The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2016
Podcat: a one-developer 'IMDb for podcasts' that drew 401 HN points at launch
Podcat indexed about 50,000 podcasts with person pages for hosts and guests; its Show HN drew 401 points and exposed a data-quality wall.
Podcat
What the business is
Podcat is a searchable podcast database billed as 'the IMDb for podcasts': roughly 50,000 shows with episodes and person pages that link hosts and guests across programs, built and run by a single developer.
How it started
In March 2016 a developer posting on Hacker News as hijp launched Podcat, a podcast directory positioned as 'the IMDb for podcasts.' The site indexed roughly 50,000 podcasts with their episodes and the people who appear on them; the creator said names came from podcast-network sites plus manual entry, and he invited podcasters to use a contact form to be added. He announced it with a Show HN post on 2016-03-15.
What happened
The launch connected instantly — 'This is something that I have wanted to exist for a long time' was the shape of the reaction, and the thread ran to 106 comments. Podcasters offered their own RSS feeds, guest lists and APIs to improve coverage, and reviewers praised search speed and the ability to find people across shows. But the same thread showed the data wall: common names like Jordan Morris were merged into one profile, mentions inside episode descriptions were indexed as guests (a Taylor Swift album recommendation turned an entire JavaScript Jabber episode over to her), and several well-known shows were missing or incomplete. Feature requests converged on ratings, a Top-250, categories, RSS links and an API; the creator answered in-thread, promised fixes and asked podcasters to contact him directly.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Podcat was a searchable podcast database launched by a single developer in March 2016 and billed as 'the IMDb for podcasts.' It indexed roughly 50,000 shows with their episodes and the people who appear on them, so a user could look up a host or guest and find the episodes and programs where they showed up. The creator, posting on Hacker News as hijp, said names came from podcast-network sites plus manual entry and invited podcasters to contact him to be added.
The Show HN post on 2016-03-15 drew 401 points and 106 comments. The idea had obvious demand — several commenters said they had wanted exactly this for years — and podcasters offered their own feeds, guest lists and APIs to fill gaps, while reviewers singled out the fast, accurate search, including people search. The same thread exposed the hard part: common names were merged into one profile, episode-description mentions were indexed as guests, and popular shows were missing or incomplete.
The feedback loop converged on familiar IMDb features the site did not yet have — ratings, a Top-250, categories, RSS links and an API — and on the accuracy problem at the core of automated name extraction. The creator answered in-thread, promised fixes and invited podcasters to reach him directly. The material records no funding, pricing or later milestones, so the case ends at the launch wave.
What has to be true
- Podcast discovery was genuinely underserved: directory search lived inside iTunes, and no public index connected the recurring humans — hosts and guests — across thousands of shows.
- The product name set the expectation bar at IMDb, so the thread judged it against ratings, Top-250 lists and comprehensive metadata that the launch version did not yet have.
- Automated name extraction was the core technical risk, and the thread demonstrated it live: common names collapsed into one person, and name-checked mentions became credited guests.
- A one-developer catalog of 50,000 podcasts could not keep completeness and accuracy up by hand, which is why podcasters volunteered their own feeds and APIs in the thread.
What can be applied
An obviously missing index wins applause, but the same thread that loved it showed the fragility: name extraction merged people and counted mentions as guests, so data quality was the real challenge.
Aftermath
As of 2016-03-15 Podcat was live with about 50,000 podcasts indexed and an engaged early audience from the Show HN launch. The creator was answering feedback in the thread, promising fixes for the reported data errors, and inviting podcast hosts to be added through a contact form; ratings, Top-250 lists, categories and an API were the most-requested next features. No revenue, funding or later milestones appear in the material, so its business outcome is unrecorded there.
Sources
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