I love podcasts. Having my own podcast and listening to a lot of. Heck, I even love promoting podcasts from my fellow creators!
We got news last month that Spotify, an app that mainly focuses on music, got a podcast studio in Gimlet Media and a podcast creation company in Anchor. I use the latter to put out my podcast out there for the world to listen. At first, I thought it made sense. Spotify wants to be a hub for all audio, including podcasting. The thing is, podcasting is more than just the actual content.
So Many Podcast Apps!
I actually don’t use the standard Apple Podcasts app. We all use different kinds of podcast apps. I use the Overcast app. This is the best free podcast app on iOS in my opinion. Some would just use the default one on your phone. Others would use Spotify. If Spotify wants to be the hub of all audio, then it would have to be way more compelling to listen to a podcast. It currently isn’t.
Spotify Should Make Podcasts = Music.
This is the My Library section of the Spotify app. Sure, the search functionality for podcasts work well. The problem is that Spotify currently treats it as a section in their app. If it wants to truly be THE podcast app for most people, it should have a dedicated section for podcasts. Heck, I think they should do a dedicated podcast app instead of lumping it with my music. It currently makes sense for Spotify to lump them in now, but they would have to make it better eventually.
What’s The Point Here?
Spotify plans to use Gimlet Media and Anchor’s expertise with the knowledge they have right now to make monetizing podcasts easier. Since Spotify already made dynamic ads work in music, they want to do the same in the podcasting world. If they figure that out, then it would make more sense for a creator to go to Spotify.
What I’m afraid of is that we’ll get to a point where exclusives come in play. I don’t want that for podcasting at all. I believe that it should be an open playing field. Unlike their argument against Apple, this should be the case. They didn’t make the podcasting industry, so I hope they don’t end up like Apple.
Do you think that podcasting should stay open? Will Spotify be the YouTube of podcasting and end up having to deal with situations like Apple Music? Sound off in the comments below.