Indie.am Update for Monday

Recent Fixes and Improvements

RSS Feed Fixes

I've just published some fixes to the RSS feed. Years ago, I hardcoded 2021 as the year, which caused issues with all subsequent feeds. I've now corrected this mistake. Additionally, I'm using ChatGPT to format transcripts into blog posts, converting Markdown to HTML. This ensures that the content is nicely formatted when opened in podcast apps.

Custom Component for Podcast Apps

I've also worked on a custom component to integrate the old Podlog. This feature allows users to click an RSS icon in the app, redirecting them to their chosen podcast app based on their platform. It's a small but significant fix.

Background Work

Transcriptions with Whisper

Transcriptions are now handled by Whisper, which provides high-quality results. However, it's resource-intensive on the server. I've implemented a system that queues jobs as users browse older Indie.am podcasts, re-transcribing them with Whisper for more accurate timestamps, especially for subtitles.

Video Generation

I've reworked video generation but haven't integrated it into the apps yet. This feature will be complex, involving 15 video templates. Users will be able to:

Add a share button
Create a video
Choose a template from the gallery
Customize options

The video generation process will take about 10 to 20 seconds. If you exit, it will save back to the item and notify you once complete. This complex UI feature is still in development.

Social Media Sharing Enhancements

I've made several improvements around social media sharing, including meta tags and adding a share button. This is essential for sharing content to other social media feeds. You can embed it in Twitter (formerly known as X), but Blue Sky doesn't yet support audio posts. You can link to them, but playback issues occur due to their in-app browser.

Blue Sky Playback Issue

There's a peculiar issue with Blue Sky's in-app browser muting audio by default. If I share an audio post to Blue Sky and launch the podcast app via their browser, I can then return and play the audio file. It's a strange behavior, and I'm investigating why this happens.

Conclusion

I've accomplished a lot and thought it would be fun to share these updates. I'm also testing out the long recording feature. I'll stop here and see how this turns out.