Closed-captioning is coming to Google Podcasts

• Closed-captioning is coming to Google Podcasts: a forthcoming version of the app will include the option to produce an automatic live transcript on-screen, enabled with a “CC” button - good for noisy places or for those with hearing difficulties. Website 9to5google have enabled the feature on the beta version of the Google app, and report that it works well. Also, the new app will highlight major items in the show notes and offer search terms to learn more. New features prepped in beta versions can take months to arrive, though.

• “Here’s what else you need to know today”. The New York Times has launched a 3-min weekday flash news briefing hosted by Michael Barbaro for Amazon Alexa devices, as well as a weekly interactive news quiz from the producers of The Daily, and other services. None of these services work on Google speakers - the briefing, which is a nice change from a radio bulletin, is sadly unavailable in Google’s news briefing service. It’s sponsored by Audi.

• Stephen Goldstein went to CES, and reports back about Spotify’s exclusivity announcements, 5G, smart speakers, and a toilet with Alexa built in. Alexa? Use the air freshener.

  
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• The Bangalore Podcasters’ and Listeners’ Meetup  on January 12th was their biggest (and longest) yet.

• Hunter Walk, a partner in a VC company, writes about podcast discovery. Podcast discovery is a problem, he writes, but attempts to fix it “are at best features, not products or companies.”

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• These iOS Podcast Apps Are Way Better Than Apple’s Default App, claims Lifehacker. Pocket Casts, Overcast or Castro gets higher scores than the purple one. Meanwhile, 9to5mac carries “Four new features Apple Podcasts should add in iOS 13”.

• Headliner, a popular social media promotion tool for audio, now has a Facebook group.

• PC Magazine gives us tips how to make your podcast sound better. This is actually an indepth article about microphone technique, and much of the advice is quite sound. <-- see what we did there

• Julia Morizawa, an award-winning voice actress, is joining the Greater Boston podcast when it returns after its mid-season break.

• UK commercial radio is highlighting the need for businesses to keep advertising through the 'Brexit uncertainty’ - many of the arguments are also relevant for podcasting, too.

• Job: Social Media Manager for Apple Podcasts and Apple Books, in Culver City CA, USA. (Apple Podcasts isn’t important enough to have its own?)

Podcasts

Facebook has a new podcast, Three and a half degrees: the power of connection. “We’re no longer six degrees apart – technology has squeezed this distance from person to person. Today, we are separated by three and a half degrees.” Of note: the podcast’s landing pages lists the top five podcast apps equally. It’s had some good press today, too. (Pacific Content)

Local to Global with Nick Hewer is a new podcast from the UK Government. Released on the same week as a Parliamentary vote on Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, the press release claims that it will “explore why exporting is great for UK businesses”, with all those trade agreements that the UK now has with… oh. (Acast)

The Australian Open tennis started today. The AO Show is a daily show following the biggest storylines and goes behind-the-scenes; James Parkinson is producing (Omny Studio).
It’s Tintin’s 90th anniversary, and Les Aventures de Tintin is three French radio adaptations, now in podcast form, of Hergé's classic. Alas, it’s French language only. “Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!” as Captain Haddock would say, except he’d actually say “Mille millions de mille milliards de mille sabords!” instead.

Developers’ corner

• Podnews self-hosts our podcast (so we can be editorially independent). A few people ask, so here are some of the things we’ve learnt.
• Possibly related to the above, we’ve also updated our list of podcast app user-agents. We’ve seen many, many new ones: the data’s freely available for download, and editable.