Sounder: Enhanced Transcription, Joining Podcast Index and more.

Merging Sounder’s Tools with Our Leading Technology Used by iHeartMedia and Supporting Podcast 2.0’s Open Ecosystem

At Sounder, we love making podcasting easier for all creators, every week. 

We’re excited to announce a few automatic improvements to your Sounder account, plus one major upgrade that will enable us to deliver awesome new features in the coming months. 

The brief version—

• The free transcription tool in your account is more accurate, with improved word recognition and syntax for English audio.
• Sounder has implemented a number of tags in Podcast Index’s RSS Namespace Extension for Podcasting (Tag Specification), to support their directory in protecting an open ecosystem in audio. Now, your episode’s full transcript can be found in supporting apps in addition to your Sounder webpage.
• We’ve upgraded our backend systems, making it easier for us to bring Audio Intelligence tools from our Audio Data Cloud to the platform. This begins the process of bringing our most advanced tools used by large businesses, to all creators.

Update #1: Transcription Accuracy Improvements

Our proprietary speech-to-text technology has significantly lowered its word error rate (number of incorrect words transcribed) and has improved performance across word recognition, capitalization, and punctuation.

All Sounder creators can feel confident that they’re benefitting from the same transcription technology top media publishers such as iHeartMedia use—for free.

Update #2: Sounder Syncs with Podcast Index’s Namespace and Open Ecosystem to Support Independent Developers

The Podcast Index is leading the charge towards maintaining an open, independent podcasting ecosystem to protect free speech and competitive innovation in the industry, forever. 

Their index has a unique set of tags giving anyone access to a categorized and comprehensive database of all podcasts on the web. This is an important alternative to Apple’s directory, which is subject to their control and changing priorities.

With today’s update, RSS feeds for all Sounder podcasts support the following tags: podcast:person, podcast:guid, podcast:episode, podcast:season, and, importantly, podcast:transcript.  Because we built transcription technology into your account, your transcript is automatically available to supporting apps via your RSS feed.

This new feature is already live without any action needed on your part, all future and past episodes will support Podcast Index tags automatically. 

Cheers to a future where the best ideas can shine, not just big players and gatekeepers.

Update #3: We’ve Updated our Backend Systems to Bring you Audio Intelligence Tools Faster

We now have the resources to bring our cutting edge enterprise technology, the Audio Data Cloud, to the hands of all of our creators. With this foundational integration in place, creators will soon enjoy a range of advanced features in future updates, such as:

• Auto-chaptering of episodes
• Auto-description generation
• Increased control over the brands that can advertise on your show when opting in to programmatic ads
• Automatic mid-roll ad placements

Let us know what you think!

We’re excited to bring the most advanced Audio Intelligence technology and tools to all podcasters, while also supporting an open ecosystem for the industry to evolve in a direction that empowers creators to thrive.

As always, we’re here to listen and to help. 

Have feedback or a new idea that’d improve your podcasting experience at Sounder? Message us at solutions@tritondigital.com!