The Inevitable Dismantling Of Podcast Directories

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Disintermediation is a constant threat to most service providers, especially if the services provided in the middle of the transaction aren’t visible during the transaction. In our podcasting space, a trend towards disintermediation has been quietly developing for years. And it leaves me wondering when, not if, the big apps, namely Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and Google Podcasts, will disintermediate a mainstay of podcasting; podcast media hosting companies.

Just today, Apple released a new quasi-exclusive podcast called Apple News Today. It is a short form daily reading of the headlines, much like Podnews, only not just about podcasting. It’s a collection of headlines narrated between two hosts over the course of seven to eight minutes.

That this new show isn’t being published to other apps/directories isn’t surprising. It’s not “news about Apple, today”. It’s worthy news curated by Apple, for Apple customers. So, of course, that’s exclusive to the Apple ecosystem.

What is surprising is that Apple isn’t using a podcast media hosting company to host this podcast. (Thanks for tracking that down, Dan!)

Which means that, at least in part, Apple had to build their own podcast media hosting service to make this happen.

And if they dedicated precious developer resources to do this, they must have designs on hosting more podcast audio content directly.

Why Borrow When You Can Build?

Hosting content directly gives Apple a lot more flexibility than relying on media files hosted elsewhere. We already see that here: Apple News Today is pushed out to the Apple News app. And it might make sense to be made available in other Apple-owned destinations -- apps, operating systems, etc. -- in the future.

Spotify is marching quickly down the exclusive path. They recently bought the biggest podcast on the planet with publicly-stated plans to make it completely exclusive to Spotify. That means being served directly from Spotify servers, not relying on a third-party hosting platform.

And as with Apple, Spotify isn’t going to spend the development resources to build a podcast media hosting service unless they plan on doing more.

The Trouble With Aging Technology

Here’s my current thinking: With the possible exception of Google Podcasts, none of these really big apps need to rely on podcast hosting companies. None of these really big apps need to ingest content from RSS feed.

Yes, I realize that the entire 16 years of podcasting was built and continues to run on RSS feeds and third-party hosting companies. I am not suggesting that bedrock of podcasting will disappear tomorrow.

But I am saying that as these big podcast directories and apps continue to grow and look for ways of differentiation to maintain and/or increase market share, they’ll come to this realization. They probably already have.

The cost of hosting and serving podcast media files and is, at least for these power players, pretty low. When you’re a big company already paying big money to serve other forms of media files, hosting and bandwidth are already part of your cost structure, with several economies of scale already built-in. So what’s one more type of media file hosting and serving? No big deal.

Google Podcasts might be an exception here. Google's entire charge is linking to content that lives somewhere where else (and monetizing SERPs). And Google Podcasts rolls nicely into their search engine results pages, so they don’t have as much incentive to move away from the current system.

But for the others, self-serving is powerful. Having exclusive shows on their respective platforms is nice, but it’s just the start of what they can do when they host and serve podcasts directly.

Unlocking App/Directory Creativity

For as powerful and democratizing as RSS fees are, by definition, they limit what information apps & directories have to work with.

Imagine for a moment, a different world without podcast hosting companies. In this alternate universe, podcasters would log into Apple Podcasts Connect and upload the media file directly to Apple, filling out a form and supplying additional content Apple could use to publish the episode across Apple’s ecosystem.

Then the podcaster would do the same for Spotify, probably filling out a similar form and supplying different additional content to Spotify because they do things differently.

And then the same for Pandora. And maybe Amazon if Audible finally gets deeper into the podcasting world. And then whoever else jumps into the fray.

That sounds a little dystopian, doesn’t it? But before you say, “No one would do that! It’s the one-size-fits-all uniformity of RSS feeds that enabled the 1MM+ podcasts to exist in the first place!”, I suggest you look at ebook publishing. Because what I just described is exactly what independent publishers have to deal with. Logging on to multiple accounts, uploading similar (but not exactly the same) formats, filling out similar but different forms, and providing extra content in formats specific to each publisher.

That rigamarole hasn’t slowed down ebook publishing.

One Middleman Falls, Another Rises To Take Their Place

Here's the thing about disintermediation: new companies almost always rise to take advantage of the churn caused by the disruption. If the alternate world I put forth comes to pass, rest assured that a new player will crop up to streamline that process. They already exist in the publishing world and provide a single interface that collects all the relevant files and data, then pushing to each publisher just the ones that publisher needs. And, naturally, taking some form of payment or percentage for their troubles.

So it’s that just further evidence of why RSS feeds and third-party podcast media hosting companies exist? Isn’t that the service they provide?

Not really. Right now, all the apps and directories are forced to accept the standard RSS feed. Sure, they can (and have) extended RSS feeds to accommodate special needs, like the <serial> and <episodic> tags that Apple Podcasts convinced podcast hosting companies to include a few years ago.

But that’s an inefficient path. Why convince the third-party to spend dev resources when you could just ask the second-party -- that’s you and me, working podcaster -- to give you additional info?

Efficiency Trumps Exclusivity (But Both Are Nice)

Apple is already collecting and presenting data not contained in our RSS feeds. I’m speaking of the “Cast & Crew” section of select podcasts you might have noticed in Apple Podcasts. Those data aren’t passed in the feed. That’s direct input from the show owner.

Spend some quality time with the Apple Podcasts app (or web app), and you’ll realize there are often show-specific graphics of different sizes and formats than just the square artwork. Again, those aren’t coming from the feed. They come from direct input from the show owner.

Requiring direct input from show owners is a risk in a fractured landscape... unless your company name is YouTube.

But I can’t look at these recent moves and see any future where each of the big apps/directories doesn’t start hosing and serving media files on their own. That sure does seem to be the direction they’re all headed right now.

Would you like a Podcast Pontifications sticker? I’ll send one to you, and all you have to do is go to BuyMeACoffee.com/EvoTerra and sign up for a monthly contribution of any amount. That’s worth a sticker, I think!

Most importantly, please take the time to share this show -- or this episode -- with one person today. Send the link as email, a direct message… whatever. The power of one-to-one recommendations is extremely powerful, so thanks in advance.

No episodes on Friday, so I’ll be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

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The Inevitable Dismantling Of Podcast Directories - Transcript

Evo Terra: [00:00:00] Even though millions of people managed to find something to listen to podcast directories kind of suck for most podcasters. Now making them suck less, might lead to a huge shakeup in the podcast ecosystem.

[00:00:19] hello and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me, Evo, Tara disintermediation is a constant threat to most service providers, especially if the service that you provide in the metal of the transaction, isn't really seen during the transaction. That's what disintermediation means. Getting rid of.

[00:00:44] The middleman and some recent moves, it was in the podcasting space and a trend that's been developing for years actually always leaves me wondering about this question of disintermediation specifically whether or not podcast directories and by podcast directories. I mean the big apps, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and Google podcasts.

[00:01:14] Especially those, I'm wondering if they really need the one middleman in podcasting. We all know, and probably love to a certain degree. Our podcast hosting companies, the place where we actually upload the media files. Now a couple of things have come to mind that make me wonder why or when. The podcast directories, the big apps will come along and say, yeah, not really.

[00:01:45] Not really needed just recently. Like today, the time this was being recorded, Apple. Has released a new podcast that is an Apple exclusive, it's called Apple news today. And it is a short form daily reading of the headlines, much like pod news.net, but just all headlines read out loud over seven to eight minutes with two hosts.

[00:02:12] This show Apple news today. Is not hosted at a podcast hosting service. It is hosted on Apple's own directory or Apple's own servers. I should say. It's on news.apple.com. That was information gleaned by my friend, mr. Meisner from Pacific content. Thanks for their research on that, man. So we've got a podcast that is an Apple exclusive.

[00:02:40] That's not being hosted on a podcast company yet it fits nicely within the Apple podcasts app. And as you might've met also, also it goes in the Apple news app and having it hosted with Apple themselves on their own servers, gives them a lot more flexibility, how they could push. That content out to the larger Apple ecosystem, not just an Apple podcast, maybe not even just an Apple news, that app, but other places as well.

[00:03:14] And we also have Spotify going exclusive. They just bought the biggest podcast on the planet with plans to make it completely exclusive to Spotify, which means being served from Spotify servers. Core Spotify servers can handle it. They've been serving and streaming out music for 10 years now. Pretty reliably.

[00:03:38] They don't need the hosting company. Got me to thinking, you know, with the possible exception of Google podcasts, none of these really big apps need to rely on podcast hosting companies. They don't need to rely on the RSS feed that links the podcast, hosting companies, content with the app itself or any individual show.

[00:04:03] Now I get that that's convenient and that's how it's worked for 16 years. And I'm not saying it's going away tomorrow. I'm just saying when these big podcast companies, these big podcast directories and apps, look at it, they're thinking we don't need to do this. I mean, realistically. The cost of hosting the files is pretty low.

[00:04:28] Not to people like you and me, but when your name is Apple or Spotify hosting and bandwidth is a, it's a part of your cost structure, but it's by far one of the smaller things you have to worry about. It's not, it's not that big of a deal and they've got the technology. That's that's there. Now again, I say with this, with the possible exception of Google podcast, because Google's rain is to make things work in the Google SERP, and Google's entire charge has been linking to content that lives somewhere where else, and finally, the way to monetize that that's really what they do.

[00:05:02] But for the others, it's really about exclusivity. And the ability to have things hosted on their own. They can just do so much more right now. These directories, these apps are limited by what's. Well, they're looked at, by the podcasters doing they're limited by what the podcast hosting company is asking for.

[00:05:23] And more importantly, they're limited by what's inside of the RSS feed. So I want you to imagine for a moment, a different world. A different world where maybe you don't have a relationship with a, with a hosting company, a podcast hosting company, where instead, when you've finished your episode, you then log into Apple podcasts to your podcasts connect account and upload your file right there.

[00:05:57] Rinse and repeat for Spotify Pandora. Whoever else wants to come along, you know, Amazon, if they get the audible space and deal with this, because that's what you have to do for lots of other sources of pot publishing. Like if you're an ebook publisher, that's how it happens. You have to manually go and add your book as an independent podcaster to the various places.

[00:06:25] Amazon Google books, Barnes. Yeah. Noble. You have to go upload your book individually and fill out the same thing over and over again. Now here's the weird thing about disintermediation companies have come along to say, Hey, we'll streamline that for you. We'll be the one stop shop. We know what all of these different directories in books think about this for podcasts.

[00:06:46] We know what all these different directories need. So give us the content. We'll have a form where you fill out all the various fields and we'll upload the files to those individual locations. Now that sounds a whole lot like what podcast hosting companies do today with the RSS feed in the middle. But the big difference is that the RSS feed is universal and the directories have to adapt to it.

[00:07:14] They don't want to adapt to it. They can do so much more. If they're not forced to adapt to the 30 year old RSS spec, they can just ask, as Apple is starting to do, although they've kind of slowed down on this, Hey, upload images of your, of your hosts and the guests that happens to be on the show. If it's an interview show.

[00:07:37] Hey, give us a, some, some supporting imagery for this. We need additional information that we're just not getting out of the RSS feed. We need larger banner images in case we do want to showcase and feature this. We want to know other sorts of things. Getting that to work in an RSS feed is challenging.

[00:07:55] You gotta, you gotta change the RSS spec, but these podcast directories could just start asking for it specifically. At the time of upload and those that upload more of that information and fill more information, have a, probably a better chance of being recognized by the app and support it. Cause right now, I really think that these apps are probably doing the best that they can, or the best that they're thinking about when it comes to how they display information.

[00:08:24] But I'm, I would bet you that

[00:08:25] all

[00:08:26] Evo Terra: [00:08:26] of them are thinking, look, if we had access to this data on our own, and we didn't have to rely on this other stuff, we could just do so much more. What does that mean for. The universal availability of podcasts probably doesn't mean good things. I'll be really honest with you on that, but I don't really think that they need to have the hosting companies out there.

[00:08:52] So I think they're working to dismantle at least that particular aspect and start hosting things around. That's what they seem to be trying right now. Something to think about as you think about the weekend now, as you know, I don't do Friday episodes of podcast pontification. So I'll just tell you this now, please go to buy me a coffee.com/evo Terra, sign up for a monthly contribution and I will send you a sticker.

[00:09:17] Yes, I have stickers. And if you get us monthly contribution and going on over there for any amount, I don't really care. I will send you a sticker. And most importantly, Please share this with a friend. If you just share with one person, that's all I'm asking, share with one person, that's way better than anything else you can do.

[00:09:33] So send an email. Hey, the tweets send a direct message to just one person and say, Hey, check out podcast. Pontifications enjoy your rest of today. Enjoy your weekend. I shall be back on Monday with yet another podcast. Pontifications cheers. .

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