Antennapod: Introduce new search sources

[keunes]

Problem you are having: As described in #4016, search results aren't as extensive as in other apps, and the iTunes library seems to be getting less reliable. This makes the AntennaPod search/browse experience less then optimal.

Suggested solution: Add search sources, like the following:

• Spotify podcast API [see next comment]
• Listen Notes API
• Funkwhale API (in alpha/beta phase)

Screenshots / Drawings / Technical details:

• I wonder whether we should allow users to change search sources in the app settings. On the one hand it would allow our more tech/open source userbase to query only 'libre' databases. On the other hand: there's plenty of settings already, and users just want to find the podcast they find interesting.
• The Listen Notes API is free up to 5,000 queries per month. I guess AP goes beyond that number - we might need to provide a way to users to enter their own credentials for this and potentially other providers. The same applies to for Funkwhale support, which is federated and would require users to point to a server & potentially add credentials.

[ByteHamster]

According to the fyyd developer, AntennaPod does around 10,000 requests a day.

I wonder whether we should allow users to change search sources in the app settings.

You can already select the search provider on the "Add feed" page

Spotify

Their API only allows to list podcasts and then subscribe on Spotify. They do not seem to return the feed url for subscribing anywhere else.

[keunes]

According to the fyyd developer, AntennaPod does around 10,000 requests a day.

Right, so for Listen Notes users definitively would have to provide details.

You can already select the search provider on the "Add feed" page

Ah, right, behind 'advanced search'. But that doesn't allow me to select both fyyd and gpodder.net while excluding iTunes. And my choice isn't stored for recurring use.

Their API only allows to list podcasts and then subscribe on Spotify

😒

[tonytamsf]

I am hoping Google would start a search api for podcast, but they have very strict search api limits.

We might consider partnering with Listen Notes

[keunes]

@tonytamsf Any link to the Google API documentation?

Did a quick search and also came across

• Spreaker: https://developers.spreaker.com/api/search/
• Qloo: https://qloo.com/api-info/ (seems paid)

Otherwise, most directories seem to be tied to organisations that provide services to podcasters/publishers and _also_ have their own app (thus probably won't be eager to let us tap into their gold). So a partnership with Listen Notes would be great IMHO.

[tonytamsf]

I think the Google API is https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview

Custom Search JSON API provides 100 search queries per day for free. If you need more, you may sign up for billing in the API Console. Additional requests cost $5 per 1000 queries, up to 10k queries per day.

[keunes]

The intro says

With this API, you can use RESTful requests to get either web search or image search results in JSON format.

So I doubt it'd be useful for us. Plus the fact that it's limited to 100 free queries per day.

[sbadux]

Funkwhale officially added the podcast support in the last release. It would be great to have it supported in AntennaPod which will be the first podcast app to support it. It works fine if you copy the RSS URL from the website and paste it in AntennaPod so I hope it could be added without too many problems. Thanks for considering it

[keunes]

Funkwhale officially added the podcast support in the last release. It would be great to have it supported in AntennaPod which will be the first podcast app to support it. It works fine if you copy the RSS URL from the website and paste it in AntennaPod so I hope it could be added without too many problems.

Adding feeds is no problem, and I'm not sure what else AntennaPod could do to enhance 'simple adding'. The only thing to enhance (and the topic of this issue) is adding FW as a search source.

But yes, adding FW as searh source would be great indeed. I (now) see one major issue, though: its distributed model. AntennaPod is not aware of all FW istances in the world, will never be, and won't (shouldn't) be able to search individual instances. I think the only solution would be if FW would implement a central database/repository with podcast info, fed by instances (depending on a setting in each instance). Then AntennaPod has a single resource that can be queried.

[xerus2000]

Querying for episodes is also a feature to consider, see #4350

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/should-we-filter-alt-right-content-recommendations-in-discover/150/1

[keunes]

@ByteHamster Don't you think we can consider #4435 to have closed this issue? It's still the beginning of PodcastIndex.org, but I'm confident it's going to be great and certainly will solve our issues with iTunes.