Three companies get IAB Certified; Arabic podcasts on the rise

• We reported on Friday that ART19 had received IAB Certification. Also awarded IAB Certified status is Voxnest’s Audience Network, and the first non-US company to gain certification is Australia’s Whooshkaa - good on ya, good to know your stattos will be fair dinkum, mate.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 13 2023

• The National highlights the rise of Arabic podcasts, claiming it’s a digital revival of a long-term tradition. This is a subject also taken up by the AFP, and carried for example here in a Ghanaian website, focusing about the popularity of podcasts in the Arab world.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 13 2023

• A new podcast recommendation newsletter for US politics, The Venn comes out every Thursday with a non-partisan selection of the three best podcasts.

• In Canada, Global News have announced Wait, There’s More, a daily news podcast for the afternoon commute, launching June 10.

• In London UK, Maple Street Studios have revealed the line-up for their Podcasts, What’s The Point event - it’s tomorrow at 5.30pm.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 13 2023

• We’ve been trying to understand the rationale behind Google’s placement of the podcast play buttons in their search, rolled out to desktop and iOS devices last week. A search for Podnews (now) correctly shows play buttons underneath our website, but that’s not the case for a search for Fun Kids Book Club Podcast, which despite doing everything technically correct, doesn’t show any play buttons - which are attached to its Apple Podcasts page a little further down. Here are some more examples - we’d be grateful for your comments as to why. (In our mind: if the web-page unambiguously links to the RSS feed and vice-versa, that should be the signal for Google to put them together).

• Similarly, if you are a podcast app developer or someone who cares about your show notes, we’d also be curious for your comments about a document we’re working on which attempts to explain to podcast app developers what we want as a bare minimum to display in show notes. Hit the 'reply’ button if you’d like to learn more, or have any suggestions on a next step.

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Podcasts

The Shortlist is a new podcast from the British Podcast Awards, highlighting the 2019 nominees. If you’re looking for a good new podcast to listen to, this is a great starting point.

Airplane Mode is a new podcast from GQ “about living healthier and smarter”. It, and the three other podcasts also sharing the name, is named after the feature on mobile devices that makes it impossible to download to a podcast.