Weekly survey: Which platform do you use for podcasts?
The future continues to be bright for podcasting as more people gravitate to on-demand listening. My Ongoing History podcast is doing very well, thank, you, approaching 11 million worldwide downloads. Analytics tell me that most of the downloads are going through Apple podcasts but there are some territories where Spotify is the main provider.
Me? I’m platform agnostic. As long as people get the program, I don’t care which platform supplies it. That being said, I’m an iPhone user, so it’s easiest for me to get the podcasts I like through Apple. But what about you?
Apple has been the podcast leader forever, but they’ve also done little to enhance their podcast offerings. Spotify has their Anchor technology, which allow podcasters to include music in their program–but ONLY if that podcast is hosted by Spotify. Amazon is a hot place for podcasts, thanks largely to listening to Alexa smart speakers. And then there are the also-rans like Podbean, Stitcher, and a bunch of others that share less than 10% of all downloads.
But what about you? What’s your favourite platform for podcasts?
From which platform do you get your podcasts?
— Alan Cross (@alancross) January 18, 2021
I use PocketCasts. I really enjoy their app and it’s platform independent.
Huge fan of PocketCasts too. I regularly switch between my phone and work computer and appreciate it keeps my progress in sync (though I have to remember to ‘refresh’ it sometimes to find my place again.)
Love all the features for skipping intros, silences and variable speeds.
I’ve been listening to podcasts for years but have lately been getting bored. There are too many and even the ones I used to listen to a lot are quite boring. I used to have a batch of around 10 or so I would listen to consistently but that is down to just Bill Burr not and that is basically it. I wouldn’t confuse download popularity with listen time either. I use overcast so I download a lot but have spent more time deleting episodes than actual listening.
I’d be very interested in this thread growing. I hope it does or that, perhaps someone aggregates it and posts the end results? I’ve been researching alternatives to Swinsian (too hands on) and the Apple Podcasts standalone (it’s the principle of it) and have been contemplating spinning up another virtual machine just to load an old iTunes version so I can go back to what worked the best with what I use and how I use it.
What I find most curious in my research is that people are *paying* to listen to podcasts. monthly and/or yearly fees. This feels..well, ridiculous. If they were paying the person presenting the podcast that is one thing. When Ricky Gervais started charging for his (eons ago), I called BS because he’d already been past the bucketloads of money stage at that point and, as much as I like him, screw that.
Anyways, it appears people are paying well, spotify or podbean or random companies that provide an interface and largely phone-based as far as I can tell. On top of that, none of it seems to be geared to any concept of an archival system – just to play and delete. So paying for the privilege to listen. Makes my whining pale in comparison. I’m happy to throw money (when I have it) at people whose products I use that do it for the love of what they do. I just don’t get paying some rando company who can throw some web or phone interface together and think they can own you and yours for the rest of eternity. Sounds too damned much like Microsoft too me.