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May 2, 2024:
    But isn’t Spotify #1 anyway? Yes, but for listeners, not for downloads: until now, at least. It’s a notable achievement for Spotify, since Apple Podcasts also auto-downloads by default; Spotify doesn’t. (However, unlike Apple TV and Apple Music, Apple Podcasts is not available on Android.)
April 23, 2024:
    Google appears to have set a date for Google Podcasts to be switched off in countries outside the US. A support document has been updated to say “Users outside of the United States will be able to use Google Podcasts until mid-to-late June 2024”, 9to5Google has spotted.
April 18, 2024:
April 16, 2024:
April 12, 2024:
    Can you help a study for the University of Amsterdam? Chance Dorland is investigating how users perceive the features of different social audio platforms for an academic paper on how such features lead to distinct user experiences. He’s looking for an hour of your time.
April 9, 2024:
April 8, 2024:
April 4, 2024:
April 3, 2024:
    Google Podcasts is now said to have closed in the US (it’s still available in every other country, with no closure date yet). David Pearce from The Verge writes an excoriating article criticising Google. “The podcast app is only the latest good Google thing to die. And if Google ever wants us to buy into its promises again, this has to stop.”
April 1, 2024:
March 27, 2024:
March 26, 2024:
    Similarly, YouTube is now requiring disclosure about the use of AI in certain circumstances. You’re specifically required to disclose if you’re using AI to “make a real person say or do something they didn’t say or do”, “alter footage of a real event or place”, or “generate a realistic scene that didn’t actually occur”. Visual (or, we presume, audio) effects, like noise reduction, are not required to be disclosed; nor “clearly unrealistic content”.
March 14, 2024:
March 11, 2024:
    Episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast are now available, in full, on YouTube - after the podcast ended its exclusivity deal last month with Spotify. Some industry observers had expected the video version to remain exclusive on the Spotify platform. However, the biggest podcast in the world is not marked as a “podcast” within YouTube Studio, and therefore doesn’t appear on the YouTube Podcasts index page.
March 7, 2024:
March 4, 2024:
    Buzzsprout has released an app for iPhone, allowing Buzzsprout customers to manage their podcasts, wherever they are. The app enables everything from ad management to correcting typos in episode descriptions. An Android app is coming soon; the iOS app, which is free, is in the App Store now. (Buzzsprout sponsors the Podnews Weekly Review).
March 1, 2024:
February 26, 2024:
February 16, 2024:
February 13, 2024:
February 12, 2024:
    AntennaPod, an open-source podcast app for Android, has hit 150,000 monthly active users on Google Play. As can be seen above, the app saw significant growth on Sep 26, the day that it was announced Google Podcasts is to close. Much of this growth has been in the US, according to data seen by Podnews. “While we undoubtedly have a small market share, we're proud of this increase,” says @keunes, one of the volunteer project maintainers.
January 25, 2024:
January 24, 2024:
January 22, 2024:
    We’ve phased out all use of Google’s AMP and tweaked a few other bits in our privacy policy. Later today, if you’re in need of a quiet nap, feel free to read it.
January 15, 2024:
    YouTube Music is missing too many podcast basics, says 9to5Google. Abner Li is missing “mark episodes as played”, chapter support, and new episode notifications. (We’d add: skip-silence and volume-boost, please; but we like the “New episodes” view and when it gains swipe-to-mark-as-listened, it’ll be excellent).
January 12, 2024:
January 11, 2024:
January 10, 2024:
December 21, 2023:
December 20, 2023:
    Have you spotted a theme in your favourite audio fiction shows? Audio fiction newsletter The End is thinking of a way to identify thematically similar audio shows, and is looking for your help in compiling a list.
December 19, 2023:
    9to5Google has published a look at the Google Podcasts migration process to YouTube Music. It also reports that “mark as played” will be coming shortly as a feature in the YouTube Music app. It has also added a “podcast recommendation” notification, which notifies you of podcasts you might like.
December 18, 2023:
    Podnews is on Mastodon (and other places), and this holiday period, we’d like to encourage you to follow us there (and the hashtag #podcasting perhaps, too). Megalodon works great for Android; we’re told Mammoth is a good app for iPhone. As of today, we’re posting on X thirty minutes late, as part of the x-last strategy.
December 11, 2023:
    You might see many different people telling you that Google Podcasts is to close in April 2024. Not quite true... that’s its US closure date only. The rest of the world get to keep it for a little longer. Anyway, here are the migration details and an example of the OPML file it spits out.
December 8, 2023:
December 6, 2023:
December 1, 2023:
    Podcast app PodcastGuru has written up clear guides on how to migrate from Google Podcasts, for both Android users and those on iOS.
November 28, 2023:
November 27, 2023:
    Acast is adding dynamic ads targeted to listeners on Google Podcasts which closes next year, pointing them to this blog post helping them with other podcast apps to change to.
November 21, 2023:
November 16, 2023:
November 14, 2023:
November 10, 2023:
November 6, 2023:
November 3, 2023:
    PRX has published its annual report. 80 different organisations use its Dovetail podcast tools; 99% Invisible's Roman Mars donated more than $100,000 to the organisation, while Google donated more than $1mn. The organisation made $12.8mn in underwriting.
November 2, 2023:
    The biggest independent podcast host Buzzsprout released its network stats for October. Year-on-year, Apple Podcasts has increased download share by 3.5%; Spotify by 3.6%; and Google Podcasts increased its share by 0.3%. Total downloads were up 12.6% on the year, though dropped slightly month-on-month.
October 30, 2023:
October 25, 2023:
    Total monthly active users reached 574mn (up 26% on the year). The company has 226mn paid subscribers (up 16%). By way of comparison, Google announced late last year that they had 80mn YouTube Music and Premium subscribers; and YouTube Shorts, alone, reach 2bn MAUs.
October 23, 2023:
    Because YouTube rehosts the audio, YouTube maintains its own analytics. If your podcast host writes the code to connect to YouTube's Analytics API, and if you connect your account, you can import those analytics to your podcast host. YouTube analytics aren't IAB compliant: so you can't add one to the other.
October 19, 2023:
    One issue for some podcasters is the requirement for shows on YouTube to be ad-free (scroll down to "Best Practices"). Host-read sponsorships are OK, but injection of programmatic ads, or 30-second spots, are not. We understand that means some podcast hosts will have to build a workaround to support this policy, by not supplying ads to episodes requested by YouTube's RSS ingestion tool.
October 16, 2023:
    YouTube appears to be rolling out limited access to its RSS ingest service to some podcasters (we've heard it is visible to some people in the US and the UK). Invitations appear in YouTube Studio for podcast playlists. YouTube's Help Center has some detail on it. Podcast shows ingested in this way are visible globally on YouTube and within the YouTube Music app in selected countries.
October 13, 2023:
October 9, 2023:
    In your app, how can you spot if a download has been blocked by an ad-blocking service? Normally it'll be blocked by ad-blockers like Pi-hole, NextDNS or Control D - but because of the way these services interface with podcasts, they kill the whole download. You could see if the DNS has resolved to 0.0.0.0, which is the standard for Pi-Hole and ControlD (and then give the user a message); and/or force a DNS lookup with a known DNS server, like Google's 8.8.8.8.
October 4, 2023:
October 3, 2023:
September 29, 2023:
September 27, 2023:
September 18, 2023:
September 15, 2023:
September 13, 2023:
    PodcastOne's share price closed at $2.74 yesterday. It debuted on Friday at $8.
September 11, 2023:
August 23, 2023:
    YouTube will fully support ingestion of RSS feeds for podcasts by the end of the year, it was announced at Podcast Movement by the Product Lead Podcasting at Google, Steve McLendon, speaking to Ausha's Jennifer Han. He also made the first public acknowledgement of the ongoing beta testing that we reported on in May. (It ingests RSS audio feeds and turns them into YouTube-hosted video, like CNN One Thing which we understand is using it.)
August 22, 2023:
    Part of the Airwave podcast network: On This Day in History, in 1962 French President Charles de Gaulle was shot - but survived the assassination; in 1851 the first America's Cup was held; and in 2018, Podnews was made available in Google Assistant's daily news briefing. Expect stories like that, except possibly not the Podnews one, in this short daily show from The HISTORY Channel.
August 14, 2023:
    Bad news: YouTube's Kai Chuk is no longer answering questions at Podcast Movement (Wed, 2.30pm, Aurora C). Good news: his place will be taken by the Product Lead Podcasting at Google, Steve McLendon. A former co-founder of 60dB, he's been involved in the launch of podcasts on YouTube, but also looks after Google Podcasts - so knows a thing or two about the whole space. We hope to be there (if we can squeeze in) - the session's sponsored by Ausha.
July 20, 2023:
July 18, 2023:
July 17, 2023:
July 14, 2023:
July 12, 2023:
    Pocket Casts formally announced its Wear OS app for smartwatches like the Samsung Galaxy watch range and the Google Pixel Watch. Now widely available for Pocket Casts Plus subscribers, it allows full playback, including speed control, silence skipping and volume boost: and (once you've downloaded a show) lets you leave your phone at home.
July 6, 2023:
June 30, 2023:

Thank you to Bjørn Barfoed Vestergaard, who has become our latest personal supporter. Based in Denmark, he hosts the Rollemodellerne podcast, - which he (well, Google Translate) describes as "an attempt to demystify success; to get to the human behind and create a collection of concrete tools, habits and strategies that you and I will be able to use today to kick-start our dreams". Nice. Our dream is that you, too, support our journalism.

June 29, 2023:
June 27, 2023:
    The latest episode of the a16z Podcast was recorded in a self-driving car. Host Steph Smith interviewed Waymo’s Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi in the back. (Waymo was formerly Google's self-driving car project).
June 19, 2023:
June 15, 2023:
    Google's Recorder app on Android phones (which auto-transcribes the audio as it records) has added an audio editor to its website. It doesn't, however, allow you to edit using words: just the audio wave pattern.
June 2, 2023:
June 1, 2023:
May 30, 2023:
May 23, 2023:
May 18, 2023:
May 17, 2023:
    A new podcast search experience in Google is being rolled out in the US. Users on mobile who search for generic terms like "kids podcasts" or "news podcasts" now get individual podcast cards, which, when clicked on, include links to players: Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. The podcast pages also contain recent episode titles (and display on tablets as well as phones). Links to Apple Podcasts appear on Android, too (taking you to the web experience); the new search experience does not contain any podcast links to YouTube.
May 16, 2023:
    In spite of communicating that a 4x price increase was for new subscribers only, Pocket Casts subscribers are being given renewal notices from Google Play suggesting it's for everyone. The last pricing change for the app in 2019 was changed after users who bought lifetime packages complained that they weren't honoured.
May 11, 2023:
May 8, 2023:
April 28, 2023:
April 10, 2023:
March 21, 2023:
    YouTube has confirmed our story/guess yesterday that podcast creation and analytics tools in YouTube Studio are now rolled-out to all creators. (Confusingly, those tools are still described as a test by YouTube, but we're told it's a full roll-out.)
March 20, 2023:
March 17, 2023:

Private Eye promotes its Page 94 podcast in a not-so-subtle way on the magazine's subscriber packaging - notably, using the Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts icons.

March 16, 2023:
    9to5Google has spotted upcoming code in the YouTube Music app for podcasts. The data indicates that podcasts will appear in your library tab; and the search function in the app will search podcasts as well. You'll also be able to add episodes to your playback queue. YouTube Music gets podcasts in the US only later this year.
March 13, 2023:
March 10, 2023:
    Our Editor James Cridland shared the results of the Podnews Report Card at Podcast Movement. We'll have this data in full in Monday's Podnews; but overall, Apple has increased its lead over Spotify as the most favoured podcast platform used by podcast creators. YouTube is eagerly awaited by many publishers; and Google Podcasts saw a disappointing fall in ratings from those in the industry.
March 2, 2023:
February 23, 2023:
February 22, 2023:
February 20, 2023:
February 17, 2023:
February 16, 2023:
    Off to SXSW? Mark Miller and the team at Labelcoin are providing a podcasting studio with state-of-the-art equipment from Roland where VIPs can hold meetings, record content, and enjoy free food and drinks. If you're interested, here's a form to be considered.
February 13, 2023:
February 8, 2023:
    Google tells us that Google Podcasts carousel links in Google Search (which the company said will go away at the end of this week) are being replaced with a new feature. A spokesperson told us: "We are always working to make it as easy as possible to find helpful information in Search, regardless of the form that content takes. Our existing podcast features will gradually be replaced with a new, single feature, What to Podcast (currently live on mobile for English users in the US.) This feature provides detailed information about podcasts, links to listen to shows on different platforms, and links to podcasters’ own websites, where available."
February 7, 2023:
    After our exclusive last month about Google removing podcasts from Google search, Google has confirmed the move in an announcement in Google Podcasts Manager. Additionally, the tool will no longer give any data under "how people find your show" from Feb 13, meaning an end to the research tool. Podcasts continue to appear in Google search results, but not linked to Google's own player; we've reached out to Google for comment.
January 30, 2023:
January 27, 2023:
January 24, 2023:
January 23, 2023:
January 19, 2023:
January 18, 2023:
    Exclusive: Google Podcasts has been removed from Google Search.
January 13, 2023:
    In the Podnews Weekly Review this week, Sam Sethi and Podnews's Editor James Cridland talk about Google and Spotify, and Sam reveals his seed funding for his new podcast platform Podfans.
January 6, 2023:
December 22, 2022:
December 19, 2022:
December 8, 2022:
December 5, 2022:
    Buzzsprout has posted its network statistics for November. The only regularly released IAB-compliant numbers, the numbers show a slight drop for Apple Podcasts (now 38.2% of all downloads), and a smaller rise for Spotify (up to 26.6%). Google Podcasts is the third largest podcast app, with 2.7% of all downloads.
November 17, 2022:
October 31, 2022:
October 27, 2022:
October 24, 2022:
October 13, 2022:
    Stats from the Google Podcasts Manager seemed to have frozen on Sep 28, according to a number of readers. We alerted Google, who tell us it's now been fixed. (While Google's play numbers are low, the SEO advice it gives is helpful: here's where to claim your feed.)
October 7, 2022:
October 6, 2022:
    Acast held a "Capital Markets Day". The fast-growing company described itself as "the Wordpress of podcasting": it offers 5 ads in each show, though just sells 28% of them (p50); and about half their biggest shows aren't monetised at all (p14), so plenty of room to grow. The company is achieving $22 CPM.
September 22, 2022:
    Google Analytics "cannot be used lawfully", says the Danish Data Protection Agency. Austria, Italy and France have also said it's illegal to use without a reverse proxy. (Podcast prefix analytics services can work the same way).
September 19, 2022:
September 9, 2022:
September 8, 2022:
September 2, 2022:
August 24, 2022:
    Would you rather the Spotify podcast playback experience was a little cleaner? Podify is a third-party Android app for Spotify podcasts. It uses the Spotify API to access the shows you listen to; you still need the Spotify app installed though.
August 23, 2022:
August 19, 2022:
    Podnews's word of the day: "cudgel" - a short, thick stick used as a weapon. An Old English term, it was popular with people in 1590 and 1780, after which seemingly the only people who've used it are SiriusXM's legal team.
August 1, 2022:
July 28, 2022:
July 25, 2022:
    The July 19 dump of data from The Podcast Index now includes descriptions and categories. 369,000 shows have no description at all; most podcasts have about 22 characters; and only 44,000 have descriptions of more than a thousand characters. Apple doesn't search your podcast description field; but Spotify, Overcast, Google and most others do; so we'd recommend putting more in there if you want your podcast found.
July 22, 2022:
July 18, 2022:
July 12, 2022:
    "We think it's going to be one of the best shows of the summer", we're told about Love & Noraebang, which drops a trailer today. It's a fun romantic comedy podcast set in contemporary Los Angeles. The immersive sound design and score integrates K-Pop, Reggaeton, Pop Ballads, Latin Trap, and of course, Noraebang (the Korean version of karaoke - we saved you a Google).
June 24, 2022:
June 22, 2022:
    For podcasters, Fountain has made it easy to collect Bitcoin support for your show: download the app (on iOS or Android) and claim your show.
June 15, 2022:
    The Reuters Institute and University of Oxford has released the Digital News Report 2022. Interviewing a total of 92,000 people across 46 countries, the data shows podcasting use is growing again after a pause due to the pandemic. Spotify is continuing to gain ground over Apple and Google Podcasts, and YouTube also shows increasing use. Now, 34% of people in surveyed countries listen to podcasts (up from 31% in 2021): they are most popular in Ireland, Sweden and Norway. Choice quote: "In our qualitative research in both the UK and US, it was striking how many younger people regularly listen to The Joe Rogan Experience, even as they worry about some of the content."
June 10, 2022:
June 9, 2022:
    In her comments, Maya Prohovnik, who oversees Spotify’s creator tools across podcasting, described RSS as "outdated technology", and said they have been able to replace it for their on-platform distribution. She also claimed that every new Anchor show brings 2.5 new monthly active users to the Spotify platform.
June 6, 2022:
May 25, 2022:
May 13, 2022:
May 6, 2022:
May 5, 2022:
    Of interest, Anchor artwork appears as Google's Knowledge Graph image for My Favorite Murder, rather than the real podcast image. On Spotify, a search for "My Favorite Murder" takes you to a poorly produced music album by "Penny Bank", called "Murder Podcasts", with somebody reading out a critique of podcast artwork over a cheap electronic drumbeat; and a set of more than ten playlists with the artwork and shows jumbled up into a random order. "Spotify respects the rights of intellectual property owners", they say, though when we tried to find that quote, Spotify's main website had fallen over.
April 29, 2022:
April 19, 2022:
    First look: TED Audio Collective has signed with Supercast to offer paid subscriptions for TED Talks Daily. TED members will be able to enjoy a premium ad-free version of TED Talks Daily, plus all of the existing perks they get with TED membership, like exclusive programming, social events, and more. Supercast works in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and many other apps.
March 28, 2022:
    Want to get your podcast heard in China? You can on the Xiaoyuzhou FM app ("Small Universe" in English). Aladin Farré says "you need to register with a phone number on their app, then register your RSS feed on their website. You'll need to be able to read Chinese (or use Google Translate or similar); and some episodes may be deleted. (Apple Podcasts appears to only allow-list some Chinese publishers in the country).
March 23, 2022:
March 14, 2022:
    The Lava app, and the iVoox app, are currently not sending any useragent for its RSS scraper. MTN's AudApp sends the generic axios/0.21.4 useragent for RSS and audio. AudioWave sends AmazonCloudfront as a useragent for RSS. We've requested all these companies help us by fixing their useragents.
March 11, 2022:
March 2, 2022:
    Are indie podcast apps gaining ground? Buzzsprout report Apple had 35.7% of all downloads in February (down from 37.2%); Spotify 27.9% (also down from 28%). Google Podcasts has grown to 2.5%; Amazon Music has grown to 0.8%; and Facebook is up slightly to 0.5%. In their official podcast, Buzzsprout also mentions "a big update soon".
February 23, 2022:
    Finally, a new podcast by Google has launched (see below). Google's press release says it's "available on Apple, Spotify and all major podcast platforms." The first episode looks at team culture: imagine the team culture at Google Podcasts after even Google has forgotten it exists.
February 21, 2022:
    Noting a significant increase in access from KaiOS phones, we’re now serving them our podcast in Opus audio format, saving those users bandwidth. You're listening to our 16kbps Opus file if you hit the "LISTEN" link on our website in Google Chrome on desktop/Android; all KaiOS phones support Opus files.
February 18, 2022:
February 10, 2022:
February 2, 2022:
January 31, 2022:
    The BBC, funded by a mandatory $215 charge on UK households, says in its announcement that "this gives licence fee payers even more value". It's unclear how licence payers derive value from being unable to listen to programmes they've paid for in the podcast app of their choice. The BBC has been increasingly aggressive against an open ecosystem: it blocks its podcasts from Google Podcasts, and pulled its live streams in the UK from TuneIn.
January 28, 2022:
    Acast says: (our emphasis) "Acast+ will work on all podcast listening platforms that give their users the ability to add any RSS feed of their choice. This means that a few podcast players - like Spotify - are currently excluded because they work differently. However, we are part of their OAP programme and we are continuing to work with them on their approach to how they manage subscriptions to ensure that the end product meets what's best for Acast creators and the open ecosystem - which is for podcasters to have direct relationships with their listeners. Acast+ works on the majority of podcast apps and players including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and Castbox and is available to access for 80% of our listeners."
January 17, 2022:
    Does anyone know what Podcast Player/1.1 is a useragent for? (Imagine how easy that is to Google).
January 14, 2022:
    18Sixty's Gareth Evans has top tips for recording on location. Checking out where you want to go on Google Maps is a good tip - to help find sheltered places for interviews.
January 12, 2022:
    A content warning and privacy notice has been added to the Google Podcasts app, in multiple languages and territories. The app is a top 5 podcast player according to most podcast hosts - the notice links to this page.
December 27, 2021:
    Voxalyze has published their Podcast Discovery & Consumption report. The company surveyed listeners across four countries (the US, UK, France and Germany) to see if there are any local differences. Podcast listeners use 1.9 platforms on average, and Amazon Music is surprisingly high in their results. Google Podcasts reaches up to 15% of all users, but only 4% in the UK (possibly because the BBC blocks their podcasts from it).
December 16, 2021:
    Google offers live captions within every Android app on Pixel phones; that live caption tool is also available on desktop Chrome if you listen within a browser. However, this is all on-device; the company doesn't support the podcast:transcript tag, and there's no current evidence that they transcribe audio, though they have done in the past. Sister company YouTube offers automated and manual captions.
December 15, 2021:
December 13, 2021:
    Google Podcasts doing odd things? Our RSS Helper is a little bookmarklet which lets you see what RSS feed Google Podcasts has decided to use for your podcast this week. (For Podland, it's currently preferring an old podcast feed that's correctly 301-redirecting to the right one. Stupid Google Podcasts.)
December 8, 2021:
December 6, 2021:
    A Sky News investigation in the UK has discovered antisemitism, racism and white supremacist material in podcasts on Spotify. Spotify has removed 150 hours of content after the news channel's report. "In some cases, explicit slurs could be found in episode titles and descriptions while album artwork displayed imagery adopted by white supremacists," the story says. The podcasts are still available on Google Podcasts, it adds.
December 1, 2021:
November 30, 2021:
    Spotify has removed its Android "car view" feature, which allowed you to drive and listen to podcasts with a simpler user interface. You can still use Android Auto, or voice control via Google Assistant. ("Hey, Google, play the latest news from Podnews podcasting news" works a treat).
November 29, 2021:
    Podcast apps may be buying ads for your podcast in Google Search without you knowing. Acast, The Podcast App and Amazon Music are all advertising against our own podcast title, and that of many other podcast titles, too. On an iPhone in the UK, an ad for Amazon Music appeared as the #1 search result for Podnews, seeming to suggest that access to our podcast costs £7.99/month, which is misleading (it's free on any platform). The Acast ad leads to a web player, but no method of subscribing; The Podcast App's ad led us to a web player with promotion for their own podcast app.
November 25, 2021:
November 22, 2021:
    Our audio quality comparison page suffered a little when we removed Google's AMP a while ago. If you wondered what bitrate and samplerate does to audio quality, the list is back again.
November 15, 2021:
November 11, 2021:
November 9, 2021:
November 3, 2021:
October 20, 2021:
October 14, 2021:
October 13, 2021:
    Google Podcasts is blocking access to some podcasts to under 18s and users who aren't signed-in, we've discovered. We've more details in depth, below.
October 11, 2021:
October 8, 2021:

Your help for a story: is your podcast being randomly marked as not suitable for under 18s by Google Podcasts? We'd love to hear from you, in confidence: editor@podnews.net

October 6, 2021:
October 1, 2021:
    You can add Podnews to your morning news briefing routine on Google Assistant, Siri or Alexa. Find us in the news section. Alternatively, we've also got a podcast.
September 30, 2021:
September 23, 2021:
September 22, 2021:
September 16, 2021:
September 13, 2021:
September 9, 2021:
    Speaker submissions are now open for PodFest Origins. If you'll be in Tampa, apply here; if you'd like to be a virtual event speaker, apply here.
September 7, 2021:
September 6, 2021:
    Data: in Germany, the Online Audio Monitor 2021 has been released. 25% of Germans are listening to podcasts at least once a month, a figure that's increased by 26% year-on-year. Spotify is the #1 podcast platform (48.5%), YouTube is #2 (44%), Apple Podcasts is #7 (12.5%), and Google Podcasts is #9 (9.5%). (Thanks, Steffen!)
September 3, 2021:
    Podland this week looks at how Google Podcasts is going, and includes a 'boostagram corner'. It's hosted by Sam Sethi and James Cridland.
September 1, 2021:
    The founder of Google Podcasts, Zack Reneau-Wedeen, has left Google. He's now working on cryptocurrency for investment platform Robinhood - though we understand he hadn't been working on podcasts within the company for some time. Gabe Bender, Google Podcasts' product lead, left in April. So who's driving Google Podcasts today? Steve McLendon, a former co-founder of 60dB (which Google bought in 2017), describes himself on Twitter as "working on podcast stuff at Google". The team is also working on a tech refresh of Feedburner.
August 31, 2021:
August 24, 2021:
    The implementation adds ?t=(seconds) at the end of the URL. YouTube and Spotify use this too, as does Pocket Casts and Podfriend, and it works on Overcast. Google Podcasts works differently; Apple Podcasts doesn't let you do this at all.
August 23, 2021:
August 19, 2021:
August 18, 2021:
August 13, 2021:
August 11, 2021:
    Listen App is 'the first social-audio membership platform built for podcasters'; the Android version is now live in the Google Play store, prior to a launch next month.
August 10, 2021:
August 9, 2021:
August 4, 2021:
    "Hey, (Google/Siri/Alexa) - play the latest news from Podnews podcasting news" works in your hotel room.
July 23, 2021:
    In an email, Google has said FeedBurner is to move to new infrastructure in mid-August, and warns people using their email subscription services to download their lists before then, since that feature won't be available. Here's more detail. FeedBurner powers 56,000 podcast feeds (about 1.4% of all podcasts).
July 21, 2021:
    Shuffle, a podcast app allowing you to chat with other fans, is now available in "Early Access" for Android users. (This is a limited-place beta test program, open to anyone).
July 14, 2021:
July 13, 2021:
    Caution: A version of Overcast appears to be on the Google Play store for Android users. It isn't Overcast: it's the codebase for AntennaPod with lots of ads thrown in, and just uses the Overcast logo and name. We'd recommend PocketCasts if you're looking for a decent podcast player.
July 9, 2021:
July 8, 2021:
    PodBooking - the social network for podcasters - will have a new section tomorrow containing the latest podnews, jobs and events from the Podnews network. You can download PodBooking, free, on the Apple App Store or the Google Play store.
July 6, 2021:
    For the first time, all major podcast apps display episode notes in the same way. As Podnews testing now reveals, in the <description> field, all major podcast apps now support <a href links, <p> paragraphs, <ul><li> bullet points, and make URLs clickable automatically. You should keep episode notes below 4,000 characters, though, to ensure they display everywhere (Apple has a limit of 4,000, Google Podcasts has a limit of 5,000).
July 5, 2021:
July 1, 2021:
    Mike Midden, who worked at the IAB on the podcast measurement guidelines, is now working for Google.
June 25, 2021:
June 23, 2021:
June 18, 2021:
    In the UK, Mags Creative is running a free six week learning and mentoring programme. The program will offer industry insights, expert knowledge and support for 12 podcasters from underrepresented communities. They wish to specifically encourage those who are Black, Asian or minority ethnic, have disabilities or identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community to apply.
June 17, 2021:
June 15, 2021:
    The release of the Smart Audio Report for Australia has been rescheduled to July 13. The study will explore Australians' attitudes, adoption and usage of smart speakers and other voice-enabled devices. (Unlike the US, Google is the market leader for smart speakers in the country).
June 14, 2021:
June 2, 2021:
May 28, 2021:
May 21, 2021:
May 20, 2021:
    Google Reader lives?! Google Chrome is testing a 'follow' button in the browser, which allows you to "get the latest and greatest from your favorite sites directly in Chrome, building on the open RSS web standard". No word on whether it works on podcasts; but if you're using Powerpress or similar, this could be a game-changer.
May 17, 2021:
May 13, 2021:

Privacy is important. Podnews's website no longer uses Google Analytics or any third-party code. Last month, we anonymised all newsletter analytics and removed Google's AMP code from most pages. Our privacy policy is here (and it's readable, too).

May 7, 2021:
    How long can your episode notes be? Preliminary tests seem to show that PocketCasts, Overcast and Spotify deal with at least 10,000 characters; Google Podcasts (Android) truncates after about 5,000 characters; and we gather that Apple Podcasts currently truncates after about 4,000 characters.
April 28, 2021:
    Listeners can't buy a paid subscription to your podcast in the Spotify app. (If they did, Apple and Google would want up to 30% of the money, something the EU Commission is currently investigating). Instead, they'll get taken to an Anchor web-page, and listeners will be asked to enter their credit card details. For Apple listeners, paying for a subscription is as simple as buying an app.
April 27, 2021:
April 23, 2021:
April 19, 2021:
April 15, 2021:
April 14, 2021:
April 7, 2021:
April 1, 2021:
    PodClock is a new podcast about time, focusing on the days, hours and minutes that we all experience in our own way. Hosted by Podnews Editor James Cridland, it's updated regularly with new information, and is in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and all your favourite podcast apps except Spotify which, let's face it, is nobody's favourite.
March 29, 2021:
    PolkaCast has published their protocol architecture. It promises that "to create a true equal distribution and creator privileges, the PoS+PoC dual consensus model is implemented on the Runtime smart contract. Based on the PoC, each podcast creator will enjoy his or her own rights and interests." Google Translate has failed to help, and we've no idea what this means.
March 26, 2021:
March 25, 2021:
March 24, 2021:
March 19, 2021:
March 12, 2021:
March 10, 2021:
    Entercom has acquired Podcorn, valuing the company at $22.5m. Entercom, a US radio broadcaster, owns Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Studios. Podcorn gives advertisers access to podcasters. In 2016 Google purchased the founders' previous company, FameBit, for $36m.
March 9, 2021:
March 5, 2021:
    Analytics within Google Podcasts Manager has been improved. You can now see a subscriber count for each show; and a new "share podcast" menu (under the settings icon) lets you grab your direct link and a Google Podcasts badge. Most importantly, the data is now updated faster, with new data appearing in about 24 hours. (Most podcast hosts agree that Google Podcasts is the #3 podcast app, though with around 2% of all downloads, your numbers may look quite small.)
March 3, 2021:
    Google has unveiled a new audio codec, called Lyra, which the company describe as a "high quality, very low bitrate speech codec". How low is "very low"? Just 3kbps. There are some examples to listen to; the company plans to make it open source.
March 2, 2021:
March 1, 2021:
February 24, 2021:
    CephaloPod is also a new podcast app for Android.
February 17, 2021:
February 15, 2021:
February 5, 2021:
    Google Podcasts is getting a little tweak in its playback screen, reports AutoEvolution. We're yet to see the update, which is restricted to beta users. We are, though, seeing episode images at least some of the time.
February 3, 2021:
    Heb je nog een podcasttip? Answering the question often asked - "do you have any podcast recommendations" - Lieven Heeremans has been keeping an Excel sheet of all the podcasts he's listened to since April 8. 835 so far, and recommends you some. Google Translate is your friend, tenzij je Adam Curry heet.
February 1, 2021:
    A new book, The Spotify Play: How CEO and Founder Daniel Ek Beat Apple, Google, and Amazon in the Race for Audio Dominance, has been released. Our full review of the book says that you'll get "a renewed admiration for what the company has achieved, and the way in which it all happened".
January 27, 2021:
    Libsyn has added the namespace for Podcast Index and Google Podcasts by default in their feeds "in preparation for productisation". This work now allows advanced podcasters to hand-code additional tags into feeds at their own risk - "picture a big flashing neon proceed-with-caution light", said Rob Walch in The Feed episode 185 (47'04").
January 25, 2021:
    We've updated our look at episode notes and episode images in major podcast apps. We discover that Spotify doesn't follow the RSS specification, sadly; Google Podcasts only shows the first 9,000 characters of episode notes; and that Apple does support episode images but only if you're, er, not subscribed.
January 20, 2021:
    The most popular way to listen to podcasts in Russia is Apple Podcasts, with Yandex Music occupying the #2 position, according to new research on Russian podcast listening. Google Podcasts is #3, with 8% of listeners, according to an article by Эдуард Царионов.
January 18, 2021:
    At some point recently, Google Podcasts has switched its URL structure for individual podcast episodes. If you care, it's now… /feed/:rssuri/episode/:guid where the two variables are BASE64-encoded. (What if every app and service supported this basic link pattern?)
January 15, 2021:
January 11, 2021:
    Google Podcasts: 14
January 6, 2021:
December 29, 2020:
December 21, 2020:
December 18, 2020:
December 17, 2020:
    We prefer "Play the latest news from Podnews podcasting news", which works on any speaker: Echo, Google Assistant, or a HomePod.
December 16, 2020:
December 14, 2020:
December 11, 2020:
December 9, 2020:
    The BBC's music, radio and podcasts app BBC Sounds is now available on more TV devices within the UK, including Roku, Now TV, Freesat, LG, Freeview Play, Google TV and Amazon Fire TV devices.
December 4, 2020:
    The Google Podcasts app on Android, iOS and the web is now an actual podcasts app: because from today it supports subscribing by RSS feed.
December 3, 2020:

Thank you to our latest gold supporter, Google Podcasts: we've reported on it being the 3rd most popular podcast app recently, and we're excited to see it grow in 2021. Here's the Google Podcasts Manager to claim your show and see more data about it. Be like Google.

December 2, 2020:
    For the month of November, Buzzsprout report that 32.3% of their downloads went to Apple Podcasts, with 25.5% of downloads to Spotify, and Google Podcasts getting 2.6%. The company tells us that, after some tweaks to their algorithm, this is a more accurate reflection of total downloads to Apple Podcasts than previous data from the company.
November 24, 2020:
November 20, 2020:
    In Russia, Arzamas has launched a new app with audio content for kids: podcasts, lectures, audiobooks, and more. "We are equally passionate about telescopes and memes, Harry Potter and Ancient Egypt, dinosaurs and My Little Pony," they say. Гусьгусь is available on iPhone and Android and comes with a free month's trial.
November 19, 2020:
    YouTube Music is launching audio ads, says Variety. The product replaced Google Play Music this month; while podcasts now live in Google Podcasts, monetisation for audio could be useful here, too.
November 18, 2020:
November 16, 2020:
    Spotify is taking a bite out of Apple. Buzzsprout has shared the top podcast 'agents' on their platform. Apple Podcasts accounts for just 47% of all plays and downloads, Spotify for 24.4%, and Google Podcasts is third with 2.4%. These are the lowest numbers yet for Apple Podcasts from a podcast host. (Libsyn's data only shows mobile app downloads, and has a higher percentage of US downloads).
November 9, 2020:
October 26, 2020:
October 23, 2020:
    The University of Canberra in Australia has released Podcast Trends and Issues in Australia and Beyond: Global Perspectives. It claims that 32% of Australian news consumers have listened to podcasts in the last month; and that 42% of Australian podcast listeners use YouTube to consume podcasts (Spotify at 33%, Apple at 21%, Google at 15%). It asked 692 podcast listeners in the country.
October 22, 2020:
    MIDiA has posted a survey claiming that Spotify is now the most widely used podcast platform. It says that 42% of podcast listeners use Spotify, with Apple at 32%, and Google Podcasts at an un-disclosed third place; and that 14% are weekly podcast users. The data covers the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany and France, weighted to country population size.
October 21, 2020:
    Google Podcasts is now the third-biggest podcast app. Libsyn's Rob Walch unveiled the company's download statistics in The Feed. It is, though, still five times smaller than Spotify, the #2. According to Libsyn, which gets 62% of its downloads from the US, total downloads to Pocket Casts dropped below 1%.
October 19, 2020:
October 16, 2020:
    Yesterday we mentioned that Google Assistant now has a setting for a podcast provider for your smart speaker and other services. Today, an eagle-eyed Redditor has spotted that you can now add Spotify podcasts as your default podcast service.
October 15, 2020:
    Google smart-speakers use Google Podcasts, as you'd guess. But what if you use Pocket Casts, or AntennaPod, or even Spotify? A new "podcasts" setting section has been spotted by AndroidPolice, enabling you to change the default podcast provider in Google Assistant in future.
October 14, 2020:
    Google has announced a new feature for Google Podcasts Manager. Podcasters can see how many times their show appeared in Google search, as well as top discovered episodes and search terms that led to their podcast. Podnews's podcast got 10,745 impressions in Search in the last 28 days (our website got 4.2m though). Google have also added optimisation tips for podcasters.
October 8, 2020:
October 1, 2020:
September 25, 2020:
September 23, 2020:
September 22, 2020:
    "Alexa, play news from Podnews", or "Hey, Google, play news from Podnews podcasting news" works too.
September 14, 2020:
September 10, 2020:
September 9, 2020:
September 4, 2020:
    Yesterday, we covered a US-only personalised news feature within Google Podcasts. If you're outside the US and on Android, you can hear a non-personalised version by a) using a VPN (like ProtonVPN) and connecting to a US server; b) opening Google Podcasts, hit your account image and choose "use without an account"; c) hit "Explore", go to "News", and pull down to refresh the view.
September 3, 2020:
August 31, 2020:
August 25, 2020:
    Super-exciting user-agent corner After we suggested it, Podlink is now correctly setting the useragent of its RSS crawler, greatly helping podcasters who use their universal links. PodTail has also set their own RSS crawler's useragent, thus allowing better monitoring of their browser-based podcast player; and universal link supplier Podfollow is also correctly setting their RSS user-agent after Podnews got in touch. Google Podcasts is also fixing a bug in its Android app, which we spotted was not giving a correct useragent for automated downloads. If our traffic is anything to go by, that means an extra 20% of downloads correctly attributed to Google Podcasts. Find all the useragents in this Github repo.
August 24, 2020:
August 21, 2020:

15,000th newsletter subscriber yesterday. That's a nice big number - as is 78,205 - the monthly users on our website (Google Analytics) - and 6,864, the amount of monthly listeners to our podcast (Chartable). Exciting. Thank you. Here's to the next 15,000!

August 20, 2020:
August 18, 2020:
    If that 240m downloads number includes all podcast listening for the BBC (it's a little unclear if BBC Sounds's podcast plays are included), that would mean an equivalent of 80m downloads per month, and would place it behind iHeartRadio, NPR and the New York Times in the Podtrac rankings. The BBC blocks Google Podcasts.
August 11, 2020:
August 10, 2020:
    Popular Android podcast app Podcast Addict, which we reported last week is the sixth biggest podcast app, has just reached 10m downloads on the Play Store.
August 6, 2020:
    Google Play Music's podcast portal will no longer accept new podcasts "in the next few weeks", according to an email from the company; and they'll be removing it entirely later in the year. You should be using Google Podcasts Manager instead.
August 5, 2020:
August 3, 2020:
    Libsyn report that Apple continues to be the #1 podcast app, accounting for 68.2% of mobile downloads. According to the podcast host, which is the largest paid podcast host in the world, Spotify is at 8.3% and Google Podcasts at just 1.3%. Sharing these figures on The Feed, Rob Walch adds: "The death of Apple Podcasts has been greatly over-stated".
July 31, 2020:
July 29, 2020:
July 27, 2020:
    This Podcast Does Not Exist is entirely, and randomly, produced by GPT-3, a language-generating artificial intelligence service. The text is then fed into Google's text-to-speech API. No humans are used, says its owner, James Potter from Rate This Podcast, other than checking it before publishing. We're all going to be replaced by computers!
July 24, 2020:
July 23, 2020:
July 20, 2020:
July 17, 2020:
    Podnews discovered in May that many Radio France podcasts also withhold their RSS feed address if you use the Apple API. At the time, Apple declined to confirm this or comment on how this was achieved.
July 15, 2020:
    Of interest: Google Pixel phones have a "Live Caption" feature that enable closed-captions for every podcast app (this is a clip of The New Media Show). You can turn this on using Settings > Accessibility. Nowhere near as good as a transcript, though.
July 10, 2020:
    Americans are spending less time listening to YouTube, according to new data from Edison Research. 6% fewer Americans used it 'last week' according to the data. Joe Rogan comes off the platform in September. YouTube Music, the company's Spotify competitor, is likely to replace Google Play Music later this year: and hopefully Google Play Music Podcasts will stop being a thing.
July 8, 2020:
    Exclusive: App company Maple Media, which purchased podcast app Player FM on Apr 30, has bought another: Android podcast app Podkicker. Podkicker has had more than 500,000 downloads (Player FM has more than 5 million). We're told a formal announcement is to be made in the coming weeks.
July 6, 2020:
    Podcast Junkies interviews Brenda Salinas Baker from Google in the latest episode. "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it useful. And that is why Google cares so much about the open web and the RSS ecosystem in podcasting."
July 3, 2020:
July 2, 2020:
June 30, 2020:
    Data: We earlier worked out that the BBC had 117m podcast downloads per month globally in Q1. The BBC iPlayer, the corporation's TV service, saw 570m UK-based stream requests in the month of May, according to a press release. The UK often appears towards the bottom of global podcast consumers: but Edison Research's Infinite Dial survey, which would give more comparable data, isn't compiled in the country.
June 26, 2020:
June 25, 2020:
June 23, 2020:
June 17, 2020:
    Google Podcasts' "subscribe" links occasionally change, if the system finds a better RSS feed to use - and that can break your existing links. The Urbanista 2.0 podcast's website, over here - a mental health podcast in Portuguese, focusing on a more meaningful life - has a brilliantly clever and simple idea for linking to Google Podcasts... link to a search instead. Allow us to steal that (we messed something up with our feed the other day, so our normal link doesn't currently work).
June 16, 2020:
June 15, 2020:
June 11, 2020:
    Transcripts of episodes are a good thing. They increase audience participation, help people find your show, and help people retain information: and, as one company tells us, transcripts significantly increase traffic from Google. However, some podcast directories are posting automated transcripts online: which isn't always welcomed by some podcasters. In a long-form piece of reporting today, Podnews looks at transcripts, why some podcasters want a bit more control of them, and asks who'll help fix all this. You'll find it linked in our episode notes and our newsletter - which is where our transcript is.
June 9, 2020:
    All Ears, a clippings service for spoken content, has raised US $760,000 in funding. The company claims it's operating close to break-even, and allows companies to monitor what's being said about them on TV, radio, podcasts and YouTube. One of their new customers is Walmart, a large US retailer.
June 4, 2020:
    The highest new entry at #7 is Últimas noticias de CNN en Español (from WarnerMedia), which is also on smart speaker news briefings. Us too: we're on Alexa and on Google Assistant.
June 2, 2020:
May 28, 2020:
    The Podcast Academy have posted an updated Board of Governors. Rob Greenlee from Libsyn has been confirmed as the Chair; governors include Conal Byrne from iHeartMedia, Ben Cave from Apple, Anya Grundmann from NPR and Courtney Holt from Spotify. The Board also includes podcast producers, talent agents, and studios. Google is absent.
May 27, 2020:
    "Podcast apps today still feel like hacked music players. Podcasts are great and open, but they’re also kind of stuck in the past." So says Morten Just, the author of as-yet unnamed podcast app, which breaks conventions by not allowing you to subscribe to shows, changes its look and feel for each show, and just plays a never-ending stream of podcasts. It has captions, uses Google to find more information about what you're listening to, a bookmarking system, and a service called "Mix With Music", which uses your own music service. Perhaps a worthy reinvention of the podcast app - or at least containing some neat ideas - it appears iOS only for now, and in private beta.
May 26, 2020:
May 22, 2020:
May 21, 2020:
May 19, 2020:
    Podcast Addict has returned to the Google Play app store today. The app had been suspended for linking to third-party podcasts about the coronavirus. Hiroshi Lockheimer, an SVP for Google, has posted on Twitter that "We are still sorting out kinks in our process as we combat Covid misinformation, but this app should not have been removed." The notification from Google Play asks the developer to "continue to monitor your app's content", and there appears to be no guarantee that the app won't be suspended for a fourth time for linking to third-party content.
May 18, 2020:
    The Google Play app store has suspended Podcast Addict, the most-reviewed Android podcast app, for having podcasts in it that mention the coronavirus. The note from Google says that content in the app about COVID-19 had not been approved by government entities or public health organisations. As Reclaim The Net reports, suspension of the app also immediately stops all ad revenue and all in-app payments; an appeal process takes at least seven days. Xavier Guillemane, the app's independent developer, tells Podnews: "I cannot believe that they would really want to ban the app for this reason", and points out that this policy should also apply to all web browsers, news apps and social networks. Existing users can continue to use the app.
May 15, 2020:
    Google's on the move - in an email to podcasters using the old Google Play Music Podcasts platform, Google have said that this service will no longer be accepting new podcasts from early July. (Use Google Podcasts Manager instead.)
May 13, 2020:
May 6, 2020:
May 5, 2020:
    Switching podcast hosts? Because Google Podcasts uses your RSS feed in its button, you'll also need to change your Google Podcasts badge or button on your website. The company tells Podnews that they "aim to automatically redirect a badge URL to the canonical feed soon". It follows the itunes:new-feed-url for your existing subscribers, though - so you'll not lose any.
May 4, 2020:
    Opinion: We like the QR codes, but the downside is, of course, than 80% of the world (and about 48% of the US) runs Android, for whom your Apple Podcasts link is not as helpful as one for Google Podcasts. So, our own podcast pages include badges and QR codes that work on all phones - search for your podcast, then find the page at the bottom marked link to this podcast. You can also download the code for your own website.
April 30, 2020:
April 29, 2020:
    Free podcast host Anchor has unveiled a new service to turn your online video chats into a podcast. The service appears to work on most video platforms including Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Google Meet and others. (Most digital audio editors also accept files from these services).
April 27, 2020:
April 24, 2020:
    Megaphone is apparently moving offices in Reston VA, USA, to a building looking like a sandcrawler from Star Wars. They'll join up to 1,500 salvaged droids the folks from Google, who are the anchor tenant.
April 20, 2020:
    Want to check your microphone is actually working properly before you connect to Zoom/SquadCast/Skype/Google Meet? Mic Check is a simple website that lets you "check yourself before you wreck yourself".
April 14, 2020:

A favour: we're testing something out. Please could you take a minute to follow this link to listen to us on Google Podcasts - on the app or on the web, that's both fine. Our podcast is only two minutes of your time - you could play it while you read the rest of this. Thank you!

April 13, 2020:
    Podcast Addict, a popular Android app, is to release a new version of their app today which allows listeners to review podcasts, as well as other new features. The app has also had over 500,000 ratings in the Play Store.
April 9, 2020:
    Yesterday, we got all excited after Libsyn's Rob Walch spotted that podcasts had been removed from Google Play Music's iOS app. Google tells us: "We actually have never had podcasts in Google Play Music on iOS." (We didn't know either.)
April 8, 2020:
    First spotted by Rob Walch on The Feed, Google Play Music appears to have finally removed podcasts from their iOS app. A note saying "for iPhone or iPad, podcasts are not available in the Google Play Music app" has also appeared on Google's help pages, though there's no helpful link to the Google Podcasts app, which has replaced it on iOS.
April 7, 2020:
April 6, 2020:
    Dolby On is a new audio recording app for Android devices which offers noise reduction, compression and limiting, dynamic EQ and other effects. It's in 'early access' on the platform.
April 3, 2020:
March 27, 2020:
March 26, 2020:
March 25, 2020:
March 24, 2020:
    Google Podcasts is getting a redesign. "The new Google Podcasts" is rolling out to a handful of users, prior to a wider release. It includes auto-downloading, and moves Google's recommendations to a new "Discover" tab. You can also queue podcast episodes for playback. The app has already been downloaded more than 10 million times.
March 23, 2020:
    We’ve made it easier to grab “listen link” code for your podcast’s website - HTML code you can copy and paste, which opens the right podcast app on someone’s phone or tablet. (And a way to get the proper Apple/Google/Spotify buttons). Here's an example for Reply All - just search for your podcast.
March 20, 2020:
March 19, 2020:
    Satire, thankfully, continues. News Fighters, an Australian news comedy clips podcast, is to double its output to weekly; Harry Shearer's Le Show is continuing as normal, he says; The Last Post will be produced by Alice Fraser from mandatory self-isolation in Australia when she arrives back tomorrow; A Rational Fear will be weekly via Google Hangouts; and longrunning Podnews favourite The Bugle will be "bugling through this", they've said on Facebook.
March 17, 2020:
March 13, 2020:
March 12, 2020:
    Google is podcasting. Apps, Games and Insights is a new podcast for developers and software companies. It went live on March 4th. (Libsyn)
March 11, 2020:
    Google Play Music Podcasts - a separate thing from Google Podcasts - is apparently no longer accepting submissions, according to Libsyn. Libsyn have removed their separate destination for the service. This might mean we might need to remove this website soon, too. Here's hoping.
March 10, 2020:
March 9, 2020:
    Ireland has only 4.8m people and 44% use iPhone: it's not inconceivable that it takes just one new subscription to get into the lower-half of an unpopular category like Arts. (Here's the patent for the Apple Podcast Charts, and more on podcast stats).
March 3, 2020:
February 28, 2020:
February 24, 2020:
February 20, 2020:
February 18, 2020:

Thank you to our many personal supporters, including Karin Hoegh, for your ongoing support. You helped us fix a bug with our 'link direct to an episode' page if - as in this case - the podcast isn't on Google Podcasts.

February 12, 2020:
    We've discovered that HubHopper, an Indian podcast app and website, is altering and republishing public podcast RSS feeds. This has the effect of spamming Google Podcasts (which is already listing these copies in preference to some official podcast feeds), and at least for our podcast, our full show notes have been removed, our category altered, links added to their website instead of ours, and an additional click-counter added to our audio links. Other companies have done similar things in the past, but quickly stopped. HubHopper have not responded to our emails for comment.
February 11, 2020:
February 10, 2020:
    If your podcast host isn't hosting its audio on a secure server (that uses https:// at the beginning) then be aware that any embedded audio player will fail in October this year: Google Chrome will block non-HTTPS audio in embedded players once Chrome gets to v86. We've added a test for this in our podcast pages.
February 7, 2020:
February 6, 2020:
    Might we also recommend "Hey, Google - play the latest from Podnews podcasting news", which is quite good too.
February 4, 2020:
February 3, 2020:
    Popular iOS podcast app Overcast has had an update, including a rebuilt Voice Boost function, which boosts the volume of podcasts to make them easier to hear. It promises a significantly better-sounding "boost" to podcasts, and normalises all podcasts to -14 LUFS, a level that developer Marco Arment claims "closely matches the volume of Siri and most iOS turn-by-turn navigation voices". (Google Podcasts? Please licence this. Thanks.)
January 30, 2020:
January 24, 2020:
    Entale, the visually augmented podcast player, has launched an Android version of their podcast app. It's in the Google Play store now. They've also launched their first "Entale Original", a show called 'Making The Cut', hosted by TV presenters Davina McCall and Michael Douglas.
January 23, 2020:
January 20, 2020:
January 17, 2020:
    Have you ever wondered how the Apple Podcast Charts worked? Today we link to its patent application from Apple, filed in 2006. Computing popularity based upon subscriptions appears to contain all the information we already know about the chart: that it's based upon subscriptions not downloads, and that more recent subscriptions count for more in the chart than older ones (that's the equation you can see in the excerpt above). The patent application, which has been abandoned, may not be the method that Apple now uses to calculate the charts, which seem to have been significantly strengthened since there was evidence of manipulation in mid 2018.
January 16, 2020:
    Google is to phase out user-agent strings in Chrome, and other browsers have said they will follow. User agents are used in podcasting to spot which platform is playing the audio; this won't affect that.
January 15, 2020:
January 14, 2020:
    The GeekWire podcast has, in a recent edition, a discussion about the future of podcasting. Taking part: Phyllis Fletcher, senior editor for podcasts at American Public Media; Steve Henn, the head of content strategy for audio news at Google; David Payne, the president of Rainstream Media; and Amira Valliani, CEO and co-founder of Glow.
January 13, 2020:
January 10, 2020:
January 8, 2020:
January 3, 2020:
    Good news: Google Podcasts on the web appears to have changed its error message for podcasts that don't exist: reverting to a standard Google error (though unfortunately with an HTTP 200 OK header). Searching the 300KB (!) of HTML returned for <title>Error 404 seems to have the required effect. We've added our check back to our podcast pages, and our podcast availability overview.
January 1, 2020:
December 25, 2019:
    Google Podcasts is working on a number of new features, which 9to5google has worked out how to enable. Coming "soon", kind of, maybe, is a "History" tab, so you know what you've been listening to; a play queue (so you can choose what's coming up next); and auto-downloads (first spotted in January).
December 23, 2019:
    Podfollow, a free URL that redirects your listeners to the right podcast app on their device (Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, your website) has just had its 1,000,000th click thru. The service now offers free stats as well as automatic social images and has announced more features in the new year.
December 20, 2019:
December 19, 2019:
December 16, 2019:
    Transistor has published Google Play and Google Podcasts – what's the difference?, noting that, after 18 months, a Google search for "how do I submit my podcast to Google Podcasts?" returns instructions for Google Play Music Podcasts, which is a different and competing service that the company is still running.
December 13, 2019:
December 11, 2019:
December 10, 2019:
    Google Assistant has added a new podcast discovery feature - listening to podcasts by topic. "OK, Google, find a podcast about podcasting news" is particularly good. It returns a list on displays, and plays podcasts on phones. This is an enhancement of a feature first launched in early August on the Google search engine.
December 9, 2019:
    Pakman chose to make this announcement in a monetised YouTube video. For the record: YouTube tracks viewers in many ways and has access to a viewer's full Google Account, including, theoretically, cross-linking data about the ads they've seen, the websites they've visited, the locations they've physically visited, their internet search history, their emails, their names, addresses and telephone numbers, and that of their friends.
December 6, 2019:
    Acast have opened new offices in Dublin, at least one room of which appears to have a tree inside it. Micheál Scully has been hired as Key Account Director: he joins from Google and DoneDeal. He'll work with Jennifer Dollard, who is Podcast Manager for Ireland.
December 4, 2019:
    There are more than 700,000 podcasts, but only 15% are making money - according to Podcorn, a new self-service advertising platform which has launched today. Podcorn promises to "streamline podcaster discovery and provide the tools to run native podcast ads at scale". The product has a good ancestor - it has been built by the founders of FameBit, a service which allowed YouTubers to connect with brands: Google thought it was so good, they bought it.
December 2, 2019:
November 27, 2019:
    Google Podcasts has more than doubled in the past year, up from 0.91% last December. (Google Play Music Podcasts, an unconnected and competing Google-branded podcast player, is still confusingly available).
November 25, 2019:
    Opinion: It's generally expected by publishers that a podcast app won't edit the audio (or make other "derivative works"). This is the second such app covered by Podnews this month that does so. "Copyright infringement" seems a big phrase to use in this case; but I'm not entirely comfortable with other people cutting my podcast up. Some publishers want a little more control.
November 21, 2019:
    Google has announced an alternative for the daily news briefing service on Google Assistant ("Hey, Google, Play Me The News") - "Your News Update" offers a personalised mix of individual stories from publishers instead. It has initially launched in the US. This is bad news for some podcasters, who have got significant traffic from the older News Briefings service.
November 12, 2019:
November 8, 2019:
    Google Podcasts has had a small tweak, reports Android Police, enabling multple episode select. You'll need to be running the latest beta of the Google app to see it. The product still has no automated downloads.
November 5, 2019:
    The Asia Podcast Summit has an event this Friday at Google Singapore. Get your free ticket today - literally, today - to get in.
November 4, 2019:
    TuneIn has lost a major court case in the UK. Brought by two large record companies, the ruling given was that TuneIn is unlawfully linking to international radio stations that do not have UK music licences. Under copyright law, music licences are required in each country where content is consumed. TuneIn is currently the default podcast service for Amazon Alexa smart speakers, and the default radio service for both Amazon and Google.
November 1, 2019:
October 31, 2019:
October 25, 2019:
October 24, 2019:
    Google Podcasts was launched 16 months ago. We note with a small degree of exasperation that Google Play Music Podcasts, an entirely different product, is still going: confusing podcast publishers every day who don't understand the difference.
October 23, 2019:
October 22, 2019:
    Long Distance, the first and only documentary podcast series about stories in the Filipino diaspora - and part of the inaugural Google Podcasts creator program with PRX - returns for a new season shortly and drops a new trailer today. (Simplecast)
October 21, 2019:
October 17, 2019:
    Sounder - "the smarter way to podcast" - has launched. The podcast host offers free hosting, transcription, in-audio search, and analytics to help grow your audience; it also offers an audio search technology called P inpoint Audio Search to help searching through a publisher's podcasts. It's launched by former executives from Google, Spotify, WeWork and others.
October 16, 2019:
    A few small tweaks to Google Podcasts on the web have been spotted. Most importantly, the service is now prominently linking to publishers' websites (rather than hidden behind a menu option as previously). (Neither Apple Podcasts nor Spotify appear to link to publisher websites at all, depriving podcasters of potential revenue).
October 15, 2019:
    Plink, a service that makes smart-links to podcasts that work on any device, has unveiled a way of sharing episode-level deep-links. Their blog contains more information, with an excellently-chosen example of a podcast.
October 8, 2019:
    Apple's also highlighted Search the Audio, the Apple Podcasts feature which searches transcripts, much like Google also does. This has been live for a few weeks for some select podcasts, but has not been highlighted in this way. This highlight appears in the iOS app after updating to iOS 13.1.2.
October 7, 2019:
October 4, 2019:
    Steven Goldstein reviews the Amazon Echo Auto. "I was able to resume the podcast from where I left off on my home Echo device later", he writes - a feature Google has had for the past year - and adds: "It is exciting and empowering to be able to call upon any podcast especially if you did not place it in the queue of your smartphone ahead of your ride."
September 30, 2019:
    YouTube Music is to be preinstalled on all new Android phones. This means that Google Play Music will no longer be, and gives a further reason to stop promoting the dormant service for podcast use. The (different) Google Podcasts player is pre-installed in all phones, but the app itself still doesn't, it seems, come as standard.
September 23, 2019:
September 19, 2019:
September 18, 2019:
September 17, 2019:
    Listen Notes has announced that its Listen Alerts service (Google Alerts, but for podcasts) will be a paid-for service from 1 October. The fee will be US$5/month for every five alerts.
September 13, 2019:
September 12, 2019:
    Produced in Spanish from Chile, Las Raras starts their fourth season today, with stories of migration, online harassment, and natural disasters. They were the only Spanish-language project selected for the first round of the Google Podcasts Creator Program; the podcast tells stories of freedom about people who resist norms and challenge the status quo.
September 11, 2019:
    Exclusive: The amount of listening to podcasts on the web is increasing, according to new data supplied to Podnews by Simplecast. The data represents all Simplecast shows, and shows plays from Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts on the web. "Many podcast hosts would just credit 'web browsers' with this data," said Stephen Hallgren, CTO of Simplecast. "But because Simplecast is able to check HTTP referrers, we're also able to see how successful Apple Podcasts Preview is on the web, and how popular Google Podcasts plays are within Google Search. All these metrics are IAB compliant and are reportable through our Audience dashboard."
September 9, 2019:
September 6, 2019:
    There's an election coming up in Canada: one that's quite close. Party Lines, a new podcast from the CBC, launched yesterday - attempting to explain the whole thing. Hosted by Rosemary Barton (The National) and Elamin Abdelmahmoud (BuzzFeed News), here's a little peek. (CBC News / CBC Podcasts / Triton Digital)
August 28, 2019:
    The BBC is launching its own voice assistant. Dubbed "Beeb" - a popular nickname for the organisation - it gives the broadcaster more control over BBC consumption, "without someone else’s permission to build it in a certain way". It will cope with UK regional accents, and will be built-in to the BBC's website and apps. Tech journalist Dieter Bohn likes it - "Imagine if the BBC or NPR could make a voice interface for their respective content that worked as well as, say, a web page."
August 27, 2019:
    New figures for smart speaker sales have been released. Amazon appears to be the leader; Baidu is the #2 most popular smart speaker, despite only being available in China. Google is #3. (The figures include separate smart speakers only, rather than Google Assistant-enabled devices).
August 23, 2019:
August 22, 2019:
    Apple Podcasts appear to have turned on transcript search in their beta podcast apps. A search for "Google Pixel" appears to return a bunch of podcasts that have mentioned the device (albeit mainly in ad copy). Daniel J Lewis says that transcription search has been available for a while for select shows, but that they may have enabled it for many more.
August 21, 2019:
August 20, 2019:
August 16, 2019:
    Podcast Movement wraps up later today. Our Editor is presenting a session on Google Podcasts (10.00am, Gatlin E6).
August 13, 2019:
August 9, 2019:
    Google have officially announced that podcast episodes will now appear in Google Search for users searching in the US in English. "We’ll soon add the ability for publishers to specify a playback destination, such as a third-party website or app," the announcement says - perhaps for companies like the BBC and Radio France who deliberately blocked Google Podcasts.
August 8, 2019:
    Dave Zohrob from Chartable has spotted a new section in Google search - a podcast episode search result, complete with play buttons, which appeared on a desktop Google search for "podcast charts". We see it too, but only in an incognito window for some reason.
August 7, 2019:
    Google Podcasts has updated its web interface, unfortunately breaking the ability for podcast hosts (or us) to check whether podcasts are correctly listed in the platform. We've removed those checks from our podcast pages.
July 29, 2019:
    Timestorm, a podcast selected for the initial PRX Google Podcasts creator program, launches this week. It's an audio fiction podcast with two twelve year-old twins who travel through time to save Puerto Rico's true history. (Cocotazo Media)
July 26, 2019:
July 22, 2019:
    Google have added an 'Assistant Card' to help you resume the podcast you were listening to earlier. The cards appear on Android phones. You can also say "Hey, Google, resume my podcast" on any Google Assistant powered thing, like a speaker or a phone, to continue listening.
July 17, 2019:
    A minority shareholder of Libsyn says it has succeeded in forcing the company to convene a special meeting. Camac, which owns 6.5% of Libsyn, wants to replace the board of directors and change the company's corporate governance. Shares in Libsyn closed up almost 5% yesterday on the news, at a five year high. (Don't worry, though - people called Rob are expected not to be affected by this news).
July 15, 2019:
    Exclusive: If you're seeing podcasts downloaded by a user-agent called googlebot-video - Google have confirmed that this useragent is used to index audio for all Google products including Google Podcasts. "The audio is used as a signal for ranking and recommendation," said Zack Reneau-Wedeen to us. They've told us they plan to update their developer's guide. (You should probably categorise it as a bot).
July 10, 2019:
    Spotify Lite has been released for Android phones. It's a cut-down version of the app, built for slower phones and poorer networks, and is available in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Conspicuously absent from any publicity, and from the Google Play listing - any mention of podcasts. (Thanks to Dean who installed it, we can confirm that podcast aren't in this version.)
July 9, 2019:
July 8, 2019:
    Users of the brand new Google Pixel 3a? No, the Google Podcasts app is not pre-installed on the phone. The player is, as it is with all Android phones.
July 5, 2019:
    The BBC Sounds app has been upgraded to add CarPlay and Android Auto support. "We've also taken the opportunity to reset our rating in the Apple App Store as today's BBC Sounds experience is very different from the one people would have had when we soft-launched it a year ago", said James Purnell in an all-staff email, seen by Podnews. The rating for the app was just 2.1 stars before this reset, with the majority of reviews, 52%, only giving the app 1 star out of five. After the reset, the app had 4.3 stars at the time of going to press. You can't reset Google Play ratings: the Android app there has 2.5 stars (ratings are weighted for recency).
July 4, 2019:
    The Yoast SEO plugin was a bad idea for podcasters until now, because it deliberately blocked search engines from seeing your RSS feeds (and so you'd never get into Google Podcasts). After many reports, this has now been fixed in v11.7
July 1, 2019:
June 27, 2019:
    Rob Walch from Libsyn has released the latest download figures for podcasts hosted on Libsyn on mobile apps: Apple Podcasts 59.9%; Spotify 10%; Overcast: 2.9%; Castbox 2.5%; Stitcher 2%; Podcast Addict 1.6%; Google 1.3% and Pocketcast 1.2%. This is the first time, he notes, that Apple have slipped below 60%. (Libsyn's podcasts aren't all in Spotify, incidentally.) You can hear commentary on this in The Feed.
June 24, 2019:
June 20, 2019:
June 17, 2019:
    Enterprise podcast host ART19 has made a number of updates to their service, including a setting that allows publishers to block their podcast from appearing in Google Podcasts. (We spoke with a few publishers at Podcast Day - and it sounds like some want to remove podcast play buttons from appearing within Google search, while still allowing them in Google Podcasts itself. This option, however, would entirely remove podcasts from all Google products).
June 13, 2019:
    Podcast Day 2019 is underway in London. The event is sold out, and includes speakers from NPR, the BBC's Brexitcast, Google, Podnews and many more.
June 4, 2019:
    Apple also announced that podcast progress will be synched between devices, and the availability of full-text transcript search. (Google already offers both these features). Craig Federighi, SVP Software Engineering, announced it in the main keynote (about 1h45 in):
May 30, 2019:
    Podcast Movement has announced that Scholarship Applications are now open, for "brand new, or yet-to-launch, podcasters who LOVE podcasting , APPRECIATE this community, and have never been to Podcast Movement before". The event organisers have also announced 29 new speakers (including many Podnews readers). We'll be there.
May 23, 2019:
    We built this for ourselves - but if you want to link direct to a podcast episode, our episode link pages now use "magic links" that open directly in Apple Podcasts (on iPhone), Google Podcasts (on Android), or a web player. Here's an episode about a haunted school in Brisbane from the Brisbane is Weird podcast, as one example. Search for your podcast in Podnews, and choose "Link direct to an episode" from the tools at the bottom to find a list of episodes.
May 22, 2019:
    Omny Studio has rolled out full support for WebSub, so podcasters using the platform will see new episodes appearing instantly in podcast apps that support it, like Google Podcasts or Swoot. Podcast host Megafono also supports the WebSub standard.
May 16, 2019:
    If you use Yoast, the Powerpress plugin released three weeks ago has a fix for Yoast's behaviour to tell Google not to index your RSS feed, thus messing with (if not always entirely stopping) Google Podcasts from finding you.
May 15, 2019:
    Spotify has launched Soundtrap, a browser-based podcast editing suite. Offering editing, transcription, and some additional audio processing features, the software costs US$15/month and has been compared to "Google Docs for podcasting". Spotify purchased Soundtrap at the end of 2017. We've had a short play and it seems remarkably capable. (Of note - it should work on a Chromebook, opening podcasting up to a whole new set of people including education).
May 13, 2019:
    We've been trying to understand the rationale behind Google's placement of the podcast play buttons in their search, rolled out to desktop and iOS devices last week. A search for Podnews (now) correctly shows play buttons underneath our website, but that's not the case for a search for Fun Kids Book Club Podcast, which despite doing everything technically correct, doesn't show any play buttons - which are attached to its Apple Podcasts page a little further down. Here are some more examples - we'd be grateful for your comments as to why. (In our mind: if the web-page unambiguously links to the RSS feed and vice-versa, that should be the signal for Google to put them together).
May 10, 2019:
May 9, 2019:
    Google appears to have rolled-out podcast results in their main desktop search, complete with a link to the play buttons. Spotted by Bababam Audio's Pierre Orlac'h, we've been able to replicate this from Canadian, Australian and Swedish IP addresses. Steven Goldstein showed Podnews that it also works from iPhones (and plays the audio within Google's web player). The play buttons aren't appearing in searches from the UK, though - an attempt by Google to placate the BBC?
May 8, 2019:
    Speaking at Google I/O, the developer conference for Google, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that podcasts will appear in Google search across all platforms: and a new feature, "play later", will allow listeners to queue interesting podcasts for their phone or speaker. He was higlighting the slate of work for the next twelve months.
May 7, 2019:
    Yesterday, we focused on how podcast apps display show notes in over 40 apps. Today, Luminary's Joe Purzycki, the company's Chief Strategy Officer, announced that Luminary is now displaying links in shownotes in their apps. The update to the Android app is already live, and now shows links and formatting in the "my shows" episode view (though not in the playback view). The company has also apologised "for our short-sightedness", fixed an error in podcast attribution, and is asking for feedback. (We've updated our scores - this pushes their score up to 11, roughly similar to Apple or Google).
May 6, 2019:
April 30, 2019:
    Meanwhile, a Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter claims that Spotify, a Swedish company, is publishing an extreme right-wing podcast, Vita Pillret ("White Pill"). The podcast is also available on Apple and Google, and is run by an organisation called Nordic Alt-Right: we'd note it's classified in Apple as "comedy", and calls itself "a family friendly show". (We list it too.)
April 29, 2019:
    Radiodays Europe's Podcast Day has announced their first set of speakers, including founder of Google Podcasts Zack Reneau-Wedeen, and Andrew Davies from ABC Audio Studios Australia. The event is in London UK on 13 June. Podnews is a media partner - and we’ll be there too.
April 26, 2019:
April 24, 2019:
    Libsyn's The Feed usually contains some nice stats. In the latest show, for March, 62% of Libsyn's podcasts were downloaded from Apple Podcasts; 9.6% from Spotify, and 2.8% from Overcast (with Google Podcasts at #8, with 1.2%). (Fewer than 40% of Libsyn shows are available on Spotify).
April 23, 2019:
    Available in Canada, the UK, Australia and the US, Luminary is priced at US$7.99/month (but a third cheaper for Australians oddly). We tested the website with a Brazilian IP address, where Luminary is not supported: every page, even for free podcasts, forwards to a page explaining Luminary is unavailable. (Add ?country=US to the end of the URL).
April 19, 2019:
    The Wondery/UMG announcement we reported on yesterday might have something to do with the disappearance of some Wondery podcasts, including One Plus One's exploration of the relationship between Lennon and McCartney, and the Death Row Records vs Bad Boy Records episodes of Business Wars. The reason? Music rights.
April 18, 2019:
April 16, 2019:
    Google Podcasts appears to have many BBC podcasts back again: this time, via republished RSS feeds on Feedburner. Meantime, explore topics you have listened to is a new section of the app, leading you to Google searches about podcast topics you've listened to, and an auto-generated popular with listeners of Podnews panel appears to suggest... well, we're not sure what to think.
April 11, 2019:
    Apple Podcasts is now available on the web, with a brand new web interface. The pages are responsive, and work on desktop and on Android phones. All these new pages are already indexed within a Google search, including specific episode pages, the first time that podcast episode pages have surfaced in search.
April 10, 2019:
    The BBC's podcasts reappeared in Google Podcasts late last week, as we reported. We expressed doubt that it was deliberate; they've mostly disappeared, again, from the app. The BBC's press office haven't responded to our request for comment.
April 8, 2019:
April 4, 2019:
    Some BBC podcasts are back in Google Podcasts following a spat last week: a search for BBC Womans Hour, for example, finds the podcast within the app. However, a closer look reveals that the RSS feed, and others like it, is being re-published by the BBC's advertising partner Acast, and the BBC's block is still in place. It's not clear whether this is a deliberate move.
April 3, 2019:
    Google Podcasts is to get a sleep timer, says 9to5google, who have examined the code in the new beta version of the Google app.
April 2, 2019:
    Google Podcasts is building a way for content owners to claim their podcasts in the Google Podcasts catalogue, and Google are working on an analytics dashboard for all partners, said Steve Henn, Content Lead for News on Assistant, Google, at Radiodays Europe. "We approach our Google Podcast service just like (spidering) the web," he said, pointing out that all publishers are already getting consumption data from their servers. On BBC vs Google, he said that Google's approach has been to make it as easy as possible to search for a podcast and play it. However, he said the BBC has said they would prefer search to be directed towards BBC Sounds. He said that Google has more work to do in order to facilitate their needs and they want to understand from the BBC what they want. "If people want to listen to a BBC podcast, we want to get them there as fast as we can." He added that Google and the BBC are talking.
April 1, 2019:
    Is everyone happy that Google Podcasts is now transcribing podcasts? Some have doubts.
March 28, 2019:
    A comedy podcast app, Laughable, available on iOS for two years, has just launched on Android. The app uses profiles, so you can follow comedians' own podcasts and where they've been a guest. Once you subscribe to your favorite people and shows, Laughable keeps you current on future episodes, too – including people's guest appearances. The developer tells us that no other podcast app is more highly rated in Apple's App Store (scoring 4.9/5 after 3,600 reviews).
March 27, 2019:
    In a blog post, the BBC has given more details about its decision to block Google from cataloguing its podcasts. We've updated our story with the details, as well as a comparison between the Android/Google and iOS/Apple experience, which seem similar.
March 26, 2019:
March 25, 2019:
March 22, 2019:
March 21, 2019:
    Google is prepping a web version of Google Podcasts that works on desktop and on iOS devices: and the player is already live. Here's our podcast in Google Podcasts - on (any) Android phone, it opens the pre-installed Google Podcasts player as normal, while on iPhone or desktop, it now opens a web player. 9to5Google reports that it also syncs playback position to your Google account (and you can ask your Google smart speaker to "resume my podcast"). Still work in progress, it lacks any search, a method of subscribing, downloads, or a front page as yet.
March 20, 2019:
    Australians love their smart speakers: 29.3% of all Australians have access to one, which is the highest percentage in the world - beating even the US. Google Home has dominant market share of over 68%; and 55% of Aussies use their smart speakers for podcasts. New data from Voicebot·ai, who released its Australia Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report 2019
March 19, 2019:
March 18, 2019:
    Our podcast pages now include direct links to Stitcher. We've also updated our podcast availability snapshot to include Stitcher links. As at publication time, Google Podcasts lists virtually everybody; Spotify has about 75% of the most recently published podcasts; and just under half are in Stitcher.
March 12, 2019:
    Promised by end Friday last week, the Google Podcasts app is still rolling out its "episode search", and it is not yet visible to all users. It's supposed to search through episode transcripts; but as far as we can see - we have it - it just appears to be a text search through episode show notes. If you have a search result that is demonstrably using transcripts, we'd love to know: updates@podnews.net
March 11, 2019:
    Spotify, the #2 podcast platform, will be pre-installed in new Samsung phones, it's been announced. (The Google Podcasts app is not even pre-installed on Google's own Pixel phones, though the player is).
March 7, 2019:
    Infinite Dial 2019 also reports on an increase for smart speaker owners. 23% of US adults (65 million people) claim to own a smart speaker, with Amazon Echo being the leading brand, and Apple Homepod doing very poorly. VentureBeat reports that Apple is hiring an analyst to explain Siri complaints to executives, which doesn't sound like a good thing. (Editor's note: careful when comparing products - like Google Home - with services - like Google Assistant, which is in many more devices).
March 6, 2019:
    At the RAIN Podcast Business Summit, Google's Zack Reneau-Wedeen announces that Google Podcasts will have search results for episodes by the end of the week. Episode results are supported in all languages, and for many languages works by analysing automatically generated transcripts. This feature was first spotted within the app's code in July last year.
February 28, 2019:
    Google speakers have voice integration with Google Podcasts, of course; "Hey, Google, resume my podcast" will continue listening to whatever it is that you were listening to on the app on your phone. Google Podcasts disappeared last week from Android Auto; then it reappeared; now it's disappeared again. The good folk of Reddit aren't happy.
February 27, 2019:
    Google Assistant's voices are getting an upgrade in most countries. You can go and listen to the new, higher quality voices on the Google developer website, and learn more at Wavenet's website.
February 26, 2019:
    The RAIN Podcast Business Summit is next Tuesday in New York NY, USA, focusing on Unlocking the podcast mainstream. There are great speakers, including Google's Zack Reneau-Wedeen, NPR's Joel Sucherman, and Edison Research's Tom Webster. We'll be there, and you can be too - this Podnews-exclusive link will give you 50% off the ticket price.
February 22, 2019:
    Apple Podcasts appears to have a branded embedded player, called the "Mezzanine Player Prototype". This player - designed to be embedded in a web-page - was sent to us as part of a press release. Of interest - the audio is hosted by Apple and is available in both MP3 and OGG varieties. A Google search reveals it's been used for Beats 1 video clips as well.
February 21, 2019:
    Google Podcasts has mysteriously disappeared from Android Auto, report a number of annoyed Redditors (and your editor).
February 20, 2019:
    Since Spotify, Google Podcasts and others default to streaming (rather than downloading), does that matter? It sure does if mobile data costs a lot. Today, we went to look for the price of mobile data across the world - and found some astonishing differences between countries. A deal in India for $5.50 a month is twice as good as a deal costing $147 per month in Canada. (Coincidentally - podcasting appears to be growing fastest in India).
February 18, 2019:
    Want to find out if you're in Google Podcasts, or to get some decent buttons or social media links for your podcast? Perhaps you're in the Apple Charts in Turkmenistan and you don't know about it. Just search for your podcast, and find more details there.
February 11, 2019:
    The Bootcamp for the Google Podcasts creator program has kicked off. The participants are, for twenty weeks, working on answering a fundamental question: "What unique need can we identify, and how can we use our podcast to meet that need in a meaningful way?"
February 6, 2019:
    A preliminary schedule for the RAIN Podcast Business Summit, in New York NY next month, is highlighted in RAIN. (James Cridland, our editor, is moderating a panel on analytics.)
February 5, 2019:
    Apple's quarterly financial figures now include total active users on iPhone: there are 900m globally (and therefore 900m installations of Apple Podcasts). Analyst Benedict Evans estimates 2.5bn Google Android phones (which all have the Google Podcasts player installed, if not the full app), and a further 600m in China.
February 4, 2019:
    Google is shutting Google+, their social media network, shortly. (You might want to go there, leave a final message, and then grab anything you want to save).
January 31, 2019:
January 30, 2019:
January 29, 2019:
    Beginner's Guides to Getting Into Podcasts are two-a-penny online, and we don't normally link to them. Unless they're from the New York Times. It contains recommendations from many different writers. (They recommend Google Play Music as an Android app, though, which is disappointing - and shows how far Google Podcasts has to go to market itself.)
January 28, 2019:
January 23, 2019:
    TuneIn, a radio stream and podcast aggregator, claims total listening hours were up 31% in 2018. They're the default for Amazon Alexa's podcast experience; and the default for both Amazon and Google speakers for live radio. Not on Tunein? Add your podcast here.
January 18, 2019:
    Last week, we noted that Google Podcasts is beginning to appear in Android Auto, the car navigation and entertainment system from Google. As this update rolls out, it seems that Google Podcasts is visible to every Android Auto user (irrespective of whether they've installed the "app"). Google Play says that Android Auto has over 10,000,000 installations, ten times that of the Google Podcasts app.
January 16, 2019:
    Google is discontinuing its Chromecast Audio product, a method of adding connected audio to decent hifi speakers. (The Podnews office has two in daily use.) While the Amazon Echo Dot has a 3.5mm jack that could replace it, the Google Home Mini does not. Meanwhile, over a million people (in the US) have pre-ordered an Amazon Alexa Auto: Google Assistant is already in all cars with Android Auto.
January 15, 2019:

To every American who sent us a correction yesterday: Thank you, you were right, it's "closed captioning". We were close, though...

January 14, 2019:
    Closed-captioning is coming to Google Podcasts: a forthcoming version of the app will include the option to produce an automatic live transcript on-screen, enabled with a "CC" button - good for noisy places or for those with hearing difficulties. Website 9to5google have enabled the feature on the beta version of the Google app, and report that it works well. Also, the new app will highlight major items in the show notes and offer search terms to learn more. New features prepped in beta versions can take months to arrive, though.
January 11, 2019:
    There's widespread anger at an announcement that a popular BBC podcast, Fortunately, is going to be made exclusive to BBC Sounds, the broadcaster's new audio app. It means that the podcast, which isn't aired on radio, will no longer be available on other services like Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. There's concern that because the BBC Sounds app is unavailable outside the UK, overseas listeners may be unable to listen.
January 9, 2019:
January 8, 2019:
    Yesterday, we reported that Amazon have sold 100m "Alexa devices". By way of comparison, Google Assistant claims "nearly 1bn installs", and that active users have quadrupled (though they won't tell how many active users they have).
January 7, 2019:
January 4, 2019:
    Unlike some other hosts, Transistor's SSL implementation correctly forwards from http:// to https:// and doesn't produce two duplicate websites or feeds, which Google explicitly warns against.
December 28, 2018:
    "Most would classify [Google Podcasts] as a big disappointment", says the report, placing the app at #5, and noting that Android is responsible for only 23.7% of all podcast listens (and smart speakers just 1.3%). Spotify, the company's data shows, is a strong second - responsible for 25% of the downloads of Apple Podcasts.
December 18, 2018:
    Is it radio, or is it a podcast? argues Francisco Izuzquiza. The Google Translate of this article includes the excellent phrase "Let's turn this omlette around".
December 14, 2018:
December 12, 2018:
    Apple, Google and Spotify have yet to comment about whether they'll support RAD. It's fairly clear that Overcast's Marco Arment won't: he commented earlier this year that "Big data ruined the web, and I’m not going to help bring it to podcasts. Publishers already get enough from Apple to inform ad rates and make content decisions — they don’t need more data from my customers. Podcasting has thrived, grown, and made tons of money for tons of people under the current model for over a decade. We already have all the data we need."
December 10, 2018:
December 7, 2018:
    Google is trialling a news radio station - kind of - on your smart speaker. The company is planning an equivalent to NPR One, which lets you flick between individual news stories. It's unclear what this means for short-form podcasts currently available on Google's News Briefing; and may be where the 60dB team ended up.
December 6, 2018:
December 4, 2018:
December 3, 2018:
    The Google Podcasts app is preparing an 'episode search' feature, allowing you to search within episodes (presumably, search the show notes for guests and topics discussed). The feature was first seen in the source code in July.
November 26, 2018:
    Podnews has a podcast. It's this, every day, in audio form. Find it in your news briefing settings for the Amazon Echo or Google Assistant, too.
November 23, 2018:
    If you own a Google Chromecast device for your TV, you can now add this to a synchronised group with your Google-powered speakers to listen to podcasts in every room in the house. Meanwhile, "OK, Google, play faster" now works for podcast listening ifyourbraincandealwithit.
November 21, 2018:
November 20, 2018:
November 19, 2018:

Daily updates in your ears: find Podnews in your Amazon Alexa's news briefing section (Alexa app > menu > settings > flash briefing), or in Google's news services (Google Home app > profile > settings > services > news). Or, in your podcast app.

November 13, 2018:
    Google Play has opened voting for their fan favorite apps. Castbox is the only podcasting app in the running, and they'd like your vote, please. (In some countries, this is called "User's Choice Awards"; it's in the Google Play store).
November 12, 2018:
November 9, 2018:
    We reported that Apple had removed a crypto podcast, Off The Chain, from their platform on Nov 7th. Was it censorship? Well, the author tag was the spammy and keyword-stuffed Anthony Pompliano: Fund Manager Investing in Crypto (Blockchain, Crypto Assets, Tokens, Digital Assets) which was against Apple Podcast guidelines. It's now been changed to simply Anthony Pompliano, and it's now listed again.
November 8, 2018:
November 7, 2018:
    Google Podcasts has added a "share" option, available in the menu. This allows listeners to share both podcasts and also individual episodes - so here's a link to our podcast yesterday. The additional episode field is a base64-encoded version of the episode GUID (which is, in our case, also the episode's URL).
November 1, 2018:
    We've updated our Google Podcasts FAQ, with a new video showing the app and player working, better explanations, and even some PHP code.
October 30, 2018:
    Waze has launched a new 'audio player', a way of listening to audio while using the app to avoid traffic on your commute. In addition to Spotify, the partner list includes Pandora, Deezer, TuneIn, and podcast platform Stitcher. Google Maps added Spotify a few weeks ago (but not Google Podcasts, because...).
October 29, 2018:
October 26, 2018:
    Google Podcasts broke for some users. This happened to your Editor, too, who is opted-in to the beta version of the Google app. To fix it, I de-registered from the beta version of the app, and reinstalled it. (Beta versions include bugs: that's kind of the point).
October 18, 2018:
    Podcast SEO is often forgotten about - this is a (very) comprehensive guide from Carey Green.
October 16, 2018:
    OzPod returns tomorrow in Melbourne VIC, Australia. All sessions are being recorded for release later. Speakers include Zack Reneau-Wedeen from Google, and Podnews's Editor, James Cridland. Watch #ozpod2018 for live updates.
October 15, 2018:
October 12, 2018:
    Google wants to make Google Podcasts easier. The company is working on "simplifying the process" for being listed in Google Podcasts, says Zack Reneau-Wedeen. Meanwhile, Google Podcasts has quietly added a "trim silences" feature: you'll find it under the playback speed settings.
October 10, 2018:
    Tip: We've observed that Google Podcasts doesn't like it if you put a different RSS feed in your website to the one you give to iTunes: even the https bit at the front might need to be identical. We've updated our guide on How To Get Into Google Podcasts accordingly. A number of podcast hosts are linking to http versions of RSS feeds on websites while giving Apple iTunes https versions; and these are not being correctly indexed within Google Podcasts; we've found many examples of Google using the iTunes listing instead of the website as a result.
October 5, 2018:
    Google is working with PRX to lead its Google Podcasts creator program. The program "hopes to remove barriers to podcasting, increase the diversity of voices in the industry, and to make sure content is available for all audiences." You can apply for the first round until November 18.
October 1, 2018:
September 25, 2018:
    Podkite have added Spotify and Stitcher chart rankings to their service. They also monitor Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
September 19, 2018:
September 18, 2018:
    Google have opened-up their "News on Google Assistant" developer information, which includes details on how to enable appearance on the Google equivalent of the Daily News Briefing. Before this week, you had to send a cheeky email to someone you'd met at a conference, who then sent it to someone else you'd met three years ago at a conference, who then suggested a nice man called Gordon, who then manually approved your Google Account in order to be able to see the documentation. (Which is what we did.) Your content will still need editorial approval.
September 11, 2018:

Our podcast pages now include prominent Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts buttons. (Here's an example). We're also parsing descriptions for Patreon links, to help you support the podcasts you like.

September 7, 2018:
September 6, 2018:
    Suly is a (French) app designed for podcast discovery. Google Translate tells me it's an "application that will allow you to discover new podcasts with a disconcerting ease!"
September 5, 2018:
September 5, 2018:
August 27, 2018:
    Spotify is moving too slowly and tentatively, says Fast Company's David Lidsky. It points out that the $1m Amy Schumer 3 Girls, 1 Keith podcast isn't exclusive (it's on Apple and Google), and that 'windowing' has historically "failed miserably".
August 23, 2018:
    Yesterday, we covered a story about a Google app called Shortwave . Rumours: perhaps it might involve the team behind 60db which Google purchased in October, and maybe the app is about personalised short-form speech. "Shortwave", as a name, suddenly makes sense. While Google sometimes has difficulty focusing, relax - this doesn't sound like a third podcast app from Mountain View.
August 22, 2018:
    Podnews is now available in Google Home or Google Assistant's daily news briefing. You'll find us in "technology" in any English-speaking country. Set us as a news source in the Google Home app (Settings > News), then "OK, Google, listen to the news" or "OK, Google, Good morning" for a weekday fix of podcasting news. "OK, Google, listen to Podnews podcasting news" also works for one-off listening.
August 17, 2018:
August 16, 2018:
    Google Podcasts also has a donate button for some non-profits including NPR and Radiotopia; but it's currently a hard-coded pilot.
August 15, 2018:
    Podkite launched today. "It's an analytics and intelligence platform for individual podcasters, larger publishers and advertisers", they tell us, and they measure both Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
August 14, 2018:
    A former Irish rugby star has launched a new podcast app. Limor says it "allows the user to record, edit, share and listen to audio content and traditional podcasts instantly from smart devices".
August 13, 2018:
    Are you using the right Apple Podcasts button? It should have a black background these days, not white. Get your updated version on Apple's website, or search for your podcast on Podnews and use our updated link badge generator (here's ours) to get both Apple and Google's badges for your website.
August 10, 2018:
    Anchor have announced Anchor Listener Support. It lets listeners pay a monthly pledge ($1, $5, $10) for your podcasts through Apple Pay or Google Pay. Including payment costs, fees are 9.5% plus $0.10 per transaction; Patreon takes 0.5% more. Listeners can be anywhere and can use any app to listen, but Listener Support is only available to Anchor creators in the US.
August 7, 2018:
August 6, 2018:
August 3, 2018:
    On Aug 1, we reported that Spotify was under pressure for hosting The Alex Jones Show Podcast. AP reports that the company has now 'removed specific episodes', citing hate content. Most episodes remain. Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, among others, still appear to link to all available episodes. The podcast is hosted with Spreaker.
August 2, 2018:
August 1, 2018:
July 31, 2018:
July 30, 2018:
July 26, 2018:
    Written & Recorded have launched Competition Lore, a new podcast that gives Facebook users, Googlers, Netflix subscribers and anyone with an online account a better understanding of what their personal information is worth and how that data can be used against them. It's hosted byCaron Beaton-Wells, a Professor specialising in competition law at The University of Melbourne.
July 25, 2018:
July 24, 2018:
    DiscoverPods published a survey last year about the state of the industry. Headlines included: 71% of respondents consider podcast discovery as a major issue facing podcasts today; 66% of respondents rank marketing and building an audience among their top challenges. Podcasters and podcast fans can help this year's survey by filling in the Podcast Trends Report survey.
July 18, 2018:
    Google Play Music appears to have had some issues with importing recent episodes: according to some podcasters it's been stuck for five days. (It's entirely different to Google Podcasts: here's an FAQ all about that).
July 17, 2018:
July 16, 2018:
    The Apple Podcasts badge is nearly, but not quite, the same as the Google Podcasts badge; and chances are you want to display them next to each other. Nathan Gathright has kindly edited both SVGs to "match the other" in terms of alignment and border width/colour; you can download the edited versions from his Dropbox. We've updated the SVGs on our website accordingly, including our link badge generator.
July 11, 2018:
July 10, 2018:
    Yesterday, we linked to a tweet saying Audioboom were up to date on payments; but after we published a link to it, it was deleted - along with the Twitter account it was from. (The author of the tweet says, on her LinkedIn page, that she left Audioboom in Aug 2015.) Stuart Last, the COO of Audioboom, tells us:
July 9, 2018:
    In the New Media Show over the weekend, Google Podcast product manager Zack Reneau-Weden was interviewed. He gave strong hints that Google Podcasts would be available on more platforms in future; discussed support for deep links into audio, like chapter marks, from show notes; and claimed that there were over two million podcasts indexed in Google Podcasts. (Apple claim about 600,000; he may have been including duplicate RSS feeds like those from Castbox, which are still partially visible in Google's search index). He also made great play of Google's personalised recommendations, rather than using editorial teams, which he claims doesn't scale: particularly for the diverse groups of people who listen to podcasts. He also trailed new announcements at Podcast Movement.
July 6, 2018:
July 5, 2018:
June 28, 2018:
    Joe Clark discovers what he calls censorship of a sort - Apple Podcasts is, according to him, censoring podcasts from far-right groups; and thus, all podcast apps that use Apple's directory are doing similar. (The majority of the censored podcasts are, however, listed in Google Podcasts, we'd note, which has no editorial gatekeeper).
June 27, 2018:
    "Podcast links are a mess", says a new service called Play Podcast - they promise simple one-click podcast links for social media and similar. They gave us playpodca·st/podnews which automatically opens Apple Podcasts and/or Google Podcasts on phones, and helpful links on desktop.
June 26, 2018:
    Yesterday we linked to a $20 DIY microphone isolation box; today, we link to another DIY project - the $40 AV Cage, a surprisingly flexible recording space.
June 25, 2018:
June 22, 2018:
    While your podcast is probably in Google Podcasts, getting correctly listed, including in Google Search, is a bit difficult. We continue to finesse our how to get listed guide, and have now added a Google Podcast link validator to our podcast pages. To get started, search for your podcast and press the 'more info' button for the technical details. It also checks if you have a secure RSS feed for Apple Podcasts.
June 21, 2018:
    The launch of Google Podcasts continues to be reported across the globe. Here's our FAQ. The team behind Google Podcasts will also be at Podcast Movement, the organisers have said. If you have already added the badges to your site, you might like to know that they've been updated slightly, especially the SVG version.
June 20, 2018:
June 19, 2018:
June 18, 2018:
    Google's podcast app continues to be tweaked, including a "for you" tab and a nice new logo of a colourful diamond.
June 13, 2018:
June 11, 2018:
    Google is preparing to launch "a Google Podcasts app" for Android within the Google Play store. It'll act as an installable link to the (quite decent, if basic) podcast app already in Android phones, originally launched in April 2016. Incidentally, we spotted over the weekend that it's sporting a nice new 'Google Podcasts' wordmark at the top of the homescreen.
June 8, 2018:
    Podcraft estimates that, by the end of 2018, there will be 700,000 podcasts available on Apple's platform.
June 7, 2018:

Thank you to TeePublic who become our latest silver supporter, and Podigee who joined us last week. Thank you, too, to personal supporters Stargate Pioneer, who's in GonnaGeek, and the excellent and entirely correct thinking Remaniacs Brexit Podcast.

June 6, 2018:
    Google's DoubleClick's BidManager now lets you buy audio ads on "Google Play Music, Spotify, SoundCloud and TuneIn — with Pandora coming soon."
May 28, 2018:
May 25, 2018:
May 21, 2018:
May 10, 2018:
    Radio station LOVE SPORT has added ten fan podcasts to Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa speakers. The initiative is a partnership with XAPPmedia.
May 8, 2018:
    Sonix have released what they call an "SEO-friendly podcast player". There's an example on their page announcing the service: it transcribes your podcast in chunks, and the company says that Google should index the podcast content as a result.
May 4, 2018:
May 2, 2018:
    HotPod 161 is out. Nick looks at the BBC announcement, Google's announcements, and lots of caveats around Apple's 50bn download announcement.
May 1, 2018:
April 27, 2018:
April 26, 2018:
    Part four of Pacific Content's coverage of Google's new podcasting strategy: Steve Pratt unveils Google’s Plan To Deliver The Right Audio At The Right Time. Highlights are how podcasting works throughout the Google ecosystem (handing off between phones and smart speakers, for example): so you can start listening on one device and finish on another.
April 25, 2018:
    Pacific Content's look at Google's new podcast strategy continues. Part three, Google’s New Way to Find Your Next Favorite Podcast, highlights Google's recommendations, already visible within the podcast player, and investigates the concept of "audio SEO". Steve Pratt points out that Google's algorithms will favour podcasts of high interest and value, rather than (just) those who can afford good PR.
April 24, 2018:
April 23, 2018:
April 23, 2018:

already installed on most Android phones. There's more in the interview; including a bold aim:

April 19, 2018:
    Netflix has worked with Google to produce an interactive audio drama on Google's smart speakers. It's an audio adventure called Lost in Space; to play: "OK, Google, play the Lost in Space game". It also works on Google Assistant on your phone.
April 17, 2018:
    Smart speaker use for short podcasts reminds us: we're on Amazon Alexa's Daily Briefing; "Alexa, ask anypod to play podnews"; or "OK, Google, ask podnews for the latest". Our podcast is also in many other places.
April 13, 2018:
    Google's research division has created a thing that allows a user to select the face of the person in a video they want to hear - and the software will then cut out all other noise.
March 29, 2018:
    Google Home ("OK, Google, ask podnews for the latest") isn't delivering much; and we're unavailable on their news briefing service for now - partially because we've no idea who to ask to get there.
March 22, 2018:

Got a smart speaker? Find us in the Daily Briefing section of the Amazon Alexa app; or "OK Google, ask podnews for the latest"

March 21, 2018:
March 16, 2018:
    Omny Studio release a loudness normalisation tool which will allow their customers to set the loudness of their podcast to standard values. (As a short reminder: Amazon Alexa wants -14, Google Assistant wants -16, the BBC reckons -18 is right, and our own research shows LUFS values being as loud as -8 and as quiet as -28.) The Omny tool also produces output which is compliant in dbTP and a specified LU loudness range.
March 13, 2018:
    More on Infinite Dial 2018: Pacific Content's Steve Pratt got to talk to Tom Webster, and identifies the five big trends. Tom discusses disappointing results from smart speakers. (We're on Alexa's daily briefing, or "OK, Google, ask Podnews for the latest")
March 12, 2018:
March 8, 2018:
    Job: Blinkist is looking for a Podcast Producer in Berlin, Germany; ideal for people "who want to find a purpose in what they’re doing and take ownership of their work".
March 7, 2018:
    Geoff Lloyd (Adrift, Reasons to be Cheerful) has a new podcast: Hometown Glory, where he meets comedians and gets them to show him round their home town (using Google Streetview). It's hosted with Omny Studio.
March 5, 2018:
    Earwolf did announce a paywall for older episodes back in August 2015 with their Howl app. This launched iOS-only, though now has a poorly-reviewed Android app. Visiting the Howl website now redirects to Stitcher Premium. Stitcher Premium itself was launched in late 2016.
February 26, 2018:
    The Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame is looking for 2018 nominations. The criteria and details are on the entry form, and yes, you can nominate yourself. Or, better, someone else.
February 23, 2018:
February 21, 2018:
    ICYMI: Podnews is available as a daily briefing on Amazon Alexa devices (set it up in your app), and on Google Home and Assistant devices ("Hey, Google, ask podnews for the latest").
February 1, 2018:
    Dynamo has launched - "a new, more dynamic way to monetize your podcasts by allowing you to add pre, post-, and mid-rolls to each of your episodes that refresh automatically at each play": much like a Google AdSense for podcasting. Operated by VOXNEST, who acquired Spreaker and BlogTalkRadio this month.
January 25, 2018:
January 24, 2018:
    Apple have finally launched their HomePod speaker. Online orders will start in the US, UK and Australia on Friday. It's US$349 - competing products from Google and Amazon start at less than a third of that price. It's assumed that Apple Podcast integration is built-in.
January 23, 2018:
    The BBC announce they're making all their podcasts -18 LUFS - LKFS if you speak American. (If you're keeping tabs: Google wants -16 LUFS, Amazon want -14 LUFS (as do Spotify), YouTube normalise to -13 LUFS, and the AES want anywhere between -16 and -20 LUFS. I try hard to keep personal opinion out of podnews, so won't pass comment as to how crazy this situation is.
January 18, 2018:
    Amazon has just announced that their Amazon Echo smart speakers will be launched in Australia on 1 February. You can pre-order now - the Echo Dot is AUD $49, significantly under-cutting the Google Home Mini's AUD $79 price. (As a reminder: podcasts on these devices are powered by TuneIn).
January 17, 2018:
    Apple are rolling out a new podcast news feature in iOS 11.2.2 - much like Alexa's Daily Briefing or Google Assistant's "Tell me about my day", it allows you to customise your news sources.
January 15, 2018:
January 11, 2018:
    Podcast use on "Voice activated speakers" (the Amazon Echo or Google Home) is virtually zero.
January 9, 2018:
    Also at CES, lots of activity around Google Assistant, which also allows podcast listening. Android Auto will finally get proper Google Assistant support "starting this week in the US"; Google Home devices with screens from LG, Sony, JBL and Lenovo; more Android TVs with Google Assistant; more headphones (as we mentioned yesterday); and lots of smart speakers from all kinds of good names.
January 8, 2018:
    Headphones by Google and Bose already have the Google Assistant built-in (and it's in Google's watches and phones); but Amazon wants to get Alexa in headphones too. They released a new developer kit to do that - apparently Bose and Jabra are evaluating it.
January 3, 2018:
    Hernan Lopez from podcast network Wondery is interviewed by AdExchanger. He predicts Google will launch a podcast app, and is concerned about attribution for direct advertising in podcasting.
December 28, 2017:
    The Amazon Alexa and the Google Home have "topped the charts" this holiday period, implying that smart speakers were popular gifts.
December 20, 2017:
December 19, 2017:
December 18, 2017:

Survey: If you are UK-based, please help journalist and producer Heidi Pett with some research into rates for those in the industry.

December 14, 2017:
    Yesterday, we noted that Google recommends -16 LUFS for audio intended for Google Home. Amazon recommend -14 LUFS. YouTube will alter audio to meet -13 LUFS. The AES recommend -16 to -20 LUFS. Standards? We don't need no stinkin' standards!
December 13, 2017:
    Of note: Google recommends your audio is -16 LUFS for Google Assistant (eg Google Home). If podcasting needed a standard, this is it.
December 12, 2017:
    Because I clearly have nothing better to do, Podnews is now on Google Home. You can now say to your Google Home or Google Assistant: OK, Google, ask podnews for the latest will get the latest headlines. If you're interested, this was about two hour's work - mostly trying to understand how the tools work.
December 8, 2017:
    YouTube is planning to launch a paid music service in March, "according to people familiar with the matter". It already has one (YouTube Red); it had one (YouTube Music Key). Also, see Google's bewildering range of instant messaging services: Messenger, Duo, Allo, Hangouts, Google Chat, Google+ and Google Spaces.
December 6, 2017:
December 1, 2017:
    iHeartRadio Australia is celebrating one million registered users. Their app claims to include the "largest podcasting library in Australia". The press release also claims "iHeartRadio continues to experience impressive growth in usage and engagement across the platform and in just three months have seen a 350% increase in streaming hours from iHeartRadio’s integration into Google Home."
November 29, 2017:
November 23, 2017:
    A quite savage piece about Apple's non-appearing HomePod speakers. It transpires that they won't be available for developers to access, unlike the competing Amazon Echo and Google Home. It will, however, play Apple Podcasts flawlessly.
November 14, 2017:
    The Google app on Android phones (installed by default) appears to be adding a feature to download podcasts according to a teardown of the latest beta. "This podcast episode has been downloaded" is one of the strings now in the software...
November 10, 2017:
    Player FM, a capable Android podcast app, moves to v4 with a redesign. The app is free, with a newly-announced monthly subscription fee. The app already claims over 100 paying users, and premium features include aggressive storage compression to fit more podcasts onto your phone. It's in Google Play now, and v4 is rolling out over the next few days.
November 7, 2017:
    Google Play Music have buttons for your podcasts. Note, however, that outside the US, they just redirect to the front page of Google Play. One step forward, one step back.
November 1, 2017:
    Our most popular article ever, and coincidentally our only article ever - How podcast show notes display in 18 different apps has one more app than yesterday: Google Play Music Podcasts. To save you the click: it's rubbish at displaying show notes. Thanks to those who shared it.
October 16, 2017:
October 11, 2017:
    Google have bought 60db, a podcasting app that focused on personalisation. The app itself will shut on November 10.
October 5, 2017:
    Google announce their new Pixel 2 phone, their flagship Android device. It doesn't have a headphone socket. They've also announced two new versions of the Google Home smart speaker - one just US$49.
September 13, 2017:
    Die Zeit, the highbrow national German weekly newspaper, launches a podcast: What now? A new episode is published weekdays. Interestingly, they also launched an Amazon Echo "skill" and it's also available on Google Home. The paper acknowledges they're late to the party, but promises lots more podcasts this year.
September 1, 2017:
    Sony announces a premium speaker with Google Assistant built-in, joining Panasonic, Anker and Mobovi. However, probably of minimal benefit for podcasting, which isn't really accessed through smart speakers according to two set of recent research.
August 31, 2017:
    Vogue and Google partner to produce content for the Google Home smart speaker and Google Assistant - bits of audio from their magazine interviews. "OK, Google, talk to Vogue" is how to get it to work. The "talk to" construct for third-party content like this only works in the US.
August 22, 2017:
    The Google Home smart speaker is apparently going to have a little sister, like the Amazon Echo Dot. Also, Google released a new version of Android today, 8.0, though you can only get it on Pixel devices for now. (Upgrades are staged, but you can apparently force it by enrolling for beta, which actually gets you the final public build. We did that and it works). No additional podcasting functionality, but apparently much better Bluetooth.
August 17, 2017:
August 14, 2017:
    Meetup: the entire Podnews editorial staff (cough) will be in Melbourne, Australia on Friday. From 4.00pm-6.30pm, ish, find us in The Boatbuilder's Yard - no space booked, so look for people who look like this.
July 19, 2017:
    While testing Google Assistant on my Google Pixel phone, I stumbled across this - a built-in podcast player on Android phones. I've not seen this reported anywhere, so I think this is a first. Podcasts can be played without fiddling with subscriptions or downloads; and can be added to your home screen for quick access. It keeps note of which you've listened-to, across your different devices. Given that over 80% of mobile phones run Android, this could be a game-changer: if users are educated on how to use it.
July 11, 2017:
    Pocket Casts gets an update on Android. Notably in the excellent release notes: "Podcast title sort now ignores 'The'. You might think that's meh but wow you people wouldn't stop emailing us about it!"
June 30, 2017:
    Want your podcasts in Spotify? They've just added this submission form. (While hosted on Google Forms, it is legit - at least, it was created "inside Spotify", according to the Google-produced footer.)
June 21, 2017:
    The podcasting experience in Android is about to get simpler: the new Google app (pre-installed in every Android phone) is prepping for podcast subscriptions. Probably also good for Google Home. Google typically does a good job of synching data between devices, but still has a way to go to match Apple's ease of use.

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