iHeart 3D Audio to make podcasts more immersive

• iHeartRadio has announced investment into binaural podcasts, or “iHeart 3D Audio”, as the company brands it. “This is virtual reality for the ears,” said Conal Byrne, President of the iHeartPodcast Network. The Verge also report that QCODE is recording in Dolby Atmos, a surround-sound technology (which no podcast app, yet, supports).

  • Here’s an edition of Podcasting Essentials that explains how binaural sound works; and hear a Shakespearean drama recorded in binaural from November 2018.

• In Austria, the Forum for Journalism and Media, working with Podcastwelt, has launched The Podcast Institute. It will offer new and established podcasters a range of training courses.

• Spotify’s up to something on Feb 22.

• Clubhouse has announced it will be testing tipping, ticketing and subscription.

• Edison Research have revealed the most listened-to podcasts of 2020. Joe Rogan is #1. It’s based on 8,042 online interviews with weekly podcast consumers, from Jan 6 to Dec 23. Here’s the full list.

• Research company Kantar, which measures and analyses podcast ad effectiveness for Pandora and Spotify, has announced partnerships with Acast, Midroll and Megaphone.

• Acast is running Aclass: Queer Voices, a free virtual workshop for aspiring podcasters in the LGBTQ+ community, on Feb 25th.

• Hindenburg is running webinars and workshops over World Radio Day, which is on February 13.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 31 2023

• “So, you’re out for a walk? How comfy are those shoes?” Backtracks have announced new podcast player SDKs for iOS and Android. The player code for apps collects “real-time podcast analytics”; but the screenshot also shows that the code can track whether the listener is walking or not (presumably using the Android or iOS API): that could be used to target ads just for you, dog walker.

  
  Aug 31 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Targetspot are playing with geo-blocking, if this and this are anything to go by.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 31 2023

Sorry: yesterday’s Podnews audio update on many platforms sounded a little weird. If you wondered, you heard a 16kbps AAC-HE file by mistake.

Tips and tricks

• Justin Jackson from Transistor is doing a YouTube series looking at artwork and player descriptions, and how shows appear in search. Here’s an example for Tech Unlocked.

• How much is it to self-host your podcast on AWS? We do the maths: but our podcast isn’t yours.

Podcast News - with CBC Podcasts

From CBC Podcasts: This is not a Drake podcast a podcast series that uses seminal moments in Drake’s career to explore the history and evolution of hip-hop, R&B and Black culture.

The Jab, focusing on the inoculation programme against COVID-19, is part of a series of new science and data launches from The Economist, a UK newspaper. It’s hosted by Acast.

Lantigua Williams & Co and Ascend at the Aspen Institute, have launched 1 in 5. More than one in five college students in the US are parents, and this podcast focuses on their experiences.

Radiolab has won two duPont-Columbia Awards: the first podcast to win multiple duPont-Columbia Awards in a single award year.

The San Diego Union-Tribune has relaunched its flagship podcast, called San Diego News Fix. Its new host is Kristy Totten; it’s planned to be released every weeknight.