Anchor Listener Support now natively supported in podcast apps; and Amazon Alexa is caching audio

• Anchor’s Listener Support (Aug 10) is now natively supported in podcast apps, the company has just announced. “Support on Anchor” buttons are now visible in versions of Breaker and RadioPublic, with support from Castro and Podcast Addict promised shortly. Podnews also already supports Anchor’s Listener Support links - here’s an example. Anchor is also marking up these links using the rel="payment" pattern so they’ll be visible in a future release of Overcast.

• Amazon is now seemingly caching files for the Amazon Alexa “Flash briefing” feature in the US. This appears to have enabled more consistent loudness levels, since Amazon appears to be applying some form of loudness correction.

  • This, of course, breaks dynamically-served content, including advertising, and means analytics will no longer be visible to podcast hosts. Spotify also caches files; but Stitcher no longer does after sustained criticism. While podcast use on smart speakers is otherwise negligible, the flash briefing feature can deliver significant traffic.

• Communities are difficult. My Favorite Murder's official Facebook group, which had many thousands of members, has been suspended after a series of apparent mis-steps from the podcast hosts and group moderators. After prolonged criticism from fans about a t-shirt design, the suspension notice from the hosts seeks 'a solution to all the negativity’.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 5 2023

• Spend ten quid now, or spend time in prison later? Keep it legal is a new book on (UK) law for podcasting, radio and social media. It’s available on Amazon UK and for Kindle.

• AFP has posted a story, widely published, on podcasting’s success. Advertisers take note as podcasters come of age is how it reads in the Singapore-based Straits Times. Nick Quah posted it published in Malaysia’s The Star.

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• In an opinion piece, Dan Misener recommends using just one link to link to your podcast. (Like this one, which will open an excellent podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or a web page, depending what you’re using.)

• A Forbes blogger posts about an audio startup called Curio, a product that consists of spoken versions of articles from The Guardian, the Financial Times, and other publications, for a monthly fee.

  
  Aug 5 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• New podcasts:

  • Wondery’s Business Wars has a new season, focusing on Pepsi vs Coke. The company is also launching Framed on Aug 21; “an unsolved crime that has divided a community for decades”.
  • 9 episodes old, Ghost Town features “the most abandoned, haunted, and mysterious places on earth”.

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