Podcast Shownotes As RSS
I've been thinking about this off and on for a while, so I thought I'd put this idea out there to see if it gains any traction.
So a big problem with podcasts is that there's no standard way of doing shownotes, and no standard way for the client to tie together the shownotes and the audio. So here's an idea.
Similar to the <wfw:commentRSS> contruct, each item in a podcast would contain a <sjl:shownotesRSS> element (I'm using the sjl namespace just because I can...)
The RSS feed refered to by the shownotesRSS element would contain items that are the individual shownotes, each one containing a time index and other information such as a description and/or image. For example (extraneous stuff removed for readability):
[an item in podcast.xml]
<item>
<title>A Brit Abroad - June 14, 2005</title>
<description>
Normal shownotes go here...
</description>
<enclosure
url="http://www.steve-lacey.com/Some.mp3"
length="15094642"
type="audio/mpeg"/>
<sjl:shownotesRSS>
http://www.steve-lacey.com/Notes/Some.rss
</sjl:shownotesRSS>
</item>
[Notes/Some.rss]
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>A Brit Abroad June 14, 2005</title>
<link>
http://www.steve-lacey.com/Some.html
</link>
<sjl:shownotesFor>
http://www.steve-lacey.com/Some.mp3
</sjl:shownotesFor>
<description>
Talk and music from an ex-pat brit.
</description>
<item>
<sjl:shownotesTime>0</sjl:shownotesTime>
<description>Name and date check.</description>
<image>
<title>An image for this entry</title>
<link>
http://www.steve-lacey.com/someimage1.jpg
</link>
</image>
</item>
<item>
<sjl:shownotesTime>4</sjl:shownotesTime>
<description>Intro music and sweeper.</description>
<image>
<title>An image for this entry</title>
<link>http://www.steve-lacey.com/someimage2.jpg</link>
</image>
</item>
...etc...
</channel>
</rss>
This method therefore needs only three new elements in a (new?) namespace:
- shownotesRSS : points to the rss feed for the shownotes
- shownotesFor : points to the media file that the containing rss feed provides the shownotes for. (link item points to the original blog entry).
- shownotesTime : time index in seconds for this shownote item.
This gives podcatching clients the ability (if they do the playback) the show images, links, text and index into the media. WMP could also do this via some plugin.
Plus the two feeds are self-referential. I like it, so I think I'm going to try it out in Katana, my podcatcher testbed application.
Thoughts?
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Dave Winer is OPML's biggest cheerleader, for obvious reasons. He mentions that Steve Lacey thinks podcast shownotes should be RSS. I think Dave's right in that Steve's approach is wrong, but I think Steve's right that RSS is the answer,... Read More
It seems that a few articles have popped up here and there after I wrote about them. Something I'm not to familiar with as I usually write about something someone else posted. First when I did the OPML and Podcasting piece and now both Sean Alexander a... Read More
You suggest that ID3 tag should include a snippet which goes to RSS ITEM.
What about including complete RSS Item element in the id3 tag? This way you can build RSS channel from MP3 files, extracting Item elements from them.
sjl is not a namespace. sjl is a namespace prefix and it requires a namespace name.
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/
notbrainsurgery: Actually, I'm not suggesting any ID3 tags. I'm suggesting that the feed item in the xml feed for the podcast point to the shownotes rss file. Mind you, other than "what ID3 tag would you use?" that's a nice idea.
Randy: Yup - you got me. I need to be more careful with terminology when writing about anything that looks like a spec ;-)
Yea, but what about OPML as a way to get shownotes into a player and use a timestamp ideal within the OPML to allow quick "goto" functionality?
http://lance.heathville.com/archives/opml_and_podcasting.html
OPML or any shownote functionality is not going to make it into the players until there is a standard, adopted format/process. Once a method is settled upon, the player manufacturers will follow.
First step is the podcatching clients and desktop media players. After that comes the portable clients. Remember, it's easier for the desktop clients to gain functionality than a fixed function client.
I was wondering why your local queries brought also results from outside, at least that what it seemed, instead probably it was bringing results from google, btw the xml is wrong, line 11 of the second (12 of the first) should be: without "", now I get only results from my db :)
I think you need to have the famous Google cookie and a Google account (such as GMail, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, etc.) so it identifies you. And it might just be a test, yes, but I bet it'll stick.