Listen Notes is the best podcast search engineTM. It's like Google, but for podcasts.
Search the whole Internet's podcasts. Curate your own podcast playlists. Listen on your favorite podcast player apps.
Trusted by 2,000,000+ people every month
If I have seen further than others, it is by listening to podcasts and standing upon the shoulders of
giants.
‐ Isaac "Llamacorn" Newton
Listen Notes by Numbers
3,631,340
PODCASTS *
182,909,204
EPISODES
34,008,814
SEARCHES
390,561,454
LISTENS
* Some websites or apps claim to have over 3,631,340 podcasts in their database. However,
they often inflate these numbers by including:
1) Podcasts that were deleted long ago.
2) Very low-quality content, such as feeds with no episodes, just a short test clip, or AI-generated audio.
3) Non-audio content, like RSS feeds containing only PDFs.
In contrast, we use 24/7 automated scripts and human moderators to ensure our database includes
genuine, human-crafted podcasts, not AI-generated junk.
Search the whole Internet's podcasts.
Listeners find ALL podcast episodes interviewing or talking about a person.
Journalists do research and find information in podcasts.
Students learn specific topics from podcasts.
Podcasters find cross-promotion opportunities.
Developers use Listen API to build podcast apps.
Curate your own podcast playlists.
Add individual episodes to Listen Later playlists. It's like Instapaper or Pocket, but for podcasts.
No need to subscribe to podcasts and leave most episodes unplayed.
Bring Listen Later playlists to your favorite podcast player apps via RSS.
FAQ
1. Who built Listen Notes? 🔗
We are a small but highly efficient team in San
Francisco.
Listen Notes was started as a side project by Wenbin
Fang, who quit his day job from Nextdoor
3192 days and 19 hours ago
(Dec. 2016). Listen Notes, Inc was incorporated as a Delaware C-Corp in October 2017.
2. Why do you build Listen Notes? 🔗
Listen Notes was birthed out of a personal need.
Our founder Wenbin Fang is an avid podcast
listener, who listen to 5+ hours
podcasts every day.
However, even when he subscribed to only 10 or so podcasts in the past, he still couldn’t listen to
every
single episode.
Besides, not all episodes are worth hearing. Wenbin longed for a tool that allowed me to search
across plenty
of podcast episodes surrounding a specific topic,
without the need to subscribe, scrub, and scroll through hours of audio.
The bad news was that Wenbin couldn’t find a good podcast search tool in early 2017.
The good news is that he knows how to write code.
Listen Notes began as a side project.
It is yet another "I can
build this in a weekend"-ish project.
But the more Wenbin works on Listen Notes, the more he is convinced that podcasting has a bright
future —
and Listen Notes may play an important role in the podcast movement.
How we use Listen Notes to discover and listen to podcasts on a daily basis:
Why Podcasts Are My New Wikipedia —the Perfect Informal Learning Resource
3. I'm a podcaster. I have many questions... 🔗
We have a dedicated page to answer podcaster-specific questions:
Info for Podcasters.
4. What technologies do you use to build Listen Notes? 🔗
We've got an old blog post talking about Listen Notes tech stack:
The boring technology behind a one-person Internet company
Warning: The info in this blog post is a bit outdated, because Listen Notes, like any online
services, evolves on a daily basis.
But the blog post is still useful for people who just get started building their own online
services, e.g., websites, apps...
5. Do you sell the podcast database? Do you provide API for developers to use? 🔗
Yes, you can buy the podcast database from us. You can
also export small datasets to
CSV files.
We provide a simple and no-nonsense podcast API that is used by thousands of
developers and companies to build apps and services.
6. What's next for Listen Notes? 🔗
At Listen Notes, we make podcasts accessible to all people in the world.
Our website listennotes.com is used by over 2,000,000 people every month to discover interesting
podcast contents.
Our Podcast API is used by thousands of developers and companies to build apps
and services, which accelerates the innovation in the podcast application space.
Whatever we do (and will do) are to improve our website listennotes.com and our Podcast
API.
7. What if Apple or Google builds their own podcast search engine? 🔗
These big companies seem to have infinite resources and they seem to be able to build anything and
crush
anyone.
The question is: Should they?
The fact is, if a project is not a top priority for decision makers,
they just send a B team or C team to work on it. So usually small startups are not competing with
the
big company.
They are competing with the B teams or C teams inside the big company.
Currently, podcasting is a small market for Apple or Google. When they begin viewing podcasts
seriously,
the podcast market is already vast enough to allow multiple players to exist.
It's a healthy market if there are multiple choices for customers.
Trader Joe's, Safeway, and Whole Foods exist alongside tons of mom and pop grocery stores.
We built Listen Notes, because we had no patience to wait for other companies to build a great
podcast search engine.
And Listen Notes
became useful to other people.
If Apple or Google builds a better mousetrap, that’ll be a good thing for the podcast industry and
listeners.
Until that sweet day, we hope Listen Notes serves you well.
8. How can I browse ALL podcasts of a genre, a country, or a language without searching a specific keyword? 🔗
You can't browse all podcasts using our podcast search engine.
This is like you can't browse all websites on Google.
But we do have a solution for you: Listen Datasets.
9. How can I get transcripts for any podcasts? 🔗
Please read: How to get transcripts for any podcasts?
Press
Nov. 27, 2024:
Digital Horizons: How the Deep Dive podcast redefines media
July 22, 2022:
A midsummer guide to enjoying podcasts
Jan. 7, 2020:
We've officially reached peak podcast
Jan. 5, 2020:
There Were A Record Number Of Podcast Launches In 2019
May 10, 2019:
The Scout Report Volume 25, Number 19
Jan. 4, 2019:
See What Podcasts People Are Listening To Right Now
Dec. 30, 2018:
Best Maker YouTube Channels/Temi/Listen Notes
Dec. 26, 2018:
New podcast app Just Listen offers discovery by randomness
Nov. 29, 2018:
Find Your Next Favorite Podcast with Listen Notes
Sept. 1, 2018:
How do you find your favourite podcasts?
March 28, 2018:
‘Listen Later’ Is Like Instapaper for Podcast Episodes
Dec. 14, 2017:
Things to Love About Listen Notes Podcast Search Engine
Dec. 7, 2017:
ListenNotes: A new podcast search engine
Dec. 1, 2017:
Listennotes.com: a search engine for podcasts
Nov. 28, 2017:
The best way to search for podcasts
Oct. 14, 2017:
Listen Notes is a Podcast Search Engine
Sept. 20, 2017:
The Best Podcast Search Engine
If I have seen further than others, it is by listening to podcasts and standing upon the shoulders of
giants.
‐ Isaac "Llamacorn" Newton