Podcast Image Markers
With Marco Arment recently extending the podcast standards by implementing a payment button when show notes contain a link with rel="payment" I thought, you know what also would be cool? Podcast Image Markers!
I don’t know how you listen to podcasts, but I usually carry my iPhone in a dark pocket while I am running, working-out or have some quality walking-alone-time. When I am at home and nobody is there to be annoyed by me blasting a podcast through the iPhone internal speakers (since Marco is too busy to implement SONOS support) the iPhone is laying flat on a table or kitchen counter while I wander around.
This unattended listening has the disadvantage, that I regularly miss cool artwork or images the podcaster has added with some effort to the podcast’s MP3 file. What a bummer! For example it took me several episodes of Upgrade to see the fine artwork for the #snelltalk segment. Or to see some ugly white cars of Casey’s past during the Neutral segments of ATP.
Since us Germans convinced Marco to add chapter markers to podcasts maybe it’s time to convince him to add Image Marker Support to his MP3 encoder app Forecast and consequential to Overcast.
The intended result would look like this:
On a per podcast-level users can decide to enable Image Marker Support in their podcast app of choice. Once a relevant enough image is shown, users would simply feel a vibrating buzz in their pocket, indicating it might be worth unlocking the iPhone and looking at the podcast app. Alternatively or additionally a sound effect could be inserted and played, e.g. if the iPhone is not in a pocket but laying somewhere around. Maybe with some sensor magic this could happen automatically.
Of course there is the imminent danger of podcasters exploiting this feature by initiating permanent earthquakes in a user’s pocket but I would definitely only enable Image Marker Support for podcasts that won’t use this feature inflationary.
What do you think? Would you like to have such a feature in Overcast and other podcast playing apps? Then tweet at @marcoarment and other developers and ask to make the beautiful artworks, sketches, images, cat pics, and GIFs of your favourite podcasts discoverable.