Month: October 2017

Spreaker Updated their Embedded Player

~ jen

Spreaker announced that they have updated their embedded player. The new, cleaner, version allows podcasters to customize the player to fit with their brand.

Guiding your listeners to your homebase to listen to your podcast allows you to keep your branding and distribution exactly how you want it. Even your chosen font on your website is connected to your distinctive look. The updated player is therefore geared for that level of customization, providing a white label solution with the option to remove the Spreaker logo.

To customize the Spreaker embedded player, podcasters must start at Spreaker’s CMS. You can choose to remove Spreaker’s logo if you want to. This feature is for those who feel Spreaker’s logo clashes with their background image, or who prefer not to have any text displayed other than the episode title.

Another update to the embedded player allows you to remove the comments, likes, and share icons. Spreaker wisely points out: “If you like to think of your website as a space for a deeper engagement with your content, it’s worth considering that removing buttons can actually help you keep people on the website, listening to the player while they navigate through the pages.”

Other features of the new embedded player include:

  • Ability to add a background picture to the player – Choose one that reflects your topic, or select a selfie.
  • Ability to choose light or dark themes – To keep the player matching the tone of your website.
  • Ability to choose to allow all of you content to start playing automatically when a LIVE starts.
  • WordPress users can add the Spreaker embedded player without needing a special plug-in.

Podomatic Partnered with Weebly

~ jen

Podomatic, a podcast publishing and hosting platform, has partnered with Weebly, a website builder. Together, they will help podcasters create brilliant podcasts and websites that work across any device.

To help podcasters succeed, Podomatic is offering professional website building capabilities. Now, Podomatic top level accounts can create a high quality website and store that works brilliantly across any device.

This new feature is included in the price of the hosting and publishing service on top level accounts and provided at no additional cost. It allows code-free website editing and building, as well as provides an e-commerce platform.

Podomatic provides all the tools you need to manage your podcast and your site under one account. Some of the benefits of the new service include:

  • Automatic sync between your podcast and your website. Podomatic Weebly apps are tailor made for your podcast.
  • Themes created exclusively for Podomatic podcasters.
  • Easy management of your entire podcast. One account to rule them all! Now manage your podcast and website under one Podomatic account.

At the time I am writing this, Podomatic is offering their most popular podcasting plan at 75% off the usual price. For a limited time, you can get their PRO plan for only $2.50 a month. (Usually, the price is $8.32 per month).

Deadly Manners is a Dark Comedy Murder-Mystery Podcast

~ jen

Deadly Manners is a 10 episode, dark comedy murder-mystery podcast. It is set in the winter of 1954. At the time I am writing this, four episodes have been released. You will probably recognize some of the names of the people who are doing the voice acting in this podcast.

It follows the events during the night of the affluent Billings family annual dinner party with their distinguished, eccentric guests. However, all is not fun and games as shortly after the party starts, a snowstorm begins to rage outside, trapping all the partygoers inside their host’s mansion. When a murder starts killing off those in attendance, the guests must figure out who is responsible, or at least how to stay alive – lest they be next.

The creators of Deadly Manners are Ali Garfinkel (writer) and Alex Aldea (producer). Both are of the podcast company The Paragon Collecive.

The narrator of Deadly Manners is LeVar Burton. The podcast stars Kristen Bell, Denis O’Hare, Alisha Boe, RuPaul, Anna Chlumsky, Timothy Simons, Michelle Visage, Alona Tal, and David Cummings.

Deadly Manners premiered exclusively on AMC Network’s streaming platforms Sundance Now and Shudder on October 3, 2017. Since then, the podcast has become available from its website, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and various other places where podcasts are found.

Gimlet Seeks Editor for Reply All Podcast

~ jen

Gimlet looking for an editor for Reply All, a weekly podcast that covers the internet and “whatever else we are interested in” through a weird mix of ambitious narrative journalism and conversations between friends. The editor position is listed as a full-time role.

We’re looking for an editor. We do not understand sports, but we understand this role as some combination of team coach, team cheerleader, and last line of defense against all the errors and mediocrity that try to sneak into everything humans make. A bunch of smart and creative and sometimes anxious people will need to rely on and trust you.

They want someone who has years of experience in longform audio storytelling. The person must know how to structure and write for radio. They seek someone who is a pro at turning OK stories into good ones and good ones into great ones.

Some requirements include:

  • 5+ years of experience editing or story producing longform journalism, audio background is extremely important.
  • A deep comfort and proficiency in structuring and editing non-linear, narrative pieces
  • A proven knack for mentoring and helping others develop in their careers.

The editor position is listed as a full-time role. The editor must be able to work full-time in Gimlet’s Brooklyn, New York, offices. Visit the Gimlet website for more details.

Spreaker is Now an Amazon Alexa Skill

~ jen

Spreaker announced that their 50,000+ show catalog is now on Amazon Alexa devices. Spreaker is now an Amazon Alexa skill. If your podcast is on Spreaker, then it is being syndicated on all Amazon Alexa devices.

Spreaker explains that Amazon Alexa devices are wireless, voice-activated “smart speakers” that feature a personal assistant voice service called “Alexa”. These devices include Amazon Echo and Amazon Echo Dot. Alexa is similar to Apple’s Siri, in that both will respond to commands that you say out loud to it.

We’ve added Spreaker’s catalog of podcasts to all Amazon Alexa devices (only English-language podcasts for now, due to some Amazon Echo limitations, but we hope to get everyone else in on it soon!), as well as Spreaker-specific commands your listeners can use to play, search, and take control of their listening experience.

With Amazon Alexa, together with automatic sharing to social media networks and syndication with Apple Podcasts, Google Play, iHeartRadio, and SONOS, podcasters who have their shows on Spreaker are getting open use of every distribution channel out there.

You don’t have to do anything to make that happen, Spreaker has already done that for you. Spreaker recommends that you let your listeners know that they can find your podcast on Amazon Alexa devices. Listeners will need to add the Spreaker Amazon Alexa skill to their device from the Amazon Store.

https://youtu.be/43q96VT66KE

Podible Gives Stories a Voice

~ jen ~ 1 Comment

Podible is a podcast tech company that is using machine learning to solve both discovery and monetization for podcast authors and listeners. The point is to make it easy for you to discover your next favorite podcast.

You can start listening to podcasts on Podible for free on their website. It gives you the ability to personalize it. Start by selecting your favorite topics from a list of 20.

This brings up a selection of podcasts that podible things you will like, based on the topics you picked. If your favorite podcast is missing, you can add it to your list by typing the name of the podcast into the Podible search engine.

For people who regularly listen to podcasts, it will not be news to you that the podcasting industry has a Discovery problem. Since podcasting first came to the mainstream consumer’s attention, there has been an ever present issue of how to find new podcasts that are in line with a person’s listening history and general interests.

Podible offers the following:

  • Personalized Listening: Their proprietary algorithm will discover new podcasts you’ll love based on your interests.
  • Social Sharing: Easily share your favorite podcast series or episodes with friends with one simple click.
  • Any Device: Users can listen to a podcast across all their devices without any interruptions.
  • Endless Episodes: Stream millions of unique podcast episodes for free with no interruptions.

Podible sounds really good for people who like to listen to podcasts and who don’t want to spend a lot of time searching for new ones to listen to.  It also might be helpful for podcasters who want to get their podcast into the ears of new listeners.  I haven’t been able to figure out how Podible helps solve the problem of monetization for podcasters, and did not see information about that on their website.

RINGR Introduces Conference Calling

~ jen

RINGR has introduced a new feature called Conference Calling. Since the RINGR beta, the ability to have conference calling was the most requested feature. Everyone wants to be able to connect and record with more than two people. And now, you can!

RINGR Conference Calling allows you to connect and record crystal-clear audio with up to five total participants… on desktop and mobile. Here is how it works:

Schedule: Send an email invitation using RINGR with a custom message and scheduled call time.

Connect: At the scheduled time, all participants using the RINGR Mobile app or a desktop browser.

Record: Each device records high quality audio while you talk over RINGR’s built-in Voice-over-IP (VoIP).

Upload: Once the call is complete, the high quality audio is uploaded to the RINGR cloud.

Merge: RINGR synchronizes, balances, and merges the individual tracks using a little audio magic.

Download: A download link is emailed to the host, with additional formats and separate tracks available to Premium members from the Account Website.

Those who want to use RINGR specifically for the Conference Calling feature will need to get a Premium account. It is $18.99 per month. The Basic account costs $7.99 per month, but does not include the new Conference Calling feature.

Listen Notes is a Podcast Search Engine

~ jen

Listen Notes is a podcast search engine that actually works. At the time I am writing this, it includes 360,830 podcasts and 19,553,596 episodes.

Use the Listen Notes search engine to find people, places, topics, and more. Or, click on any of the subjects that are sitting below the search engine to have Listen Notes bring up a page filled with podcast episodes where that subject was discussed.

Listen Notes was built by a self-funded, one-person team: a software engineer in San Francisco who is going by the name Wenbin. Listen Notes has become Wenbin’s full-time job. Wenbin is an avid podcast listener who would become interested in a certain topic, find a lot of podcast episodes about that topic, and then binge listen to all of them.

Think about this: In the early days of the web, people bookmarked websites on their browsers and regularly visited those few websites. When Google became a verb, fewer and fewer people need to bookmark websites. We just search for pages. Oftentimes, we don’t care what websites these web pages belong to. A podcast is like a website. An episode is like a web page. I bet that the “Subscribe to a podcast then listen” model will change. Listeners will search & find individual episodes to listen, if there’s a podcast search engine that actually works.

Podcasters who would like to see their podcast on Listen Notes can submit a “missing podcast” form. Conversely, if you don’t want to have your podcast listed on Listen Notes, you can tell Wenbin (by sending an email to hello@listennotes.com). Your podcast will be removed within 12 hours.

Undark Seeks Creative Pitches for Undark Podcast

~ jen

Undark Magazine is a non-profit, editorially independent digital magazine exploring the intersection of science and society. Undark is seeking creative pitches for the coming season of the Undark podcast.

The name Undark arises from a murky, century-old mingling of science and commerce – one that resulted in an industrial and consumer product that was both awe-inspiring and, as scientists would later prove, toxic and deadly. We appropriate the name as a signal to readers that our magazine will explore science not just as a “gee-whiz” phenomenon, but as a frequently wondrous, sometimes contentious, and occasionally troubling byproduct of human culture.

Pitches should fit within Undark’s editorial mission. They are looking for pieces with narrative and ambient sound captured from the field. By this, they mean ambient sound that is out in the world as opposed to pure interview pieces. They want a running length of 3 to 5 minutes.

Rates vary depending on the complexity of the project, among other factors, but typically range from $400 to $600. Undark encourages sticking to the time constraint so you’re compensated fairly.

Send your pitch to podcast@undark.org. Include a couple of sentences about your pitch, where/how you’ll incorporate field recording, and links to previous samples of your work.

WME Signs Panoply Media

~ jen

The Hollywood Reporter appears to be the first to break the news that WME has signed podcasting company Panoply Media. WME is going to adapt Panoply projects into films, television shows, and live events.

Panoply Media was created by the people behind Slate’s award-winning audio network, one of the first podcast networks and still one of the most popular. Panoply believes that listeners want a place where they can easily find high quality programs from people and organizations they trust. Panoply creates programs that focus on news and politics, culture and lifestyle, sports, women’s issues, technology, business, and more.

WME was formed in 1898, as the William Morris Agency. It is the longest-running talent agency. In 2008, William Morris Agency merged with Endeavor to become one of the largest entertainment and media companies with an unparalleled list of artists and content creators. In 2014, WME acquired IMG, the global leader in sports, events, media and fashion, forming Endeavor.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Panoply announced a fall slate of podcasts including its first scripted comedy Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You, and the Sam Dingman-hosted Family Ghosts. WME has built up a large roster of podcasting clients in addition to Panoply. WME also represents Crooked Media (Pod Save America), Midroll Media, Two Up (Limetown), and Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner.

On September 29, 2017, Panoply Media posted the news on their Facebook page. “Exciting news! William Morris Endeavor will partner with us to adapt our podcasts into films, television shows, and live events”. Panoply included a link to The Hollywood Reporter article.