What Should Podcasters Think Of Apple iTunes Spoken Editions? The Podcast Industry Report Episode #103

Boy, if you think itunes spoken editions are competition, you have missed the gift that Apple just gave you. It's the Podcast industry report, episode 1 03. The Big Idea for this episode. It's all about the listeners. And if things go well, and I think they will, you're going to get more of them. My name is Paul Caldigan. I'm a big fan of the podcast industry. This show is my passion. More than a decade of podcast and podcast production under my belt. Author of a few number one books about podcasting and new media. My day job, I run a boutique podcasting consultancy for some really big names doing some really good things. This is the Podcast Industry Report where I show you how to reach more with your message, how to profit more from your content by understanding the industry that you are playing in. We're going to talk about Apple again this episode. It's episode 103. TechCrunch broke the article. You can see the link to it. The podcastreport.com 103. Essentially, big news players, wired, etc. Are going to have the ability to get articles read through the podcast app or through the podcast area of itunes. This is not the Audible channels program. I've got a link to that in the show notes as well. Again, the podcastreport.com103 but this is a specific area of the podcasting realm of iTunes, Apple, iPod, iOS, iPhone, iPad, you know, watch television, the whole nine yards. You'll be able to get articles read to you. For those who want it that way. Okay, what does it matter? Don't we have this before? Couple things in the article was some highlights from the Edison Research Report. And again, to give you those, half of Americans are familiar with the term podcasting. 36% Americans count themselves as podcast listeners. 21%. 57 million people have said they've listened to a podcast in the last month. We've got ourselves a really good audience. But here's the thing. Podcasting doesn't end on the smartphone and this is really important. The last big, at least press wise focus and attention on podcasting. Ease of use of podcasting has come from the smartphone and that will continue to be a big place. But here's the thing that's going to change, but here's what's going to happen. I want you to track this through, number one, Apple, by having this feature. It's good stuff, it's solid stuff. Podcasters still kind of cringe remembering the day when Steve Jobs, you know, once accused itunes of having the amateur hour. We're going to have good spoken word free content inside of itunes. And if we have good spoken word free content inside of itunes, with the type of quality control that corporate America wants, yada yada yada, Apple is going to start promoting spoken word on the iPhones. So those who know what a podcast is, again, half of the country, 36% of them have, have taken a look at it. But here's the deal. That's not everybody. Now they're going the iPhones, they're going into the Apple stores, they're getting this stuff. Apple's going to start promoting spoken word on the iPhone. It's the same area as podcasting. It's not the ghetto that audible is trying for. Okay, I love what audible is doing. I love is there. But the whole audible thing is a different app. This is content right inside of podcasts and it's going to be promoted by Apple. What does this mean? This means we are going to get new consumers of the spoken word. The guys at and the gals at the Apple store, they've been promoting podcasting. God bless you. Been a lot of fun. International podcast days coming again. God bless you. Been a lot of fun. But we're going to get new promotion to spoken word on the iPhone. But here's the thing, it's not just there. If you watch what's happening in industry, we've got some really interesting new channels coming. One of the biggest new channels is the connected speaker. And it's not just the Amazon Alexa. Google is supposedly working on a product. The news is going to come out very soon. Upstairs I've got a Sonos player which I absolutely love and they just started selling those in the Apple store. Another connected speaker television as well. One of the things that was interesting in the TechCrunch article was they reported 10 billion podcast episodes via iOS, iTunes and TV OS devices in 2016. If you think people aren't going to go to television for audio content, look at how much music is being consumed on YouTube. A lot of people are going to large screens just for audio and it's a good thing. So we have in the store Apple and online Apple promoting spoken word content. We have new ways for them to get the spoken word content. I love my Alexa. I love my Sonos. Can't wait to see what Google comes out with. These connected speakers are going to be huge. And here's the thing. So more promotion of the idea of spoken word content, more places to consume spoken word content. But here's what's fun. All you have to do to compete with them is compete with someone reading someone else's article. See, this isn't the big production. I mean, I've been listening to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast lately. Great job. Production's fantastic. We look at our friends at Gimlet and what they're doing, and there's been some tremendously produced, fantastic audio content coming, and that's been good. And that has lifted the podcast game. And those who know what a podcast are are finding the options that are there. But those who want to get their morning briefing from their Alexa device, those who want to get information from their Google device or their connected car, maybe they've got a television set in the kitchen while they're making dinner, we've got these new areas for it. So new promotion, new areas, new content. This convergence is something that we really, really, really want. And all we have to do is just fight the article. And here's the thing. A red article is really, really boring. A red article is. Yeah, we don't want that. It's funny because we saw that that's where radio started. Radio started with people reading the newspaper. A lot of people didn't know what to do, so they read books. But then they upped it. They started doing radio plays and television plays and this type of thing. This is what we're doing as podcasters. So we can benefit from this and we can immediately be better than it. And then people just need to have to know about it. So it's good stuff. It's good news for all of us. So how do you respond to this? What does the podcaster do? One of the things you want to do. Tightly, tightly, tightly. Watch this industry. It's going to be interesting. Subscribe to some of these things when they come out. We'll keep track of this here on the Podcast Industry Report. You definitely want to see what's out there. Possibly. Take a look at what Audible is doing. I've got a link to them in the show notes as well, if I remember correctly. I think there's a free trial if I could find that. I will link that to you again. The podcastreport.com 103. So consider the positioning, but also play with the connected speaker. The Alexa, the cheap one, is now just 50 bucks. And I'm saying it really, really quietly because I've got one on the other side of the room that if I say a little bit louder, she'll wake up and she'll ask me what it is that she wants. But we can get these now, the dot we can get these for 50 bucks, and right now it's pretty hard to get your show out of there. It's tied in to tune in, and it's not the best interface in the world, but wouldn't it be smart if your favorite podcast hosting company made it possible for you to put your show through that? I think it'd be smart. I think it'd be obvious. We'll see which company jumps to that first. Pick up a connected device, play with that at the very least, play with tunein at the very best, play with what's coming. Start listening to these spoken word content as promoted by Apple, and then figure out where you play in this. And for all that podcast consumption you do on the smartphone, maybe consider a little bit more podcast consumption on the connected speaker, be it the Alexa, be it the Sonos, be it some of the other options out there. I've got a new iPhone 7 and I'll tell you this, the hello Siri options there are also very, very good. And I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of this. If you reconsider positioning and you play with the connected speaker, you're gonna get a vision for what comes next. And though it's just going to be very important, I did a very, very unscientific survey, but I asked a number of people who work at a desk, who maybe work at a kitchen, and I asked, you know, if there was a speaker that you could call out to and have it give you the news and have it give you information, have you give it shows just based on audio. I mean, think about it, you know, podcasting, when it started, get a history lesson for some of you. You know, we had to go through eight or nine steps to get our podcast. And the first growth spurt came from the fact that we only had to do one step. Well, now if we can move to not just one step in front of a single device, but to be able to just speak out loud and get that content we want, we're at a really good place. So it's coming together. The convergence is there. The itunes spoken edition is not competition. It's going to introduce new people to what it is that we're doing. It's going to feed. Feed isn't even the right word. It's almost going to tantalize your audience, get them ready for what's next. And then those same connected speakers that they sell in those stores and the Google stores and, and the Microsoft stores are going to whet people's appetite for this stuff and it's a really, really, really good place to be. Thepodcastreport.com 103 for a link to the TechCrunch article. Read it. It's good. I've also will put in a link to the audible option so you can see what's there. Do the free trial, see what's coming. I've also got a link to the inexpensive Alexa. If you want to check out a connected speaker, you probably have one of your own. Also@the podcastreport.com 103 I've got links to my three books, how to podcast, the live book, the YouTube book. They're there. Pick them up. I'd love it if you did. We've got a link to VidSummit if that's something you're thinking of attending. I'm speaking at it this year. We're talking about how all this comes together. A big theme here on the Podcast Industry Report. I've also got links to the two apps. The Android versions of these are coming soon, but let's face it, if we're going to be serious about this industry, we know that the majority of it is coming from the iOS world. World thepodcastreport.com Facebook, thepodcastreport.com Twitter, etc. Will get you to all the social media sites. I would love your interaction, but most importantly, I would Love your subscription. Thepodcastreport.com iTunes thepodcastreport.com Stitcher or Google or Tunein if you want to make use of the whole connected speaker, at least where they are right now, subscribe to the show so when the next episode comes out, it comes to you automatically. Between now and then. Keep podcasting. It's a good thing and it's only going to get better.