#rC3 Funkwhale and the Importance of Decentralized Podcasting

*33C3 preroll music*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

people raise issues with it, erm,
specifically around, erm, 'how do I edit

metadata during that upload process?'
Erm, the problem I think is because the

way we designed the frontend, it was more
of a, it was more in line with how we'd

worked with music previously, which is to
say, upload many files which have been

previously tagged, and just kind of let
them be. Erm, whereas of course if you're

doing an upload of, of podcasts you want
to basically upload an episode, title it,

tag it, put some artwork with it, give it
a license, do all of that stuff, erm, and

then move on to the next one. Or, if you
know you're gonna be uploading multiple

episodes of a series you might want to
have a tool, say, that you can, you put

them all in a series and say number them
all automatically; erm, at the moment we

don't have that. You, if you upload
multiple things, a pencil icon appears

next to each one, and you can click
through and edit them all, but it's not

very obvious how you do that. So that's
been raised as something, erm, that needs

to be addressed, and we've had some
designs submitted for how we might go

about doing that, which looks to be a lot
better. Erm, the other one is something

I'm gonna come onto in the sort of, the
second part of this, and that is, the

introduction of links to donation
services erm, at the moment, hosting

your podcast on Funkwhale is, is err, is
great - erm, but it's the same as hosting

it anywhere else. Erm, what we need to,
err, what we sort of want to be, sort of

pushing people towards or sort of
encouraging, is this idea of supporting,

err, people who create. Erm, and the best
way to do that in our, in our eyes, is to

kind of, err, promote the idea of
donation services and promote the idea of

helping, to support the podcast that you
like. Erm, we don't want to be a payment

handler, obviously, we wouldn't,
*chuckles* but we do want to sort of help

make it a lot more visible when there is
a service that you can actually put money

towards. And the last one, it's been on
the roadmap since channels were

introduced, it's very, very complex, umm!
*chuckles* As, as somebody who does not

work on the backend, I don't really have
the tech, technological knowledge to go

into it, but there is this idea of
'channel claiming', where, if somebody,

err, uploads some music to a channel, and
it's not their music, the person who's

music it is should be able to claim that
channel and take control of it. Umm, as

you can imagine, that's a very very
complex thing to do, particularly over

federation, erm, because you have all of
the different implications of the wider

Fediverse to take into account there.
Erm, so, it's our biggest boom; it's also

our biggest, erm, challenge, day-to-day
is working with that federation. But,

that moves on to, moves me on to my next
point, which is all about sort of

decentralized podcasting. Erm, this may
seem like a strange concept to people who

do podcasting, because, err, podcasts are
decentralized by design, really. Erm, I

didn't know a lot about podcasts, going
into this. As I say, it was a very much a

learning experience, erm, but the more
reading I did into podcasts as part of

the research that we did for this, the
more fascinated I became by how they work

and how they're set up. And, the thing
that struck me was, erm, podcasts have

this, err, uni - they occupy this unique
space of being very very, err,

disruptive, low-tech, erm, you know,
certainly audio podcasts, err but video

as well, disruptive, low-tech,
standards-compliant ways of communicating

a lot of information. So, podcasts can be
hosted anywhere; err, as long as they

generate a valid feed anybody can capture
them into a podcatcher and play the files

linked, using a relevant, erm, piece of
software. Erm, that means that the, the

potential listener-base is enormous, erm,
much more so than, you know, anything

based on, erm, you know, a single
platform, a centralized platform. And,

this was one of the reasons that, when we
were designing, err, the podcast

publications tools, we were so emphatic
about being a part of that existing

infrastructure, making sure that we
didn't try to, sort of lock people into

our way of thinking, but instead follow
what podcasting was already doing,

because it already seemed pretty
great: we had, you know, things like RSS

feeds, erm, we had sort of, good, erm,
encodings being used like MP3, which

could be so widely used it's, it's, it's
kind of ubiquitous at this point! Erm,

and, and, that's kind of a really
important part of it. And the reason that

this came to my attention was, during
some of the conversations we were having

with podcasters, err, and specifically
when we were looking at, erm, Funkwhale

as a podcatcher, so something that
consumes RSS feeds and plays them back,

erm, somebody had said something about a
specific podcast, I think it was called,

the, The Last Podcast on the Left. And
they said, basically, "it's a shame, I

won't be able to play this through
Funkwhale because they are going

Spotify-exclusive, and so they're not
producing an RSS feed anymore." And,

*sighs*, this, worries me slightly; erm,
it, it's, it's a concerning kind of, err,

tr- trend away from what podcasts stand
for, fr- from, from my understanding of

what podcasts stand for. Erm, because
when you go exclusive to something

like Spotify, you have the introduction
of DRM, and sort of, erm, you're sort of

creating a walled around content, and
certainly for content that used to be

free, and- and open, so, you know, it
used to follow the same rules as

everything else, for it to suddenly go
into a, a platform-specific, erm,

publication, is a big break. And there
are a couple of reasons for this, but the

primary one is, let's say that, with
podcasting the only limitation for a user

is that they have a machine that has
software that is capable of, of listening

to that podcast; it's capable of reading
the feed, and playing back the, the

audio. That's your limitation. If you put
it onto, err, something like Spotify, you

actually divide this into four - four
different experiences. The first two are,

users who live in a country, that have
access to Spotify, erm, and those people

will have two experiences; one, they will
either listen to an ad-supported, erm,

err- version of the show, and the second
one is that they pay for a, erm, a

subscription to the actual, erm, *typing*
the actual podcast. Err, sorry, to the

actual, erm, erm, platform. Then you have
people who go into other, live in other

countries, erm, which don't have Spotify
served up to them. And those people have

more experiences; one is that they have
to pay for a VPN, and, err, basically

access Spotify externally, using the ads,
and then again, access externally using

a subscription. And then there's that
lost fifth one, which is, they don't have

the money for any of this, so, they can't
listen. So we've fractured the user-base

by centralizing the, erm, by centralizing
the content into a certain place, and the

problem with something like Spotify is
that, that point, when you've done that,

and you've taken that, sort of, erm,
you've taken that decentralized nature

away, what you have left is not a
podcast, it's essentially corporate

radio, and, like I say, for something
that started off as a podcast, as

something that started off freely
available, having it move in that way is,

somewhat concerning. But, at the same
time, we have to look at 'why does that

happen?' And, and generally the answer is
*chuckles*: podcasting is expensive. Erm,

everything that takes up peoples' time,
is expensive. And podcasting, from the

little I have done of it, is very
expensive. You've got to take the time to

script, and record, and edit, and work
with, erm, you know, all of that audio

and video, you've got to find a place to
publish it, you've got to do all of the,

erm, you know, promotion around it, and
if you are looking to make money off of

it, you have to search around for, err,
you know, sponsorships, and ad deals, and

things like that. So when a company like
Spotify comes along and says: "We'll take

all of that complexity off of your hands,
and we'll give you a good portion of

money, erm, to pay your staff, and to, to
make sure you can make a living", it's

very, very tempting. Erm, and you can
kind of understand why it happens. And,

one of the things that we kind of found
was that, erm, the Free Software

community, in general, is not always in,
best equipped to deal with that kind of

thing; we don't, erm, we can't make a
counter-offer to that. Erm, our weapon

here and what we can do about this, is,
as I've said before, kind of try as much

as possible to make it easy for people to
make the decision to continue listening

outside of those platforms, make it easy
for them to continue to support, their,

erm, their favourite podcast directly,
erm which means, lowering the sort of

barrier to entry for, erm, payments,
lowering the barrier of entry for

sharing, for supporting, for, for getting
things out there. Erm, but it's an

inherently, sort of, difficult thing to,
to come up against, and something that,

you know, we *sighs* haven't found the
answer *chuckles awkwardly* for yet, erm,

it's something we're still in discussions
abut, erm, how we, how we might help

podcasters support themselves, how we
might help *stumbles on words* people

support podcasters, err and musicians as
well, this, this stretches to all areas,

erm, but the answer is, is, is a
difficult one. It's not one that sort of,

erm, you know, comes very easily. Erm,
now I've purposefully, sort of, left this

- I think I've got it exactly half an
hour, that's good! *chuckles* - I

purposely didn't want this to go on
for too long, erm, it's, it- that's kind

of the journey that we've had, erm, the
first thing is: podcasting is fun! Err,

from a, sort of, user-perspective,
podcasts are wonderful to listen to; erm,

having a good place to put podcasts is
great for, erm, you know, people who make

them; from a software perspective, err,
they're a bit of a nightmare, especially

when they aren't what your, erm,
*chuckles* software was originally sort

of, erm, set up to do, err there's a lot
of work goes into it, it's, erm, I think

it's underestimated in general. Erm, but,
you know, it's worth putting the effort

in to, to get something like that. Erm,
free software world, the open source

software world, erm, we, we still face
some significant challenges, erm, with

assisting people with things like,
anything to, anything to do with finances

is something where we struggle, and,
erm, it's because we don't have that

monolithic approach; it's because we
don't have that, erm, central financing

erm, so it tends to be that, you know, we
need to focus more on improving, err, the

experience of working within a, sort of,
direct donation world and a direct, sort

of, erm, way of, of working. Erm, and,
yeah, th- this, this, this whole sort of

trend of existing podcasts being picked
up by, erm, companies, and, you know,

things that used to be so free and easily
accessible becoming walled-off inside (I

only know of Spotify doing it but I can
imagine the same thing happening with

Apple Music and Deezer and a lot of
others), erm, is kind of a concerning

move which is diluting what was really
quite a fantastic, sort of, idea, and

it's a shame that it happens to some of
the ones that people find, you know,

people connect with the most strongly; I
think, erm, two of the most popular

podcasts that have been picked up are
things like, erm, Joe Rogan, and The Last

Podcast on the Left, which is, it's a
shame, erm, because high-profile things

being taken over has meaning, and, erm,
you know, it will normalise it in, if, in

my eyes at least. But, with the use of
free- free software tools, with the use

of, you know, these open standards, real
podcasting will never go away; it will

always, you know, 'bubble up' underneath,
we will always see people, erm,

continuing to, you know, to put things
out. So - yeah! It's, it's not all

hopeless, this wasn't what that talk
*chuckles* this talk was about; it was

more that just about this is something I
think is very important, and something

that, you know, as a project we're really
striving to support. Erm, so, I think

that takes me to- quite nicely 35 minutes
was exactly what I was aiming for... If

anybody has any questions, erm, I think
that the, erm, I think that the, err, I

think that the number has been put into
the chat; erm, it's +49-5361, err,

890-286-8001, err, and if you're using
event phone it's just 8001. Erm, I'll

just have a look and see if anyone asked
any questions in here... Err, let's have

a look... Yeah: "How do I find, how can I
find a Funkwhale instance for a podcast

I'm planning that suits me, my needs and
my content the best?" Erm, yeah so the

link there is, is a good idea, the err,
'Get Started' guide, erm, we actually

have a, erm, a sort of a 'podpicker', we
call it, erm, which is, just something

that sort of takes you through the
summary of different pods, erm, which is

what we ref- how we refer to servers,
erm; people can write a summary of what

sort of content they on there; erm, the
two biggest servers, erm, are open.audio,

and err... ...I think Tanuki Tunes, which
is my server, is quite, sort of, big and

open; erm, there are lots of servers out
there, so, you know, if you find one

where you think "it would fit in - here"
*laughs* then great! Erm, you know,

usually just find one that has open
registrations and, and sign up. Or, if

you're feeling brave, erm, install it for
yourself; err it's, it's a fairly easy

install. There are some hosts that will
host it for you, erm; they're listed on

the funkwhale.audio website, so if you
just wanted somebody to set it up for

you, so that you could host a podcast,
erm, then yes, you could sort of, err put

it in there. Err: "Do you know the
podcastindex.org project?" Err, I don't,

personally, err I will look it up, after
this; that looks interesting. Err, "If

there's a solution to is to be found that
could work for podcasters, could it also

be applicable to indie musicians? Or are
the two fields, err, way too different in

order to accommodate both?" Err, I'll
just finish this one; I think I've got a

err, telephone person coming in... So,
err if this p- I mean *sighs* yes and no;

err if we're talking about supporting,
erm, financially, then, yes, in theory we

already have some of those; I mean there
are already donation platforms which kind

of work for a multitude of things, erm,
so really I think we should be trying to,

to sort of lean into things like
Liberapay, Ko-fi, maybe Patreon, erm,

rather than, sort of, trying to solve
that problem within the publication

software. Because those features already
exist, and because that's already quite,

err, well-established, erm, having better
interoperability between those tools,

erm, is probably the best way forward.
You know, you just want to take the

complexity away from the person
listening. It'd be nice if they had

something like, for example, you're
listening to a song, you really like it,

so, maybe you pre-load a certain amount
of, you know, credits to your account,

and if every time you, sort of, play a
song you really like you could throw some

credits their way. I don't know; the
complexity of the actual *chuckles*

implementation is beyond me a little bit;
as I say, I'm just a front-end guy, but

erm, I don't think there's that big a
difference between them, err, from, from

that sort of perspective. Erm... yeah.
Err, the servers were, err so open.audio

is the main, sort of flagship server,
erm, and my server is called:

tanukitunes.com; I'll put that link in.
Erm, but there are lots of, there are

lots of servers; as I say, if you go to
the actual, funkwhale.audio website, erm,

they're there. Erm, so "Why should I, as
a podcaster, decide against a centralized

platform with lots of users, for a
decentralized one with only a few users?

How can we dramatically increase the
visibility of my project, erm my product

on Funkwhale?" Erm, it's a good question;
I mean, the, the thing is with the

centralized platform, erm, is, you may be
on a platform with a lot of users, but

that doesn't mean that you're actually
going to be seen by a lot of users. Erm,

there is a lot of stuff on Spotify which
never gets played. Erm, that, that's just

*stutters* the fact of it; there are,
there are so many... there's so much

content on there, that, you are just, you
know, *chuckles* you're just a grain of

sand; erm, obviously if you've got, err,
err a sort of established fan-base, and

you've got a lot of people already
listening to you, then that doesn't

affect you, but, in that case, it also
wouldn't affect you if you were

decentralized. Those same people would
still be listening, and in fact you would

be able to reach more people; erm,
podcasts, kind of, allow for

word-of-mouth in a way that something
centralized doesn't. It can be passed

around a lot more, err, sort of, virally.
Erm, as for, you know, Funkwhale, I mean,

Funkwhale's greatest strength is the
Fediverse, erm, with this. Err, so, the

fact that the audio can be shared between
peoples' servers, and sort of streamed

directly from server to server, the fact
that it can be followed on a multitude of

different, err, platforms, is where the
visibility would come from; it's that

sort of viral sharing. But the fact that
it also works outside of Funkwhale, it

also works, err, just using a traditional
sort of podcatcher, also plays into its

favour, and that's where Spotify kind of
falls apart. Erm, yes, Spotify has a lot

of users, but erm, you do kind of cut off
an entire core audience, which is the

concern. Erm... yeah. It, it's, it's not
the, there's no simple answer *chuckles*

to this is, is kind of the way it goes,
but erm, I feel like, erm, the point made

earlier in the, in the chat, which was
that, if you centralize it and you lock

it behind a walled garden it's no longer
really a podcast; it kind, that kind of

stands; it's not a podcast, technically,
any more. It's something different, and

that's not necessarily a bad thing, but
it is true; it's no longer what it is was

originally supposed to be. Erm, so, you
know, it, it, it is best, I think, to try

and make use of, err, of, you know, tools
that fit into the existing podcast

infrastructure. OK: that looks like all
of the questions; I don't think anybody's

calling in, which is fine... So, with
that being the case, if there's no more

questions, erm, thank you very much for
listening to me ramble about, erm,

*laughs* podcast, err, for forty minutes!
Erm, obviously, if, if you'd like to

check the project out, it's just at, at
funkwhale.audio. Erm, but also, go out

and support your favourite podcasters,
whatever platform they're on. Erm, you

know, god knows they'd appreciate it
*laughs* Especially in these times. Err,

thank you very much, erm, I think, that's
where I'm gonna' call it quits!

Herald: I think we have a phone call.
Ciarán Ainsworth: OK.

Herald: Someone on the phone?
Question: Ah, yeah?

Ciarán: Hello?
Q: Hi.

Ciarán: Hello!

*phone line hisses* I just wondered
whether you're familiar with a website

called forgotify.com. You brought up
earlier that there's, like, tons of audio

that has never been heard of, and that's
basically sites, so it's like a song, or

a piece of material on Spotify that
has never been heard of before.

Ciarán: Hmm. What was the name
of the site again, sorry?

Q: Err, forgotify.com
Ciarán: Oh, no, I've not heard of that!

That's quite interesting. So is it, it-
it just plays stuff that doesn't get

played much on Spotify?
Q: Yeah, you just click, click on a

button and it literally shows you, like,
a random song, or another piece of audio

that has been, like, distributing on
Spotify but never heard before. I even

found some tracks from
2008/2009, I'm not sure.

Ciarán: That's... great! *laughs* I
really like, I really like that idea.

Yeah, I, that, that is a, a genuine
concern; I, I, when I was, erm, I used to

use Google+ a lot, because I'm that kind
of person, and I was part of, erm, sort

of 'publishing muscians', err, club, and
I had people on there who published on

Spotify and they never got listened to.
You know, it does take quite a lot for

you to, to actually get picked up
Spotify's algorithms and to be, sort of,

err, prioritised. So, I- it's not the
best solution for podcasters; I think

there's a reason that only
already-popular podcasts are getting

picked up for Spotify circulation. But,
you know, that, that sort of project

sounds really interesting, because it'd
be fascinating to see what gets forgotten

down the sort of 'cracks of the
seat', *chuckles* so to speak!

Q: Yeah. It's also exhausting to play the
game of the admin work and stuff; I think

that's, like, one of the main reasons why
I'm not making music myself. Things sound

*phone line cuts out*, personally. So
that's why *phone line cuts out*.

Ciarán: Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is.
Q: Anyways, thanks a lot; I'm not, I'm

not affiliated with the site. I just
like, found it very random and decided to

share that. Thanks.
Ciarán: No, thank you very much,

that's really interesting.
Q: See you around!

Ciarán: Thank you; bye!

OK, if, err, we don't have any more
calls... Going once, going twice!

Ciarán: *chuckles* OK!
Herald: No more calls.

Ciarán: OK, thank you again for, for
coming to, to watch, and I hope you

have, err, a great rest of your
conference, err, looks like it's

going to be a lot of fun.

*postroll music*

*postroll music*
Captions by Sebastian 'seabass' Crane