Amazon Alexa's Daily Briefing delivers good traffic

Amazon Alexa’s “Daily Briefing” feature delivers good traffic, if you’re a suitable podcast; above is a sample breakdown of devices consuming the podnews podcast. Apple’s ecosystem delivers about half, but our appearance in Amazon Alexa’s Daily Briefing is responsible for almost a quarter.

• “Daily Briefing” has no concept of “English”, only regional variants of English; podcasters who want to be there are best to consider adding a daily briefing for English-Canadian, English-British, English-American and so on.
• Google Home (“OK, Google, ask podnews for the latest”) isn’t delivering much; and we’re unavailable on their news briefing service for now - partially because we’ve no idea who to ask to get there.

Acast have released Today’s Podcast Listener, podcast research for the United States and United Kingdom, as well as a piece of US data, Reach the unreachables, highlighting the type of people who listen to podcasts. Australian data is also promised.

• 29% of Americans listened to a podcast last month; 35% listen 2-4 times a week. 31% say they listen to a podcast to learn something new.
• 23% of Brits listened to a podcast last month; 29% listening 2-4 times a week. 37% say they listen to a podcast to relax.

As reported on Mar 23, the new podcast from ABC News, Start Here, published its first episode today. Comparison with The Daily? It’s about the same length, a bit more traditionally delivered, and covers up to six stories, according to their press release.

Podcast host Blubrry continues an assault on the radio business, posting a piece on podcasting’s unlimited distribution. They’re at the NAB Show in early April in Las Vegas NV, USA.

The UK’s i newspaper posts an opinion piece by podcaster Hussein Kesvani, critical of what he sees as the growing BBC dominance of podcasting in the country. We reported on their appointment of a new Podcast Commissioner on Mar 27.

Podnews was invited to the premiere of BBC/NRK’s Death in Ice Valley, but couldn’t come owing to being on the other side of the world. Chris Huskins from Abrupt Audio did go, however, and found the experience fascinating, if not the actual podcast.

Their airline KLM has launched a new podcast about unique travel experiences. The Journey has a lovely-looking microsite, and explains the concept of podcasting well.

Ronsley Vaz, host of The Bond Appetit and Should I start a podcast, spoke at the Brisbane Podcasters event last night in QLD, Australia. He spoke about ensuring you give listeners a “logical next step” in every podcast, which could lead to monetisation. “Sustainability of your art is something that many artists don’t give any attention to,” he said.

Also from the Brisbane Podcasters event last night, enjoy Flawless, a music podcast about albums.

Reader Nicki Bannerman wants us, and you, to listen to The Influential Women Podcast.