In an interesting development, Australian company Omny Studio has launched the Omny Discovery Feed, a personalized stream of podcast content that the company is comparing to Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist.
That comparison is meant to hook into the accolades and popularity Spotify has earned through Discover Weekly, but Omny’s new product provides a different and more educational experience. The feed contains a promo clip before each show, followed by the most recent full episode. Users then vote a show up or down, which further personalizes what they receive in the future. In this way the Omny Discovery Feed might be compared to NPR One, which likewise provides a personalized feed of on-demand talk programming.
Whatever the comparison, it’s all about program discovery, which is a hot-button issue in podcasting.
“Curation is one of the main sticking points of on-demand media in general. The voting feature in the Discovery Feed has the unprecedented effect of creating a completely unique set of recommendations for each listener, with a total refresh of shows in their RSS feed each week,” said Sophie Kneebone, Omny Studio’s Podcast Manager.
Omny Studio is a podcast host, but today’s announcement promises that podcasts which live on other platforms are included in Discovery Feed.