Facebook tests voice status updates

In India, Facebook is testing “voice clip status updates”. (They’re testing in India because the country has twenty-two popular languages, and it’s easier speaking a second tongue rather than typing it.)

'sodes is “a casual cozy podcast player”. “There are no download queues or tricked-out audio features. Just tap a show, tap an episode, and listen.” It gets a review from Lifehacker. Similar to Leela, it’s built to be simple and streaming-only; it’s also very pretty-looking; reviewers like the lack of storage space it uses.

Martech writes about voice technologies - notably Podible, a podcasting platform using machine learning for podcast recommendations; and VoxSnap, a service that turns written text into voice (using real people).

Earwolf has announced that episodes older than six months will be placed behind a paywall, and you’ll need to be a Stitcher Premium subscriber to access them. It’s $4.99/month.

• Earwolf did announce a paywall for older episodes back in August 2015 with their Howl app. This launched iOS-only, though now has a poorly-reviewed Android app. Visiting the Howl website now redirects to Stitcher Premium. Stitcher Premium itself was launched in late 2016.

This link is no longer available, as at Jul 31 2023
• If you hate the Stitcher app, but love the content, here’s an unofficial website that extracts the RSS feeds for use in your favourite podcast app - as long, of course, as you’re a paid subscriber.

Writing about podcasting in The Guardian, Hannah J Davies looks at the current trend for musicians to launch their own podcasts.

Also in the UK, ITN has launched their first podcasts with Audible. The Dark Web is all about online crime; and Real Crime is all about offline crime - some of the UK’s most infamous cases.

Stats: The Sydney Daily Telegraph claims 24,097 podcast downloads for their Miranda Devine Live podcast. That would be 2,008 downloads per show. <== actual maths

Three Austrian podcasts you should know - according to Radiodays Europe.

Spotted over the weekend from Effct: a service to make your own Amazon Flash Briefing.

• Podnews is available as a Flash Briefing for your Amazon device, by the way. Just search for us in the Alexa app.