Would You Let IT Conversations See Your Podcast Ratings in iTunes?


Not too long ago, Richard Miller suggested using the iTunes XML file that iTunes creates for use by other applications as a way of getting feedback for podcasts. Here's Apple's description of the XML file and what it can be used for.

If you rate a few things in your collection and then go look at the XML file, you'll see it would be a relatively simple task to grab whether something had been played or not, it's rating, and how many times it was played (usually once for a podcast) from the file. An application that lived in the system tray on Windows or in the menu bar on OS X could forward any changes in that data back to the podcaster.

The question is, would you be willing to do that if you got something back: better recommendations on podcasts you'd like? As the number of podcasts on a site like IT Conversations grows, I think recommendations are going to play a more and more important role. The problem is getting data about what people like to make the recommendations work. This might provide a semi-automated way to get feedback from the player to IT Conversations.


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Last modified: Thu Oct 10 12:47:19 2019.