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Apple will soon require secure podcast feeds

Apple will soon require secure podcast feeds

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This article is at least a year old

  • Apple
    Apple Podcasts

    Apple Podcasts have sent an email to all podcasters today, “strongly encouraging” podcasters to use “a secure podcast feed with a SSL certificate” - in practice, this means a podcast RSS feed that starts https:// . The email says that, in future, a secure feed will be required for Podcast Analytics and also to submit new podcasts.

  • NPR

    Sleepover, a CBC podcast with Sook-Yin Lee, returns for a new season. Sook-Yin invites three strangers to spend a night together to talk; she spends a night in an indigenous care community in Toronto. A previous season was described by NPR as something that “will restore your faith in humans”.

  • Roman Mars was interviewed by Recode: he made a plea to keep podcasts free. Data point: his main podcast, 99% Invisible, has 11 staff.

  • Blubrry
  • Pacific Content

    Pacific Content’s Dan Misener is concerned we’re preaching to the converted: “26% of Americans listened to a podcast in the last month. Don’t forget about the 74% who didn’t.”

  • Podtrac have released their top 10 US publishers - there are no new entries - and top 20 US podcasts for April 2018: there’s one new entry, 99% Invisible (replacing Atlanta Monster, which ended in March).


    Aug 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
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  • Some stats from Libsyn-hosted podcasts, from their podcast The Feed (ep 120) for the month of April:

    • 83.27% of all Libsyn podcasts were downloaded on a mobile device; 0.2% were consumed on a smart speaker. (We would note that all smart speaker downloads were listened-to; not all downloads to a mobile device were).
    • Apple was responsible for 62.5% of all podcast downloads; Spotify was second with 6.18% of all downloads. Other larger apps: Overcast (2.9%); Podcast Addict (2.1%); Castbox (2.1%); Stitcher (2.0%); Pocket Casts (1.5%). Rob points out that only around 20% of all Libsyn podcasts are listed on Spotify.
    • Libsyn also had two downloads (2!) from North Korea. Is that you? We’d love to know.
  • In The Word from Mouth this week: the problem of continuing friction for new podcast listeners, and thoughts on adoption rates of new podcast players.

  • Megaphone

    Digiday writes about the Walmart podcast Outside the box, which in season two is trying to convince us that 'time > money’. It’s produced by Omelet and hosted by Panoply’s Megaphone.

  • Listicle: 10 podcasts to listen to (The National, United Arab Emirates) - none from the UAE, sadly.

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