This article is about one of the best podcast recommendation sites available to podcast fans. Now, Ear Worthy is a podcast review and recommendation publication? Why would I write an article about a competitor?
The answer is that the podcasting industry -- unlike the toxic atmosphere often exhibited in TV and movies -- is a collaborative and collegial space. We root for one another. Save the backstabbing for The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
This article recommends Great Pods -- a podcast recommendation site. You can read it on Substack and become a subscriber or bookmark its website.
Great Pods explains its business case as follows: "Finding podcast recommendations can be difficult. Great Pods is making it easier with one Critic review at a time"
Great Pods features weekly podcast recommendations from:
Critic Reviews and Ratings
Occasional Top Lists from various publications
Our journey as a podcast resource startup
Podcasts w/ reviews that were just added to the site
Coming Soon trailers
Captain Ron, the owner / manager of Great Pods notes: "We are a team with over ten years of experience in the audio/podcast industry. Our ecosystem includes this newsletter and greatpods.co (if you don’t want to wait for the newsletter recs!)! We encourage you to take a look. Send us feedback and suggestions."
Who is Captain Ron?
He explains: "It's a call back to the 1992 eponymous movie -- Captain Ron -- with Kurt Russell. Funny enough, I finally watched the cult classic in 2023 for my birthday. It’s been my karaoke name for a while."
We asked Captain Ron about his the earliest involvement in podcasts.
"It all started with KROQ radio in L.A. that created the Kevin & Bean morning shows into podcasts. I was excited that I could be anywhere, and not have to be in LA to get the show. Around 2010 I went hands-on with my Bollywood and Bhangra college radio show at KUCI (UC Irvine) and started to podcast my live show for later consumption on MixCloud."
Captain Ron continues: "Thus, the journey began. Regardless of how many books, podcasts, articles, or people you get educated with along the way, when you finally jump the startup entrepreneurial journey it was a scary, exciting, and unknown territory for your heart and mind."
When I asked Captain Ron about his background, he responded: "I was born and raised in LA County, went to USC (University of Southern of California) for undergrad. I was always interested and passionate about the intersection of entertainment, media, and tech."
"During my college radio stint at KUCI, I landed a job at TuneIn Radio in the Bay Area in the early 2010s. I got a chance to be an early employee, saw the infectious nature of a startup while learning all the things media tech. I spent eight years there before working at Himalaya podcasts for a short time and because the pandemic started, and eventually moved back home to LA and started Great Pods which I continue to work on."
Captain Ron started Great Pods in September 2020.
He explains: "I had this itch to scratch. I wanted to do new, innovative things in my later years at TuneIn. It seemed like some part of the startup was lost, and so I went to Himalaya podcasts. During my break between TuneIn and Himalaya, it was my engineering friend who started asking questions around problems I was having that got ME to ask more questions about the problems."
"Those questions finally led to: Why was it hard to decide and discover what podcasts to listen to? Not only me, others were feeling the pain point of 'What should I listen to?' Then there was the question of what other industries I like currently do. Well, I like TV and movie reviews. I like Rotten Tomatoes as a media reviews aggregator. Did the Siskel & Ebert’s of the movie industry exist in the podcast space? That’s when I went looking for answers and ultimately looked to solve my own problem and make it a solution for all."
When asked, "What criteria do you use to evaluate a great podcast?" Captain Ron answers: "I curate the content being fed through the newsletter and front page of the website. All you professional reviewers help me choose which podcasts to listen to via your articulation of why or why-nots. I do listen to all the podcasts I curate, though. On a personal level, if it’s a limited podcast and I got through the entire series, it’s most likely made a strong impression, and it’s great to me."
Podcast discoverability is difficult by avid listeners for two basic reasons. First, there are thousands of podcasts to discover that remain unknown. Second, the sheer number of podcasts precludes any shared repository, although the Apple ecosystem may come closest to a unified and organized roadmap. That's why services such as Great Pods, Bingeworthy, Into The Podverse, and EarBuds Podcast Collective offer free GPS settings to the best podcasts in each genre and some categories you may have never heard of. Did you know there is a podcast by a comedian who interviews people about the worst gifts they've ever received? What genre is that? Comedy? Regifting?
When I asked Captain Ron, his personal favorite genre categories of podcasts, he answered: "True Crime Scams, Fiction (Sci-Fi to Drama), Comedy from Comedians (They are more seasoned for microphone entertainment), Business-Tech (since I’m building this website), and emotional podcasts. The emo podcasts surprise me on how well they are made. It’s happy-sad emotional deep dives like Dying For Sex, Where are you going? Bitter/Sweet that just feel raw and real. However, I jump around a lot since I am listening to a wide variety of podcasts each week for curation."
Then I asked Captain Ron my most cliché question, and he hit it out of the park. "If you were going to be trapped on a desert island for one year, what three podcasts would you take with you to listen?"
Captain Ron: "This may change next year, but at the moment of writing this:"
Network:
Tosh Show (Comedy)
https://greatpods.co/podcast/tosh-show
Wiser Than Me w/ Julia Louis Dreyfus (Insightful elders)
https://greatpods.co/podcast/wiser-than-me-with-julia-louis-dreyfus
And give me any journalist, Alex Monstrous investigation true-crime podcasts from Tortoise Media like Sweet Bobby
https://greatpods.co/podcast/sweet-bobby
Honorable mention: TBOY (The Best One Yet) Daily business news podcasts that are full of energy.
https://greatpods.co/podcast/the-best-one-yet
Indie:
Bitter/Sweet (Food-Society)
https://greatpods.co/podcast/bitter-sweet
Podcast But Outside (Comedy)
https://greatpods.co/podcast/podcast-but-outside
Culture Kids Podcast (Kids & Family)
https://greatpods.co/podcast/culture-kids-podcast
Check out Great Pods to find podcasts that ear worthy and eye candy. Great Pods has been classified as an emotional support website, and brain boosting by the Society of Podcasting Neurologists.
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