We are seeing a lot of activity taking place with cryptocurrency. Much of it seems to be more of the same. That said, there is some stuff happening at the back end that is going to have an impact.
At present, the podcasting industry is going through a revolutionary change. Most are unaware but this was one that really did not innovate much over the last decade or so. A lot of what takes place dates back to before 2010.
It also became extremely centralized. The industry is controlled by Apple and Spotify. They essentially are the gatekeepers meaning that podcasters have little input into what happens. Just like with social media, those two entities have the ability to bury individual podcasters.
With the upcoming transition that is being made, Hive is right at the center of it.
Podcasting 2.0
It appears there is a movement to bring innovation to the podcasting space. Since most were happy to let the abovementioned companies control everything, it is taking a concerted effort of people who are looking to wrestle control away. They are approaching it on a multi-tiered front to update and alter the way the industry works.
To begin with, what is Podcasting 2.0?
Here is what was recently posted from a Medium article providing an introduction to Podcasting 2.0.
Podcasting 2.0 is an umbrella term that covers a collection of initiatives to advance podcasting technology and to decentralize podcasting, taking
control of the medium out of the hands of large technology companies.
These projects are all open source.
We see a lot of different people involved. This is breaking down into a variety of projects.
The Podcast Index
Podcasting Namespace
PodPing
Value-For-Value
For those who are unaware, Hive is being inserted into two of those areas.
Podping
This is something that was started by @brianoflondon and funded by the community through the DHF. This places Hive directly at the middle of Podcasting 2.0.
A number of articles exist about this so we don't need to go into detail here.
The basic premise is that the application uses the Hive blockchain to update all podcasts. Each time a new one is released via RSS feed, the URL is packed together with others and posted as a Custom JSON to Hive. This allows any company that host podcasts to get their updates at a much reduced cost.
A lot more information can be found at the @podping account.
The key is that, as Podcasting 2.0 grows, so will Podping. Hence, Hive is right in the middle of any success that project has since it is the backend application for the indexing feeds.
Value-For-Value
That is not the only area where Hive is being inserted. When we look at the value-for-value category, we see another area of major breakthrough.
Before getting into that, we need to understand what this is.
Referring back to the same Medium article, we find this:
The value for value system is a way for podcasters to receive direct payments from listeners in the form of bitcoin.
The value-for-value system uses the Lightning Network which is a layer on top of Bitcoin designed to facilitate rapid transactions and micropayments.
That is great except how does that impact Hive? Here again we see the development that is taking place.
The Lightning Network requires nodes to be open (online) to receive payments. This is not a problem for developers and technical people who spin up a node. However, for the average podcaster, this is not going to take place.
Development as well as testing, is underway to provide Hive with a bidirectional bridge to the Lightning Network. This means that Hive can be used to get Satoshis or vice versa. The later is what we are truly concerned about for the moment.
If the value-for-value system is operating yet most cannot get their money without having a node online, what good is it? The bridge is going to solve this by enabling Podcasters to receive any tips received when people are listening to podcasts in Hive.
Essentially we are seeing, through this development, not only the ability for access the Lightning Network via swapping to and from Hive, but also providing podcasters with a way to ensure they will always receive their money. Anything that comes in is waiting in one's Hive wallet, just like any other transaction. There is no need for anything to be online since that is all handled at the blockchain level.
Censorship Coming
Since podcasting is so old in terms of its innovation, it has escaped many of the censorship battle that is raging. However, that appears to be changing.
We all are aware of what is taking place with this situation. Anything that does not fit the mainstream agenda is considered misinformation. Hence, those who are driving this want anything contrary to their message shut off.
Eyes are now being turned to podcasting. Again there is no need to go into the details since it was explained very well in this article. It cites some research done by Brookings Institute.
Fortunately, this is where Podcasting 2.0 has the solution. The key motivation behind all of this is to get the centralized aspects of podcasting, notably the power of Spotify and Apple, out of the industry. This is, of course, the way to counter outside attacks.
Hive is know establishing itself for being censorship resistant. There is no way to stop what is posted to Hive once an account is open. Hence, Podping will keep going as long as it is running.
Then we have the fact that Podping is open source software. This means that it can be copied many times over, to be running on computers all over the world. Take out one, others crop up.
We also see this coupled with @threespeak. For those who didn't know, every file loaded to that site now is converted to a podcast. That means there is a RSS feed tied to each one and it can be viewed through any podcasting application.
Of course, as we know, the SpkNetwork is taking censorship-resistant to another level by establishing a way where all content is decentralized. By using IPFS as well as community hosting, we remove the centralization of video and audio storage.
As we can see, there are a number of ways that Hive is being inserted right at the core of Podcasting 2.0, which is now going to become a fight against censorship. This is something that Hive spend a number of years working towards.
There is, however, one other area that Hive can become even a bigger player. How about all comments make to people's podcasting feeds get posted on the Hive blockchain?
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