Breaker team to join Twitter; podcast app to close

• The Breaker team is to join Twitter. CTO Leah Culver, Designer Emma Lundin and CEO Erik Berlin are “joining Twitter because we believe in the future of audio communication and are inspired by the ways Twitter is facilitating public conversations for people around the world”.

  • Culver says in a tweet that she is “joining Twitter to help build @TwitterSpaces”, which describes itself as “a small experiment focused on the intimacy of the human voice”. Launched on Dec 18, Spaces sounds similar to Clubhouse and features live audio (with live transcripts). It has a signup form if you want to try and get early access.
  • Twitter began testing voice tweets in their iOS app in June, a feature that has yet to reach Android or the web. Twitter has an audio background, though: the company began life in 2005 called Odeo, and was a podcasting platform.
  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 30 2023

• Twitter has not bought the Breaker app. It is to close on January 15. Breaker called itself “the social podcast app”, and launched in March 2017, allowing listeners to leave comments on episodes and see what friends were listening to. Their blog post has details of what to do next.

  • If you liked what Breaker did, we’d recommend Podhero, which does similar. You can also use it to support your favourite podcasts, like ours.
  • Breaker also operated a podcast hosting platform, according to its blog: we can only find 30 podcasts using it, though, including their own podcast, last updated in March. They’ll also no longer be supported from January 15.

• Buzzsprout has published their look back at 2020.

  
  Aug 30 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Salem Media Group, a US-based broadcast company, has launched into podcasting. The Salem Podcast Network will produce new conservative talk content.

• There were 1,038,191 new podcasts launched in 2020, says MyPodcastReviews. The busiest month for new shows was June. The website also reports that 60.7% of all podcasts are no longer being updated.

• Podcast merch has become big business, says the Wall Street Journal.

• If you’ve been off for the last few weeks, here’s our coverage of Amazon buying Wondery. Our full analysis on Dec 31 also made a prediction about what Amazon’s next purchase might be: ART19 and Amazon both start with the same letter, but will that be the only thing connecting those two companies in the next few weeks?

Tips and tricks - with Buzzsprout

• Lots of podcast advice is about technology, and microphones, and tools - but little is about the voice. Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Video Voice has just launched, from coach Peter Stewart - with advice on breathing, talking into the microphone, and how to read well.

• How to get universal links to your podcast for everyone

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