Is audio in Medium's future?

Ev Williams posts about the business model of Medium. As he does so, he also highlights ambitions for them to move into audio. “We see audio as a highly complementary format for sharing the types of stories Medium is great at.”

Westwood One Podcast Network has announced it is monetising APM’s In The Dark podcast. The second season of the podcast launches May 1st. Stats: In the Dark’s first season, which has driven nearly 12 million downloads to date, continues to receive downloads more than a year later at roughly 465,000 per month.

Sonix has updated their transcription and editing service with a number of new features. Sonix for teams; integration with Adobe Audition and their video products; a video editor (which, like audio, you edit just by editing the text); and more new features.

2018's Top Podcast Problems… And Solutions are covered by Sarah Rhea Werner. tldr;: Diversity; everything’s a bit formulaic; and we should embrace silence. Also, a piece in The Athens Post about sexism in podcasts.

Steven Goldstein posts Interesting Podcast Data Never Seen Before. There’s data here about Fridays; about smart speaker use for short podcasts; and ad rates.

• 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.

Spotify are doing some behind-the-scenes work on their podcast platform. Libsyn warns of delays in new shows. (We’re on Spotify with a special weekly version of our podcast).

Radiodays Europe’s Podcast Day has shared a presentation originally done at Radiodays Europe about podcasting trends from podnews’s editor, James Cridland.

The New York Times write about Parcast, who they call a “little known podcast network”. “The company’s revenue in the first quarter of 2018 was 95 percent of what it had earned through the entirety of 2017”.

Help, I sexted my boss is a UK podcast “to help you navigate the daily struggles of modern life”. One host is from BBC Radio 1; the other from Mail Online.

The Dirty Bits History Podcast covers all the bits that your history teacher left out, says a profile on the podcast from DiscoverPods.

More history: this time from Before You Were Born, “Harry and Nash bring their unique brand of educational comedy to explore significant events that occurred this week in history”. It’s a podcast from NOVA Entertainment in Australia.

Author Tyler Bell writes to us with a podcast for lovers of horror and dark fiction, Westside Fairytales.