Podping is a protocol that is built on the Hive blockchain that is designed to revolutionize the notification system for podcasting. It is specifically created as a decentralized alternative to Websub.
With Podping, podcast publishers need to only notify the cloud of updates to a url. This is then published to the Hive network via custom JSON. Applications only need to watch the blockchain to receive the updates.
Since Hive is decentralized, nobody can censor the indexing. This is not the case with many of the centralized services of Apple, Spotify, and Google. Instead, the data is posted to the blockchain with the updates as they come in.
Effectively this is using Hive as a global signaling system.
Podcasting was founded upon the principle of freedom and open communications. Unfortunately, as Web 2.0 took over, siloed systems run by powerful technology firms evolved. With podcasting, the same mega corporations we see else inserted themselves as gatekeepers. This allows for censorship of podcasts, if for no other reason then the power to bury the updates on the index is possible.
Since the indexing of podcasting became centralized, a new index was set up to get around this. Podcast Index (
Podping is the update notification service that Podcast Index then shares with the rest of the world. The goal is to eliminate all RSS polling traffic.
The idea is that nobody can be de-platformed. If Apple decides to do this, it does not affect the pings cannot be blocked since Hive is censorship resistant.
Podping has the ability to turn even individual videos into podcasts. It did this with 3Speak, the video platform that resides on Hive.
Each video uploaded receives a RSS feed. This means that it is contained in the custom JSON posted to chain and can be picked up by the different podcasting applications. In fact, these can be viewed in Apple's podcasting application.
One of the main benefits of Podping is that it saves podcasting hosts a considerable amount of money. These companies can reduce bandwidth and power bills by eliminating servers dedicating to the polling of RSS feeds. Now, they simply monitor the pings from the blockchain and integrate what they want.
The project is fully open source and anyone can run a Podping node if desired.
