Steve Goldstein: The Attention Economy Comes for Podcasting
“A download is not a listen” — that’s a key message in Steve Goldstein’s latest guest column. He calls it “the download illusion” — a download is a metric of distribution, not consumption. This is key to the slow shift undertaken by the podcast industry to understand consumption realistically. Big platforms are moving beyond the download, and Steve discusses Spotify, YouTube, Apple, and Netflix. Then Steve extends the principle beyond audio to hotels (Marriott) and restaurants (Starbucks). “Radio knew this all along,” Steve asserts. There is also consideration of loyal fandom compared to large audiences. “You don’t need massive scale to build something valuable.” And more. This is one of the most compressed pieces of wisdom Steve has produced in this column. Continue Reading