Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
Ten years of NPR podcasts: KGOU, Oklahoma’s public radio station, published a feature in celebration of ten years of NPR podcasts. The piece has reminiscing from Bryan Moffett, now the GM of sponsorships for NPR, about those early days of getting the podcast network up and running.
Google’s Songza-style playlists arrive in Germany: Google Play Music has been interesting to watch recently, and its curated playlists just got a new international audience. The feature went live in Germany last week. Those listeners will join the U.S. and UK markets in exploring the genre- and mood-based selections that emerged from the tech giant’s acquisition of Songza.
Nearly three-quarters of Apple Music subs are male: Small clues about Apple Music’s listener base continue to emerge. The latest insight is a study by Slice Intelligence that showed 72% of the new streaming platform’s subscribers are male. More interestingly, the group found that only 39% of the subscribers had bought an Apple product online in the past two years. The implication may be that Apple is actually struggling to reach its most hardcore fans with the music service, but that we’re hesitant to draw that conclusion yet. Slice’s data is still worth a look for anyone curious about what’s happening behind the curtain at Apple Music.