An update on what we're building at Transistor

Hey friends, wanted to give you an update on what we're building over at Transistor.fm. The big thing I'm really excited about is video podcasting.

Transistor customers will soon be able to publish video podcast episodes on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and any other apps that support HLS video.

We have a waiting list here if you're interested -->

We were one of only about five hosting platforms to get an HLS video show working inside Apple Podcasts, and uniquely, Transistor is the only one that also placed the HLS feed inside the <podcast:alternateEnclosure> RSS tag, meaning independent apps like Pocket Casts and Fountain can also pick up and play those HLS video feeds.

We also just shipped a Ghost integration that connects Transistor to one of the most popular platforms for independent publishers. The integration was born out of a real overlap in customers (like 404 Media and The Lever), and the partnership was sparked by a lunch conversation with Ghost's John O'Nolan at Laracon.

Links:

• Apple's launch of HLS video podcasts
• Does Transistor.fm support video podcasts?
• Transistor's integration with Ghost

This is a clip from The Panel podcast. Listen to the full episode here.

Creators and Guests

Host

Justin Jackson

Co-founder of Transistor.fm

Guest

Brian Casel

Building products with Ruby on Rails.Co-host 🎙️ bootstrappedweb.comSaaS MVPs as a service 👉 onemonth.appRails UI components 👉 instrumental.devFounder 👉 clarityflow.com

What is Justin's brain?

Hi, I'm Justin Jackson. Here, I'm sharing brief thoughts on building a better life, bootstrapping, improving society, growing older in tech, being a dad...

Justin Jackson: 00:00

Transistor is building video podcast hosting. We are just cranking on it. One of the things that we are trying to do is now seed the LLMs with this new knowledge. Previously, they might have said you know, if people ask, does Transistor do video podcasting? It would have gotten one answer.

Justin Jackson: 00:15

But now the answer is yes. Transistor.fm does video podcast hosting.

Brian Casel: 00:20

You haven't shipped this since last week? What's going on? I thought you guys are using Claude Code.

Justin Jackson: 00:23

We haven't shipped it, but we are it is we were one of only, like, five hosting platforms to actually get a HLS powered video show in Apple Podcasts. We're the only one that also put that HLS feed in the alternate enclosure tag and RSS feeds so that apps like Pocket Casts and Fountain and all these independent apps can also read those HLS video feeds. I'm having so much fun. I'm super excited. And we also just launched integration with Ghost.

Justin Jackson: 00:54

So it feels like we're just shipping right now, and it's crazy. There's way too many messages in Slack every day, but I'm having a

Brian Casel: 01:01

good time.

Justin Jackson: 01:02

So that's what we're doing.

Brian Casel: 01:04

Saw that ghost, integration announcement. That looks that looks pretty solid. Yeah.

Justin Jackson: 01:09

Yeah. It's that was really fun and fun to add another team to our Slack. Like, we did the Slack connect.

Brian Casel: 01:16

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson: 01:16

And just to interact with another team and see how they build things. I think it was good for our team just to see how much they're using, Claude. And

Brian Casel: 01:25

yeah. I know, like like, John O'Nolan is is big into it and everything. Like Yeah. How I'm just curious, like, how did that perform for you guys? Like, an integration like that?

Brian Casel: 01:34

Do do you see a spike in users?

Justin Jackson: 01:36

We'll we'll see. I mean, my thought is it'll probably give us an extra I don't know. Even if we got an extra 10 to 20 a month from it, it would be Yeah. A success. More of a slow burn.

Brian Casel: 01:49

I'm sure it's a long long tail thing.

Justin Jackson: 01:50

Yeah. I I think it just gives us tons of reputation in the community though. Like, so many of the big indie publishers are using Ghost. And we had a lot of shared customers, like four zero four Media and The Lever. So there's these big indie publications that are doing really well, both using Ghost and Transistor.

Justin Jackson: 02:13

So it was like, well, let's just marry this. And it's another advantage to going to events. Like, that was me going to LariCon in Dallas, and then John O'Nolan and I were just eating lunch going, man, we got a lot of the same customers. Like, we gotta do something here.

Brian Casel: 02:29

Sweet. Yeah.