Google’s podcast download spike

• Google appears to be driving hundreds of thousands of podcast downloads every week, that we don’t think are being listened-to. The Google Audio News product on mobile phones and smart speakers is driving significant extra traffic - and, we can reveal today, we’re not the only company who has noticed.

• Podtrac released its March US podcast rankings. Among the most popular podcasts, NPR News Now has overtaken The Daily; and VINCE has debuted into the chart at #7 - the show is by Vince Coglianese, and has taken over Dan Bongino’s feed.

• Livewire published the top podcast hosting companies for February, based on released episodes. Spotify for Creators posted a ten-month high; #2 Spreaker posted a record number of new episodes, and Buzzsprout remains on a two-year high at #3. Libsyn posted another all-time low.

• There has been a round of layoffs at Daily Wire, “to better align resources with business priorities and growth areas”. Co-founder Jeremy Boreing, and VP of Public Relations Alyssa Cordova, have also left the company in recent weeks. It’s reported that the kids division has closed (around 25% of the company’s employees).

• Automattic, which owns Pocket Casts and Wordpress, is laying off 280 workers (16%) in a restructure. It’s unclear which units are affected. The company has been mired in drama after its owner, Matt Mullenweg, criticised WP Engine; 159 employees left the company in October.

• At the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Live365 has announced it is launching in Mexico, after reaching licensing agreements in the country.

• In the UK, a Bristol based podcast agency, Earworm, has secured £200,000 (US $260,000) in investment.

• A new streaming platform has been launched, containing video shows from spiritual podcasters. New Reality TV describes itself as “Netflix for the spiritually curious”.

• Davinci Resolve 20 has been released with a bunch of new features.

• Further reading: Podcasting is asking the wrong question about video, says Steve Pratt, offering “a video strategy that doesn’t compromise the magic of audio” … Noventa y Contando, a podcast hosted by people aged over 90, has been a big hit in Argentina, reports El País … No one knows how to define a 'podcast’ anymore — and it’s become a problem suggests Business Insider … John Wordock covers his panel at Evolutions in Chicago, about AI and Podcasting.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• The Podcast Standards Project has written-up its meeting in Chicago. The group committed to adding the location tag to the list of supported features in the PSP Certified specification; and HLS was discussed as an opportunity for video podcasts delivered via open RSS.

• The podcast:follow tag is currently under consideration for the new podcast namespace. The Podnews Daily podcast now supports this tag in our RSS feed. We do plan to support it in our podcast pages, too, after its integration.

• It’s an all-time high for Amazon Cloudfront, which is now serving over 62% of all new podcast episodes.

• Does anyone know what Transmission/2.77 is a user-agent for?

Moves and hires

• Ilwira Marciszek has been named EVP Revenue Operations for AdLarge & the fwd. network. She has been with AdLarge since 2011.

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• It’s time to up the quality of your promos, argues Shreya Sharma. Not least because we can drive more than 500 downloads to them if your show is in newpodcasts.net.

Podcast News - with New Podcasts

VINCE, which took over from Dan Bongino, is a show that sounds as if it’s recorded in an echoey room, and starts with Vince showing people a picture of a tree. We assume it’s also a video podcast. Anyway, Vince Coglianese’s surname is pronounced like mayonnaise (Colinnaise), which is all we were listening to discover.

GeekWire has as a guest Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella - talking about the company’s 50th anniversary, and where it’s headed from here. The episode also features highlights from Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event in Redmond, which featured a rare joint appearance by Nadella alongside former leaders Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

The Expat Experience is new from Produce Your Podcast - an essential guide to understanding expat life in one of Mexico’s most picturesque towns: San Carlos. The show contains everything from real estate to legal and financial essentials; and it’s hosted by San Carlos resident Robert DeForge.

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is new from iHeartPodcasts and Novel Audio today. The new instalment will feature eight gripping episodes exploring untold accounts of women caught in the web of crime, survival and justice. It’s hosted by Anna Sinfield.

How to Age Up is a new season of The Atlantic’s popular How To series, launching today - co-hosted by Atlantic staff writer Yasmin Tayag and producer Natalie Brennan. Together they will examine how our scientific understanding of the aging process is expanding and if our cultural thinking is keeping pace - including looking at how we normalize aging and why we continue to push back against its inevitability.

Season two of Canardian, “the podcast gossiping about Canadian hometowns”, is here. Falen Johnson, co-host of the beloved podcast The Secret Life of Canada, joins the show to discuss Brantford, Ontario. It’s from Pod The North, and hosted by Kattie Laur.