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Would You Let IT Conversations See Your Podcast Ratings in iTunes?
Not too long ago, Richard Miller suggested using the iTunes XML file that iTunes creates for use by other applications as a way of getting feedback for podcasts. Here’s Apple’s description of the XML file and what it can be used for.
If you rate a few things in your collection and then go look at the XML file, you’ll see it would be a relatively simple task to grab whether something had been played or not, it’s rating, and how many times it was played (usually once for a podcast) from the file. An application that lived in the system tray on Windows or in the menu bar on OS X could forward any changes in that data back to the podcaster.
The question is, would you be willing to do that if you got something back: better recommendations on podcasts you’d like? As the number of podcasts on a site like IT Conversations grows, I think recommendations are going to play a more and more important role. The problem is getting data about what people like to make the recommendations work. This might provide a semi-automated way to get feedback from the player to IT Conversations.
Posted by windley on May 9, 2007 3:59 PM
Comment from Ben Liong at May 10, 2007 8:04 AM
Hey,
I love the idea of my rating podcasts on my ipod translating to feedback for the network. However, once something like this is done, all podcast networks would follow suit, with their own implementation of a feedback-reading mechanism, promising to only read rating data of their own podcasts.
What we need is an independent program that is able to read the rating information and sent it to the relevant organization upon request after obtaining the users' permission. For example, IT conversation can have a link saying "to allow us to get feedback from your ipod, click here", which would direct users to the authorization page. The page should display something like the tracks it will track, the network it represents, and ask the user for authorization. Something like how flickr third party software gets access to your photos.
Every podcasters can therefore track their podcast statistic through this means.
Comment from Warren Young at May 10, 2007 6:26 PM
I've been hoping for this very feature! In fact, the only reason I hadn't sent in a feature request is because I, too think it shouldn't be specific to Gigavox, so I was just thinking of doing it myself.
If someone wants to get this going, you can contact me via the email form on my web page. I'm primarily a POSIX and Windows developer, but I'd be happy to dive into the Mac piece for the experience.
Comment from Guy Dickinson at May 10, 2007 6:30 PM
I already use a very similar model of app - iscrobbler, which is part of last.fm's software install. It tracks what I listen to and builds a profile that syncs into a public profile, which in turn acts as a recommendation engine...I'd be more than happy to have a 'listening' app in this style that took a little more depth in my played content and inferred meaning from playcount, on-the-go ratings, etc.
Ideally, this information would be used to serve up a personalised podcast feed that would be populated with recommended/related shows...I've been on an eternal search for podcast serendipity - maybe this could be a way to achieve this (the closest I've got is subscribing to the Poptech feed :-)
Comment from Michael at May 10, 2007 7:05 PM
I am interested in this, but I would want a way to be able to force an upload of rating quickly -- because I tend to delete podcasts I've listened to quickly, since I have such a backlog. So I would want to be able to sync-rate-upload-delete in a pretty pain-free way.
Comment from Shawn Blanchard at May 11, 2007 7:15 AM
Absolutely. I listen to absolutely everything on IT Conversations and would like to contribute back somehow. I never seem to have the time or remember to log onto the website to post a rating, but do manage to rate in iTunes.
Comment from Andrew at May 13, 2007 3:51 AM
I don't use itunes or a ipod.
But if this did work on my iRiver I would use it especially if it was a cross-podnet application.
There is a horrible disconnect between the listening experience and the feedback I want to give, I don't have time to match file-names, play the beginning of each podcast or similar, so only the highly memorable podcasts get rated.
Andrew.
p.s. Thank you for a continual transformational experience, I am so much closer to where I want to be with these podcasts.
And yes, I intend to donate soon.
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