Wondery to double in size this year

• Amazon’s podcast producer Wondery is to double its number of staff this year, to more than 150. Here’s a list of some of the new jobs, all based in California.

• Podchaser has brought back their Reviews4Good program for April 2021. Every review of a podcast or episode will mean 25 cents goes to Meals on Wheels America; there are ways to double or treble that money, too. Here’s a show to review, please

  
  Sep 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Canada: the fourth annual Canadian Podcast Awards are open for nominations / ouvertes aux soumissions. You’ve got 'till April 30.

• Spotify has launched Mon Daily (“My Daily”) in France. Probably a clever rebranding of “My Daily Drive” to take into account the lack of driving in the country’s third national lockdown, launch partners include newspaper Le Monde, as well as broadcaster Radio France and news agency Agence France-Presse.

• Buzzsprout claim that Spotify has now overtaken Apple in podcast downloads. This data doesn’t mirror that from other podcast hosts: but there might be a story in that. We’re asking more questions.

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Get it free

• MacRumors reports that code for paid subscriptions is now being added to the Spotify app, in preparation for the feature to be launched shortly.

• One of One Productions, a women and minority led company based in Fort Lee NJ, USA, has launched a set of “professional-grade podcast kits” for home use. They’re curated collections of kit like the Focusrite Scarlettt 2i2 and AKG headphones.

• Castos has added a new Private Subscribers dashboard.

• A Kelowna BC, Canada, podcaster is one of sixteen recipients of a $10,000 grant. from Telus Storyhive, the Canadian telecoms company.

• Evergreen Podcasts has partnered with a B2B podcast network, IndustryPods. The company works with conferences across the world to turn their events into podcasts.

• On Air Fest is this week, April 8-10. It’ll be free, and speakers include Terry Gross, Francis Ford Coppola and Yo-Yo Ma.

  
  Sep 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• There’s a new edition of the UK’s Pod Bible magazine, distributed in The Sunday Times over the weekend, and available free on their website.

• Daniel J Lewis has launched FollowthePodcast․com, a service that offers direct shareable pages linking to a variety of podcast apps.

• Audio fiction producer Serial Box is now called Realm; and will now release shows as free, ad-supported podcasts rather than paid-for shows.

• Dan Le Batard’s new media company, Meadowlark, has raised $12.6m in funds.

• Twitter has enabled more users, on both Android and iOS, to start their Clubhouse-like Twitter Spaces discussions. Meanwhile, Clubhouse downloads have slumped over the past few weeks.

• Following our April 1 issue, which in part claimed that podcasts sound better if you record it upside down, we’ve received this disturbing video of someone trying it. And a photograph from Squadcast’s Zach Moreno, who appears to have embraced the concept.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS․com

• Sean Creeley managed to turn a popular (for some) podcast into… a set of sea shanties. And he was only trying to help.
• Work in progress - because we suspect this is about to get rather easier; but here’s how to earn Bitcoin from your podcast. (Even VISA now supports crypto, kind of).
• There are now 2,316,555 podcasts in the Podcast Index.

Tips and tricks

• How to prepare your podcast guests: Captivate has a clever hack for using Twitter.

  
  Sep 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• How a podcast host can be an amazing podcast guest, says We Edit Podcasts. (We know a guy if you’re looking for a guest).

Podcast News - With Toyota Untold

Surviving a 130+ car pile-up, Trey McDaniel has a story to tell. Hear how his FJ Cruiser saved his life, and how he helped save others, on this episode of Toyota Untold

Hold Me Back is a new father-and-son podcast explaining the big differences between Gen Z and Gen Y. Aidan is a high schooler and Ash is a marketing executive and clinical psychologist who wrote a book on happiness.

Good Assassins: Hunting the Butcher is new from iHeartRadio and Diversion Podcasts: a weekly true-crime podcast hunting down an escaped Nazi murderer. It launched last Friday.