Embracing Change

Follow This: Apple Podcasts Is Killing The Subscribe Button

The next version of Apple Podcasts will ditch the word “subscribe” and embrace “follow”. Major implications for all of podcasting, yes. But is this a signal that Apple is trying to reset podcasting… again?

March 9, 2021

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This morning, James Cridland of Podnews broke the news that, when Apple iOS 14.5 comes out of beta in a few weeks, Apple Podcasts will no longer use the word “subscribe” to describe the action listeners can take to… well, subscribe to the episodes of a podcast. Instead, would-be listeners will have the option to “follow” a show.

That seemingly minor change in semantics will have wide-ranging implications for all of podcasting. Bigger I think than five or so years ago when Apple asked us all to stop using the product name “iTunes” in favor of “Apple Podcasts”.

That means you—and I—have to stop using the verb “subscribe”. Because if we don’t, we’re setting up a disconnect between what action we ask potential listeners to take and what action they are actually able to take. This is 100% about the new listener, one who perhaps doesn’t even listen to podcasts.

Gone will be the big fat purple button emploring new listeners to SUBSCRIBE. And if the beta versions of the app I’ve seen hold true, that big button will not instead say FOLLOW. Nope, it’ll say “Listen”.

Wow.

Show Me There’s No Money

It’s quite likely Apple is doing this for purely psychological reasons. Tom Webster from Edison Research has plenty of survey data that show almost half of non-podcast listeners say they don’t listen because podcasts cost money.

Sure, you and I and everyone in podcasting know that’s not true. But their perception is our reality. Outside of podcasting, most subscriptions do cost money, so it shouldn’t be surprising they’d carry that assumption to our world as well. Removing a language barrier could be a big step in the right direction.

For the better part of 17 years, we’ve been asking people to subscribe. Yet most people still don’t have the podcast listening habit. Will it be more inviting—and will see a spike in new listeners—if we ask people to follow our podcasts instead?

Try First, Follow Later

But there’s a problem with the name change, and I think Apple is trying to do something about it. The problem, as I wrote not long ago, is that getting someone to just listen to your podcast is a big ask. Yet here we’ve been, assuming they’ll hit subscribe without even listening to an episode. I think a case could be made that they’re really not any more likely to follow a show until they have listened to an episode.

That’s what Apple will be showcasing with the new version of Apple Podcasts. The action Apple wants people to take first is listening. That’s it. And if they like what they heard, they’ll (hopefully) hit the “+” button at the top to follow the show.

This Seems Sorta Social

There’s already a medium where the concept of following is front and center: social media. This may be wild speculation on my part (which, ostensibly, is the conceit of Podcast Pontifications), but this could be Apple positioning themselves to add social networking components to podcasting.

If you follow my podcast’s Twitter account, my public profile shows my follower count increased by one, and I get a notification that your account has followed mine. Could Apple Podcasts do that? Castbox already publicly displays a subscriber count, so this isn’t without precedence.

If you like or leave a comment on a post from my podcasts Instagram account, the heart and/or comment count—publicly visible—increases, and I get a notification of the social actions your account took on my post. Could Apple Podcasts do that, transforming their app into a true social network?

Well... maybe. But let’s reign in that wild speculation with a healthy dose of reality.

Bolt-on social media doesn’t work.

Lots of apps tried (and lots of apps failed) to add social components to their extant app. They discovered, as Apple is likely to discover, that building a meaningful and desirable social experience is a ground-up proposition. Not a quick add-on.

And then there’s the fact that Apple has let the social media wave pass them by, happily being the hardware, operating system, and app store vendor to get those social apps to us. The last time a behemoth hardware, OS, and app store vendor with zero experience building social networks made their big push into social, we got Google+. Yeah.

Podcast listening is anti-social

Podcast apps do two things: they ingest media from RSS feeds and allow people to listen. An oversimplification, for sure. But accurate enough to illustrate how completely different they are from social networking apps.

With one notable exception, creators cannot post directly to a podcast listening app; and listeners cannot post anything directly to a podcast listening app. That notable exception: Anchor. Yeah.

Who owns the podcast account?

Once seen as a bad idea, nearly every podcast hosting company will now submit your podcast to Apple Podcasts and every other podcast app or directory with the click of a button. That’s a great shortcut, as it typically takes the better part of a day to get a show full submitted to all meaningful directories. But at what cost?

Were social components added, how would you “claim” your podcasts’ listings on Apple Podcasts? Will they be tied to the hosting company, forcing you to social engage not with the app itself, but within your podcast hosting company? Or will you get no notifications of comments, making your podcast’s listing on Apple Podcasts seem as abandoned as the spam-filled Blogger account you thought was a good idea in 2006?

Podcast listening is commoditized

In the open ecosystem of podcasting, podcast apps are more akin to web browsers than social apps. To give the best user experience, browsers give access to decentralized, distributed content like web pages. Similarly, podcast apps give access to decentralized, distributed podcast content, because that’s how we built podcasting.

You can use your browser to leave comments on a website, sure. But you’re not leaving comments on that website as it exists in that single browser. Can you imaging having to check Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and whatever the hell Internet Explorer has been rebranded as to see all comments people have left for you? Of course not. Nor do you want to maintain accounts on two dozen or more podcast listening apps for the same purpose.

Right Or Wrong, The Time To Act Is Now, Podcaster

While the concerns I raised above are large, they’re not insurmountable for a company with the money and influence of Apple. Spotify has been nipping at their heels for a while. And I think Spotify would have their own challenges making their app truly social, since they really can’t mess with their livelihood too much.

One thing I am certain of; you need to watch your language. And by that I mean scrub your podcast’s website, getting rid of subscribe, and going with follow. Staring on your very next published episode, dig into your in-app episode details—you may still call them show notes—and remove the reference. And starting with your next recording session, stop telling people to subscribe. Might as well get ahead of it.

And get your podcasting peers on the same mission. Send them a link to this article, if only to get their blood pressure up. And be good to each other, pointing out a few missed places, as it’ll take us all a while to break free of the “subscribe” habit.

And f you like the things I have to say, please go to BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra and think about sliding a virtual coffee my way. That's always nice.

I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

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Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra. He’s on a mission to make podcasting better. Allie Press proofed the copy, corrected the transcript, and edited the video. Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.

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The next version of Apple Podcastswill ditch the word "subscribe" and embrace "follow." Major implications for all of podcasting, yes. But is that a signal that Apple is trying to reset podcasting... again?

Hello and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

This morning, James Cridland of Podnews broke the news that Apple iOS 14.5, coming out in just a few weeks, will, on Apple Podcasts, drop the word "subscribe." Instead, you will be able to, or at least invited to, sort of maybe, " follow." That's what your listeners will have the ability to do. Just follow your show. Well, that's a minor change, but has pretty wide implications. Big implications. I think the implications here are even bigger than when, what, five years ago? Apple told us to stop using the word "iTunes" in favor of using "Apple Podcasts." Yeah, I think it's actually a bigger deal than that.

And the big deal is going to be look, it's all about the new crop of people, right? Everything we should be thinking about in podcasts, well, not everything, but a lot of what we should be thinking about as podcasters is what's the new wave of podcast consumers going to, how will they experience my content? Well, starting in a few weeks, the most likely apps they're going to be able to use, Apple or Spotify, will no longer have the option to subscribe.

So, and if you do not change, well, then that's going to lead to some confusion. You're telling people to go subscribe. They're not going to subscribe because there's not an option to subscribe. That big, fat, purple button that says "subscribe" is going to be gone. So what will they do.

Now, as our friend Tom Webster from Edison Research has pointed out, listeners are turned off by the word subscribe. Potential listeners, when they survey people, they find that a good percentage of people choose not to listen to podcasts because they "cost money." Well, we know that's not the case. And part of that is tied up in our use of the word subscribe, which we've used from the beginning.

Now, I pointed out recently that - was it recently? I think it was sort of recently - that it's a big ask, getting someone to commit to your podcast, and then labeling, putting the word subscribe on top of that? Now, it's been this way for the better part of seventeen years. I get it. But still here's where we live today.

Will the changing of language help from subscribe to follow? Will it be more inviting for the new people? Well, I think that's what Apple is primarily doing, but I don't think that, maybe, is only what they're doing. See, when Apple makes this change, when you see it, if it looks anything like the beta version than I've seen that big purple subscribe button? It doesn't say follow. It's gone.

What it says is, at least for the show I watch, "Listen to the Most Recent Episodes." That's the action they want you to do in the app. Listen to the most recent episode. In fact, the option to follow is up in the upper right hand corner in the hamburger button. It's not even front and center.

Now, again, it's a beta version. It could change. But this is going to release in a couple of weeks. So, so maybe not. I think they're wanting you to just get in, they want new people to just get in and listen and absorb the content. So, yeah, you've got to go out and do some work.

But thinking about what happens if Apple really, truly embraces this idea of follow the way that social networks have embraced the word follow. I mean, if I follow you, your account, your podcast's account on Twitter, your follower count goes up by one and you probably get a notification. Would Apple Podcasts do something like that?

Castbox already does that. You can go to Castbox and see the number of people that are subscribed to your podcast. If I leave a comment on your podcast's Instagram account or I just, you know, maybe I like your podcast's Instagram account, or one of the photos that you've shared, you're getting notified. Could Apple do that with Apple Podcasts?

Well, maybe, but the thing to remember is before we go too far down this is going to become a social network, I think you have to remember several things. One of them is the fact that it is not easy to just bolt on some social components to an existing app. And Apple, by the way, has zero experience building social networks. And the last time a company with zero experience building social networks came to play, we got Google+. Remember that? Just me? Yeah.

Also, podcast listening is a very passive experience, which is the opposite of social. You can sit and scroll through a social feed, sure. You can do that. But the app, the podcast apps don't do much. Right? I mean, they're reading contents from an RSS feed and then they're playing it back to someone. There's nothing social in that activity. I can't go and create, and certainly listeners can't post anything. Or if they do, it's called Anchor.

Also, who owns the publishing account for the podcast? I mean, with this huge widespread adoption over the last few years of one-click submit, push this button and we'll submit your show to every single directory, including Apple Podcasts, how does that information get pushed back? Do they know, does Apple Podcasts know where to send the notification? Do you have the ability to log in and claim that on your device, on your phone? Or will you just ignore those comments that come in? They're kind of like your old bloggers?

So there's the fact that podcast listening is rather commoditized. A podcast app is a lot less like a social app and a lot more like a browser. It's just content someone has put out there that I, the listener, now want to go consume. That's a browser, right? So that's one problem.

But also there are lots of different browsers, these podcast browsers, if you will, podcast media players out there. If they all embrace social and they all start having likes and hearts and follows and comments, do we, the podcaster, have to go claim our show on all of those apps and have sixteen to twenty-seven different apps on our phone all the time to respond? Ew! But maybe.

So, I don't know that I'm ready to assume that Apple is going down the social road, but they might be. So it makes me curious. One thing I do know, you need to go change your language right now. On your website, in your in-app episode details, which you probably still call show notes. Certainly in the audio. Embrace the follow. The follow is the way.

And also, tell your friends that they need to do the same thing. Feel free to send them a link to this episode, if that would help them get on the stick and get that done. But by all means just, it makes sense to get ahead of the curve right now. Start saying follow. No more subscribe. You should now follow the podcast.

Also, if you like the things I had to say, if you were surprised by this, or you think, wow, maybe it is going to be social, go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra, and maybe think about sliding a virtual coffee my way. That's always nice.

That's it. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

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