Captivate, the podcast hosting and tech company which self-describes as “the world’s only growth-oriented podcast host” is introducing tools designed to help small podcasts make money and make better audio. The new collection of tools is called AMIE, an acronym for Audio Mastering & Integration Engine. Today’s announcement is for a private beta release, with a timeline for public availability “over the next few months.”
The money-making part is about ad insertion. The company notes that dynamic ad insertion (DAI) is often geared to the top end of podcasting where the biggest audiences reside. “Dynamic ad insertion sounds so complex,” says Mark Asquith, CEO of Captivate, “but there’s really no need for it to be reserved for podcast power-users, advertisers and brands.”
As such, AMIE is targeted to smaller indie podcasters, while useful to producers and shows of all sizes. The technology is being marketed as useful not only for monetization, but also promotional techniques. “That’s why we designed AMIE to not only provide the ad insertion technology that can be expected from a world-class podcast hosting platform but to allow smaller shows to benefit from growth opportunities via trailer-swap capabilities, repeatable snippet insertion, automatic episode cross-promotion, split testing options and more. AMIE truly is dynamic content insertion technology for every podcaster.”
To some extent the AMIE tech is reverse engineered, according to CTO Kieran McKeefery: “We approached dynamic content insertion by building it around the existing tools that larger podcasts, networks and advertisers use. By then rethinking and reworking how that technology can be applied on a smaller scale, we can help the day-to-day podcaster to grow and compete sustainably.”
The other part of AIME is audio optimization and mastering. No details of how it works or what pieces of the mastering process it addresses. but it purports to offer simplified audio polishing for podcasters who aren’t deeply into digital audio workstation tools and plug-ins.
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