The ultimate podcast discovery mechanism is NOT TO DISCOVER.
- A fake quote from myself (haha!)
If you’ve followed the journey of Listen Notes so far, you already know that I intentionally avoid building yet another podcast app.
- Why Listen Notes doesn’t have a podcast player app (yet)
- Why a standalone podcast search engine website?
Today, I’m happy to announce a very simple & very opinionated podcast app from Listen Notes: Just Listen™ (oops!):
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/just-listen-simple-podcast-app/id1444970658
Warning: This app may not be what you think it is :)
How does Just Listen™ work
It’s different from existing podcast apps. It’s even different from Listen Notes itself.
Here’s how it works:
- You get a random podcast episode once you open the app.
- You dismiss an episode and get another random one.
- That’s it.
There’s a little bit intelligence behind the randomness. Hopefully it’ll get smarter over time.
Why Just Listen™?
- Most people in the world don’t know what is podcast. They don’t know where to start.
- Oftentimes we just want to listen to something. We don’t care the contents much.
- There are more and more podcasts being produced. The “subscribe-then-listen-to-a-few-podcasts” model won’t work any more.
- Randomness is a good way to avoid filter bubble. You’ll be exposed to different types of podcasts, not just those from Apple’s Top Charts.
- No social features. No login. No subscription. No reviews. Just Listen™!
- When you wear AirPods and you are bored, Just Listen™ may help.
How did I build Just Listen™?
Here’s the rough timeline:
- End of Nov. 2018: Designed the app.
- Early Dec. 2018: Hired a freelancer from UpWork to create a prototype.
- Dec 15 & 16, 2018: I took over the code base from the freelancer, did some modification in the code, then submitted to App Store.
It’s easy to build and launch a simple app nowadays. Look, I don’t even write the majority of code :) The hard part is marketing, which I’ll need to figure out myself.
Process
Like the very first version of most digital products, Just Listen™ v1.0 has very limited features, ugly & buggy. Anyways, we are not building an iPhone or a pyramid — well, even the first iPhone was far from perfect. Fortunately, I’m not a celebrity, and I don’t need to worry about losing face. Thus, I launched this simple app as fast as possible.
As we grow older (and wiser?), we’ll understand the importance of “Trust The Process”. Things will evolve. You can’t push button and build something great instantly. It’s a process.
I don’t know what this app will become. Maybe it’ll be an Alexa skill. Or it’ll evolve into something else. Do you know YouTube was initially a dating website?
Questions & feedback: hello@listennotes.com :)
Or try Just Listen™: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/just-listen-simple-podcast-app/id1444970658
