Podchaser

Apply to The Podcast Academy Through Podchaser

~ jen

Podchaser announced that podcasters can now use their Podchaser creator profile to apply for membership in The Podcast Academy.

In order to join The Podcast Academy, podcasters will need to meet membership criteria depending on their role, including a minimum number of podcast credits and run time. Luckily, The Podcast Academy makes this super easy by allowing you to link to your Podchaser creator profile to verify your podcast credits.

Podchaser has provided instructions that will walk podcasters who have a Podchaser account through the process of applying for The Podcast Academy. The first step is to make sure your Podchaser creator profile is up-to-date with your latest credits.

The Podcast Academy began accepting members in June of 2020. Those that are interested in becoming a member must pay a membership fee. Those who sign up before September 30, 2020, can get 50% off their initial annual membership (meaning their membership fee will be $50). If you buy a membership after October 1, 2020, the price will be $100.

The Podcast Academy was formed to foster excellence and recognize outstanding creative achievement in podcasting.  To do this they will confer annual awards of merit upon those deemed to be most worthy by their industry peers. This awards program will bring the industry together, drive creativity, quality and excellence, and elevate the status of podcasts as an entertainment medium. The first awards ceremony will be held in 2021.

Spreaker has a Partnership with Podchaser

~ jen

Spreaker announced that they kicked off 2020 with their partnership with Podchaser.

Spreaker describes Podchaser as “like the IMDb of podcasting with a social layer”. Podchaser boasts a wide range of features including podcasts and episode reviews, user-curated lists, custom categories, over four million creator and guest credits, the ability to follow friends, podcasts, and creators, and much more. With their recent activity feed feature, users can see all of this engagement in real-time, leading to more discovery.

Unique Podchaser Benefits include:

Get Discovered and Get Feedback: Once you’ve claimed your podcast on Podchaser, you’ll receive notifications of new ratings and reviews for your podcast, gathering valuable listener feedback. Accumulate ratings to see your podcast rise in the ranks of Podchaser’s trending podcasts and episodes for discoverability. This activity will also be shown to other users via the activity feed, exposing your podcast to new audiences.

Grow Your Personal Brand: As the mastermind behind your podcast, creating a profile on Podchaser allows you to showcase all of your work, including any time you’ve helped produce another podcast or appeared as a guest on another podcast! Other users on Podchaser will easily be able to find and engage with you based on your interests and passions.

Find Guests and Partners: In the same way that creating a profile on Podchaser allows you to be found by others, its an incredible search tool for you to find other hosts, guests, producers, editors, voice actors, or just about any kind of collaboration you’re looking for!

Plus, you can harness the power of those guests by adding guest credits to your episodes. That way, anyone who follows your guest will receive a notification that they were on your podcast.

Podchaser Announced Their 2019 Roadmap

~ jen

Podchaser announced their 2019 roadmap and 2018 review. They revealed several things that are coming to Podchaser in 2019, as well as their solutions to the decentralization dilemma.

One of the things Podchaser is doing is allowing for merchandise. You can sync your TeePublic store with your podcast page on Podchaser. Now, when you direct listeners to rate and review on Podchaser, you can ask them to buy a t-shirt, too.

I think this is an interesting idea. Many podcasts have logos that can easily go on t-shirts and tank tops. Podchaser is making it easier for listeners to not only know that the t-shirts exist, but also where to buy one.

In addition, Podchaser will soon allow podcasters to connect their existing donation platform account with their Podchaser podcast page so listeners can contribute to your podcast via Podchaser. This could potentially mean that podcasters who have a Patreon could connect that with their Podchaser page. Podchaser is asking for suggestions about which donations platforms they should support.

Podchaser is also working on solutions for discovery of podcasts:

“Follow” Podcasts, Creators & Lists: By creating an account and utilizing Podchaser’s upcoming “Follow” feature, you’ll be notified when a podcast releases a new episode, a Creator appears on a podcast, or a List is updated.

Smart Recommendations & Feed: Podchaser is launching a custom feed full of recommendations created just for you. It combines your “Follow” data, listening habits, and ratings/reviews.

Featured Snippets: Once a podcast is claimed, Creators can add a featured snippet for a podcast and each episode to give listeners a taste of the content. These snippets will appear in users’ feeds as part of Podchaser’s Smart Recommendations.

Visit the Podchaser website for more information.

Podchaser Is Creating the IMDb of Podcasts

~ Shawn Thorpe

Podchaser logoSince podcasting’s earliest days, there’s been an inherent need to try and organize the chaos that appears to be inherent within the medium. After all, podcasting was born of the old notion that the internet is a free and open environment, where not everything has to be stuffed into a singular vertical. While there are plenty of forces at work today that’d like to fence podcasting in, the medium is still mostly open, and still mostly free. Hence, the need for continued organizing of the ever-expanding podcast space remains essential.

If you’ve ever needed to look up specific information on a movie, TV show, or even a video game, you’ve probably visited the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). It’s one of the oldest and most trusted authorities on all things actor, director, producer, etc. on the web. A new startup called Podchaser is working on creating what it’s calling “the IMDb of podcasts.”

Podchaser was recently introduced via Reddit, where it spawned a lively discussion thread:

Podcast discovery is an ongoing problem for podcast listeners. Some recommendation algorithms exist, but they’re generally based off podcast show preferences, rather than episode preference. Generally, the same 10 or so podcasts are recommended and remain on top charts. So, we are building a system around individual episode ratings and reviews. Our front page will feature the hottest episodes rather than podcasts, allowing users to discover a broader array of content. Users can also check out reviews on individual episodes before diving in. Some podcasts have shows with varying degrees of quality, and now you can just check out feedback in one place rather than googling around fan forums and subreddits.

Podchaser is beginning a beta program on June 10, 2017, and is currently soliciting feedback from the podcasting community to see what features people would like from a service like this. To get involved in that discussion, follow the Reddit thread linked above. To sign up for Podchaser’s newsletter and see some teaser images of what the service may look like, go to the Podchaser website.