Anchor launch a Patreon competitor, Listener Support

• 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.

Data: “One in three new podcasts are powered by Anchor” - source

• Spotify have made it possible to share podcasts from Spotify directly to Instagram stories, “deep links and all”, according to @jacobschulman who works in Product Marketing. (Thanks, James from My Spotify Ideas)

• Android 9, codenamed Android Pie, was released earlier this week on Google Pixel phones (and will be forthcoming for others). The Google Podcasts icon is not installed by default in this new version. (The app itself is; but you’d need to follow a podcast link to find it). In other, better, news, podcast links from Facebook (in the Facebook browser) now appear to correctly open.

• Samsung have just announced a partnership with Samsung as their “new go-to music service provider”, meaning their podcasts will also be available to Samsung users. The app will not be pre-installed, but is available during setup.

• The Last Podcast on the Left has signed a deal to joins Rooster Teeth’s The Roost.

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• TeePublic and HowStuffWorks has partnered to make real-time merchandise for the fans of its podcasts.

• One podcaster has built DIY acoustic panels - and recorded the difference it made, which he describes as 'profound’.

• The New York Times has reported US$24m profit.

“The Daily is a very successful ad business,” Meredith Kopit Levien, executive vice president and chief operating officer, said in the earnings call. “We have a ton of evidence that suggests that the format of The Daily, which is essentially one big story and sometimes two, actually makes people more likely to engage in our platform.” - Source

• Event: ROCKNPOD Weekend, in Nashville TN, Aug 24-26. The press release also serves as a useful list of a number of music podcasts.

• The Nature Conservancy of Canada has launched a new sound-rich narrative podcast called Nature Talks. Each episode tells a story about nature and the people trying to protect it.

• An Israeli tech website covers speech search engine Audioburst.

• Podcasts gain fans in the Arab World, according to The Arab, who also give a list of five podcasts to try.

• Voice actress Kristen DiMercurio will join the cast of Greater Boston in season three premiere. Greater Boston is a full-cast cast audio drama podcast set in the Boston metro area, blending factual history with an alternate reality.

• Patreon has acquired Memberful, a membership solution.

• We’ve seen multiple reports of a glitch with iTunes Connect, with many podcasters unable to log in. (It’s not just you). The workaround appears to be to update and open iTunes on your desktop computer, and accept the terms and conditions.

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