We don’t often receive news from Bulgaria, and today we learn that the country’s largest radio group, Fresh Media Bulgaria, has signed Triton Digital to leverage Triton’s streaming tech stack, services, and network. The imperatives are to increase ad revenue, build audience, and streamline day-to-day operations on the streaming side. Continue Reading
UK-based radio group and worldwide media company Global has acquired podcast hosting/tech outfit Captivate. Global is the developer and holding company of DAX, the company’s international digital audio advertising exchange. Captivate will become part of Global Player, and will take advantage of DAX’s immense reach for monetization opportunities. Continue Reading
After weeks of anticipatory promotion, Spotify unleashed its annual “Wrapped” feature yesterday. Unfortunately, the package is available only in the mobile app, and the video presentation requires memory and operating system resources that are unavailable on some phones. The result is a wave of social media complaints that the Wrapped experience crashes quickly, and closes the Spotify app. We present Spotify’s tech requirements, without providing a universally accessible format. We also review the Wrapped personalized playlists, which are quite enjoyable and don’t have special requirements. Continue Reading
Global audio streaming app Deezer asks: “Why not turn your TV into your personal jukebox?” Providing the answer, Deezer has partnered with Samsung to create a Deezer-app listening experience on Samsung’s line of smart TVs. Click for details. Continue Reading
In a sign of podcasting’s influencer power, Critical Mention — an agency which tracks and measures earned media (unpaid publicity) — has announced a partnership with podcast database platform Podchaser. The arrangement will allow Critical Mention agency clients to track and measure brand mentions across podcasting, as Podchaser’s internal dataset is built internally into Critical Mention’s toolset. Continue Reading
Amazon Music has introduced synchronized, navigable transcripts to selected podcasts. We test the new feature, and find it well executed on the whole, delightful to use, and an important usability innovation. Click for details. Continue Reading
Veritonic has sent around notice of an addition to the analytics company’s audio advertising effectiveness reporting — it is brand lift, the recollection and perception of a brand and its messaging. Launch partner Katz Digital Audio used the new technology in a podcast campaign purchased by a U.S. state to increase Covid vaccination favorability. Click through for the case study. Continue Reading
Cirrus Streaming, which provides many kinds of enterprise streaming services from cloud streaming to Alexa service, has built and released a comprehensive podcasting solution. The single-dashboard solution suite includes hosting, editing, monetization, and distribution. There are special instant-podcast tools for broadcasters.
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Spotify is expanding its podcast feature set while reinforcing its walled-garden experiments in podcasting. The latest: Video podcasting. “Soon, Spotify users will see a lot more video podcasts on the platform,” the company says as it rolls out the capability.… Continue Reading
Audacy, the largest commercial radio group in the U.S. and a major podcast network, has acquired WO Streaming — the digital audio streaming technology of media tech solutions company WideOrbit. This action probably (but without confirmation at this time) explains the $45-million mystery investment announced last week by Audacy. Click through for details and history. Continue Reading
Podcast hosting, analytics, and monetization platform Megaphone (a division of Spotify) has launched its service in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. This expansion broadens the compay’s monetization while offering podcast creators in those regions access to Megaphone’s tech stack. Also “white-glove service.” Click for details. Continue Reading
Global audio streaming service Deezer has developed and launched a fresh take on the mood-based music playlist genre. It’s called Flow Moods. It is an infinite playlist of the user’s favorite tracks, adjusted with a new Flow Moods wheel in the Deezer app. The company refers to this UX feature an Emotional Jukebox. Continue Reading