Podomatic Partners with Podcast App Player FM

March 21, 2021 ~ Jen Thorpe

Podomatic, a leading podcast provider since 2005, has partnered with Player FM — Podcast App, a top-10 podcast app worldwide. The partnership provides podcast creators on Podomatic’s hosting service with the ability to reach millions of potential new listeners on Player FM with a one-click submission to the Player FM directory. The partners are also working to provide creators access to reporting and analytics about their listenership on Player FM.

Player FM will also integrate the thousands of active podcasts and millions of media files hosted on Podomatic into their cross-platform mobile app, which is accessible on almost any device.

“Adding support for Player FM is a major expansion of our distribution platform, allowing our creators to reach an even larger audience,” said Podomatic Founder Johnny Mansour. “Player FM offers a powerful, cross-platform experience for discovering and listening to podcasts, that continues our commitment to help our podcasters reach the widest audience possible.”

Podcasting has emerged as somewhat of a equalizer in the media landscape, empowering everyday people to reach the same caliber of audiences as a major broadcast network. It has also become an increasingly popular form of media consumption in the United States. Consumer data firm, Statista estimates the number of Americans listening to podcasts will eclipse 100 million by 2024, an increase from 75.9 million in 2020. Podcasts have a great diversity in content, from entertainment, education, as well as for branding and key issues in society.

“Partnering with a hosting platform like Podomatic, whose goal is to expand the reach of independent creators, further enhances Player FM’s content offering for listeners and enables them to discover and support new and unique podcasts,” said Michael Ritter, CEO of Maple Media, the mobile media and technology company behind Player FM – Podcast App.

Player FM’s continued growth had been driven by adding new shows daily and enabling effortless mobile and cross-platform listening experiences.

“As the podcasting medium continues to flourish, strategic partnerships — like that of Player FM and Podomatic — will become more valuable in the effort to enrich the experience for both creators and listeners, while contributing to the overall growth of the podcasting ecosystem,” said Ritter.

The Podomatic integration is the latest of several major partnerships and podcast business acquisitions made by Maple Media. Last month, Maple Media also announced it had acquired Breaker – The Social Podcast App.

Player FM Introduces a Gold Plan

February 21, 2017 ~ Jen Thorpe

Player FM announced some of what’s coming in 2017. They are introducing a Gold Plan for users who want to use the app but do not want to see any ads.

The Gold Plan is a subscription plan that will cost $9.99/year. Player FM wants to build a real premium experience with their Gold Plan. They are planning on introducing features that “would be too niche or costly to produce as part of the free version.”

That makes it clear that Player FM will continue to offer the free version of its app. The free version will not have the premium features that come with the Gold Plan. The free version will include ads. One purpose of the Gold Plan is to give users a way to opt-out of ads (if they want to). Player FM is going to continue to support and improve the free version of its app.

The first feature coming to Gold Plan subscribers will be custom, cloud-sync’d playlists. This gives subscribers a way to build a list of episodes in any order and optionally to keep it offline. The playlist can also be made public. Building and viewing these lists will be supported on both web and Android.

The initial Gold Plan will include file management. Subscribers will have the ability to import media from the file system and manage and play it in the app. Later this year, the Gold Plan will include full play position and play history sync. Another feature, that will be added later, is the ability to import private/premium feeds. The Gold Plan will launch in beta and users can provide feedback.

Player FM Brings New Search, Listening Features With Latest Update

May 2, 2016 ~ Shawn Thorpe

Player FM recently released version 3.5 of its podcasting app for Android. The new version of Player FM comes with some impressive new features that should come in handy for those who are looking to improve their podcast-consumption experience.

First up is Player FM’s new Unified Search Results feature:

1000+ topics, 100,000+ series, and over 5 million playable episodes are now searchable from the same, universal, result screen! Using the new series carousels and topics dial, get what you’re looking for right away. In addition, you’ll get a row of results matching your own subscriptions, so it’s a quick way to jump to your favorite show.

Next on the list is the app’s redesigned Discover and Catalog features:

There’s a podcast or 10 for every occasion, making discovery a key challenge for any podcast app. Player FM has from day one focused on the discovery problem, providing an independent, open-source catalogue covering hundreds of niche topics. The Discover tab has been redesigned to make browsing a pleasure, whether you to find shows to subscribe to or episodes to play right now. As with the new search screen, you’ll see a unified screen per topic – explore related topics, series, and episodes in the one place. It’s the simplest and cleanest navigation model since the app launched.

One of the more interesting features of the new Player FM app is Flexible Download Order:

So you’ve just heard about this hot new show and you simply have to hear all episodes before sunset! Player already lets you set a custom download limit for this series to make sure you get a bunch of recent items. But you probably want to start from the start if it’s a “serial” storyline, a multi-part documentary, or a lecture series. In that case, the usual “get latest N episodes” setting won’t work for you. With Player FM 3.5, you can now optimise any series for binging with flexible downloading order. Set your new obsession to download “oldest unplayed” and cancel your weekend plans.

Player FM 3.5 can even assign customized notification tones to specific podcasts on a user’s subscription list, making it easy to know when new episodes are available from their favorite shows.

To learn more about the latest version of Player FM, click the link at the top of this entry. The app is available as a free download from the Google Play Store.