Two opposing visions of podcasting’s future are emerging. One side is betting on more screen-time interactions. The other is working to make screens obsolete for podcasting listening. Which path will win?
We're in the middle of a pandemic, and yet podcasting conferences are still scheduled. If I am honest, and I try to always be honest, I'm a little conflicted about attending. And I wonder if you are too.
Subscribing to a podcast should lead to frictionless listening. That’s true for present and future episodes, but what about those from the past? It may be time for us to move past our one-size-fits-all approach to feed management.
Making a podcast is a lot of things. Hard. Rewarding. Fun. But there’s one thing making a podcast is not: Exceptional. The sooner you come to grips with that harsh reality, the better for your podcast.
A new listener discovers an episode of your podcast and loves it. They want more but don’t really want (or need) to run backward through 300 episodes. Sadly, it’s all they can do. Today.
Podcasters are feeling disconnected after months of isolation. Virtual collaboration is booming, even beyond the podcasting set. We know we’re often better together. So maybe it’s time to take another look at podcast networks.
Nothing spurs growth and innovation quite like a ruptured economy. New podcasting-specific or podcast-adjacent services are coming at us fast. Are they right for your show?
People are led to podcasting for any number of reasons. But if there’s one trait that predicts podcasting longevity, it’s curiosity. Luckily, it’s a skill you can develop.
Right up there with the meaning of life or the sound of one hand clapping is this: What podcast success metrics are important to track? The answer may be a lot more simple than you think.
It’s one thing to be a podcaster locked down in Paris. It’s another to be an American podcaster who left China just before the outbreak now sequestered in Germany. We’ll hear their stories today. It’s also the 300th episode of Podcast Pontifications. Woot!
The quest for the perfect podcast is a pipe dream. And even if it was attainable, you’d grow bored with it. Or your listeners would. A living podcast relies on the juxtaposition between what you love and what you hate.
After 16 years, the amount of misinformation - some intentional, some misguided - around podcast promotion continues to grow. Before you spend any money or effort promoting your podcast, make sure your house is in order.
Podcasting often gets compared to other forms of media, like TV, radio, or even blogging. But podcasting is messy and tends to spill out of any box that tries to contain it. Is that its superpower or its Achilles heel?
How great is it when listeners thank you for helping them get through their own lockdown woes? Are you finding more time to focus on your podcast now that you’re stuck at home? And how has your audience responded to format changes?
Would people prefer a video version of your podcast? Do your listeners want to become watchers? Is video the growth hack you’ve been looking for to grow your podcast? In a word, no. And here’s why:
Broadcasters recording from home have lost their professional sheen and are encroaching into podcasters’ claimed “authentic space”. Since we mastered at-home production years ago, does this make podcasters the new professionals?
The best way to predict the future is to invent it, said someone smarter than me. The best way to delay the future is to focus on the present, said me. What’s holding podcasting back at the moment? Present-focused podcasters.
I’ve never really like the “misery loves company” saying. Yet here I am, giving you an update on our own pandemic-borne reality, plus stories from three other podcasters who are making it through.
It’s hard enough to make a podcast that sounds great and appeals to your audience. Getting your episodes to show up on a web search isn’t just harder. It’s probably antithetical to how you create content today.
Few issues are more polarizing than the question of how much plan/prep time should go into a podcast episode. But if you cut out the extremists (who I think just like to argue), you’ll find there’s plenty of room for podcast planing and spontaneity.
