Spotify error puts ads for booze on podcasts

• Exclusive: Podcasts promoting call girls are appearing within Spotify, as free plans from podcast hosting companies flood platforms with advertising for sex workers. We’ve a list of more than five hundred shows, many still live. RSS.com has implemented an automated process to combat these podcasts; however, shows are still on many other hosting companies. Apple Podcasts, which operates an approval process for new podcasts, is not showing these podcast titles. Spotify did not respond to our request for comment.

• Spotify added advertising banners to many podcasts on Saturday for Wild Turkey, a bourbon whiskey. The ad, which on some platforms included an “order now” button for the liqour, was even placed on a podcast for recovering alcoholics. A Spotify spokesperson told Podnews: “On Saturday, Spotify made a technical error that caused ads featuring the Wild Turkey brand to be incorrectly placed on a number of podcasts. We identified the cause and swiftly resolved this matter.” We contacted Wild Turkey’s owners, Campari; they did not respond. This raises trust issues for podcasters and brands alike.

• Exclusive: PodInbox is now to focus on producing a “fan page” for podcasters, with fan audio messages, donations, leaderboards, message tips and more. The service launched in August last year as a voice messaging service, a tool included in the expanded service.

• Want to convert Twitter Spaces to YouTube? A new, automatic tool to do just that is launching today from AudioLabs. Among the benefits: unlike Twitter Spaces, YouTube videos aren’t deleted after 30 days. Here’s an example.

• SupaPass, a tool to make a website and mobile app for your podcast, has launched on ProductHunt. The product promises one place to send your audience for your podcast, courses, blog, videos, membership and subscriptions.

• First look: AudioAudit, a service to check online audio quality, has launched today. The service includes a check for loudness, swear words, encoding issues, and metadata. Here’s Podnews’s score.

• Tortoise, a “slow news” service in the UK, is the subject of a profile at Apple Podcasts. They’re selling paid subscriptions through the service (and learning lots from it).

• The Golden Mike Awards took place in Los Angeles CA. Podcasts took a number of accolades, including iHeartRadio, which won multiple awards with The Death and Life of Kobe Bryant, and 9/11 - two decades later.

• There’s a new podcast ranker in New Zealand today for April. Compiled by Triton Digital, it lists participating publishers only, and omits RNZ, the country’s largest podcaster.

• Tom Webster is interviewed for Radioinfo in Asia - “I cannot explain Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan just is.”

• Gretta Cohn and Isabel Carter from Transmitter Media are this week’s curators for the EarBuds Podcast Collective, offering podcast recommendations for living in our bodies.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• If you missed it above in all the talk of booze and call girls - RSS.com has implemented an automated process to spot spammy podcasts. Alberto Betella details how the company does it (and how others can, too).

• Want to add the ability for people to boost a show using the Bitcoin Lightning Network on your website? This library will help - it supports WebLN-compatible plugins like Alby.

• The focus of the Podcasting 2.0 show this week, IPFS Podcasting is a way to reduce bandwidth costs by hosting podcasts on a distributed network.

Podcast News - with Lemonada Media

From Lemonada Media: Add to Cart with Kulap Vilaysack & SuChin Pak is a subversive take on consumerism. Every Tuesday, they chat about the things they’re adding to, or removing from, their carts. From beauty products and health trends to celebrities and philosophies, they dig into anything we buy into and what it says about who we are.

That Vampire Show is new from Tandon Productions, a Los Angeles-based audio production company. The first season is made up of ten episodes; characters from the show all have their own accounts on Twitter and Tumblr, so you can interact with them.

The Dine One Six is a new food podcast for Sacramento CA, USA. The show features chefs, farmers, restaurateurs, servers and many others working in the food industry in Sacramento; and is hosted and created by Max Connor, who is also a producer at Hear Me Now Studio.

Vigilante is new today from Kast Media - the company’s newest true crime podcast, based on a murder in 1984 of Laura Miller, and her father Tim Miller who has been trying to solve the murder ever since.