What's X, Y and Z? And how has Anchor helped?

• What were “X, Y and Z” - the new content areas mentioned in Spotify’s Investor Day briefings? Just listen to Alex Norström, as Audiobooks, then “X, Y and Z” appear on-screen: “There are additional markets and verticals that we believe are natural fits for our platform and audience. There’s Audiobooks. There’s News, Sports and Education. Those are vast markets.”

• Another two pieces of detail from the Spotify investor day from CFO Paul Vogel:

  • “30% of our monthly active users engage with podcast content”. That figure hasn’t been disclosed for some time, and grew from 16% (Feb 20) to 22% (Oct 20).
  • “Only a minority of podcast time spent was monetized by us in 2021 … approximately 14% [is] currently monetized by us on a global basis.”

• iHeart’s Conal Byrne writes for Forbes, promoting the benefit of RSS, which was soundly denigrated by Spotify in their presentation. (More on this on Monday).

• “Every new Anchor show brings 2.5 additional monthly active users to Spotify”, said Maya Prohovnik. The company also unveiled that Anchor powers 3m podcasts on Spotify - so, “these figures suggest that Anchor has been responsible, singlehandedly, for 7.5m new users to Spotify. Given a majority of people do not listen to podcasts, the majority will be new podcast listeners. This is good,” said our Editor on Twitter.

• Evergreen Podcasts and Big Whig Media have announced a partnership to make podcasts and vodcasts for government agencies and DC-based corporate and advocacy groups.

• Substack has announced Summer of Sound, a month-long workshop for podcasters and audio-based publications on the platform, with mentorship, guidance and a stipend. You have until Jun 21 to apply.

• PRX and Google Podcasts have announced the 2022 cohort for the Google Podcasts Creator Program.

• The Apple Store on the Champs Élysées in Paris has announced a number of sessions on podcast creation. They’re free; you’ll need to register.

• Acast has re-signed David McWilliams, a popular Irish podcaster. It’s also made a distribution deal to get its shows onto Resso, “the world’s first social music streaming platform”.

• Just Women’s Sports, a media platform, has raised $6m. The company has a number of podcasts and previously raised $3.5m in May last year.

• The duPont-Columbia Awards are open for entry; awards that have been going for over 80 years, recognising excellence in audio and video journalism. Here is the entry guide; you’ve until July 1.

• PodcastStudio Pro is a new template-driven tool built to allow multiple people to work together on podcasts. It’s from the makers of WritersRoom Pro, used by many of the biggest TV shows.

• PodStock is tomorrow - a podcasting conference in Trenton NJ.

• Umbrel v0.5 has been released. A Bitcoin node popular with podcasters, it’s now easier to install, with new Bitcoin and Lightning apps, and more security for other apps on the device, like Helipad. Looking at support groups, it sounds as if you’re best not to upgrade quite yet.

Tips and tricks - with RedCircle

• How to make your podcast a global hit - Rephonic watched a conference speech and wrote an article that’s much better than the original speaker…

• 8 proven ways Africans can make money from podcasting is good for everyone, wherever they are.

Podcast News - with Post Script Media

From Post Script Media: On the latest episode of The Carbon Copy: Five years ago, Puerto Rico’s grid was decimated by Hurricane Maria. In the aftermath, many hoped that Puerto Rico’s new grid could be built around solar and batteries instead of fossil fuels connected via far-flung transmission lines. But that’s not how the recovery played out. Today, Puerto Rico still relies heavily on centralized fossil fuels. Now a bottom-up movement has emerged supporting rooftop solar and battery installations. Which path will the island take? Canary Media reporter Maria Gallucci joins host Stephen Lacey to discuss her recent reporting trip to the island.

The new episode of Pod Chat released today is with Captivate CEO, Mark Asquith. “The time for exciting things needs to take a break, and we need to get really good at the basics. How do we measure things? How do we make sure that all creators are represented fairly? How do we begin to educate that podcasting is different depending on your scale?”

“There is nothing to writing,” said Ernest Hemingway, “all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. The Bleeders launched this week - from Courtney Kocak, it’s a podcast (and support group) about book writing and publishing. Expect conversations with authors, agents, and people in the publishing industry about how to write and sell books.

This Is Small Business is new from Amazon, produced by JAR Audio. Hosted by Andrea Marquez, listeners will hear stories from small business owners about pivotal moments in starting, building, and scaling their business, and learn from real-world experiences shared by industry experts.

First Person is new from The New York Times. Hosted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro, it talks with people living through the headlines to help us make sense of our complicated world. Lulu was previously at NPR’s Weekend Edition.