About PlayNext
There are millions of podcasts, and almost every way of choosing between them — charts, cover art, two-line blurbs — asks you to judge a show without hearing it. PlayNext starts from the opposite idea: the best pitch for a podcast is a minute of the podcast.
What PlayNext is
PlayNext is a discovery feed for podcasts. You swipe through short clips — about a minute each — pulled from real episodes. Swipe right to save something for later, swipe left to move on, and the feed learns what you like. When a clip lands, you can keep listening to the full episode, explore the show, or subscribe in the app you already use.
How it works
- We index podcasts from their publicly available RSS feeds — the same feeds every podcast app reads.
- Software transcribes episodes and picks out a strong, representative minute from each one.
- You swipe through those minutes in a feed tuned to your taste, or dive into a single category, from Sports to Science to True Crime.
- Every clip is attributed and linked: the show, the episode, and subscribe links for Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and RSS are one tap away.
The audio itself streams from each publisher's own hosting. We don't copy, re-host, or offer downloads of anyone's episodes, and publishers keep their listener stats and their ad revenue. If you're a podcaster and want to know more — or want your show updated or removed — see For podcasters.
AI on PlayNext
PlayNext leans on AI heavily, and we'd rather be plain about where:
- Clip selection. The minute you hear was chosen by software that reads the whole transcript and scores candidate moments.
- Descriptions and reviews. Clip descriptions, show write-ups, and "as heard by us" reviews are AI-written from transcripts of the actual episodes.
- Topic and entity pages. Our topic hubs are written in the voice of named, fictional hosts — invented characters with invented portraits, presented as fiction. They aren't real people, and any resemblance to real people is unintended.
AI-written text can get things wrong. If something on PlayNext misrepresents a show or an episode, tell us and we'll fix it.
Who's behind it
PlayNext is built by a solo developer in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It's a small operation with strong opinions about discovery and a lot of respect for the people who actually make podcasts. You can reach a real person at [email protected].