When I think about how a near-future in media looks like I ask myself: “Will podcasting be part of it?” I am slightly leaning towards “no”, but hey, I might be wrong.
In the previous issue, I explored the first ideas of how The Editor could look like. This time I will have a first look at how The Podcaster could look.
Started From the Bottom, Now We're Here
Considering podcasting as a technology is 16 years old and has gained an immense rise in popularity, it is disheartening to see how little innovation has happened in this field.
Apple quickly gained a monopoly on being the place to listen and discover podcasts. Since then, other apps have tried to do the same but are still desperately dependent on Apple for the catalogue of podcasts.
It seems that the only technical innovation left in this field is gatekeeping. Podimo launched a paywalled podcasting service with shows produced exclusively for their platform. Spotify is now buying popular podcast shows and putting them behind their paywalls. Because of this, we can no longer build upon the Apple catalogue in the same way.
With a rise in shows available and a stagnation in the technology, this is probably the time we should ask ourselves: “Is podcasting more than Squarespace advertising and paywalls?”
For the few other new podcasting technologies out there, it seems to me to also have a misunderstood focus. There is this idea that the issue with podcasting is discovery. That is why we see a lot of new apps focusing on making discovering podcasts easier. I have yet to see any data that supports this idea, and I think it is the wrong focus for the future of podcasting.
I have also yet to meet someone who did not manage to find podcasts of their interests by themselves or by asking their friends.
The Community
If we look at what some podcasters do besides talking about Squarespace, it’s clear that the community is a huge part of the success. Looking at other niche media, something tells me that the community is becoming more and more important:
“The rest of the website, all the reviews, the articles, the science, the recipes, all 3000 pages are free. But the paywall is for the community. The paywall is for the interaction. The paywall is for the brotherhood, the connectivity, the relationship.”
I am starting to think that The Podcaster has to have the community as its driving force. Defining how this should work and prototyping a real solution will take time and several more issues of this newsletter to happen, but I do think we are onto something here.
Live Shows
Hosting live shows is one of the great community tools that I see a lot of podcasts use. Small and niche podcasts can even easily sell out venues just to hear a live version of their favourite podcast. That is why I think the first feature of The Podcaster should be native support for live shows.
The initial requirements could look something like this:
The user should see a list of upcoming live shows
The user should be able to buy a ticket
The user should be able to see previous live shows
The user should be able to listen to previous live shows
If we continue with the idea of monetizing on access to the community, then we could have a great hook here. Once a listener has bought a ticket for a live show, they could be presented with two views:
Paying member: access to meetups before and after the show, discussions with other members.
Free member: preview access to the above.
The main idea is to shorten the distance from the listener to the host. Whenever I hear an opportunity to connect with a podcast show, it usually involves show notes, multiple third-party tools and confusion. There might be potential if we move this closer.
There are still a lot of features I want to explore for The Podcaster, but they are for future issues of this newsletter.
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