Technology, hardware, and gadgets. WiFi speakers, digital dashboards, and more.
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
The global smart speaker market is surging to record levels, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, which frames its recent report as a “market recovery.” The data are from Q2 of this year, compared to Q2 2020, and represent the highest-ever Q2 growth. Click for an illustrative table which tells the whole story. Continue Reading
Spotify wants to broaden the listening repertoire of its Premium subscribers who build playlists. In today’s news, the company introduces Enhance, a song suggestion feature added to “Add song” and “Recommended,” tools which are already bolted onto playlists. Click for details. Continue Reading
Marbyl, a nascent podcast discovery solution created by audio startup Tree Goat Media, seeks to solve a particular problem: Topics people want are buried inside of long listening experiences. The AI-powered app promises to surface and socialize topics within podcast conversations, broadening audiences and facilitating surprising new discoveries. Click through for much more about how it works, illustrations, and how the founders plan to monetize. Continue Reading
If reaching for the screen is too much for advertisers to ask of streaming audio listeners, voice-response ad technology is available. If saying “yes” or “no” is a bridge too far, how about ads which respond to a nod or headshake? That’s the premise of Head Nod Detection, a new piece of ad tech from podcast analytics company Backtracks. Continue Reading