Customize playlists of podcast episodes with Breaker
With our new Breaker feature, multiple playlists, you can now manage your podcast subscriptions, save episodes to listen to later, and share playlists of your favorite podcast episodes.
We’re very excited to share with you today a feature that we’ve been working on for a long time. We often get requests from users for “multiple playlists”, but in the past we’ve struggled to define what that means.
A bit of history might help explain…
History of the Playlist
Since the very first version of Breaker, we’ve had a “Playlist” tab. The idea behind the Playlist was to have a place where users could find new episodes from their podcast subscriptions. Users could also add episodes to the Playlist in order to listen to them later. All episodes in the Playlist would be downloaded whenever on Wi-Fi, so that users could play the episodes offline.
The Playlist worked great for users with fewer than 10 subscriptions, but soon became a headache for power users with lots of subscriptions. With more subscriptions, too many episodes would be automatically added to the top of the Playlist, pushing down older content and potentially hiding episodes meant to be saved for later.
Soon, Breaker power users and super fans started asking for better ways to manage the Playlist.
Design sprint
In order to best design a Playlist that would work for all Breaker users, the entire Breaker team participated in a design sprint. Our designer, Emma, challenged us to each create a mockup of “multiple playlists” with better ways to manage new episodes and saved episodes.
In creating these prototypes, we discovered that there were three primary use cases that we wanted to use a playlist for:
- Managing subscriptions
We wanted a way to only get notified of new episodes from shows we really loved. Less noisy and more specific. We also wanted to be able to group podcasts by types, such as “shows I listen to in the morning” or “informational podcasts”.
2. Saving episodes to listen to later
Often we’d find an episode that seemed really interesting but we just didn’t have time to listen right away. A “Save for later” playlist would help save these episodes for a more convenient time.
3. Sharing playlists of episodes
Currently, Breaker supports sharing individual podcasts and episodes, but what about a user-curated list of episodes? We also wanted to be able to create shareable playlists and have ways to post them on Twitter and Facebook.
In addition to figuring out the use cases for playlists, we also thought about which features would work best in each type of playlist.
Features that we really wanted for playlists included:
Sort order — the ability to arrange episodes by newest, oldest, most popular, or allow for custom sorting by dragging and dropping episodes. We also wanted to add sorting by shortest and longest!
Delete episodes after listening — remove episodes from the playlist after the user listens to them. This makes a lot of sense for the case of the “Save for later” playlist, but not as much sense for the “Public playlist” use case.
Download episodes automatically — for instant playback and offline listening, it’s really handy to have episodes already downloaded. For playlists such as “Save for later”, this feature is especially great.
After playing around with our prototypes and much discussion, we decided that it would be best if we could support ALL of these options. However, we didn’t want to clutter the UI or make Breaker too complicated for new users.
For new users, we thought it could be helpful to see the different use cases for playlists.
Default playlists
Breaker now comes with four default playlists, instead of just one. The four playlists represent each of the common use cases:
Each default playlist comes configured with the specific settings that make the most sense for that particular use case. For example, the “Save for later” playlist automatically downloads episodes, and deletes them after you’ve listened. The “Shareable playlist” has a custom sort and doesn’t delete episodes after they’ve been listened to. The “Favorite shows” playlist automatically adds new episodes from your favorite shows, downloads them, and sends you a push notification to let you know about the new episode.
The original Breaker playlist is now the “From subscriptions” playlist. It contains new episodes from all your subscriptions.
Of course, these are just examples. You can edit the defaults, remove them (except for “From subscriptions”), or add new playlists to better suit your podcast listening habits.
New playlists
In addition to the default playlists, you can also create entirely new playlists with custom settings. We’re happy that Breaker can now support power podcast listeners with all kinds of custom playlists.
Shareable playlists
One feature that we’re particularly excited about is the ability to create shareable playlists. You can now create a mixtape of your favorite episodes to share! Alternately, you can create a playlist around a certain topic or a playlist for a specific friend.
Try out playlists!
We’re hoping you love the new multiple playlists feature and that it helps keep your podcast episodes organized and ready to listen to any time.
Create a shareable playlist and tag @Breaker on Twitter to let us know about it! We’re excited to see what you curate.
As always, feel free to send us your thoughts at feedback@breaker.audio. Happy listening! ❤️
