Digital media platforms are all about one thing: content. Apple has known this for years, and that’s why the company has expanded its iTunes Store to include much more than just music. And while Apple was a trailblazer in its adoption of podcasting, other players have followed suit over the years. Now, it looks like Swedish music streamer Spotify is poised to add podcasts to its own platform.
According to Bloomberg Business, Spotify has held some talks with potential content partners that would bring podcasts to its streaming music player. It’s not yet known who these potential partners may be, or if the Spotify platform will be as open as the iTunes Store in terms of accepting podcast submissions.
The article notes that Spotify is already streaming some content similar in nature to podcasts:
Spotify, which hosts some podcast-like audio such as Spanish lessons along with millions of songs, plans to add more non-music programming, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified. While the discussions have occurred for several months, there is no firm plan or introduction date, one of the people said.
One problem that all music streaming services face is the high cost of licensing songs from major labels. Since podcasts are ostensibly free, Spotify adding them to its platform would be an easy way to bolster its catalog with a diverse array of content without having to cut big royalty checks to producers. Podcasting within Spotify may even include video, allowing users to switch between audio and video on the fly.
This news follows other recent moves by Spotify competitors. Last year, Apple acquired Swell, a spoken word-focused audio streaming app, and Deezer bought out Stitcher. It’s still unclear as to why the bigger companies in both those deals even made these moves. But in the end, it all comes down to the content. Everyone’s looking for more of it or at least, different ways to curate and distribute it.
Today marks the first anniversary of the unofficial launch date of Podcaster News (and that’s no April foolin’). We’ve presented a lot of news, how-to’s, and commentary on podcasting over the last year. And we’re looking forward to continuing that coverage into the future. I took a look back thru the Podcaster News archive and put together a list of posts from our first year that are worth revisiting. Here they are, in no particular order:
iTunes. Love it or hate it, we’re stuck with it as podcasters. Of course, iTunes is great when it works. But what about all of those times that an iTunes listing isn’t updating properly? Or how about when you need to change an RSS feed that controls an iTunes Store listing? Yeah, there are resources out there to help with these kinds of problems. But isn’t it time for a dedicated iTunes user portal for podcasters?
If you’re experiencing trouble today with the iTunes Store, don’t panic. The iTunes Store is experiencing a 
RSS feeds. Ten years into the history of podcasting and they’re still the cornerstone, if not the actual lifeblood of the medium. Want to get your podcast into places like iTunes or Stitcher? You’re gonna need a valid RSS feed. And while feed validation tools have been around since the beginning of podcasting, sometimes they return results that are complex to understand, often sending podcasters into a spiral of panicked Google searches, hoping to find remedies for what they believe to be a broken RSS feed.
We’re only a few days into a brand new year. It’s a good time to look ahead and make plans for the next twelve months. With that, I’d like to propose some new rules we as podcasters should stick to in 2015.
For the last few years, Apple’s iTunes Store has taken a moratorium on new podcast submissions during the holidays. This year is no different. Earlier this week, podcasters who already have shows listed on iTunes received this e-mail:
iOS 8, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, the software that powers all iPod Touches, iPhones and iPads will be released today. Apple’s proprietary Podcasts app will be 
iTunes reviews are important to many podcasters. They help not only to increase our exposure in the iTunes directory, they can also give us insight into how listeners are feeling about our shows. It’s a good idea to take a look at your iTunes reviews on a regular basis. However, Apple doesn’t make it easy because iTunes reviews are divided by country, based on an individual reviewer’s location. The only way to see all of your iTunes reviews would be to log into iTunes and then manually change your location to each country, going thru the entire list one by one. That’d be a long and tedious process.