.700 --> 00:29:30.900
sharing, for supporting, for, for getting
things out there. Erm, but it's an

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:36.700
inherently, sort of, difficult thing to,
to come up against, and something that,

00:29:36.800 --> 00:29:41.100
you know, we *sighs* haven't found the
answer *chuckles awkwardly* for yet, erm,

00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:45.800
it's something we're still in discussions
abut, erm, how we, how we might help

00:29:45.900 --> 00:29:49.200
podcasters support themselves, how we
might help *stumbles on words* people

00:29:49.300 --> 00:29:54.600
support podcasters, err and musicians as
well, this, this stretches to all areas,

00:29:54.700 --> 00:29:59.400
erm, but the answer is, is, is a
difficult one. It's not one that sort of,

00:29:59.500 --> 00:30:06.700
erm, you know, comes very easily. Erm,
now I've purposefully, sort of, left this

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:10.800
- I think I've got it exactly half an
hour, that's good! *chuckles* - I

00:30:10.900 --> 00:30:15.200
purposely didn't want this to go on
for too long, erm, it's, it- that's kind

00:30:15.300 --> 00:30:19.800
of the journey that we've had, erm, the
first thing is: podcasting is fun! Err,

00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:26.700
from a, sort of, user-perspective,
podcasts are wonderful to listen to; erm,

00:30:26.800 --> 00:30:32.700
having a good place to put podcasts is
great for, erm, you know, people who make

00:30:32.800 --> 00:30:36.900
them; from a software perspective, err,
they're a bit of a nightmare, especially

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:40.300
when they aren't what your, erm,
*chuckles* software was originally sort

00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:45.400
of, erm, set up to do, err there's a lot
of work goes into it, it's, erm, I think

00:30:45.500 --> 00:30:52.100
it's underestimated in general. Erm, but,
you know, it's worth putting the effort

00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:57.700
in to, to get something like that. Erm,
free software world, the open source

00:30:57.800 --> 00:31:03.300
software world, erm, we, we still face
some significant challenges, erm, with

00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:07.600
assisting people with things like,
anything to, anything to do with finances

00:31:07.700 --> 00:31:12.600
is something where we struggle, and,
erm, it's because we don't have that

00:31:12.700 --> 00:31:18.000
monolithic approach; it's because we
don't have that, erm, central financing

00:31:18.100 --> 00:31:23.400
erm, so it tends to be that, you know, we
need to focus more on improving, err, the

00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:28.100
experience of working within a, sort of,
direct donation world and a direct, sort

00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:36.000
of, erm, way of, of working. Erm, and,
yeah, th- this, this, this whole sort of

00:31:36.100 --> 00:31:43.300
trend of existing podcasts being picked
up by, erm, companies, and, you know,

00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:49.900
things that used to be so free and easily
accessible becoming walled-off inside (I

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:53.100
only know of Spotify doing it but I can
imagine the same thing happening with

00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:58.500
Apple Music and Deezer and a lot of
others), erm, is kind of a concerning

00:31:58.600 --> 00:32:05.900
move which is diluting what was really
quite a fantastic, sort of, idea, and

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:09.900
it's a shame that it happens to some of
the ones that people find, you know,

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:13.100
people connect with the most strongly; I
think, erm, two of the most popular

00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:18.100
podcasts that have been picked up are
things like, erm, Joe Rogan, and The Last

00:32:18.200 --> 00:32:23.400
Podcast on the Left, which is, it's a
shame, erm, because high-profile things

00:32:23.500 --> 00:32:30.000
being taken over has meaning, and, erm,
you know, it will normalise it in, if, in

00:32:30.100 --> 00:32:35.000
my eyes at least. But, with the use of
free- free software tools, with the use

00:32:35.100 --> 00:32:40.600
of, you know, these open standards, real
podcasting will never go away; it will

00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:44.800
always, you know, 'bubble up' underneath,
we will always see people, erm,

00:32:44.900 --> 00:32:49.800
continuing to, you know, to put things
out. So - yeah! It's, it's not all

00:32:49.900 --> 00:32:52.200
hopeless, this wasn't what that talk
*chuckles* this talk was about; it was

00:32:52.300 --> 00:32:56.500
more that just about this is something I
think is very important, and something

00:32:56.600 --> 00:33:02.400
that, you know, as a project we're really
striving to support. Erm, so, I think

00:33:02.500 --> 00:33:07.700
that takes me to- quite nicely 35 minutes
was exactly what I was aiming for... If

00:33:07.800 --> 00:33:17.600
anybody has any questions, erm, I think
that the, erm, I think that the, err, I

00:33:17.700 --> 00:33:26.600
think that the number has been put into
the chat; erm, it's +49-5361, err,

00:33:26.700 --> 00:33:35.500
890-286-8001, err, and if you're using
event phone it's just 8001. Erm, I'll

00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:40.600
just have a look and see if anyone asked
any questions in here... Err, let's have

00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:49.400
a look... Yeah: "How do I find, how can I
find a Funkwhale instance for a podcast

00:33:49.500 --> 00:33:53.500
I'm planning that suits me, my needs and
my content the best?" Erm, yeah so the

00:33:53.600 --> 00:33:58.100
link there is, is a good idea, the err,
'Get Started' guide, erm, we actually

00:33:58.200 --> 00:34:04.700
have a, erm, a sort of a 'podpicker', we
call it, erm, which is, just something

00:34:04.800 --> 00:34:08.400
that sort of takes you through the
summary of different pods, erm, which is

00:34:08.900 --> 00:34:12.600
what we ref- how we refer to servers,
erm; people can write a summary of what

00:34:12.700 --> 00:34:19.900
sort of content they on there; erm, the
two biggest servers, erm, are open.audio,

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:26.000
and err... ...I think Tanuki Tunes, which
is my server, is quite, sort of, big and

00:34:26.100 --> 00:34:32.300
open; erm, there are lots of servers out
there, so, you know, if you find one

00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:37.900
where you think "it would fit in - here"
*laughs* then great! Erm, you know,

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:41.500
usually just find one that has open
registrations and, and sign up. Or, if

00:34:41.600 --> 00:34:45.500
you're feeling brave, erm, install it for
yourself; err it's, it's a fairly easy

00:34:45.600 --> 00:34:51.300
install. There are some hosts that will
host it for you, erm; they're listed on

00:34:51.400 --> 00:34:55.100
the funkwhale.audio website, so if you
just wanted somebody to set it up for

00:34:55.200 --> 00:35:02.200
you, so that you could host a podcast,
erm, then yes, you could sort of, err put

00:35:02.300 --> 00:35:09.300
it in there. Err: "Do you know the
podcastindex.org project?" Err, I don't,

00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:14.800
personally, err I will look it up, after
this; that looks interesting. Err, "If

00:35:14.900 --> 00:35:18.100
there's a solution to is to be found that
could work for podcasters, could it also

00:35:18.200 --> 00:35:22.300
be applicable to indie musicians? Or are
the two fields, err, way too different in

00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:26.800
order to accommodate both?" Err, I'll
just finish this one; I think I've got a

00:35:26.900 --> 00:35:38.000
err, telephone person coming in... So,
err if this p- I mean *sighs* yes and no;

00:35:38.100 --> 00:35:44.900
err if we're talking about supporting,
erm, financially, then, yes, in theory we

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:48.500
already have some of those; I mean there
are already donation platforms which kind

00:35:48.600 --> 00:35:55.500
of work for a multitude of things, erm,
so really I think we should be trying to,

00:35:55.600 --> 00:36:02.100
to sort of lean into things like
Liberapay, Ko-fi, maybe Patreon, erm,

00:36:02.200 --> 00:36:07.000
rather than, sort of, trying to solve
that problem within the publication

00:36:07.100 --> 00:36:11.000
software. Because those features already
exist, and because that's already quite,

00:36:11.100 --> 00:36:16.700
err, well-established, erm, having better
interoperability between those tools,

00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:19.600
erm, is probably the best way forward.
You know, you just want to take the

00:36:19.700 --> 00:36:22.600
complexity away from the person
listening. It'd be nice if they had

00:36:22.700 --> 00:36:25.500
something like, for example, you're
listening to a song, you really like it,

00:36:25.600 --> 00:36:32.400
so, maybe you pre-load a certain amount
of, you know, credits to your account,

00:36:32.500 --> 00:36:35.100
and if every time you, sort of, play a
song you really like you could throw some

00:36:35.200 --> 00:36:38.700
credits their way. I don't know; the
complexity of the actual *chuckles*

00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:42.900
implementation is beyond me a little bit;
as I say, I'm just a front-end guy, but

00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:47.200
erm, I don't think there's that big a
difference between them, err, from, from

00:36:47.300 --> 00:36:55.300
that sort of perspective. Erm... yeah.
Err, the servers were, err so open.audio

00:36:55.400 --> 00:37:00.400
is the main, sort of flagship server,
erm, and my server is called:

00:37:00.500 --> 00:37:07.300
tanukitunes.com; I'll put that link in.
Erm, but there are lots of, there are

00:37:07.400 --> 00:37:12.700
lots of servers; as I say, if you go to
the actual, funkwhale.audio website, erm,

00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:20.600
they're there. Erm, so "Why should I, as
a podcaster, decide against a centralized

00:37:20.700 --> 00:37:23.500
platform with lots of users, for a
decentralized one with only a few users?

00:37:23.600 --> 00:37:27.200
How can we dramatically increase the
visibility of my project, erm my product

00:37:27.300 --> 00:37:32.800
on Funkwhale?" Erm, it's a good question;
I mean, the, the thing is with the

00:37:32.900 --> 00:37:39.000
centralized platform, erm, is, you may be
on a platform with a lot of users, but

00:37:39.100 --> 00:37:44.600
that doesn't mean that you're actually
going to be seen by a lot of users. Erm,

00:37:44.700 --> 00:37:50.900
there is a lot of stuff on Spotify which
never gets played. Erm, that, that's just

00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:55.200
*stutters* the fact of it; there are,
there are so many... there's so much

00:37:55.300 --> 00:38:00.100
content on there, that, you are just, you
know, *chuckles* you're just a grain of

00:38:00.200 --> 00:38:04.400
sand; erm, obviously if you've got, err,
err a sort of established fan-base, and

00:38:04.500 --> 00:38:07.100
you've got a lot of people already
listening to you, then that doesn't

00:38:07.200 --> 00:38:11.300
affect you, but, in that case, it also
wouldn't affect you if you were

00:38:11.400 --> 00:38:15.100
decentralized. Those same people would
still be listening, and in fact you would

00:38:15.200 --> 00:38:20.100
be able to reach more people; erm,
podcasts, kind of, allow for

00:38:20.200 --> 00:38:24.600
word-of-mouth in a way that something
centralized doesn't. It can be passed

00:38:24.700 --> 00:38:30.100
around a lot more, err, sort of, virally.
Erm, as for, you know, Funkwhale, I mean,

00:38:30.200 --> 00:38:35.400
Funkwhale's greatest strength is the
Fediverse, erm, with this. Err, so, the

00:38:35.500 --> 00:38:39.900
fact that the audio can be shared between
peoples' servers, and sort of streamed

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.000
directly from server to server, the fact
that it can be followed on a multitude of

00:38:43.100 --> 00:38:47.600
different, err, platforms, is where the
visibility would come from; it's that

00:38:47.700 --> 00:38:52.000
sort of viral sharing. But the fact that
it also works outside of Funkwhale, it

00:38:52.100 --> 00:38:57.300
also works, err, just using a traditional
sort of podcatcher, also plays into its

00:38:57.400 --> 00:39:02.500
favour, and that's where Spotify kind of
falls apart. Erm, yes, Spotify has a lot

00:39:02.600 --> 00:39:07.300
of users, but erm, you do kind of cut off
an entire core audience, which is the

00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:14.300
concern. Erm... yeah. It, it's, it's not
the, there's no simple answer *chuckles*

00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:19.900
to this is, is kind of the way it goes,
but erm, I feel like, erm, the point made

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.100
earlier in the, in the chat, which was
that, if you centralize it and you lock

00:39:24.200 --> 00:39:27.500
it behind a walled garden it's no longer
really a podcast; it kind, that kind of

00:39:27.600 --> 00:39:31.800
stands; it's not a podcast, technically,
any more. It's something different, and

00:39:31.900 --> 00:39:36.200
that's not necessarily a bad thing, but
it is true; it's no longer what it is was

00:39:36.300 --> 00:39:43.600
originally supposed to be. Erm, so, you
know, it, it, it is best, I think, to try

00:39:43.700 --> 00:39:47.700
and make use of, err, of, you know, tools
that fit into the existing podcast

00:39:47.800 --> 00:39:59.300
infrastructure. OK: that looks like all
of the questions; I don't think anybody's

00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:07.200
calling in, which is fine... So, with
that being the case, if there's no more

00:40:07.300 --> 00:40:12.000
questions, erm, thank you very much for
listening to me ramble about, erm,

00:40:12.100 --> 00:40:18.900
*laughs* podcast, err, for forty minutes!
Erm, obviously, if, if you'd like to

00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:25.400
check the project out, it's just at, at
funkwhale.audio. Erm, but also, go out

00:40:25.500 --> 00:40:28.800
and support your favourite podcasters,
whatever platform they're on. Erm, you

00:40:29.100 --> 00:40:34.400
know, god knows they'd appreciate it
*laughs* Especially in these times. Err,

00:40:34.500 --> 00:40:41.000
thank you very much, erm, I think, that's
where I'm gonna' call it quits!

00:40:47.500 --> 00:40:51.000
Herald: I think we have a phone call.
Ciarán Ainsworth: OK.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:00.700
Herald: Someone on the phone?
Question: Ah, yeah?

00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:02.000
Ciarán: Hello?
Q: Hi.

00:41:02.100 --> 00:41:03.100
Ciarán: Hello!

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:11.600
*phone line hisses* I just wondered
whether you're familiar with a website

00:41:11.700 --> 00:41:16.300
called forgotify.com. You brought up
earlier that there's, like, tons of audio

00:41:16.400 --> 00:41:21.100
that has never been heard of, and that's
basically sites, so it's like a song, or

00:41:21.200 --> 00:41:24.100
a piece of material on Spotify that
has never been heard of before.

00:41:24.200 --> 00:41:28.900
Ciarán: Hmm. What was the name
of the site again, sorry?

00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:33.600
Q: Err, forgotify.com
Ciarán: Oh, no, I've not heard of that!

00:41:33.700 --> 00:41:37.800
That's quite interesting. So is it, it-
it just plays stuff that doesn't get

00:41:37.900 --> 00:41:41.100
played much on Spotify?
Q: Yeah, you just click, click on a

00:41:41.200 --> 00:41:47.400
button and it literally shows you, like,
a random song, or another piece of audio

00:41:47.500 --> 00:41:52.000
that has been, like, distributing on
Spotify but never heard before. I even

00:41:52.100 --> 00:41:55.500
found some tracks from
2008/2009, I'm not sure.

00:41:55.600 --> 00:41:59.100
Ciarán: That's... great! *laughs* I
really like, I really like that idea.

00:41:59.200 --> 00:42:04.200
Yeah, I, that, that is a, a genuine
concern; I, I, when I was, erm, I used to

00:42:04.300 --> 00:42:08.600
use Google+ a lot, because I'm that kind
of person, and I was part of, erm, sort

00:42:08.700 --> 00:42:12.900
of 'publishing muscians', err, club, and
I had people on there who published on

00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:16.800
Spotify and they never got listened to.
You know, it does take quite a lot for

00:42:16.900 --> 00:42:20.900
you to, to actually get picked up
Spotify's algorithms and to be, sort of,

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:26.000
err, prioritised. So, I- it's not the
best solution for podcasters; I think

00:42:26.100 --> 00:42:29.100
there's a reason that only
already-popular podcasts are getting

00:42:29.200 --> 00:42:32.800
picked up for Spotify circulation. But,
you know, that, that sort of project

00:42:32.900 --> 00:42:35.800
sounds really interesting, because it'd
be fascinating to see what gets forgotten

00:42:35.900 --> 00:42:39.000
down the sort of 'cracks of the
seat', *chuckles* so to speak!

00:42:39.100 --> 00:42:43.400
Q: Yeah. It's also exhausting to play the
game of the admin work and stuff; I think

00:42:43.500 --> 00:42:48.000
that's, like, one of the main reasons why
I'm not making music myself. Things sound

00:42:48.100 --> 00:42:52.500
*phone line cuts out*, personally. So
that's why *phone line cuts out*.

00:42:52.600 --> 00:42:58.600
Ciarán: Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is.
Q: Anyways, thanks a lot; I'm not, I'm

00:42:58.700 --> 00:43:02.700
not affiliated with the site. I just
like, found it very random and decided to

00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:05.200
share that. Thanks.
Ciarán: No, thank you very much,

00:43:05.300 --> 00:43:08.600
that's really interesting.
Q: See you around!

00:43:08.700 --> 00:43:10.000
Ciarán: Thank you; bye!

00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:20.500
OK, if, err, we don't have any more
calls... Going once, going twice!

00:43:20.600 --> 00:43:28.000
Ciarán: *chuckles* OK!
Herald: No more calls.

00:43:28.100 --> 00:43:31.900
Ciarán: OK, thank you again for, for
coming to, to watch, and I hope you

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:35.300
have, err, a great rest of your
conference, err, looks like it's

00:43:35.400 --> 00:43:36.600
going to be a lot of fun.

00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:42.900
*postroll music*

00:43:43.000 --> 00:44:16.000
*postroll music*
Captions by Sebastian 'seabass' Crane