Introducing Callin 2.0

Our biggest release yet features a new feed for improved discovery, a new Library for listening later or offline, video highlights with captions, web playback, transcripts, calendar, and much more.

Since launching Callin two months ago, our team has been hard at work onboarding incredible creators and improving the product, fusing the concepts of social audio and podcasting into an experience we call “social podcasting.” Today, I’m excited to announce our biggest upgrade yet, version 2.0 of Callin. This release features a major redesign and a multitude of new features making it easier for hosts to create and listeners to enjoy their favorite content. Here are the highlights:

A Reimagined Home Tab

Callin’s new Home tab creates an easier and more enjoyable way to browse and discover interesting content. The new experience seamlessly combines live rooms, subscriptions, people you follow, and personalized recommendations in a single feed. Live rooms, episodes, and highlights automatically play as you scroll, so you can sample the content. This allows you to decide what you want to listen to now or bookmark and save for later.

Build Your Own Library

A new Library tab creates a single place to find all of the content you care about most. A Saved list shows content that you’ve bookmarked to listen to later. A new Downloaded list creates a way to listen to episodes offline. Latest Episodes makes sure you never miss an episode of shows you’ve subscribed to. And Recently Played shows your listening history, so you can easily pick up where you left off.

Video Sharing for Highlights

A new video export feature allows creators or fans to share attention-grabbing video highlights. Simply press the share button for a highlight and select “Save Video” to get a local copy in your camera roll, then upload to social media to share with friends and followers. These video highlights automatically include closed captioning. Hosts will find that video highlights are a great way to generate excitement around the content they’re creating.

Web Playback, with Android Coming Soon

Callin for Web is here. You can now listen to full episodes on our website. You can copy the URL to shows and episodes in the Share menu. We’re also hard at work on an Android app, but since anyone can now listen on our website, Android users have a way to access awesome Callin content immediately.

Transcripts

Room playback now includes a transcript tab. Here listeners can find a transcript of the entire episode, follow along as the episode plays, and tap any text in the transcript to jump the audio to that place. Please note that transcripts are still in beta, but we’re continually looking to improve them and welcome feedback. If you notice that a part of a transcript isn’t correct, simply long-press to suggest an edit!

Collect Your Calls

If you call into an episode, it now appears on your profile under a new Calls tab, allowing you to collect your favorite experiences interacting with show hosts. Similarly, content that you’ve liked now appears on your profile under a new Likes tab.

Better Room Scheduling

We’ve made it easier than ever to share Scheduled Rooms by allowing you to invite guests using their phone number, regardless of whether they already have a Callin account. We’ve also given scheduled rooms a grace period, allowing hosts to start a scheduled room up to 30 minutes late in case life gets in the way. Once a room has been scheduled, it will show up in our new dedicated Calendar tab.

Control the Caller Queue

For creators who want to manage who gets permission to enter a show’s caller queue, the new Invite Callers feature grants access only to listeners who have been given a secret link to enter the caller queue.

Publishing Improvements

The creator experience has been improved with a new Show Intro feature that allows hosts of new shows to quickly record a 2-minute trailer to let listeners know what their show will be about. Hosts can also add timestamps within episode descriptions to break episodes into chapters. Finally, hosts can preview and listen to final edits before publishing an episode to make sure the episode turns out as intended.

More on the way…

The Callin team is just getting started. We’re committed to building the best audio platform in the world. Whether you’re a creator or a listener — or both! — stay tuned, we can’t wait to share what other new features we have in store.

Also, don’t forget to check out our open positions here!