Slate has made an interesting partnership between its podcast division and Pocket, the Mozilla-built app which offers topical reading collections. Slate will put podcast-specific reading collections onto Pocket. The project is called “Stories Behind the Podcast.” We like how it crosses over media categories and broadens the podcast experience. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In the latest guest column from Steve Goldstein, he marches through a litany of podcast listening apps, “a curious business” according to Steve. “Developing a large following is hard and expensive, yet the apps keep coming.” It’s difficult — but not impossible — to break through to scale. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein In this guest column, Steve conducts a fascinating (and very frank) interview with Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates. It’s crystal ball time, and Borrell has no sugar coating. “Linear broadcasters or publishers really should be looking at 2031. There is clear data to project what ten years from now will look like… and it does not look good.” This is really about the growth, belated and necessary, of local news coverage in the podcast category. It’s a “massive opportunity” in this conversation. A must-read.
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Nearly four out of five podcast listeners stream their shows, rather than downloading them, according to new survey results from Edison Research and Triton Digital. Yet metrics are still keyed to downloads, as with the Podtrac Ranking released last week. In addition, some podcast apps make streaming difficult.
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Nearly two years ago, an article that questioned why audio doesn’t go viral, went viral. The article’s complaint has not been fully answered. Recently WNYC posted one of its podcasts to Facebook, but had to wrap it in a video because Facebook doesn’t have native audio. Podcasting might be the catalyst which changes the lack of social sharing in audio. Continue Reading
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NPR, some of whose podcast programs reside near the top of the iTunes podcast charts, has created a new podcast directory called Earbud. Good name. And it’s an effective counterpoint to the impersonal, data-driven Top 100 lists on iTunes. Continue Reading
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The announcement from Google that it would add podcasts to its Play Music interactive music service shines a light into the gloomy and under-competitive realm of podcast discovery in Android devices. But it’s a relatively dim ray of light compared to the bold discovery paths that Apple provides to its audio users. Continue Reading
The Download on Podcasts is a weekly feature sponsored by PodcastOne.
When NiemanLabs produced an analysis last week of NPR’s first-quarter listening statistics, the main lesson was this: People are migrating from real-time listening to time-shifted listening. does this represent an opportunity for all of radio?
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At today’s Spotify Event, held in the company’s New York office, CEO Daniel Ek and other senior leaders announced and demonstrated new features that will roll out in updated apps starting today. There are three main parts of Spotify’s announcement. “Life with Spotify will never be the same,” CEO Daiel Ek said. Continue Reading
Podcasting is enjoying a resurgence, and the latest RAIN Poll surveyed whether readers listen to podcasts. After four days of results, the outcome is definitive: 78 percent of respondents said they listen to podcasts. Several submitted comments told why … and why not. Continue Reading
Owen Grover departed as Pocket Casts’ CEO at the start of the week, and is already taking the helm at a new operation. He has joined TrueFire Studios, an alliance of online music education companies, as its chief executive. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In his latest guest column, Steve Goldstein offers a litany of podcast listening apps which launched with hope and fanfare, but underperformed their expectations. It’s an interesting trip through time. Continue Reading