I am a big podcast fan and have been waiting for this particular tool to emerge for years. It is called Listen Notes—a podcast search engine often referred to as the Google of podcasts. Designed to simplify podcast discovery, Listen Notes helps users find, curate, and engage with millions of podcast episodes worldwide.
While major podcast directories like Apple Podcasts promote popular shows, their search functionalities are often limited, making it difficult to discover niche or independent content. Listen Notes fills this gap by offering a robust search engine and discovery tools that make finding specific podcast episodes easier and more precise.
Listen Notes allows users to search quickly and efficiently for specific episodes, people, places, or topics using metadata from public RSS feeds. The result is a search engine with over 3.5 million podcasts and 172 million episodes, helping users find content that might otherwise be buried beneath mainstream recommendations.
While Listen Notes is fully accessible via web browsers and offers a Chrome extension for quick searches, the platform also integrates with popular podcast apps. Users can subscribe to their Listen Later playlist via RSS feeds and listen on their preferred podcast player. One gripe I have is the login is a bit cumbersome as it will generate a unique login page that will go to your registerd email address.
To me, the most important feature is the ability to create playlists and generate an RSS feed that you can add to your podcaster of choice. I am the PD Coordinator for MSLETB, and I am frequently coming across interesting and relevant podcasts that I want to share with my colleagues. I search for the episode in Listen Notes, right-click to add to a playlist. Listen Notes allows me to create an individual page for the playlist or using the Subscribe button to copy the RSS feed. Have a look here https://www.listennotes.com/@MSLETBPD/
To use this feature:
- Go to the “Listen Later” tab in the top right corner.
- Copy the RSS feed link for your custom playlist.
- Paste the link into your preferred podcast app to access your saved episodes.
To teachers, there is so much potential in creating your own playlists using Listen Notes. History teachers can add additional podcasts as supplementary content on various topics. Language teachers can create playlists on various topics to reinforce learning. Really, Listen Notes is your new best friend!