The Podcast Preservation Paradox by Tom Webster
As video podcasting grows in popularity and audience share, two schools of thought have formed: preservationists who are worried podcasting could lose the soul of what makes it unique to growth-at-all-costs video, and growth advocates who welcome the YouTube expansion into podcasting as it brings new audiences. Webster proposes the solution for podcasting’s future isn’t to resist change, but at the same time it must ensure support for formats that can’t adapt to the economics of video production. Video podcasting has largely defaulted to chat-show styled productions because they’re economical to produce. Simple sets, small crews, stable conditions. Certain genres that thrive in audio podcasting immediately become economically difficult, if not impossible, when video is introduced. Fiction, documentaries, investigative journalism, they could go extinct in a video-only world. The onus is on podcasting to ensure economic forces don’t inadvertently narrow the industry’s creative possibilities.
How Alitu Ended Up at WWDC – An Interview with Colin Gray
The Podcast Host and Alitu founder Colin Gray sat down with Sounds Profitable for an interview about Alitu’s appearance on screen during Apple’s WWDC event. While the inclusion was a surprise, Gray and the team had their suspicions due to a request from Apple for assets needed for a “marketing opportunity.” The team has also been working to help Apple with enabling Alitu’s editing suite to run smoothly in Safari, part of a wider Apple initiative to improve Safari’s capabilities when running web apps.
On July 15th YouTube will update its YouTube Partner Program Monetization policies with more detailed guidelines on what can and cannot qualify for monetization. While specific language has not been released yet, YouTube head of Editorial Rene Ritchie posted a brief video explaining it is a “minor” update that is meant to better identify and strengthen existing policies against monetizing content that is mass-produced or repetitive to keep things in line with the YPP requirement that creators upload “original” and “authentic” content. While not explicitly called out in the video or existing language, outlets like TechCrunch and Mashable are supposing this is a step towards kneecapping both the long-running industry of content farms re-uploading content, as well as the burgeoning field of generative-AI “slop” content.
Representative Crockett recently appeared on an episode of Hasan Minaj Doesn’t Know. Yahoo News focuses on a section of the episode where Crockett and Minaj discuss a clip of Chuck Schumer and Maxine Waters falling flat during a press event. Crockett argues that with podcasting becoming a significant influencer during elections, institutions like the Democratic party need to be more strategic about ensuring figureheads capable of being ‘vibrant’ on-mic. In the same way advertising performs best in podcasting when it takes the medium’s strengths into account, politicians more attuned to being affable and conversational while still hitting talking points are more likely to succeed compared to dry recitations of talking points similar to cable news interviews.
After an unsuccessful pitch to become the default AI search engine in Chrome, Perplexity has begun to roll out their own competitor web browser dubbed Comet. The AI browser is currently available only to $200/month Peplexity Max subscribers by invite only, with plans to roll out to a wider waiting list in the coming weeks. Meanwhile OpenAI is reportedly working on their own AI-powered web browser, with Reuters info describing it as basically a native ChatGPT interface that summarizes info found on sites, reducing instances of users actually clicking through to websites. Both browsers, if released widely, stand to chip away at Google’s position as the defacto search engine.
As for the rest of the news…
- Podscribe has new industry rankings for this month, including a snapshot of the current top-performing podcasts (Crime Junkie remains at #1 in audio reach).
- Supporting Cast has rolled out support of the Podcast Standards Project funding tag, which adds a tag in a podcast’s RSS feed that specifies a show’s donation or funding link.
- Spotify has rolled out updates to Spotify Ad Manager that provides direct access to more podcast inventory in several regions.
- E.B. Moss’ podcast Insider Interviews has received PopCon’s Best Indie Podcast in the Business category (congrats!).
- MethodKit and DW Akademie have published the Podcast Knowledge Library, a free repository of podcasting knowledge available in 42 languages.
- Last week the Crossed Wires Podcast Festival kicked off with Nobody Expects The Michael Palin Podcast!, in which Greg James interviewed Palin under the guise of convincing him to start a podcast.
