Slate launches daily news podcast 'What Next'

• Google Podcasts now supports formatting and links in podcast show notes. They still don’t look great, but it’s a good step in the right direction. We’ve also spotted that Google Podcasts is now fully supported in Android Auto. In the works (finally) are automatic podcast downloads, and a way of seeing which version of the player you’re running.

  • To ensure your podcast works on Google Home and Google Assistant, the key is to make sure you’re in Google Podcasts. (The player, though not the app, is pre-installed in every Android phone since 4.1.) Here’s our FAQ of what it is and how to get there. Don’t be confused - Google Play Music Podcasts is totally unrelated. (Yes, we know.)

• In a letter to investors, Apple had to revise their earning guidance, downward. An illuminating article from MG Siegler points out the themes in the letter: China, yes, but also fewer people are upgrading their iPhones, perhaps they’re too expensive, and Apple’s future income lies in “services” rather than hardware. (We’d note that the total direct podcasting income for Apple since launch in 2005 has been exactly $0.)

• CES is on in Las Vegas NV, USA. Expect plenty of noise from Google about the Google Assistant. Meanwhile, Amazon has not-so-quietly revealed that they’ve sold 100 million Alexa devices. (Google Assistant, however, is installed in many more.)

• Pocket Casts have said that they plan to allow users of Wear OS smartwatches to save podcasts on their watch (and therefore enable jogging with podcasts, and no phone).

  
  Aug 9 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• How much of the internet is fake? Quite a lot, actually - according to the New York Magazine. “For a period of time in 2013 a full half of YouTube traffic was “bots masquerading as people,” a portion so high that employees feared an inflection point after which YouTube’s systems for detecting fraudulent traffic would begin to regard bot traffic as real and human traffic as fake.” Are there questions about podcast dowloads?

• Dane Cardiel from Simplecast is “working closely with Dan and Jared on an initiative collecting input from podcasters of colour for the 2nd Annual Podcasters of Colour Networking Event at Podcast Movement 2019.” If you’re a podcaster of colour interested in participating in discussions later this month, here’s a form to fill in.

• A reminder that Apple is aggressively removing podcasts from their catalogue (and therefore from most other podcast apps) if your name or author is considered “spammy”. “Podnews: podcasting news with a global viewpoint focusing on podcasting and on-demand audio production” is spammy. “Podnews podcasting news” isn’t.

• “This is a post about editing radio, not in the small way of removing ums but the big way, like when you have an hour of audio that you need to edit down to 28 minutes, or when you are selecting 30 second soundbites to include in your story” - from Philosophies of Editing for Radio, a piece which is about audio editing (whether for radio or for podcasting). We recommend this.

• Entale, a podcast app with visuals, is featuring a new makeup podcast. Life and Lipstick includes product images and links to purchase.

• The Benevolent Badger loves you, and would like to offer you music for your podcast free of charge. He might even compose some for you. Praised be the badger, easily our favourite omnivorous nocturnal mammal of the weasel family. (We’re using 'One’ in our podcast today).

• Job (posted 25 days ago, but still up) - Managing Editor, The Daily. From the New York Times, you’re… Michael Barbaro’s boss. It’s Monday. January 7th.

Data and stats

• Podcasting is growing in India, says The Economic Times, with NPR reporting a three-fold growth in podcast downloads in the country. Scroll publishes a look ahead at Indian podcasting in 2019, calling for more high quality crap (Tom Webster has a lot to answer for).

Podcasts

What Next, Slate’s daily news podcast, launched today at a new time of 5am. It had a short pilot period at the end of last year, and undertook surveys of their audience to tweak the show. It’s hosted by Mary Harris, formerly of WNYC. (Of the current US daily news podcasts from major publishers, is this the only one permanently hosted by a woman?)

The Hustle and Flowchart alert us about their recent podcast episode with Trevr Smithlin, founder of AdvertiseCast (here). “He gave us some specific strategies to monetize and grow podcasts in 2019.” The hosts also said some nice things about Podnews in their email, which was nice and a sure-fire way to be mentioned.