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Apple Podcasts can now be installed as an Android app, after the company made some unannounced changes to its website. While the app isn’t available in the Google Play store, it can now be installed to work identically to an app on Android phones - appearing in your app drawer, with the opportunity to buy premium subscriptions, and full localisation in different languages. Here’s how to install it.
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There’s a fair amount of AI, too. Spotify launched a “Wrapped AI podcast”, working with Google NotebookLM. You’ll find it in the app in some countries - it’s those two folks from NotebookLM, looking through your music list. You can share it with others. You can also enjoy your very own AI DJ, playing some of your biggest tunes.
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Be grateful that ElevenLabs is launching a thing a bit like Google’s NotebookLM, but isn’t. It’ll help you make a multispeaker podcast from notes, videos or documents.
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According to its changelog, Descript has made “overdub” become part of “regenerate”, its AI speech generation tool. You can now pay with Apple Pay and Google Pay. The text-to-speech tool now works snappier and better. You can now replace media on the fly.
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If you show podcast descriptions and episode notes, as mentioned above, spammers are targeting podcast directories to hope that you link out to their naughty websites. Our podcast pages mark all links from podcasts as
rel=“ugc”
, following Google’s recommendations, which essentially makes these links worthless to spammers. You might want to check you’re doing the same.
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Eligibility for the Spotify Partner Program requires you to use Spotify for Creators to host your podcast (or Megaphone in some cases); and you need at least twelve episodes, 2,000 unique Spotify users in the last month, and 10,000 streamed hours in the last month. (YouTube, by comparison, needs 1,000 all-time subscribers, but 4,000 streamed hours in the last year.)
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YouTube has decided that it’s a good thing to add AI generated replies to comments posted on the service, so even if you can’t be bothered to reply to comments left on the platform, AI will do it for you. Bandrew Scott is less than impressed.
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ListenNotes is spotting podcasts produced using Google’s NotebookLM, and there are now 1,781. Yikes. Brianna Ansaldo listened to 200 of them, and concludes: “without authenticity, it’s just a bunch of noise.”
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Google’s NotebookLM has competition: Meta’s NotebookLlama, which, Techcrunch says, doesn’t work quite as well, but is entirely open-source. Here’s the Github repo.
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Google’s NotebookLM has added a way to customise the tool’s “deep-dives”.
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A new podcast awards has launched in the UK. The Political Podcast Awards is open for entry now, and will take place on Jan 29. It’s (curiously) sponsored by Google, which closed its podcast app earlier this year.
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Speakers! Panelists! You can now submit your session ideas for The Podcast Show in London and Podfest Expo in Orlando.
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Podcast Addict was removed from Google Play, again, this time for apparently violating the “Violent Extremism” policy. It seems to have been restored, though the app’s AdMob account is yet to be reactivated. The app is one of the most popular for Android - and has a history of being blocked and restored from Google’s app store. Earlier this year, it was blocked for having an alarm clock.
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Is a new Google service flooding podcast apps with spam? Calling them “a threat to the podcasting community”, the podcast directory Listen Notes has made a NotebookLM Detector, to spot shows made by Google’s NotebookLM. So far, it’s detected more than 280 shows which have been made using the AI tool. “Notebook LM has made it easier to mass-produce low-quality, fake content”, says Listen Notes founder Wenbin Fang; though The Spectator’s Sean Thomas suggests that AI may “make the podcast bro irrelevant”.
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Axios has noticed the podcast capability in Google’s NotebookLM. It ends: “Anthropomorphic tech will always wow us — for a time, at least. But these tricks quickly become first mundane and eventually dull and passé.” The tool now works with YouTube videos.
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Google’s NotebookLM - which (in part) lets you create a podcast-like experience from uploaded articles, like this, has added a built-in YouTube uploader, and better sharing tools. Since it’s a Google product, we assume it’ll be closed in three years; but it’s an impressive tool in the meantime.
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Danny Brown recently used NotebookLM to ideate, create, publish, and have a co-hosted podcast, approved on Apple, Spotify, etc, in just over 4 hours, including having a complementary podcast website for the episodes to live on. The show is Be a Better Podcaster with Jamie and Jaayne - so... what does that mean for podcasters?
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There are a number of new features in Apple Podcasts with iOS 18, which is rolling out now. We covered enhancements to chapters last week; podcast host Ausha highlights other new features including sharing links to a specific timestamp, clickable timestamps in episode descriptions (which seem to work similar to Spotify and YouTube), and a revamped search engine. There are more details in a July post from 9to5Google, based on a beta release.
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Pocket Casts is to support transcripts, according to 9to5Google. We think this will be limited to shows providing their own transcripts, using the
podcast:transcript
tag.
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Google’s NotebookLM now “lets you listen to a conversation about your sources” - taking a full set of articles and turning it into a “lively conversation”, or as we might call it, a podcast. We asked it to take our popular article explaining podcast stats. And the 7-minute result is really quite impressive. Worth a listen.
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Both Spotify and Apple Podcasts saw increase in download share for Buzzsprout shows last month. (Pocket Casts has almost doubled year-on-year.) iOS has increased over Android: possibly a knock-on effect from the end of Google Podcasts.
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YouTube has updated the company’s API tools with two new features intended for podcast hosts for podcast images and to mark a playlist as a podcast. YouTube Data API users can upload / update / delete square playlist images to any of their existing playlists (“podcasts”) via the playlistImages API; YouTube Data API users can also set / unset any of their existing playlists that have a square image as a podcast, via the playlists/update method.
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This means that Apple Podcasts is now available for the first time on Android devices. While it isn’t an app in the Play Store, it’s now easy to install Apple Podcasts on any Android phone. As a side-effect of being a web app, premium subscriptions aren’t subject to revenue share with Google.
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The Podcast Movement 2024 app is now available from the Apple App Store and on Google Play. (Not booked yet? Code
PODNEWS
will save).
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Google is helping users who haven’t yet migrated their podcast subscriptions out of Google Podcasts by giving them an extra month to do so.
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Google announced it is no longer planning to block third-party cookies in Chrome. Podcasts don’t use cookies; but podcasts do use IP addresses, which are increasingly hidden with VPNs, Apple’s Private Relay, and other tools. Google is suggesting it will hide IP addresses from Chrome next year.
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YouTube Music added the ability to mark a podcast as played earlier in the month. We also notice that in Australia, we now get a “podcasts” chip at the top of the screen; you can now auto-download shows; and there are ways of filtering episode lists to only show, for example, unplayed or downloaded episodes.
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Google has a new AI tool called Illuminate, which takes a scientific paper and turns it into a five minute (dual-hosted) “podcast”. Youssef Ismail gives it a go, and posts some examples.
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YouTube is looking for people to participate in a research study about podcasters who are “involved in creating the visuals of a podcast (i.e. waveforms, images, video shown in a video podcast).“
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Spooler has been awarded two patents. One for an automatic media content layering system, which mixes different pieces of audio together as one “layered” track; and one for a content versioning system which would ensure that an updated piece of content is available to listeners. The company launched in 2022.
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Buzzsprout’s download data for June shows a significant jump for “web browsers” in June. Google Podcasts posted a 1% share of downloads.
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Google Podcasts appears to have finally been turned off internationally, a week late. It’s still available to install on Google Play, though, which must be confusing for new podcast users, because the app doesn’t do anything any more. We hope they remove it from there soon.
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Five days after its international closure, Google is still offering Google Podcasts for Android users on Google Play. Meanwhile, the iOS app now says, in a splash screen, that Google Podcasts goes away on Aug 30 (but still works); and Google Podcasts on the web has been closed again, and also carries the same new date.
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Zombie news now - and, four days after its international closure, Zombie Google Podcasts continues to refuse to die. In fact, it’s worse than that: the bodies of the recently deceased are returning to life and attacking the living - because over the last 24 hours, astonishingly, Google Podcasts’s website has been turned back on again and now happily plays podcasts once more. The app is still available to install in Google Play, but has now been removed from the Apple App Store; it continues to function on both platforms.
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Three days after its international closure, Zombie Google Podcasts is still alive - the app still plays podcasts, and is still available in the iOS and Android app stores outside the US. Zombie Google Podcasts Manager is still accepting new shows, too. We understand that Zombie Google Podcasts can be stopped by removing the head or destroying the brain.
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Brainnnns... Zombie Google Podcasts is still alive in the iOS and Android app stores outside the US: and it still works fine, despite a note saying that it closes on June 23. The podcast app that won’t die - we’re off to the Winchester to have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.
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Google Podcasts, which closed on April 2 in the US, was scheduled to finally close globally yesterday. Founder Zack Reneau-Wedeen left in Sept 2021, and the app has had no feature updates since. Google Podcasts started making its way to the Google Graveyard in Jan 2023, when Google Podcasts was removed from Google Search. The third attempt at a podcast player from Google, it was almost six years old.
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Libsyn stats for May show another new low for Apple Podcasts, and another new high for Spotify. The iOS/Android ratio is also at a new low. Google Podcasts slipped to 7th place; it closes internationally this Sunday.
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On LinkedIn, Triton Digital’s Simon Lee shares data from Singapore’s podcast landscape. 6% of shows are currently downloaded using Google Podcasts in the city state. They’re in for a surprise.
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Want live captions for remote recordings you’re doing, in things like Riverside, Cleanfeed or Squadcast? Google Chrome can do that for you. Use the instructions here.
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Mixed Signals from Semafor Media is new today, presented by Think With Google. It looks at the media industry, and describes itself as the new, central conversation on global media, distilling the most important discourse as it intersects with business, politics, technology and culture. It's hosted by Semafor co-founder and editor-in-chief, Ben Smith and top podcaster and journalist Nayeema Raza.
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Kagi, a (paid) search engine that’s a great alternative to things like Google or Bing, has a podcast search tab. Even better, it links to your own podcast website; and Kagi’s next fortnightly release will contain a bug fix to a layout issue in the search. It’s worth trying it out if you’re finding Google all a bit AI-crazy these days.
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Google Podcasts closes fully on Jun 23; and Google Podcasts Manager will be going away on July 30, the company has announced. You can export your analytics before that date.
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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.)
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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.
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How many podcasts make it to 5 or more episodes? Only half of them, says data from the Podcast Index.
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Android Police share five things we will miss about Google Podcasts now that it’s dead. (The app is alive and well in every country outside the US until June 24).
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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.
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The Verge says that companies like OpenAI are transcribing podcasts as data to train artificial intelligence programs.
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Here’s what Google Podcasts looks like now inside the US, where it has closed - even the web app. It still works everywhere else; and we have no date for its closure in other countries.
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You’ll never guess the podcast app the New York Post recommends as a replacement to Google Podcasts... until you realise the entire article is tagged with affiliate links.
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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.”
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Google Podcasts is scheduled to close tomorrow, but in the US only. We have not got a date from the company, yet, as to when it closes in other countries. Here’s what we’d recommend as a replacement.
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Acast is working with Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office to help and host twelve all-indigenous podcast projects. The program was funded by Google.
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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”.
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The YouTube Music app is working on a silence-skip function says 9to5 Google.
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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.
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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).
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Please go and leave PodcastAddict a positive review in the Google Play store, since he has people like this leaving him a one-star.
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Setting up a Motorola Android phone over the weekend, your Editor noticed that it came pre-installed with YouTube Music, but also, to his surprise, insisted on installing the soon-to-close Google Podcasts.
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Quill and Carney released their 2024 Marketing & Podcast Trends Report. The in-depth report contains data, advice and case studies for a number of marketing tools - it’s a good read, and it’s free.
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Google is telling subscribers to its Google One service that there has been a data breach at Apple Podcasts, which has shared email addresses. That’s not true; part of a large combination of files, and nothing more than someone who’s gone through open podcast RSS feeds, scraping for email addresses: it’s not from Apple servers. (In any case, Apple don’t need, nor use, email addresses in your RSS feed).
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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.
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For people switching from Google Podcasts or Stitcher, what podcast app would we recommend?
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PodcastAddict’s latest update has been denied by the Google Play Store. The podcast and radio app is used 60,000 times every day by users to set alarms to wake up to their favourite podcast; but Google is now prohibiting this functionality.
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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.
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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).
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Black and queer-owned audio post-production studio Hemlock Creek Productions, founded by Marisa Ewing, is celebrating its fourth anniversary by giving away three podcast consulting slots (or, if you’d prefer, an audit of your podcast’s audio).
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What should you replace Google Podcasts with? Our recommendations try to find something you’ll be comfortable with.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Google now plans to kill Google Podcasts in the US as early as April 2024, in favour of the company’s YouTube Music app. For US users, the company has posted information on how to migrate to YouTube Music or another app; the Google Podcasts app in the US will contain an “Export subscriptions” banner at the top.
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Pocket Casts has published a guide to moving from Google Podcasts, using an OPML feed. The company is offering a 50% discount for your first year of Pocket Casts Plus.
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Podcast app PodcastGuru has written up clear guides on how to migrate from Google Podcasts, for both Android users and those on iOS.
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AntennaPod has published a guide on how to migrate from Google Podcasts, which closes next year. AntennaPod is free, open source (and Android only).
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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.
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In an ongoing trial, it's emerged that Spotify has done a secret deal to avoid Google's app-store fees. Normally, companies like Pocket Casts or Podcast Addict have to pay between 15%-30% to Google if they sell things in-app, like Pocket Casts Plus or Podcast Addict's ad-free option. Spotify is a founding member of the Coalition for App Fairness and has run campaigns like Time to Play Fair: yet the admission from Google's Don Harrison, suggests Spotify had an unfair advantage all along.
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Spotify is experimenting with Google's AI tools to make better recommendations for podcasts and audio books.
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Three new pages have recently appeared in YouTube's podcasting help section. They are: countries where the RSS ingest tool is available, detail on how to deliver podcasts to YouTube via RSS, and specific details about handling episodes.
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We've worked out that the user-agent for the YouTube Music app starts:
com.google.android.apps.youtube.music/
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9to5Google reports that Apple almost completed Apple Watch support with Android phones; but cancelled the work when it was "nearly complete", to protect iPhone's sales. Why a mention in Podnews? Because, while Apple Music and Apple TV are available for Android, Apple Podcasts isn't, and this might be the reason.
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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.
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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.
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A lot of podcast analytics and ad targeting is based on the IP address of the listener; but Google is preparing to test a new feature in Chrome that "allows users to hide their IP addresses by using proxy servers". It also heavily promotes its own VPN as a paid-for service, which also hides a user's IP address.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Transistor has reported the top podcast listening apps on the platform. Apple Podcasts has 51.6% of all downloads; Spotify 27.7%; and Google Podcasts is at #3 with 2.1%.
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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
.
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YouTube Music is adding auto-downloads for podcasts. Google Podcasts, which is top be replaced by YouTube Music, has this feature already.
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Buzzsprout saw a drop for Apple Podcasts and Spotify downloads; Google Podcasts posted its best-ever download share of 3.5% on the platform, just in time for it to close.
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58% of Australians listen to podcasts, claims new data from YouGov. The data also suggests that music is the most listened-to podcast genre, and Spotify is the #1 platform. 8% of all Australians use Google Podcasts, which is to close next year.
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Google Podcasts is to close, the company has announced. The news confirms Podnews's coverage in August that YouTube Music will allow you to add any RSS feed to the app, so you can continue to listen to your favourite shows in YouTube Music as a replacement. The company is working on a migration tool. They've also communicated the upcoming closure to listeners.
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At least three people are suggesting that Google Podcasts has automatically subscribed them to the Impaulsive podcast.
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PodcastOne's share price closed at $2.74 yesterday. It debuted on Friday at $8.
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PodcastOne's first day on NASDAQ saw the stock price land at $4.39. Here are the team, ringing the bell (skip to 10 mins) - we spy Jordan Harbinger.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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There is a new podcast app for Android users called Turtlecast: "a minimalist podcast player with a unique design". It comes with a WearOS app, checks RSS feeds directly, and the marketing material seems to use lots of Podnews podcasts!
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Data: new research about podcasting in Taiwan has been released. 24.5% of the population (18-60) listen every month; YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Google are the top 4 platforms, with local apps KKBox and SoundOn next in the list.
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A number of news podcasts are being censored by Meta's Facebook, Instagram and Threads in Canada, after the Canadian government passed Bill C-18, a new law requiring tech companies to pay to link to news content. The 905er podcast is one of those affected. In a video, Canadian YouTuber and journalist J.J. McCullough calls it "ill-conceived" and akin to extortion; our Editor has personal thoughts too.
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9to5Google claims that YouTube Music is rolling out international support for 'podcasts', with some users in Canada and Brazil seeing podcasts appear in the music app. Separately, comments appear to also be rolling out. We've asked Google for comment.
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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.
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DISQO has released a free report containing data from more than 17,000 podcast listeners. Spotify is the most "preferred" podcast platform, though Spotify skews significantly younger than Apple Podcasts. For people aged 65+, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts are most 'preferred' (after the radio).
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.
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Meanwhile, YouTube still has to launch their podcast offering outside the US (where they launched in April). The company hasn't completed its RSS ingest trial, either, and consumption numbers are low. Meanwhile, YouTube is under fire for what some are calling "fraudulent conduct", after Adalytics researchers suggest as much as 80% of YouTube's video ads on third party sites are hidden and muted.
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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).
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Podium has launched a new tool that turns your podcast into a book. Called "Podbook", the tool will turn any podcast into anything from a 20-page ebook to a 250 page paperback-like read. Podcasters can join the waitlist, and this sample is made from Huberman Lab.
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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.
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Since there's been some discussion about it on podcasts we listen to… according to the RSS ingest document we covered last week, podcasts uploaded to YouTube cannot contain ads but may contain sponsorship messages. Here's the section of that document making that clear. Here's YouTube's definition of a regular ad, and sponsored segments.
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YouTube is to remove "Stories", a temporary post feature, later this month.
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YouTube has added a "podcasts" tab to the YouTube TV interface. However, it's hidden in the "more" tab, unless you already watch podcasts frequently.
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Audacy, which owns Cadence13, Pineapple Street Studios, Podcorn and Moonbeam, is to be delisted from the stock market for having an "abnormally low" share price. The company plans to appeal. $200 invested in Audacy this time last year would be worth just over $10 today.
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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.
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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.
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Google unveiled a new household tablet with dock. During the launch the company, which owns YouTube, promoted Spotify as a way to listen to podcasts on the device. 🤦
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The privacy-friendly Android podcast app AntennaPod v3.0.2 is available now on Google Play, and has a brand new home screen.
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YouTube Music has officially launched its podcast service in the US. They have posted this advice for podcast creators, and badges (which, we note, talk about "listen on YouTube Music", despite the company suggesting we don't say that). It looks identical to our examination of the web version earlier this week. Two notable quotes:
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YouTube Music, which gets podcasting (in the US only) soon, is adding a sleep timer in readiness.
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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.)
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In a tweet, YouTube has announced that "podcasts are a go!" We think this means that podcast tools are now available on YouTube Studio for all (and 9to5google suggests this too); though podcasts are not visible in YouTube Music for anyone yet. An explainer video has been published, along with a new section in YouTube's FAQs. YouTube has not responded to a request for comment.
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.
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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.
-
According to the Podcasting 2.0 podcast, Pocket Casts - one of the most popular independent podcast apps - is to support transcripts and JSON chapters. Meanwhile, 9to5 Google reports that Pocket Casts is developing a Wear OS app for smartwatches.
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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.
-
After iHeartMedia's financials, its stock price dropped yesterday by almost a third. JP Morgan has also downgraded the media company to "Underweight".
-
Mercedes is to partner with Google to bring Google Maps and YouTube into their cars. No details of the YouTube integration is available; but you can probably bet that YouTube's focus in a car is unlikely to be video.
-
Podcast hosting company Ausha has a new CTO. Nicolas Defranoux joins the company from Google, according to the press release (he worked for DoubleClick in 2015). Co-founder Charles De Potter was formerly the company's CTO; he remains as CEO of RadioKing, an online radio software company that shares a corporate parent.
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YouTube has announced a test to allow podcasters to "create and measure podcasts in YouTube Studio". If you're in this experiment (we're not), you can upload a podcast, view podcasts, and mark existing playlists as podcasts (presumably so that they appear on the YouTube podcasts homepage, which is a US-exclusive for now). It also adds analytics. It's another slow step towards podcasts on the platform.
-
Susan Wojcicki has stepped down as CEO of YouTube. She has been at Google for almost 25 years, and rented out garage space to Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998. Neal Mohan will be the new CEO; he's currently Chief Product Officer for the company.
-
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.
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Further reading: Semafor is the latest with a take on How Spotify's podcast bet went wrong. (If coming from nowhere and being #1 in most countries in less than four years is "going wrong", then what does that mean for Amazon Music, Google Podcasts or Samsung Free?) … Bianca Bush from Acast writes about why the brand-safe nature of podcasting is perfect for trustworthy, unfiltered conversations
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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."
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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.
-
Google Podcasts is re-appearing on (some) Google search results. Its disappearance from search results earlier was "as intended", according to a Google spokesperson we contacted two weeks ago; we've seen it in an incognito search, while a Canadian reader gets it when logged-in, too.
-
Covered by Podnews on Jan 18, Libsyn has officially announced Libsyn Connect, a browser-based remote recording tool, and a number of other creator offerings, at Podfest in Orlando.
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New podcast app Fountain and payment provider Zebedee have announced a partnership to enable pay-per-minute streaming for podcasts. Podcasters can earn money as listeners pay what they want to listen to shows. You can top up using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a credit card (and support Podnews Daily that way).
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Elsewhere, Google cut 12,000 jobs (6%), joining Microsoft's 10,000 layoffs (5%), Facebook's 11,000 (13%), Salesforce's 8,000 (10%), and Twitter's 3,700 (50%).
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Children's radio station and podcast network Fun Kids has launched a 33-title podcast subscription service. It works in both Apple Podcasts and other platforms including Spotify and Google Podcasts.
-
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.
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The Google Podcasts creator program, run with PRX, has closed, says PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman. The program lasted three years, six cohorts, and achieved 14,000 applications from 120+ countries.
-
Livewire reports that Libsyn's podcast consumption stats are now using IAB-compliant numbers. Those figures had been their own legacy numbers until September. The company appears to include all AppleCoreMedia downloads under Apple Podcasts data, and claims Apple has 69.5% of all downloads, Spotify 13.7%, and Google Podcasts at 2.2%.
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Are you an audio fiction podcaster? Looking for others to follow on Mastodon? Evo Terra has a form to share your details, and a spreadsheet of others. We're at
@podnews@social.podnews.net
by the way.
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Further reading: the BBC's Director General, Tim Davie, spoke about the future of the UK media industry: arguing UK media is worth £109bn ($132bn) to the UK's economy each year, and calling for the media regulator to "regulate for success with speed". He didn't mention podcasts, thought … Meghan Davies, International MD at Acast, reflects on 2022 and explains why the company has their eyes on Italy for 2023 … and David Oxenford, a noted media lawyer, suggests that Big FTC Penalties on Google and iHeart for Deceptive Endorsements in Broadcast Commercials Mandate Care in Crafting Your Local Advertising
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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.
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It links to a comprehensive, 67-page, "podcast best practices guide" which goes into channel and content strategy. The service also says that full episode playlists are critical to the proper displaying of your podcast, giving rules on what to call your playlists and how they work.
-
Facebook is working on a new audio compression format, claiming to offer 10x better audio compression than MP3. This news comes a month after Google demonstrated their new speech codec, Lyra v2. Meanwhile, Opus (which offers 3x better audio compression than MP3) is supported by all Android phones, Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome on Android/Windows/MacOS. It isn't, however, supported by iOS.
-
Privacy exclusive: In a Podnews investigation, we discover Rova, a popular podcast app in New Zealand from MediaWorks, has been sending details about their listeners to any podcast publisher: including geo-location and a unique listener identifier. We've full details, including what they told the Google Play Store about their privacy practices, and what the company plans to do now.
-
Squadcast has received a patent for the company's recording engine. The patent relates to "simultaneous recording and uploading of multiple files from the same conversation", including drift normalisation tools. It's unclear how this affects similar tools like Riverside or Zencastr.
-
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.)
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A hospital has been flooded with tens of thousands of angry phone calls, after a Spreaker podcaster told his listeners to call the healthcare facility and doxxed some individual workers - the calls blocked other communication about patient care. It's one of a number of podcasts that the Tech Transparency Project allege, incorrectly, that "Apple is hosting". (The podcast is also listed, but blocked from recommendation, on Google Podcasts).
-
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.
-
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).
-
BBC Research & Development is launching an adaptive podcast player and a web editing tool for its Adaptive Podcasting project. The system allows your phone to choose different audio clips depending on each individual listener requirements and device sensor data in a privacy-preserving way. The app is available for Android now.
-
Podcasts hosted on SoundCloud have, for the past week, not been appearing on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. Multiple podcasters have reported the issue but we understand it doesn't appear to be fixed.
-
The Apple HomePod mini is, apparently, the world's best-selling smart speaker, beating similar products from Amazon and Google. Look at the whole smart speaker range, though, and Amazon remains ahead with 28.2% of the market; Google at 17.2%.
-
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.
-
Zencastr has launched what they call "the first end-to-end video podcast platform". The service now records 4K video, allows you to edit it, host and distribute it to major platforms including "Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts".
-
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.
-
Google has delayed blocking third-party cookies again. Podcasting itself doesn't use cookies so is unaffected, but websites or attribution services might.
-
Podcast host Omny Studio has published data about podcast consumption on their platform. The company saw a 12% increase in listens via Spotify, and a 36% increase for Google Podcasts.
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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.
-
How to set up a Google alert for your podcast - it's a handy tip, and one we use rather too much! From The Podcast Host.
-
In Australia? Got time to huddle under the doona and fill out a survey? A group looking to create a guide to fair pay standards across the Australian podcasting industry has created a survey to find out more about Aussie podcaster working conditions. Could you fill it in and share it with a mate or two?
-
"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).
-
In an email, RadioPublic says it is updating its privacy policy to accurately note that the service is now owned by Acast. On Mar 11, it quietly restored its earlier privacy policy after we reported that it had been entirely deleted; on June 14 the company amended RadioPublic's website after we reported it was misleadingly claiming that it still had Public Benefit Corporation status. RadioPublic has sent unsolicited commercial email on behalf of Acast, emails now fixed after we reported some were non-compliant. RadioPublic's original policy stated that it would notify users beforehand if the company was merged or taken-over by another: but this promise was not kept.
-
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."
-
PRX and Google Podcasts have announced the 2022 cohort for the Google Podcasts Creator Program.
-
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.
-
In Austria, the Ö3 Podcast Festival took place in Vienna. German website Radioszene explains what you missed - Google Translate is your friend.
-
Got a great true crime story? CBC Podcasts is looking for unique and compelling cases for the next season of Uncover, their true crime podcast.
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Podfest Africa and Baraza Media Lab have released their report on African podcasting. An 83-page document, it notes that most listeners stream rather than download, and that there are big differences in African nations between use of mobile data and wifi. Spotify is most-used by 35%; Apple by 18%; and Google Podcasts, interestingly, 15%.
-
Courtney Kocak published how to grow your show via Google Ads, Facebook and Twitter, interviewing Greg Kaffenberger.
-
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.
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Spotify's share price hit an all-time low this week.
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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.
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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).
-
PRX and Google Podcasts have announced a new round of the Google Podcasts creator program: a podcast accelerator and training program for audio producers around the world. Applications open Mar 29.
-
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.
-
Google's Area 120 has unveiled a product called Aloud, which automatically dubs videos into multiple languages (rather than the subtitles that happen on current YouTube clips). (It would work for audio, too, we guess; just add a blank video file).
-
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".
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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.
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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.
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The BBC's radio, music and podcast app BBC Sounds now lets users control your own play queue. If you're on iOS, that is - Android users get this feature, as ever, "soon". The corporation blocks its shows on Google Podcasts, and the BBC is removing some of its newer episodes from open podcast apps in favour of the BBC Sounds app.
-
Google Podcasts appears to have quietly removed their
googleplay:block
tag from their documentation (and, indeed, the entire googleplay
RSS namespace). You're told to use <itunes:block>
to remove your podcast from all Google platforms too.
-
Google is randomly switching podcasts in its app to point to pirated copies with ads. Jason Calcanis noticed his podcast, All-In, mysteriously had ads in it; Google's Danny Sullivan replied: "we appear to have mistakenly pointed to a duplicate version of the podcast": a pirated copy held on Spreaker, according to Nathan Gathright. "There are loads of benefits from our constantly checking for new RSS feeds and trying to make our own determination about which feed to use for a given show algorithmically, but we've also seen instances where we get it wrong," a Google spokesperson told us in July last year. Podnews offers a Google Podcasts RSS helper so you can check what RSS feed Google has for your podcast; we would also suggest you claim your podcast and then set the preferred feed. Pirated podcasts have been an issue for a while; if you've been affected, here's how to report a pirated podcast.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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).
-
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.
-
The Vurbl app is now available on Android. It's a podcast player with additional content and features, like TikTok integration.
-
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.)
-
Stitcher is running the Stitcher Winter Podcast Ball on Clubhouse on Dec 14. As part of that, they're running a 'pitch your podcast' contest to get a week of promotion in the Stitcher app, and a gift from Podswag. You can enter the contest here.
-
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.
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Advertising in podcasts brings one company 25% more revenue than Google Search. Füm shares their strategy for podcast advertising in this week's Sounds Profitable with Magellan AI.
-
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).
-
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.
-
Fireside Chat is also making transcripts of chats - but not publishing them, yet. This chat recording contains code including a full transcript, which doesn't appear to be visible on the public web page, but which appears in Google search results. As a proof-of-concept, we've temporarily put up this tool to pull those transcripts out.
-
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.
-
NPR's How I Built This is to have a version in Japanese, made by Nippon Broadcasting System. The Japanese broadcaster also makes a version of Business Wars with Wondery.
-
Chartable has launched additional remarketing pixels for SmartLinks. You can now add TikTok pixels or Google Tag Manager to your SmartLinks, helping you learn more about your podcast's marketing.
-
Google Podcasts uses WebSub; but users of Podping can also get automatic backwards-compatibility with WebSub, thanks to John Spurlock.
-
The BBC has launched BBC Podcasts Premium exclusively on the proprietary Apple Podcasts subscription system, and only in the US and Canada. The service will include "exclusive shows" (which are also available free in the UK). The BBC Podcasts Channel is available everywhere; the Premium bit only shows up in the US and Canada. All BBC shows are commercial-free in the UK; the corporation still blocks its shows from Google Podcasts.
-
Writing for Podnews, Matthew Stevens wonders: Is YouTube the answer to Google's Podcast woes?
-
Borrowed Future, a podcast from the Ramsey Network, is now available as a movie on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Google Play. The movie is free to teachers.
-
YouTube Music is to make background listening available for free, starting with Canada. ChromeUnboxed suggests the app is to merge with Google Podcasts. The company is also rolling out live translations and a better subtitle editor.
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
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YouTube is hiring an executive to look after podcasts, according to Bloomberg. The company is owned by Google, which also owns Google Podcasts - but if they can manage sixteen messaging apps...
-
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.
-
Data: Enterprise podcast host Omny Studio has released stats for International Podcast Day. Apple Podcasts got 55% of downloads in August 2021; Spotify got 14% (doubling in downloads year-on-year); and Google Podcasts is #3 with 4.29% (up by almost 150%). Podcasts on smart speakers have increased by a third.
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The world's #3 podcast app, Google Podcasts, is getting a full Material You update. "Material You" will be the new style for Android 12, which is shortly to be released. You need the latest Google App, a Google Pixel phone, and you need to wait for a server-side update, just like the new UI elements promised in August, which we're still waiting for, no pressure.
-
The AES, the Audio Engineering Society, has released its recommendations for podcast loudness levels. For speech, the paper recommends -18 LUFS; however, this is quieter than Apple, Spotify or Google recommend.
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YouTube has released its first podcast. The Upload: The Rise Of The Creator Economy is a partnership with National Public Media, and hosted by Brittany Luse. It launched today (on YouTube and, we're promised, "Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Music"), and is a five-episode series on the creator economy.
-
Our Editor asked Spotify for all his personal data, to discover Spotify knows what kind of car he drives, and what length podcast he prefers - and why Spotify will never know as much as Apple or Google.
-
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.
-
StreamGuys has incorporated Google Actions to their services, allowing custom actions on Google smart speakers, connected headphones and in-car.
-
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!)
-
Podland this week looks at how Google Podcasts is going, and includes a 'boostagram corner'. It's hosted by Sam Sethi and James Cridland.
-
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.
-
Google Podcasts to get a fresh new UI, with a new 'library' tab, and a method to mark an episode as played from the home screen. The design is slowly rolling out.
-
In Indonesia, NOICE, a podcast and music app, has hired two ex-Googlers to their management team. Rado Ardian is CEO; Niken Sasmaya is Chief Business Officer. The company has more than a hundred original shows.
-
Earlier today, Acast released its Q2 2021 financial report (PPT) (and also as a podcast). The company saw sales growth increase by 130% year-on-year. Total listens are up by 26% quarter-on-quarter to 880m, while average revenue per listener has grown 86%.
-
Someone took Elon Musk's podcasts on Joe Rogan, put them into an artificial intelligence program, and made... more Elon Musk podcasts with Joe Rogan. Our favourite quote from "Elon Tusk": "Traffic is terrible in general. It's bad. But I'm an economist. I'm not trying to convince you it's bad. It's just bad-ass!"
-
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.
-
Google has changed their requirements for your podcast's RSS feed if you want it to appear in recommendations within Google Podcasts and other places in Google. The requirements are almost all required by Apple Podcasts anyway; except a requirement that
<link>
needs to be a valid URL to your podcast's website.
-
Google Podcasts is rolling out a small redesign for some users.
-
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).
-
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).
-
Backtracks has released an integration with Google Data Studio, allowing publishers to build custom reports and dashboards.
-
Does Google occasionally think it knows the address of your podcast RSS feed better than you do? You can now tell Google your preferred RSS feed.
-
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.
-
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).
-
Audacity, an open-source audio editor, is to share limited analytics data with their company in Kaliningrad in Russia, it has announced. The data shared, which you don't appear to be able to opt-out of, includes your IP address but doesn't include your name, address or email. The app was "acquired" by Muse Group, a company based in Cyprus, in May; they attempted to add analytics through Google and Yandex, but reversed that decision. They have also requested open-source developers sign a license agreement to contribute new code.
-
Mike Midden, who worked at the IAB on the podcast measurement guidelines, is now working for Google.
-
Privacy seems less urgent at Google, after the company announced it was to delay blocking third-party cookies until 2023. "We need to move at a responsible pace," says Vinay Goel, the Privacy Engineering Director for Chrome. Podnews uses no third-party cookies (indeed, no cookies at all unless you log in).
-
YouTube "mistakenly" suspended Bandrew Scott's Google account for spam, locking him out of all his YouTube accounts for a while. The microphone reviewer is now back: but, as our look at YouTube's terms of service makes clear, YouTube/Google can terminate your Google account in full if they think you've done something wrong. Opening a separate Google account for publishing on YouTube might be a good plan.
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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.
-
Spotify has released the Spotify Greenroom app. The app, similar to Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces, includes recording capabilities. It's available on iOS and Android. We've added support for it in our Podevents website.
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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).
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CleanPod is, apparently, a service that will remove the swearing from podcasts. They're running a survey on how it might work.
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Podcast host Resonate Hosting has added in-app storage to store raw audio and music files forever: you get 2TB of storage with the plan for $9.99/month. (Google Drive is $12.49/month, incidentally).
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Audioburst now has one petabyte of indexed talk audio content. From that, which includes podcasts and talk radio, Joe Biden was the person mentioned the most over the last thirty days, and Apple got slightly more mentions than Google.
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Google Podcasts is to get a number of usability updates, according to 9to5Google, but no new features.
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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.
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The new managers of Audacity have faced a humiliating lesson in open-source, as they tried to add both Google and Yandex analytics into the audio editor. After a community revolt, they've reversed that decision.
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).
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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.
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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.
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How to write compelling show notes includes the suggestion to "use Google’s Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest to find keywords relating to your topic".
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Google Podcasts has launched their new customisable recommendations in the Google Podcasts app. It's supposed to be available for all users running the beta version of the Google app on Android. We are. It's not.
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Google Podcasts has added episode recommendations on its website. The "For you" tab has been available in their app for some time.
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In a surprise, Feedburner, which some podcasters use to manage their RSS feed, is to be transitioned to new infrastructure later this year, Google has announced.
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Google Podcasts has hit 100m installations on Android. Since November it has doubled installations, added support for subscribing by RSS feed, and is the #3 podcast app according to Libsyn and Buzzsprout. It's due to launch personalised episode recommendations at some stage this week. Surprisingly, it is not a standard install on new Android phones.
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Google Podcasts is testing personalised episode recommendations: with a "heart" button in the player to help tune recommendations.
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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.
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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.
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"On Google Podcasts, a buffet of hate" - the New York Times discovers that Alex Jones's podcast is still available on Google Podcasts.
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Podcastpage has added filters to their website tools, and has also added Plausible Analytics integration (an alternative to Google Analytics).
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Podkite already tracks Apple Podcasts search results for your podcast; now Podkite tracks Google Podcasts too. They've also expanded this podcast SEO feature to give details per episode.
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A good day for podcast accessibility: Google has enabled automatic subtitles inside the Chrome browser, adding closed captions to any web-based podcast player as well as other audio. Visit
chrome://settings/accessibility
in your browser and turn on Live Caption. Here's what it looks like; it's English-only for now, and works on Mac, Linux and Windows - it's coming soon to ChromeOS. The same service is available on selected Android phones.
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Google Podcasts is adding likes and dislikes to its app, reveals 9to5Google. A heart symbol will tweak recommendations for "more like this"; a thumbs-down button will stop recommending shows.
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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.
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Other larger podcast apps have already changed: Spotify and Audible use "follow", Stitcher uses "+ follow", and Amazon Music uses "♡ follow". Meanwhile, Google Podcasts and Castbox use "+ Subscribe", and Overcast and Castro uses "Subscribe".
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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.)
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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.
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KQED, a radio station in San Francisco CA, USA, is working with Google to make better news audio transcripts, which may also improve automatic transcripts for podcasts, too.
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A Million Ads have signed up to Google's Display and Video 360. The access will allow more audio inventory for the company, which produces dynamic audio ads. From Sounds Profitable, here is an example of how it works.
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CephaloPod is also a new podcast app for Android.
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Land of the Giants from Vox Media is back for a third season: this time, telling the inside story from the Googleplex.
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Google Podcasts is "pretty good now" says a review; is the Dutch language market really too small for podcasts? asks Lieven Heeremans.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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").
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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.
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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.
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Dan Misener at Pacific Content teases us with the launch of a podcast SEO tool called Paseo. It's only for Pacific Content clients, though: not to worry, Podkite offers a similar tool (covered on May 18); and Podr also offers podcast ranking (covered April 23).
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Google Podcasts, the #3 podcast app, has been updated on the web to include a 'subscriptions' list, looking similar to the one you'll find on your phone. You'll find the new page over here.
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The Verge only had 17 favourite podcasts in 2020. They should listen to more! Randomly chosen: Eggplant: the secret life of games, candid interviews with game creators. We think it's specifically video games, rather than board games.
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Veritonic have published their 2020 Top Podcast Advertisers, according to their own proprietary brand score. The #1 is Google, though we don't get to hear any examples of their advertising in Veritonic's blog post.
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Steve Henn wonders if independent podcasting has peaked. He was formerly at Google's audio news division, and at US public radio.
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If you're a podcast host, you may have had fun trying to spot Google Podcasts in your server logs. Here's the definitive guide of all the ways it might appear.
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Apple Music is now available on Google Assistant speakers - another example of Apple being comfortable for its services to be consumed on non-Apple hardware. How's that Android Apple Podcasts app coming along, Apple? It must be in the works, right?
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Google has launched a podcast - Where the Internet Lives, about the unseen world of data centres. Hosted by Simplecast, it's a six-episode show.
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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.
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.
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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.
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Google Podcasts, the third most popular podcast app, has now reached 50 million installations on Android.
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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.
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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.
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Where are people wanting to create podcasts in the UK during the pandemic? Audio Technica reckon it's not London, but Bristol; though Leicester is most interested in making YouTube channels. Meanwhile, our own research points to Wales being the region most interested in a nice cup of tea.
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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).
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Open source Android podcast app AntennaPod now has Podcast Index's search built-in, as does PodcastAddict.
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mp3DirectCut, a direct MP3 editor (which edits without re-encoding), is now available on Android.
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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.
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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.
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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%.
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What useragents are being used for podcast apps? Here's every single useragent we saw on Friday, matched using the RSS useragent and/or specific feeds for some platforms. 1,412 downloads; 217 unknowns (15%). but no wimping out and using “Google Chrome” as a "platform"...!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Spotify has launched promo cards for podcasters to help you share shows or episodes on social media. You can grab yours from Spotify's dedicated website, and they look like this.
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Google Podcasts has announced the twenty teams selected for the 2020-21 Google Podcasts creator program. Working with PRX, eleven countries and six languages are represented.
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"BBC Sounds: music, radio, podcasts" - the BBC Sounds app is "beginning to be made available" outside the UK (we don't yet see it in Australia, in either Google Play or the Apple App Store). It will replace the BBC iPlayer Radio app. BBC Sounds is the broadcaster's own app contains many exclusive shows, and was launched in the UK in June 2018. Ofcom, the UK media regulator, is reviewing BBC Sounds, amid claims that it is unfairly damaging competition.
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Do a podcast? In Africa? Make sure you're in The African Podcast Database.
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Alessandro Diaferia used Google Cloud Platform to produce transcripts for his podcast (in Italian).
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The latest email from Google Assistant promotes voice commands to recommend a podcasts while you organise your wardrobe. Niche.
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Google Podcasts has had a little tweak: the 'cast' button is now available on the now playing screen. It'll make it easier to listen a show on speakers or displays.
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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.
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In the US, Google Podcasts now comes with a personalised news feature in the "explore" tab in the app. Google says that the feature has been in Google Assistant for almost a year; much like NPR One, it plays a mix of individual news stories based on your interests, location, user history and preferences.
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"Hey, Google, order room service". Google is putting their smart speakers into hotel rooms. It would allow podcasts to be heard in every hotel room, too. No hotel chains are mentioned by name in the story.
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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.
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How to work out what RSS feed Google is using: we've added a demo video to this page about our new tool, designed to help podcast host support staff and podcast consultants.
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!
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More visibility for podcasts from Google - Google Podcasts now appears in the app-switcher that's on every Google website. And, there's more improvements for Google Podcasts for Web, reports 9to5Google. However, Android 11's final beta, which will be the next version of Android, still does not have Google Podcasts as a default app, although Google Play Music has been removed. Apple iPhones have Apple Podcasts pre-installed, of course.
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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.
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Ad trafficking system Google Ad Manager has announced it will now handle audio. TuneIn and Spotify are using it already, says the UK's Matt Deegan. Integration, he says, is coming for podcasts but "isn't quite there yet".
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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.
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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.
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At long last, Google Play Music will be shut down in October in favour of YouTube Music, the company has announced. Google Play Music contains a podcast player for some users: confusingly unconnected to Google Podcasts, a separate podcast app that Google launched 778 days ago.
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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".
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Anchor has made a fancy shortcut - type
podcast.new
into a browser to go straight to the episode builder. It's part of Google's ownership of the .new
domain.
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Podsquad have announced custom apps for podcasters, for iPhone and Android. Here's one to take a look at: payment is via Patreon.
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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!
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The BBC is now reaching a record global audience of 468m people. "The Global News Podcast remains the BBC's most popular with audiences approaching 1m a week." (It's in Google Podcasts, using Blubrry's PodcastMirror service; however most of the BBC's output is blocked from Google's app.)
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Media Matters for America, a journalism "conservative misinformation" pressure group, highlights comments on a recent Joe Rogan podcast against transgender people. The outlet has previously reported on Rogan's misinformation about COVID-19 (as did Podnews, on June 30); earlier, other commentators called out Rogan's racist, transphobic and homophobic comments. Spotify starts streaming the Joe Rogan podcast from September 1, and has clear rules prohibiting this content. 🍿
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9to5Mac notes that Castro’s Inbox/Queue feature is game-changing functionality for heavy podcast users. (Google Podcasts offers the same 'inbox'-like view, but doesn't allow you to swipe episodes away. Yes, we've submitted feedback.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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The Comb is a new podcast from the BBC World Service, made especially for young African audiences. The podcast’s mission is to unearth surprising, fascinating and relevant stories from the continent. Of note: Android has a 85.8% market share in Africa, but the BBC has a policy of blocking its podcasts from Google Podcasts.
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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.
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Google and PRX have launched a new round of the Google Podcasts Creator Program, including equipment, training, and a fund of up to $12,000. You've the month of July to apply.
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Time For Your Hobby posts a useful list of podcast resources.
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Google is now promoting podcasts in their Assistant Snapshot feed, which appears on Google smart speaker displays and Android phones.
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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).
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Pocket Casts has released a new version of its popular podcast app for iOS, including standalone Apple Watch playback, a new theme, and "we even replaced Google's Chromecast dialog with our own because we, like you, got sick of them not being able to dark theme their way out of a wet paper bag." Ouch.
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Google and Microsoft engineers have agreed to remove the phrases "blacklist/whitelist" from their code, replacing it with "blocklist/allowlist". We think this seems a good idea for our industry, too.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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9to5Mac carries a comment that Apple Podcasts should allow 'Patreon-style' donation options to help podcasters. There's a standard for this, though neither Apple nor Google support it; our Editor suggests Apple should go further and allow podcast publishers to sell access to their shows.
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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.
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"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.
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Android phones don't use Apple Podcasts. Here are today's most popular Android podcast apps, all the podcast directories to get your show in, and how to get your podcast into Google Podcasts. Services like Podfollow, Podkite's Kitelinks, Chartable's SmartLinks, and our own podcast pages let you share one link that works for everyone.
-
Google haven't responded to our questions about Podcast Addict's removal. They've also not responded to The Register, a highly-regarded tech blog, so it's not us, thankfully.
-
Google Podcasts for iOS has added CarPlay support. It's rolling out on the Apple App Store. Of note: its useragent has changed to start
GooglePodcasts/
- the OPAWG list has been updated.
-
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.
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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.
-
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.)
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Google has released a set of tools to help us move away from Google Play Music - the music service is switching to YouTube Music. For podcast listeners who still use it, the company has added tools for listeners to transfer podcast subscriptions to Google Podcasts and for publishers to transfer their podcasts to Google Podcasts Manager. It should hopefully start to end confusion about these two products.
-
Google have announced the launch of Google Podcasts Manager, an analytics tool for your podcasts on the Google platform. We have taken a full look at it - and discovered that you can also use it to submit new shows too.
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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.
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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.
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Player FM, a podcast app, has been purchased by Maple Media, a company that owns more than 30 apps. Player FM was launched in 2012 by Michael Mahemoff, a former Googler; terms weren't given. (Congratulations, Michael!)
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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).
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The Google Podcasts iOS app gets a glowing review from TNW.
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Megaphone is apparently moving offices in Reston VA, USA, to a building looking like a sandcrawler from Star Wars. They'll join
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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".
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!
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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The Google Podcasts app has added a carousel of coronavirus podcasts, as part of an initiative by Google News, Google Search and Google Assistant.
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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.
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Baq Hadri and Zack Reneau-Wedeen from the Google Podcasts team took part in a Reddit AMA yesterday. The "Ask Me Anything" session was covered by 9to5Google.
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Google Podcasts for Web appears to now have a little subscribe button on podcast pages like this one; and has added, in the menu, a link to your subscriptions.
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As we reported yesterday, Google Podcasts is now available on iOS, with a new iPhone app available now. The redesign is now also visible on Android, and includes full automatic downloads and new episode notifications. The announcement also promises "support for subscriptions on Google Podcasts for Web", and many outlets have reported this as having launched - we don't see any subscriptions visible as yet, though.
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A report in 9to5Google claims that Google is to release a Google Podcasts app for iPhone. It's based on a piece in Engadget, which has been removed, 9to5Google notes, because of "a broken embargo". The app will be here, according to the story: at publication time, that's a 404 error.
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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.
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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.
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YouTube is warning that more videos than normal may be removed from the service: content moderation on YouTube, and many other platforms, is now being done by algorithms rather than human beings. This may impact podcasters, many of whom use the service for posting video versions of their show.
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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.
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Apple is not allowing anything about the coronavirus into its app store, excepting from governments, medical or educational institutions, or health-focused NGOs. This doesn't affect podcasts (though we'd encourage you to report anything that's wrong). Meanwhile, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube have released a joint statement.
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Resonate Recordings, Slate, Google and other organisations are working from home. Resonate Recordings have also posted their list of podcasts on the subject, while Slate looks at what happens when the schools close, as they already have in many countries.
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Google is podcasting. Apps, Games and Insights is a new podcast for developers and software companies. It went live on March 4th. (Libsyn)
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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.
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The Coronavirus Podcast is a new podcast from BBC News, focusing on the covid-19 outbreak. Like other BBC podcasts, this public health message has been blocked from Google Podcasts. (BBC)
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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).
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BBC Studios has invested into podcast app Pocket Casts. NPR, WNYC Studios and WBEZ Chicago have also added new investment: terms weren't disclosed. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the BBC, which, almost a year ago, blocked its podcasts from Google Podcasts.
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Google Podcasts (beta) appears to have added auto-downloads for us. The setting appears when subscribing, or re-subscribing, to a new show.
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The BBC also produces a daily news podcast Global News Podcast, and, unavailable within Apple Podcasts but discovered by Google Podcasts, a two-minute news bulletin, probably destined for smart speakers. (That helps it evade the block the BBC puts on its podcasts for Google.)
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Data: globally, we bought 44.7% more smart speakers in Q4 2019 than we did in Q8 2018. Amazon had a global market share of 28.3%; Google 24.9%; Apple just 4.7%.
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.
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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.
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Clever idea: Headliner have produced a Chrome extension to get their product into Soundcloud. The extension adds a Headliner button, for you to make video sharing clips of your SoundCloud audio.
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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.
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Google Podcasts now has a front page, with search, on the web. The front page contains personalised results when signed in to your Google account, though it doesn't currently list your subscribed podcasts.
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BBC News Brasil has released its first podcast, Que História!, literally What a Story!, featuring some of the BBC's biggest stories. Brazil's mobile phones are 81% Android, yet the BBC blocks its podcasts from Google Podcasts.
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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.)
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Google Podcasts is to get a redesign soon, says 9to5Google. It appears to have better discovery tools and a play queue, adds XDA Developers. Also: isgoogleplaymusicpodcastsstillathing .com
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Google Podcasts has added timestamp sharing, so you can share a specific bit of a podcast with a friend. The podcast app has also had a few small tweaks. PS: IsGooglePlayMusicPodcastsStillAThing·com
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Out Editor is in Paris, France, at the Salon de la Radio later this week. See a 30-minute keynote, ten things radio can learn from podcasting; and he's on two panels: Making podcasting mainstream in Europe and The future of audio under Google, Apple, and Facebook. Go get some free tickets.
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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.
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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.
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MIDiA Research has released data apparently showing that Spotify is more popular than Apple Podcasts in the UK, Australia and Canada: and is also "within margin of survey error" in the US. The chart, reported in The Motley Fool, also shows that Google Podcasts is virtually as popular as Apple Podcasts (which is not supported by any podcast consumption data we've seen), and that Apple Music is apparently a more popular podcast app than Stitcher or Downcast. It doesn't have any podcasts in it though?
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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.
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Dirty John seems to be the favourite true-crime podcast in California, while Maryland is still keen on Serial, according to a study from Kastle Systems on the 'most popular true crime podcast per US state'. It's actually based on search queries through Google, not downloads.
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The Google Podcasts Android App has a new 'account switcher'. You can also switch the podcast app to operate "without an account", i.e. a kind-of incognito mode that doesn't save history (and doesn't let you subscribe).
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We don't use the censored titles in Podnews, so you can compare this Anchor podcast on Apple with our naughtier listing of it; or this Podbean title on Apple with our listing. In both cases, the artwork contains the potty-mouthed word, though. The naughty words are not censored in Castbox, Overcast, Luminary, Podchaser, RadioPublic and Spotify; and this one isn't censored in Google Podcasts either.
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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.
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Google's John Mueller, their Webmaster Trends Analyst, answered a question about how to get search engine optimisation right for a podcast website. Users of Reddit also added their own thoughts.
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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).
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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.
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In French (but Google Translate does a good job if you need it) - Pénélope Boeuf highlights the benefit of marketing your personal brand as a podcaster, as she hits one million listens.
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Google Podcasts has a new dark theme, according to 9to5Google.
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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.
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Google Podcasts is adding a "recommended" tab, containing personalised recommended episodes, according to AndroidPolice (note: episodes, not entire podcast feeds). It seems a test: we don't see the feature yet. (Podnews is on Google Podcasts).
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Here is a look back at similar predictions from 2019, just so you can check how right our Editor was (I managed to predict Google's story-by-story audio news service, Apple's slow market share decline, and shorter podcasts).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Apple is doubling the production rate of AirPods Pro, the company's latest Bluetooth headphones. Google's Pixel Buds were a poorly-reviewed flop (though we like ours); their Pixel Buds 2 are out in Spring.
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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.
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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.
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63% of the world's smartphones run Android, say ScientiaMobile, however Apple iOS slightly gained over Android in the last quarter. At least 80% of Android users have the Google Podcasts player, if not app, preinstalled; Android users can also use Spotify, Pocket Casts or other apps, but not, of course, Apple Podcasts. (We've updated our Google Podcasts FAQ today).
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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.
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The Asia Podcast Summit has an event this Friday at Google Singapore. Get your free ticket today - literally, today - to get in.
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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.
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PRX and Google Podcasts have launched Pod casting 101, a ten-part video series to help early-stage podcasters. The videos are translated and subtitled into Spanish, Hindi, French, Arabic and Portuguese. Google adds some helpful tips from Luvvie Ajayi, while PRX taps up advice from Sean Rameswaram: they both present the video series.
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Google pulled all ads from the podcast app Podcast Addict in early September, claiming a violation based on the podcast app "hosting explicit content". It doesn't, of course; it's a podcast app: but the presence of adult podcasts in the service was enough to pull virtually all of the ads for the free version of the app. Google has since restored the ads.
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Googlewatch: Our version of the Google Podcasts app, launched 16 months ago by Google, now calls itself "Google Podcasts Beta", we notice. Wonder what's going on there? Android Police claims a new now-playing UI, but we don't see it, nor the automatic downloads that they're reporting on.
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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.
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Edison Research and PodcastOne's study into Podcast Super Listeners has been published in full. 44% of them listen to public radio each week (significantly more than the population as a whole). In the US, you can download the study here. (Redirected to a different country's PodcastOne affiliate? Use this form)
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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)
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You'd not be silly enough to gzip your audio files on your server. But if you do, you'll discover that some apps (notably, Google Podcasts) won't let your listeners scrub or skip. Craig Constantine discovers that gzipping audio gives you bad mojo.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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The new Google Pixel 4 will include a voice recorder with real-time voice transcription. We tried out the app - here's the audio and transcript. The audio is an AAC-LC file, at 32kHz samplerate and around 48kbps variable bitrate, if you're wondering. (Tip: on the occasion that we want free transcriptions, we use Google's Live Transcribe app.)
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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."
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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.
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Podfest 2020 will be in Orlando FL, USA, on March 6-8, it's been announced. Here's a speaker submission form, and where to get a ticket.
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Breaker, a social podcast app, is now available for Android users in beta. It will import your subscriptions from other podcast apps, and is free. Here it is on Android, and on iOS. Listen to Podnews in Breaker.
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Opinion: It's the app we use, and is by far the best podcast experience on Android: so good, we bought it twice. It's here for iOS, and here for Android; the iOS version is awaiting an update to be approved by Apple. Listen to us on Pocket Casts
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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.
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Podcasts on YouTube could open up a new revenue source for Google, says Market Realist.
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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.
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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."
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Google may be adding a personalised podcast recommendation tool to Android phones. The Google Podcasts app is also getting a slight redesign, which will highlight cover art a little more. Auto-downloading, a feature of almost all podcast apps, is still being worked on, according to the article.
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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)
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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."
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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).
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Late last month, the podcast managed to get well over 3,000 new reviews in just one week - seemingly the result of just asking their audience.
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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.
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Podcast episodes within Google Search are now appearing again in Australia and the UK, and also in France, Germany and Sweden. The search engine has 63,000 searches every second.
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The second round of the Google Podcasts PRX creator program is underway. So far, they've been to a Red Sox game. They lost.
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The BBC have announced that they'll remove their live radio streams from TuneIn for listeners within the UK, citing a lack of listener data. However, podcasts will remain on the platform. They've also announced further enhancements to their BBC Sounds app, adding more new categories and support for Chromecast. They removed their podcasts from Google Podcasts in March.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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The BBC's Alexa skill has been improved, allowing you to resume podcasts you were previously listening to on the corporation's BBC Sounds app. While the BBC enhances its Alexa app, the BBC continues to withhold its podcasts from competing Google speakers, after the corporation complained of unfair prominence of Google's own app. Speaking of which...
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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.
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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).
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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).
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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.)
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Listeners to our podcast will have noticed that we were in Malaysia and South Africa last week. Our Editor wrote a boring long article about the aeroplanes he took. Nearly as boring as this article about a feature he wants in Google Maps.
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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.
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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).
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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
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Our Editor has some ideas on how to get the BBC back into Google Podcasts - noting that Google could give podcasters a little more control over how their podcasts appear within Google products.
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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.
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If you use it to produce podcasts, be aware that Google Hangouts On Air is going away later this year.
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The Google Podcasts creator program has announced their new round of teams who will be participating in the program - including six independent podcast production teams from Brazil, India, Spain, Lebanon, Colombia, and the US.
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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).
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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.
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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):
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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).
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Podcasters are curious to note that Google's new podcast search results are mostly attached to Apple Podcast listings pages, rather than the podcast websites themselves.
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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?
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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.
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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).
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Podcasts are more popular than music playlists, says a international study run by MIDIA Research. Meanwhile, Sounder uses Google stats to claim that podcasts are more popular than blogs.
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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.)
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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.
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More podcasts have been removed from Luminary, including iHeart Podcast Network, PodcastOne, BluBrry corporate podcasts. The Verge reports that many other smaller podcasters are removing their content. Surprisingly, the BBC are still there, given their concerns about Google. If you need it, here's how to remove your podcast from Luminary; we've no plans to remove our podcast from the service, though.
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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).
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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).
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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.
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Earshot Strategies writes, critically, on the decision by the BBC to pull its podcasts from Google.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The nominees will be announced for the British Podcast Awards today, Monday, at 6pm UK time (or your time). Hosted by the cast of No Such Thing As A Fish, the nominations will be announced live on their Twitter feed.
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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.
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Google Podcasts is to get a sleep timer, says 9to5google, who have examined the code in the new beta version of the Google app.
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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.
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Is everyone happy that Google Podcasts is now transcribing podcasts? Some have doubts.
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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).
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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.
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Our story yesterday about the BBC blocking its podcasts from Google Assistant and Google Podcasts has got significant coverage from publications like Voicebot, RAIN, ShortMag, RadioToday, and NU·nl. We also hear that French pubcaster Radio France have done something similar, though they've not responded to our questions.
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The BBC have blocked access to its podcasts by Google; and BBC podcasts are no longer available on Google Podcasts, Google Assistant, and Google search. Our special report notes that this may herald the beginning of the end of free and open podcasting.
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Supporting pubsubhubbub could significantly help all parts of the podcasting ecosystem: cutting down on redundant RSS polling, and meaning it's faster for listeners to get new episodes. As we write in our overview article - it just needs a few lines of code; and Google Podcasts already supports it.
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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.
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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
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The Google Podcasts Creator Program has just opened its second round of applications. It "seeks to increase the diversity of voices in the industry globally and lower barriers to podcasting."
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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.
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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
-
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).
-
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).
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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.
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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.
-
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.
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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.
-
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.
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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).
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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?"
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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.)
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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.
-
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).
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Megaphone by Panoply has integrated with Google Campaign Manager to help advertisers and agencies manage their campaigns. The Google product allows one view to manage creative and campaigns (here's an overview); historically, podcast advertising has been managed separately, and this should help podcasting appeal to new advertisers, says Megaphone.
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MakeUseOf has published its 8 best podcast apps for Android listicle. Pocket Casts is their #1; Google Podcasts is missing.
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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.)
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Targetspot, a sales company that represents Google Play Music and Audioboom among others, has appointed Mark Kates as Sales Director for their Toronto ON, Canada office.
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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.
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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.
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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.
To every American who sent us a correction yesterday: Thank you, you were right, it's "closed captioning". We were close, though...
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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.
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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.
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CES #1: Samsung TVs will soon have iTunes and Apple Airplay 2, the latter of which allows you to beam your favourite podcast from your iPhone to your TV, much like Google Chromecast works.
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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).
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Google Podcasts now supports formatting and links in podcast show notes. They still don't look great, but it's a good step in the right direction. We've also spotted that Google Podcasts is now fully supported in Android Auto. In the works (finally) are automatic podcast downloads, and a way of seeing which version of the player you're running.
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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.
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"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.
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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".
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Amazon Alexa has changed the audio clip limit in skills from 90 seconds to 240 seconds (that's four minutes), and increased the allowable sample rate. If you're publishing cross-platform, however, Google Assistant's still stuck at 120 seconds.
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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."
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If you promote Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts equally, it turns out you get equal usage, according to our own figures.
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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.
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Why is the Google Podcasts app failing so hard? Steven Goldstein asks some industry pros; nobody is very polite about it. (Earlier this year, our Editor published how it could grow faster - not much has changed).
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Google Hangouts, a popular choice for podcasters wanting multiple hosts from across the world, looks set to either close at some point or seamlessly merge into a new product, says a confused set of rumours. Meanwhile, Google Play Music Podcasts is bizarrely still available and has no closure date set, in spite of Google's launch of an entirely separate app, Google Podcasts, earlier this year.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Digital audio advertising tech company AdsWizz has integrated its products with Google Display and Video 360. "The integration also opens up Pandora, the largest streaming music provider in the US, to audio ad buys via Google Display and Video 360."
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Got a family account with Spotify? Live in the US? Claim a free Google Home Mini smart speaker. Meanwhile, Microsoft's given up on Cortana, and is now selling Amazon Echo speakers in-store.
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.
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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).
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Audio search company Audioburst translate into English an article from The Marker about the company's plans for the future.
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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.
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Sonos has let integration with Google Assistant slip until some time next year.
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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).
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We've updated our Google Podcasts FAQ, with a new video showing the app and player working, better explanations, and even some PHP code.
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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...).
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The Amazon Echo smart speaker family is now available in Italy and Spain. (It gets its podcasts, by default, from TuneIn). Meanwhile, the Google Home Hub, launched last week, makes podcasts look quite nice, we discover.
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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).
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Podcast SEO is often forgotten about - this is a (very) comprehensive guide from Carey Green.
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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.
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Google and Spotify now favour self-hosted podcasters, claims Allan Tépper.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Google has finally switched on Chromecast functionality in Google Podcasts, so listeners can enjoy podcasts on their TVs and connected speakers. (This was one of the items in How Google Podcasts could grow faster, an opinion piece from Podnews's editor).
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Podkite have added Spotify and Stitcher chart rankings to their service. They also monitor Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
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Google Podcasts is adding support for Chromecast, allowing listeners to play a podcast from their phone to connected speakers and televisions. It's still in a limited release. This functionality was first spotted in mid-June, and is one of the features we considered crucial in our growth recommendations.
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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.
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.
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What is Shortwave, a rumoured new audio app from Google (Aug 13)? We still don't know for sure. But today, we know what it looked like a while ago - a product based on short pieces of snackable audio content.
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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!"
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There's a trailer on the Serial website, which also contains subscribe buttons for Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Pandora.
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How is Google Podcasts doing? And how could it do better? Editor of Podnews, James Cridland, writes an opinion piece with a few ideas for Mountain View; the story also includes data from Libsyn, ART19, Omny Studio and Whooshkaa.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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In an opinion piece, Dan Misener recommends using just one link to link to your podcast. (Like this one, which will open an excellent podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or a web page, depending what you're using.)
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Google Podcasts also has a donate button for some non-profits including NPR and Radiotopia; but it's currently a hard-coded pilot.
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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The Editor of Podnews, James Cridland, has written an opinion piece about Why you only need two buttons to promote your podcast, pointing out further benefits of only linking out to Apple and Google.
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Are you listed in Google Podcasts? Chances are: yes. Podnews did some research on a set of podcasts we analysed in February; 97% of them were available in Google Podcasts. (Search for your podcast to find your link; here's our FAQ).
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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.
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Steven Goldstein posts Why So Few People Listen to Podcasts on Smart Speakers - and How to Fix That. ("OK, Google, ask Podnews for the latest"; or find Podnews in the daily briefing section).
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Spotify, the second largest podcast platform, is attracting criticism for hosting on its platform The Alex Jones Show Podcast from the conspiracy theorist and far-right broadcaster. Jones has had some material removed from YouTube, and Spotify recently removed some music as part of its Hateful Conduct policy. The Alex Jones Show podcast is also hosted on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, and two further podcasts featuring Jones are also available. Meanwhile, in subscriber numbers, Spotify is pulling away from Apple Music.
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Event: Indian Podcasters' Virtual Meetup, 5 Aug. Sign up here.
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Rob Walch canters through marketing advice and podcast stats: Google Podcasts is already a top ten podcast app, he says (yay) with 0.5% of all podcast downloads (oh).
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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.
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Google publishes the Google Podcasts 'podcaster toolkit' in the bag for the attendees at Podcast Movement. And, now, you.
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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.
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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).
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"Podcasts more popular than blogs" is a claim from an online marketing website, based on Google Trends data.
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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.
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RadioPublic has launched Android Auto support. The company's equity crowdfunding campaign that we reported June 22 is currently 307% funded.
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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:
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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.
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Zack from Google Podcasts is special guest tomorrow on the New Media Show, which streams live: 9am PST, 12pm EST (and is available as a podcast).
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Pacific Content's Dan Misener spots that Google Podcasts is recommending podcasts based on the categories you listen to, and asks Have you looked at your secondary categories lately?. We've added two new categories for the Podnews podcast.
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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).
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"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.
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Google Podcasts will shortly get a "trim silences" feature and Chromecast support, reports 9to5google. The "trim silences" feature is already live in the public beta; here's how to be a beta tester. (And, here's our Google Podcasts FAQ).
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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.
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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.
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Google have globally released their much-hyped Google Podcasts App for Android: the smartphone operating system has four times the users of iOS. This 100K app links to the podcast functionality already installed in almost all Android phones. Wired says it could turbocharge the industry; The Verge makes much of its personalised recommendations; VentureBeat goes into more detail; while GonnaGeek says it leaves a lot to be desired. (The app is not a fully-featured replacement for the likes of Pocket Casts.)
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Omny Studio have added Google Analytics tracking for their embedded player.
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Google's podcast app continues to be tweaked, including a "for you" tab and a nice new logo of a colourful diamond.
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"Podcasting isn’t the same as radio" - Maarten Vancoillie and Dorothee Dauwe, Qmusic, Belgium
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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.
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Podcraft estimates that, by the end of 2018, there will be 700,000 podcasts available on Apple's platform.
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.
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Google's DoubleClick's BidManager now lets you buy audio ads on "Google Play Music, Spotify, SoundCloud and TuneIn — with Pandora coming soon."
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Wondering if Google has indexed your podcast properly, but don't have an Android phone to check? Here's how to use a hidden feature of Google Chrome to check: no Android phone required.
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Google Home is now outselling Amazon Echo devices, reports Gizmodo. Of course, Google Assistant is also present in many Android phones and even headphones. In Libsyn's The Feed this week, Rob Walch mentions that the Google Assistant iPhone app is a good way to check whether Google's properly indexed your podcast; and here's how to get your podcast onto Google Home. (Oh, and "OK, Google, ask podnews for the latest" is a good thing to try, too).
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Dubious data wrapped up as a bit of fun - the most popular podcast by US state, where "most popular" means "most searched for on Google".
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Radio station LOVE SPORT has added ten fan podcasts to Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa speakers. The initiative is a partnership with XAPPmedia.
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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.
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Blubrry write how to take advantage of Google's podcasting strategy.
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HotPod 161 is out. Nick looks at the BBC announcement, Google's announcements, and lots of caveats around Apple's 50bn download announcement.
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Back to the UK, some podcasting (and audio) stats. Lots of behavioural data from RAJAR/IpsosMori.
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The final part of the Google podcasting strategy posts from Pacific Content discusses Instant Translation, Lookahead Scrubbing, and More.
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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.
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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.
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More on Google's new podcast strategy, reported yesterday:
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ICYMI: Google's new podcasting strategy - and the player that's already in your Android phone.
already installed on most Android phones. There's more in the interview; including a bold aim:
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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.
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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.
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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.
Got a smart speaker? Find us in the Daily Briefing section of the Amazon Alexa app; or "OK Google, ask podnews for the latest"
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Google is enhancing support for podcasts in Android phones. A "subscribe" button is now live for some selected customers.
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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.
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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")
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A new report from Voicebot brings more data around smart speakers in the US. It reports that podcasting is used by 10% of smart speaker owners every day, 24% every month.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Podcast app Anchor has launched v3.0 of their app. Its focus is now on podcasting says The Verge, rather than simply sharing audio; RAIN notes that it now offers distribution to Spotify as well as Apple and Google.
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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.
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Wondered how to get your podcast into Google Assistant, and onto the Google Home smart speaker? You don't do it by filling out a form. We've done it - here's how to get your podcast onto the Google Home. (Also: everywhere else.)
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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Scottish broadcaster Colin Kelly writes good news, and bad news, that his podcast is now available on Google Home. The video's worth a watch.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Amazon Alexa and the Google Home have "topped the charts" this holiday period, implying that smart speakers were popular gifts.
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AudioBoom shares slid 17% yesterday on news of its projected £4.5 million loss. The shares are down 23% since Friday.
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Francisco Izuzquiza argues that 2017 has been the year that Apple began to take podcasting seriously, while Google (continues to) drop the ball.
Survey: If you are UK-based, please help journalist and producer Heidi Pett with some research into rates for those in the industry.
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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!
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Of note: Google recommends your audio is -16 LUFS for Google Assistant (eg Google Home). If podcasting needed a standard, this is it.
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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.
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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.
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Libsyn has added an "add to Spotify" button in their dashboard. It's next to a similar button for Google Play Music and iHeartRadio.
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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."
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Event: Audiocraft Festival in Sydney NSW, Australia: June 2, 2018. You have until 3 Dec to submit your proposal for speaking.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Bloomberg reports on the ex-Googler behind Castbox, a good podcast app that also transcribes to help searching. The app's raised $13m.
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Google have bought 60db, a podcasting app that focused on personalisation. The app itself will shut on November 10.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ear Buds is a new Melbourne-based podcast network. They launched yesterday with 13 diverse, local podcasts. Tomorrow (Friday) they're driving around the city playing podcasts to celebrate.
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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.
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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.
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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!"
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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.)
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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.