Amazon's Alexa gets podcasts from Apple and Spotify

• You can now play podcasts from Apple and Spotify on Amazon Alexa-powered speakers. Apple emailed all podcasters on Friday. Spotify followed with a blog post announcing their integration.

  • Both Spotify Podcasts and Apple Podcasts on Alexa are only available in the US. It doesn’t work in the other 179 countries in the world: caution when advertising the service on your podcast, because everyone else will get an error.
  • See our analysis of podcasts on smart speakers below.

• Libsyn has updated their platform, adding the ability for you to add Podtrac/Chartable/Blubrry “URL prepends” and author data per episode.

• 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.

• Taking stuff off a cassette for a podcast? You might like DDi Codec, a $15 app for software emulation of Dolby-B or Dolby-C noise reduction.

• The UK’s Daily Telegraph publishes The decade in radio: how podcasts took over the airwaves

Get the free Podnews newsletter for more like this

Get it free

• What is a podcast not? It’s not live. That doesn’t stop some people lazily describing this abhorrent thing from hackers of Ring cameras on a Discord server as a podcast. It’s not on any podcast apps that we could find, which is probably good.

  
  Aug 19 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

Tips and tricks - with Acast Open

• How to Create, Promote and Grow your podcast, from Shaan Chagan, promises a seven-step guide.

• What makes compelling podcast cover art? Resonate Recordings adds a small video telling you how to sort out cover art.

Analysis: podcasts on smart speakers

Most smart-speakers are in shared spaces, like kitchens or the living room. Yet 91% of podcasts are listened-to alone. That’s one reason, perhaps, why only 0.21% of Libsyn podcast plays in August 2019 were to smart speakers (source). Even if podcast listening was to treble on smart speakers, this is unlikely to produce a massive change in consumption: and certainly if only available in one country. (Expect lots of confused listeners trying to listen outside the US).

Despite the hype, Amazon Alexa is only market leader in two countries: the United States and the UK. In all other countries, Google is in front (and the Google Assistant is also embedded in many other devices, so it has more users everywhere). Google Podcasts syncs with the Google Assistant automatically; just as both Apple and Spotify’s Alexa skills do. Users will have to connect their Apple or Spotify account to their Alexa account, however; unlike the Google Assistant, which is already linked to your Google account.

This is to be welcomed by Amazon. Podcasts have always been playable through Alexa speakers using their default provider, TuneIn Radio. TuneIn recently lost a copyright court case in the UK, which could possibly open the floodgates for a number of other copyright actions against the company (and has the possibility of forcing it to cease trading). In many countries, Amazon has succeeded in finding other default directories for live radio; and it would make sense for an alternative default directory for podcasts.

Most interestingly, this is the first time that Apple has produced a third-party integration for Apple Podcasts. It communicates that Apple are serious about their podcast ambitions. Next, could we see an Apple Podcasts app for Android?

• Feedback: want more little analysis pieces like this? Let us know.

Podcast News - with Spreaker Prime

Grovelling apology: Because Podnews is staffed by an idiot, we managed to partially get the name of Spreaker Prime wrong in a few editions last week, substituting it in one place for a, erm, competitor. We’re deeply apologetic to the good folks of Spreaker Prime about our idiocy, and are grateful to Spreaker Prime for their patience in dealing with a fool who can’t read what he’s typed. Massive apologies, Spreaker Prime. <- J, please check this before sending

Spreaker Prime: Tired of hearing the same old true crime stories? Then It’s About Damn Crime is the place to be! Hosts Brittney and Justine discuss true crime cases featuring people of color, and they promise some of the cases will be brand new to you! They’re using Spreaker Prime to host for free and make more money.

Podcasting Step by Step has an interview with Libsyn’s Rob Walch about “the truth about New and Noteworthy”. (Libsyn)