How to make a bite
A bite is a link to an exact part of a podcast or video. Nothing is downloaded, converted or re-uploaded: the link carries the publisher's own address plus a start and an end time, and the clip plays straight from their file. There is no account. This page covers how to make a bite, and how to make one people will actually listen to.
Find the episode
Search for a podcast by name, or paste a link to an episode or a video.
Mark the moment
Press the episode track to get near it, then drag the two ends to trim.
Send it
Press Clip it, then copy the link or download the clip as an MP3.
1. Find the episode
The box at the top takes both a link and a search. Paste a link and BitePods finds the audio behind it. Type anything else and it searches podcasts and YouTube by name. Either way you end up in the same place: pick a show, and you get its episodes — the latest ten, a Load more button, and a filter once the list gets long.
- A podcast's name
- Searches the podcast directory and YouTube. Pick a result to see its episodes.
- A YouTube video
- Plays in YouTube's own player and shares as a video bite.
- A YouTube playlist or channel
- Opens as an episode list. A podcast published to YouTube is usually a playlist.
- An episode page
- BitePods reads the page to find the audio file behind it.
- An RSS feed
- Opens as a list of the show's episodes.
- A direct MP3 or M4A
- Plays straight away, and your start and end ride along in the link.
- Apple Podcasts
- BitePods finds the show's feed and the exact episode you opened.
- Spotify
- Spotify only plays inside Spotify, so BitePods finds the same episode in the show's own feed.
Whatever you paste is what gets shared. BitePods may read a feed, a directory or a player's own data to find the audio behind a page, but the address in your link stays the one you gave it.
2. Mark the moment
The editor gives you two tracks, because a bite and its episode are nowhere near the same scale: thirty seconds of a two-hour show is about four pixels on a phone, and a fingertip is forty. Use the top track to get roughly in place, and the bottom one — your bite, zoomed in with room either side — to make it exact. The zoomed track re-frames itself as you move, but never while you are holding it.
Press anywhere on the episode to move your bite there.
Start
End
Drag the ends to trim to the second. Or play, and Mark the moment as it goes past.
- The episode
- The whole episode as one track. Press anywhere and your bite jumps there, keeping its length, with the playhead along with it — so you can play from that point straight away.
- The ends
- Drag either grip to trim to the second. Select one and the arrow keys nudge it: Shift moves five seconds, Alt moves a tenth.
- The bite
- Drag the blue block to slide the whole bite without changing how long it runs.
- The room either side
- Press the grey to move the playhead there. Use it to hear the run-up to your start.
- Start and End
- Type a time into either box, or press Mark to use wherever the playhead is now.
- Play bite
- Plays your bite once, fades and all, so you hear exactly what you are about to send.
Every way of marking sets the same two times, so nothing you do here can disagree with anything else. Drag an end, type a time over it, press Mark as the playhead goes past, or use the keyboard.
- Space
- Play or pause the episode
- I/[
- Set the start to the playhead
- O/]
- Set the end to the playhead
- P
- Play the bite once
- ←/→
- Move the playhead a second
- Shift+←/→
- Ten seconds at a time
- Alt+←/→
- A tenth of a second
- C
- Copy the link to the bite as it is now
About one podcast in six publishes a transcript. When one does, the episode's words appear under the editor. Search the whole episode for a phrase, press any line to jump the playhead there, and use In and Out on the line that's playing to set your start and end by what was said rather than by the numbers.
3. Video or audio
Some shows publish the same episode to YouTube as well as to an audio feed. When BitePods finds both, a switch appears above the editor. Which one you cut decides what your link does when it lands: a video bite plays as a video wherever you post it, and an audio bite arrives as a card someone presses. Your marks come with you when you switch, because the two versions of an episode have to run within seconds of each other to be paired at all.
A video bite plays right where you post it. An audio bite arrives as a card someone presses, and it is the one you can download as an MP3.
4. Send it
Press Clip it and a sheet opens with your link, a Copy button, and the places a bite can go. The social buttons open that app's own compose window with the text and the link filled in. Nothing is posted for you. Download clip cuts an MP3 out of the publisher's own file, on the frame boundaries — that one is for audio bites, since a video bite travels as a link.
Every bite fades in and out, so it sounds cut rather than interrupted: a quarter of a second at the start, a little over half a second at the end. That happens in the browser and in the downloaded file. Here is what arrives in someone's messages — the cover, the length, the episode, the show, and where in it your bite sits:
Making a bite worth sending
The mechanics take a minute to learn. After that, the difference between a bite people play and one they skip comes down to where you put the two ends.
Cut to one whole idea
Stop short of it and nobody knows what they heard. Run past it and it stops being a quote. Most bites land between twenty seconds and a minute, but let the thought decide, not the clock.
Start a beat before the first word
The bite fades in over a quarter of a second, so a start set right on the first word clips it.
End on the thought, not the sentence
Let the speaker land. The fade out runs a little over half a second and covers the breath after it.
Play it once before you send it
Play bite gives you exactly what the other person gets: the fades, the join at each end, all of it.
Cut the video when there is one
Video plays inline wherever you post it. Cut the audio when the sound is the point, or when you want the MP3.
Mark while it plays
Press I when your moment starts and O when it ends. It is faster than dragging, and usually closer first time.
Search the transcript when there is one
Finding the sentence is quicker than finding the seconds, and it puts you on the right line.
Credit the show
A bite is a quote, not a repost. Say whose show it is when you post it.
What a bite is
The whole design is in the link. There is no clip sitting in a database with an id that can expire: the address carries the source and the two times, and everything else — the title, the cover art, the audio behind a page — is looked up again when someone opens it.
bitepods.com/c?u=lexfridman.com/anthony-kaldellis/&s=754.3&e=784.5
- The publisher's address
- Exactly what you pasted, unchanged, for anyone to read.
- Where it starts
- How many seconds into the episode it begins, to a tenth.
- Where it ends
- The other number. There is no third.
Three things follow from that, and they are why the app is built this way. Every play goes to the publisher's own file, so it counts for them, on their host, in their stats. There is no copy of anyone's audio here to take down. And a bite lasts as long as the publisher keeps their file where it is: if the episode moves or disappears, the bite stops playing, and nothing here can bring it back.
When something won't open or won't play
When BitePods can't work a link out, it says so rather than guessing — clipping the wrong audio confidently would be worse. Most of the time there is another way in.
- “That link couldn't be resolved”
- Some episode pages build their player with a script, so there is no audio file for BitePods to find. Try the show's RSS feed, or the episode's own page rather than a link to a player. Better still, search the show by name and pick the episode from the list — that route always works.
- A Spotify link opens something else
- Spotify only plays inside Spotify, so BitePods finds the same episode in the show's own feed and clips it from there. A Spotify-exclusive show has no feed to find, and BitePods says so.
- “Still waiting on…”, or nothing plays
- Some hosts don't allow playback from other sites, and they usually refuse by staying silent. The notice under the player has a link to the original, which always plays.
- A YouTube video won't appear
- Videos marked as no-embed, and age-restricted ones, can only play on YouTube's own page. Nothing here can get around that.
- There's no Download MP3 button
- The MP3 is cut from the publisher's own file, so it is there for audio bites only. A video bite is shared as a link, which is how it plays as a video.
- A bite that used to play doesn't any more
- The publisher moved or removed the file. A bite points at their file and there is no copy here to fall back on. That is the trade the whole app is built on.
Your history
History in the header is a page of your last eight bites, saved the moment you press Clip it or copy a link. A red dot on it means there is one in there you haven't been back to since; opening the page clears the dot. The list is saved in this browser only — no account, no copy on a server — and clearing it is permanent. The links keep working wherever you have already sent them.