A new podcast interface for Spotify?

• Spotify is working on a brand new podcast interface. Spotted by Chris Messina, who posted a screen recording archived by Podnews here, the new interface adds a dedicated Podcasts tab, vertical scrolling, and live captions for all shows. Messina is running a pre-release version of Spotify; it’s unclear when this will be released, if at all. #exciting

• A much-previewed talk at Podcast Movement Evolutions by YouTube’s new director of podcasting, Kai Chuk, didn’t contain any new announcements. He did promise that “over the next few months you’ll hear some announcements from us as to how we plan to continue supporting the podcast ecosystem”.

• The Podcast Movement team has posted a video look at Podcast Movement Evolutions. (Spot our Editor at 38 seconds in, just before Will Ferrell and Paris Hilton).

• The Ossa Collective hosted its first-ever production camp last week to support development of sponsored podcasts. Sixty guests attended presentations and a reception in Santa Monica CA, USA.

• Podcast promotions specialist Podspike is to run a Podcast Clinic live at The Podcast Show 2022. Podcasters can make in-person appointments on their website.

• The Netflix series Archive 81 has been cancelled after its first season. The show was based on the supernatural horror podcast Archive 81, from Dead Signals.

• Krista Tippett’s On Being is to stop being aired on NPR stations from June. Tippett will continue producing the show on a seasonal basis. It was one of the first NPR shows to also become a podcast, and claims more than 375 million downloads.

• Amazon Music and Wondery have closed a deal with Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios. The podcast production company will produce at least four new shows. It comes hot on the heels of 9/12 winning three awards, including Podcast of the Year, at The Ambies.

  
  Sep 12 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Andrew Neil, a British journalist and publisher, is to make his first podcast series. The Backstory will be produced by Tortoise and launch in Q2/22.

• Want to get your podcast heard in China? You can on the Xiaoyuzhou FM app (“Small Universe” in English). Aladin Farré says "you need to register with a phone number on their app, then register your RSS feed on their website. You’ll need to be able to read Chinese (or use Google Translate or similar); and some episodes may be deleted. (Apple Podcasts appears to only allow-list some Chinese publishers in the country).

• The PodLP app has had a new release for KaiOS, adding a season filter (just like Apple!), and configuration improvements.

  
  Sep 12 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

The Tech Stuff

• Dave Jones from the Podcast Index has posted about WebSub, and why “it doesn’t scale well”. The Podcast Index is using a system called PodPing, which it prefers.

• There has been an update to the socialInteract tag, which is in the consideration phase. The root comment URI has been moved into an attribute. Podnews’s RSS feed has been updated; we permanently use Twitter as our base commenting tool, and will add Lightning comments back shortly.

Podcast News

Radio Lento, a podcast containing soundscapes recorded in binaural, is to be preserved by the British Library.

Podland News this week, recorded at Podcast Movement Evolutions, features special guest Alban Brooke of Buzzsprout. Sam, James and Alban talk about the conference, YouTube’s 'big announcement’, and much more.