Polypods is a place to nominate and discover podcast episodes.
You might be thinking - aren't there already a lot of podcast discovery tools? You're right, but none that we were happy with and so we decided to build our own. Here's a little glimpse into our thought process:
Spotify
Trending and top charts are both algorithmically determined. Trending is based on the speed of growth of listeners and top is based on the 200 most popular channels over time.
Why is this bad? Top charts won't be changing often and in general, the algorithms that determine these rankings are a little hazy (see screenshots below)
Spotify Top Charts. Left (8/14/2020) and Right (8/27/2020) Although "updated daily", they tend to have the same content. Not much changed in the span of 2 weeks.
r/Spotify sub-Reddit. We love you Michelle but seems like Spotify is pushing your podcast awfully hard. Although premium users are paying for an "interruption-free" experience, looks like they aren't safe from original content ads.
Also, Spotify's podcast charts are channel-centric, not episode-centric. It's great to know Joe Rogan is trending... now which one his 1,500+ episodes is the best to get me hooked? No clue!!
Apple Podcasts
They have episode-centric charts!!! 👏 But do they have diversity? nope - I mean look at all that Joe Rogan in just the top 5!
Apple Podcasts Top Charts
Podchaser ****
Too many features (yes, that is a thing). Seems like I can bookmark, leave a rating, mark as listened, share a comment, make a list, but I can't find top episodes for the day!!! 😠
Pod Hunt
Clean design but only displays podcast episodes that creators have uploaded onto Pod Hunt (which are very few due to Pod Hunt's slow moving two-sided marketplace) —> missing out on a lot of great content
Content
Top Features