Podcasts are coming to Twitter

• Podcasts are coming to Twitter, the company announced late Thursday. Shows appear in the redesigned Spaces tab. However, you’ll not be able to choose individual shows: the interface gives pre-selected shows in topic-based playlists, called “Stations”. It uses RSS, and is curated from what people you follow listen to. A spokesperson has told Input that there is no search facility nor any ability to add your own RSS feeds. Described as a “test”, it’ll be available to random users around the world in English.

  • What goes around, comes around: Twitter was built by a company whos first product was Odeo, a podcast directory and hosting service.

• Most podcast producers use Zoom for guest interviews, according to new research from Interview Valet, announced at Podcast Movement. 74% of guest interviews have a video component; and 5% of shows charge the guest to appear.

• The organisers of Podcast Movement have apologised after Ben Shapiro, a controversial right-leaning commentator and former editor-at-large of Breitbart News, was a surprise visitor to the event on Tuesday; and that his top 10 podcast company The Daily Wire was exhibiting. Online, there was both criticism of Shapiro’s presence, and of Podcast Movement’s apology.

• Karen Burgess from Pacific Content covers three sessions at Podcast Movement, including one our Editor participated in. Earlier, Annalise Nielsen gave her write-up of Sounds Profitable’s Business Leaders Summit.

• At the time of writing, Meghan Markle’s podcast has made it to #1 on Spotify in the US. It’s relatively unusual to see anything but Rogan on the top spot.

• YouTube says that its new podcasts section will be enhanced later this year. “We will continue iterating on the current destination page and plan to launch new features meant to enhance the podcast listening experience for our users within the coming months,” the company tells Podnews. It’s currently available for US users only.

• Inside Radio has published its annual list of the “most powerful people in podcasting”. The publication, which is owned by a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, has side-stepped criticism after consistently placing iHeart’s Conal Byrne in the #1 slot in previous years; the new list, which has grown from 10 to fifty people, is now in alphabetical order.

• At Podcast Movement, NPR and LAist Studios announced four projects which have been selected for the companies’ first Oye Lab for Latinx Creators.

• Audacy’s Cadence13 has partnered with veteran journalist Stephen A. Smith for a thrice-weekly show; Know Mercy launches at the end of September.

• Podcasting in Africa is on the rise. Why is it not profitable yet? A story in TechCabal looks at the podcast industry throughout Africa.

• Readly, a digital magazine and newspaper app, added podcasts to their app earlier this year in the UK and Sweden. Speaking in PressGazette, the company’s CCO Ranj Begley suggests that it has lowered churn.

Podcast News

Small Talk is Dead is new this week from Spotify’s Gimlet. A limited series from three producers from the company’s Sound Up program, the show explores the rules around race, gender, and money.

Björk: Sonic Symbolism is new from Talkhouse and Mailchimp Presents. Created and hosted by Björk, the intimate and immersive new podcast features a first-person reflection on the textures, timbres and emotional landscapes that characterized the creation of each of her albums.

Marvel’s Voices returns this week for a new season. Hosted by Angélique Roché, the season looks at how a variety of cultures and mythologies have played a key role in the creation of Marvel characters, and how their cultures and nationalities have influenced stories within the Marvel Universe.