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Fountain Podcasts: A great podcast app with crypto tips
There is no shortage of podcast apps on the App Store. Apple itself has re-doubled its efforts on its own first-party podcast app that has…
There is no shortage of podcast apps on the App Store. Apple itself has re-doubled its efforts on its own first-party podcast app that has become increasingly capable. That gives third-party apps all the more reason to come up with something unique. Fountain does so with a steller user interface coupled with a novel way to show your support to creators.
Core to Fountain is the ability to share clips. It’s easy to cut out a clip of audio from your favorite show and share it. When you visit the discovery tab of the app, you can see trending and popular clips from others users. This is an amazing way to discover a new podcast because you can get a feel for it before downloading a whole episode or subscribing to the show’s feed.
These little clips aren’t just snippets of audio either. They’re full-featured audio files with accompanying metadata and information. So once you listen to a clip, you can see who shared it, the corresponding show, and more. When I listen to a clip and like what I hear, it’s only a tap to visit the show’s page where I can peruse other clips or whole episodes.
Your feed of shows is personalized, complete with tags. These tags are crucial and can bring some transparency to such a typically cluttered news river. I follow plenty of podcasts that are news-centric, story-focused, or just based on TV shows. I love filtering these out by tags and wish other podcast apps would follow suit.
The player’s UI is sleek with a lovely dark aesthetic. Your chapter art is top and center, above a bevy of controls. You can hop forward and backwards by ten-second intervals and adjust the playback speed if you’d like to be more efficient in your listening. It does have a night mode option that dims things further if you are listening bedside.
For listeners, they’re able to show their love to their favorite creators with cryptocurrency. Podcasts are hosted on the Lightning platform and can receive payments from the audience. When you love a show, you can tip with Bitcoin and include a message for the creators. It’s a unique way to get the attention of your favorite stars.
As a podcaster, I also appreciate the benefit for creators. The Fountain app has deep engagement analytics for your show. You can see your income from tips with the ability to cash out at any time. Your wallet can display how many followers, supports, and messages you’ve received.
Not everyone is into crypto but there are plenty of other ways to aid creators. Patreon obviously being one of the go to’s. But if you do like crypto and your favorite podcast supports it, Fountain is an awesomely unique app with some great sharing features.
But enough about other people's apps.
