Monthly update for August 2021

Dark mode. Listen Datasets improvements.

Hi there!

This is the 47rd full month (3 YEARS and 11 months) that I worked on Listen Notes full-time. Hope you are doing well and staying safe!

Product updates

1, Dark mode - or “not-so-dark” mode. It took us 4 years (2017~2021) to add a dark mode. Well, Google also launched dark mode in 2021, so it took Google 23 years (1998~2021) to launch a dark mode :) Progress!

2, A lot of improvements on Listen Datasets, e.g., be able to avoid exporting duplicate podcasts in past orders, be able to batch export podcasts/episodes from a Listen Later playlist, more automation for the enterprise database product, be able to sort podcasts when exporting by category… These improvements require very little UI changes + tons of complex backend business logics.

3, Upgraded web servers to more beefy EC2 instances, again! It’s like running a restaurant - we always use the best ingredients to serve our customers. Better infrastructure -> faster website -> better user experience. Website speed is UX.

4, Fixed some data inconsistency issues and web UI bugs.

5, Accelerated the data pipeline of calculating Listen Score. Now we can update Listen Score of all podcasts every 2 weeks, rather than 1 month+.

6, Added more internal tools to fight fake podcasts. What are fake podcasts? Here’s an example: http://feed.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/26350/mp3.rss

The audio is generated by computer. The main purpose of such fake podcasts is to do black hat SEO (i.e., link building).

We are seeing more and more fake podcasts. So we need to build better tools & processes to deal with them.

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Thanks for reading! Drop me a line and tell me what you think about Listen Notes -- just reply this email or hello@listennotes.com :)

Stay safe!