You can’t judge a book by its cover. But our podcasts are judged by a single episode—our most recent. It’d be better if we were judged by a collection of our best episodes. But how would we do that?There are a number of untapped opportunities for podcasters—and podcasting—if we knew the relative popularity of podcast episodes. Here are three quick ones: A “Start Here” collection for new listeners. What better way to ensure new listeners have a great experience than letting them first listen to your greatest hits?Better-deserved podcast awards. A single episode isn’t enough to determine if a podcast is award-worthy. But a collection of episodes would make for much more informed decisions.Better experience in podcast listening apps. Present that “Start here” concept to new subscribers. And if they consume all of those episodes, auto-subscribe the listener to the full show.But back to my question; how do we know which episodes are popular? Do we base on downloads? Meh. It’s a start. And some forward-thinking podcasting peeps are on that case already.Data from listening apps would be much better, using things like play-thru, multiple-plays, time-to-consume, and other human-based interactions.Or inbound link data. Data-normalization issues aside, perhaps an existing social monitoring service would be interested in doing something like this for podcasts? I wonder what I missed? And If you're a podcast service provider. I'd love to know what you think you could do with “popularity” data and how that would make your podcasting service better. -----Links:• Getting more than 10K downloads per episode? Talk to Gumball.fm! • Twitter thead by forward-thinking podcast providers - https://twitter.com/podcastharry/status/1447307179808149504• What did I miss? Email me at evo@simpler.media• Value-for-value for this show - https://podcastpontifications.com/value-4-value• Now booking sponsorships for 2022! - https://podcastpontifications.com/sponsor-----A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/showcasing-the-best-episodes-of-your-podcast.Visit https://twitter.com/evoterra for more podcasting insights from Evo Terra as they come.Return the value-for-value of the podcasting wisdom of this episode and more at https://PodcastPontifications.com/supportAnd if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit https://Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.Allie Press assists with the production and transcription of the show. Learn more about Allie at http://alliepress.net.Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about. Subscribe/follow today at https://PodcastPontifications.com.Photo by Jon Tyson on UnsplashMentioned in this episode:Support For Abortion RightsWhile Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th. Abortion is a basic healthcare need for the millions of people who can become pregnant. Everyone should have the freedom to decide what’s best for themselves and their families, including when it comes to ending a pregnancy. This decision has dire consequences for individual health and safety, and could have harsh repercussions for other landmark decisions. Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health and independence of all Americans. Even if you live in a state where abortion rights are upheld, access to safe medical procedures shouldn’t be determined by location, and it shouldn't be the privilege of a small few. You can help by donating to local abortion funds. To find out where to donate for each state, visit donations4abortion.com. If you or someone you know needs help, or if you want to get more involved, here are 5 resources: 1. ShoutYourAbortion.com is a campaign to normalize abortion. 2. DontBanEquality.com is a campaign for companies to take a stand against abortion restrictions. 3. Abortion.cafe has information about where to find clinics. 4. PlanCPills.org provides early at-home abortion pills that you can keep in your medicine cabinet. 5. Choice.CRD.co has a collection of these resources and more. We encourage you to speak up! And spread the word.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy