Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:

Behind the scenes at Serial: Serial is still riding high on a wave of popularity in the podcast universe. Boston’s NPR station profiled the development of the show’s second season, compiling interviews and clips with producers Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder about the phenomenon and how they approached the new case.

Risky consolidation within indie label services: Mark Dowling, director of Absolute Label Services, penned a post for Music Business Worldwide examining the recent consolidation within the indie label services market. “The distinction between indies and majors is perhaps exaggerated in the trade press, but there is a tangible difference between the two when it comes to label services, which means that the disappearance of one of the biggest indie providers in the market is worth consideration,” he said.

Who are music’s disruptors? The startup space loves disruption. Forbes examined three companies that it deemed likely to disrupt the current top players in streaming music. Will Amazon, Samsung, or SoundCloud really be able to challenge? Today’s news about SoundCloud certainly gives extra weight to the Forbes predictions.