Research finds TV shows can cause up to 19 accidental smart speaker activations a day

The major tech companies making voice assistants all faced consumer backlash in the past several months over privacy issues. While many took steps to give users more control over participating in human review programs, the exposés also revealed that many smart speakers record their users at times when the individual hadn’t uttered a wake word. New research from a group of universities explored the extent to which popular TV shows can accidentally turn on a smart speaker’s microphone. Continue Reading

Edison Research releases its first quarterly Top Ten Podcast ranker

Edison Research has  broken out a Top Ten Podcast ranker, which measures podcast popularity among weekly podcast listeners. The ranker will be released quarterly, and will represent a rolling four-quarter average. This method smooths out irregularities such as quick-rise, quick-fall podcast flashes in the pan. Continue Reading

Survey: Half of U.S. adults have tried a voice assistant behind the wheel

Voicebot.ai and Cerence released a report about the use of voice assistants in cars. According to the survey of 1,090 U.S. adults, more people are using voice assistants in cars than on smart speakers. Just over half (50.9%) of U.S. adults, or about 129.7 million people, have used any kind of voice assistant in their vehicles. Continue Reading

Deloitte report sees podcast revenue breaking the $1 billion milestone this year

Deloitte released its annual report with predictions for the tech, media, and telecom sectors. The analysis included a section devoted to audiobooks and podcasts. Deloitte predicted that the global podcast market would be worth $1.1 billion in 2020, while it pegged the global audiobook market as hitting $3.5 billion. Continue Reading

December streaming, and flashback 10 years of RAIN tracking of Triton Digital Webcast Metrics

RAIN has been tracking Triton Digital’s monthly Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker for more than 10 years, starting in September 2009. Looking back to that Ranker, we see a couple of interesting things — a trip down memory lane in the growth of streaming. Continue Reading

Strategy Analytics: Chinese brands grew smart speaker market share, challenging Amazon and Google’s leads

Strategy Analytics released its latest analysis on the global smart speaker market. Its Q4 results found that Amazon is still the top brand by market share, followed by Google, although both are being challenged by companies in China. Continue Reading