PodPass: Proposal for an Open Protocol to Enable Direct Listener Relationships

PodPass is a simple protocol that uses RSS and HTML to enable both existing and new authenticated interactions for podcasts across platforms.

[ read the draft tech spec] [ see an example listener experience]

Summary

As podcasting develops new services that require direct relationships with listeners — such as exclusive content, membership, and private feeds — we believe there’s a need for a new protocol that provides a better listener experience, more control for podcasters, and a standardized method for apps to offer access to their users: PodPass.

Imagine a listener wants to hear bonus content from her favorite show as a benefit of being a supporter. The podcaster’s hosting provider offers access to extended versions of episodes appearing in the same feed for any logged-in members.

This scenario is possible in a PodPass future, but today requires separate feeds, copying and pasting urls, logging into separate websites, and losing your listening history when membership lapses.

There’s a trend toward direct listener relationships

There is an industry trend toward more direct listener monetization and engagement in podcasting. This includes crowdfunding, membership, tipping, donations, as well as exclusive and premium content.

This is a healthy development, expanding the range of touch points with listeners beyond the ad impression and helping publishers diversify their revenue and business models. The trend speaks to the depth of experience that spoken word audio elicits and encompasses other podcast engagement strategies such as live shows, email newsletters, fan clubs, surveys, and experiments with personalization and interactivity.

Identity-based access is increasingly required

A common need across all of these developments is to authenticate or change permissions based on the listener’s level of access. The listener usually needs to sign in to participate, and often the podcaster seeks more of the listener’s information to develop a more valuable relationship.

To clarify, when we talk about “identity” we are not necessarily talking about personally identifiable information. In the world of access control, the responsibilities are broken into Authentication, Identification, and Authorization.

Authentication is the job of ensuring someone is who they say they are, and Authorization is the job of determining what a given person (or pseudo-anonymous user id) should and should not have access to. Identification is like the glue between these steps, allowing an authenticated person to make a request which requires authorization.

PodPass offers a way for apps to trigger both the Authentication and Authorization steps, controlled by the podcast host, with the apps offering the Identity “glue” over time.

This crucial authentication step introduces obstacles and opportunities for the podcast industry.

There’s a risk that listening apps become the default brokers of identity verification and authenticated access in podcasting. In other words, as a listener you may find yourself installing five apps to get your favorite shows exclusive to a platform, and copying/pasting private feed urls to access others.

But more problematic is that as a podcaster, you may find yourself locked out of a direct relationship with your truest fans, relegated to the role of a content supplier to platforms controlling their experience. And ultimately, listeners themselves are asked to trade control and privacy for access and participation.

This can be an intentional strategy for apps to gain adoption — most visibly playing out at Luminary. Some podcasters are clearly comfortable making this trade off. Others, not so much.

Meanwhile, more podcasters are turning to third-party hosting and payment solutions that help support bonus, exclusive, or private content, such as Patreon, Supporting Cast, Acast Access, Glow.fm, RedCircle, Substack, and Memberful. But these services are constrained by available user experiences (primarily, providing a link to a fan, who then has to copy and paste the feed into their listening app), and can face significant friction pursuing app-by-app integrations.

Apple, Google, Spotify, and perhaps other new entrants could “solve” this at scale by driving a dominant platform-based identity layer and monetization approach of their own, as they have done in other markets (alongside Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix). Even in that scenario, there may still be room to sustain a handful of smaller vertical or community-focused paywalled apps.

But at the logical extreme, app-based identity results in either winner-take all platform hegemony, or further fragmentation of distribution, discovery, and monetization. At a moment when podcasting is still reaching new audiences and diversifying its business models, that kind of bundling comes at a cost to growth in podcasting.

Right now, it’s important to recognize that these choices and trade-offs are still in play, and podcast publishers retain significant leverage in shaping the outcomes.

The Problems to Solve

To recap: authenticated podcasting is coming, and current approaches face a set of problems:

• Listeners need to manage multiple feeds for the same show, such as “free” and “paid.”
• Listeners don’t have a way to keep track of heard episodes as they transition from unauthenticated (public) feeds to authenticated (private).
• Publishers need to initiate authentication and have no standard methodology, whereas interested listeners want to provide authentication where they already listen to podcasts.
• Publishers have to maintain two (or more) feeds, public and private.
• Publishers can’t monetize exclusive content cross-platform.
• Podcasts can’t be personalized in their production or distribution (for example, a personal fitness podcast tailored to your goals).
• Apps/platforms can’t offer simple access to exclusive/member content from multiple publishers without negotiating separate deals or integrations, or building and offering their own vertical solution.

To be clear, we are not suggesting that short of PodPass adoption, podcasting is in imminent danger. The vast majority of current listening and monetization via advertising remains untouched by these new needs and opportunities. But the trend towards authenticated podcasting is unstoppable, and PodPass can help ensure it leads to more shared value and growth, and avoid a “tragedy of the commons.”

PodPass supports existing solutions and new experiences

PodPass is a simple protocol that uses RSS and HTML to enable both existing and new identity-based interactions for podcasting across platforms.

The PodPass protocol provides two main elements:

1. A simple set of rules to manage user identity implemented by podcast hosts and listening apps. This entails a method of indicating support, a one-way message-passing API allowing webpages to send, and client apps to receive, updates to a podcast subscription, and a standard way for client apps to request feeds and enclosures with a bearer token. (Here’s the tech spec for more detail.)
2. A consistent user experience framework for listeners to interact with in any client app. (Here’s an example of a possible listener experience.)

The introduction of a lightweight, web-like identity layer to podcast subscriptions on an opt-in basis can support new and better options where identity can enhance the experience for listeners and align with publishers’ business needs.

Imagine:

A loyal listener opens her podcast app and sees a new member-only show from her favorite network. She listens to the free pilot episode, and is prompted to activate her account to hear the rest of the season. She logs in and keeps listening.

A podcaster decides to offer an ad-free version of her show to paying fans. Her hosting company offers special access without ads injected for logged-in backers.

A new podcast app wants to provide a universal catalog of podcasts, including private, member-only, and premium feeds from podcasters.

An organization decides to offer a staff-only podcast. After a quick verification, the employee gains access to the private feed.

You have probably encountered something similar already: PodPass is akin to activating your cable or HBO account on Hulu or Amazon Video, or storing your credentials in your web browser for sites you sign into frequently.

PodPass makes these and many other scenarios possible.

Here’s how it works:

What is PodPass not?

There is understandable confusion about the evolution of standards in podcasting, and competing efforts to advance the medium. It is important to clarify what PodPass isn’t:

• PodPass is not a new product from any one company.
• PodPass is not a replacement for existing third-party membership/payment services like Patreon.
• PodPass is not a CRM or payment system.
• PodPass is not limited to paid access use cases.

What’s next?

PodPass emerged from a series of conversations that the RadioPublic team has been having with stakeholders in podcasting across publishers, hosting providers, and platforms/apps (Chris Quamme Rhoden, RadioPublic co-founder and CTO, is responsible for the core PodPass idea and technical insights behind it). There is widespread agreement that the concept is compelling, along with the caveats and hesitation that comes with any bold idea at a moment of change.

We believe that the PodPass concept can spur industry dialogue, lead to immediate prototyping and testing, and that the protocol has the potential to gain adoption as the gains of managing listener relationships in a more effective and decentralized way becomes clear.

We have posted an open draft technical specification, and we welcome comments and feedback. We are also cross-posting this to Syndicated Media and Open Podcast Analytics Working Group to discuss further. We also welcome direct communication about PodPass through email:

Jake Shapiro: jake.shapiro@radiopublic.com

Matt MacDonald: matt.macdonald@radiopublic.com

Chris Quamme Rhoden: chris.rhoden@radiopublic.com

Ultimately we hope that a critical mass of podcasters, hosting providers, and apps/platforms will help shape and adopt PodPass as a generative strategy to expand podcasting, creating more value for listeners and creators alike.

Thank you!

Originally published at http://about.radiopublic.com on August 9, 2019.