Jottings of note:
A Default Winner
“Streaming music won, at least in the sense that everything else lost.” That’s from John Herman, occasional columnist at New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. His article, Spotify Is Eating the Entire Music Business, frames music-and-merch site Bandcamp’s recent takeover by Songtradr [RAIN coverage HERE] as an essential withdrawal — or at least reduction — of career-supportive music services, leaving Spotify as the only meaningful game in town for career-aspiring musicians. The fact that Spotify’s business is not financially profitable is characterized as a “weird, loser-take-all outcome.” READ
Expanding in DACH
Acast announces a significant addition to its German sales team today: Maik Lenze begins his role as the new Group Business Director. He brings more than 20 years of experience in advertising and specifically audio marketing. He most recently served as the Country Director DACH at the podcast company Julep. The plan is for Lenze to further expand the agency business and acquire new advertising partners. “In recent years, we have built a fantastic team and a high-quality customer portfolio in the DACH [Germany, Austria, Switzerland] market. We aim to advance this development even further,” said Yann Thebault, Regional Managing Director for Germany and France at Acast. MORE
Choosing The Best
We learn from Quill Founder & CEO Fatima Zaidi that she is a Webby Awards judge. She is one of three judges connected to podcasting; others are Jen Sargent (CEO, Wondery), and Dan Pfeiffer (Host, Pod Save America). Vint Cerf is in there too, (rightly) credited as “Inventor of the internet.” The Webby Awards are produced by the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and the program was first produced in 1996. Of its eight categories, “Podcasts” is the only one which is audio-specific, although “Websites and Mobile Sites” and “Apps & Software” might reach into the audio realm. The Webbys
October 23, 2023
