Definition
Show notes are text materials published alongside a podcast episode, typically covering key points, guest information, timestamps and related links that help listeners understand, search and revisit the episode.
How it works
Show notes ship with the episode audio: the web version can be indexed by search engines, and the RSS feed carries links to them; timestamps let listeners jump straight to the segments they care about.
Usage
Listeners use show notes to find tools, articles and guest profiles mentioned in an episode; creators also rely on them as episode archives for later retrieval and citation.
Related and confusable terms
Show notes are text material built around a single episode, a different job from RSS as a distribution format: RSS delivers updates to subscribers, while show notes make the episode itself legible.