RSS 3.0? What Technologists Are Saying About the Future of Feeds

RSS 2.0, the feed format that underlies the entire open podcasting ecosystem, was formalized in 2002. That it remains the technical backbone of a multi-billion-dollar industry more than two decades later is either a testament to its elegant simplicity or an indication of how difficult it is to get the fragmented podcast industry to agree on anything. Probably both. But significant work is underway to extend what RSS can do for podcasters, even if "RSS 3.0" as a formal specification doesn't yet exist.

The most coherent effort is the Podcasting 2.0 initiative, led by Adam Curry, one of podcasting's original inventors, and developer Dave Jones through the Podcast Index project. Their approach isn't to replace RSS but to extend it through a new namespace of tags that any podcast app or hosting platform can optionally support. The new namespace includes support for transcripts (machine-readable text linked directly in the feed), chapter markers with images, soundbites, value-for-value micropayments using Bitcoin's Lightning Network, funding links, and social interaction features.

Apps like Fountain, Podcast Addict, Podverse, and Castamatic have implemented many of these extensions, creating a listening experience that's meaningfully richer than what Apple Podcasts or Spotify currently offer within their walled-garden equivalents. The challenge is adoption: hosting platforms need to support generating the new tags, apps need to support parsing and displaying them, and creators need to know they exist. The ecosystem is moving, but slowly.

For podcasters who care about the open web, engaging with Podcasting 2.0 features is both a practical improvement to your show and a vote for the kind of internet you want audio to live in. Adding a transcript to your feed improves SEO, accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing listeners, and discoverability. Chapters improve the listening experience for your audience. These are benefits you get today, regardless of whether the broader industry fully adopts the new standards tomorrow.