Voxnest

iHeartMedia to Acquire Voxnest

~ jen

iHeartMedia announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Voxnest. With this acquisition, iHeartMedia, through Voxnest, will be able to provide podcast advertisers with additional targetable inventory at scale by allowing the effective and efficient monetization across an entire range of podcast inventory on this one-of-a-kind programatic platform.

This additional inventory will increase the monetization of iHeartMedia’s full range of podcasts and advance the podcast marketplace for both buyers and sellers. iHeartMedia will also be able to drive greater monetization for creators of podcast content – wherever they currently publish their shows – by connecting Voxnest’s advanced ad technology with multiple publishing platforms across the industry.

Voxnest’s additional advertising technology capabilities include:

  • Dynamic ad insertion
  • Audience and content targeting to the right listeners based on demographics, territories, devices and interests
  • Programmatic podcast buying across all audio platforms by providing: Native support of VAST, the industry standard template for audio and video advertising and OpenRTB, a protocol for enabling integrations that connect to all major audio and programmatic exchanges.
  • A full podcast analytics platform

“This is an important addition to the iHeart digital product ecosystem, which includes our SmartAudio suite of data-driven broadcast radio advertising solutions; our position as the No. 1 commercial podcast publisher with massive distribution and promotion across all our broadcast assets; and the iHeartRadio digital platform,” said Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc. “The addition of iHeart’s offerings to Voxnest will ensure critical mass for the platform and accelerate its growth. As we continue to invest in podcasting and lead the industry, we anticipate this acquisition will have an important impact on iHeart’s ability to more fully monetize its podcast inventory, and will also benefit the other podcast publishers that are part of the Voxnest network and the advertisers who are using it.”

“We’re excited about the growth potential from this unique combination,” said Francesco Baschieri, CEO of Voxnest. “The podcast marketplace has been fragmented, with supply and demand spread across multiple platforms – creating scale challenges for marketers who want to buy podcasts. And despite the massive growth of the podcast industry, with more than 100 million Americans listening to a podcast every month now, podcast creators and networks have not had an effective way to fully monetize their content and brands. With this combination, for the first time there will be one podcast technology platform that can bring together all of the demand sources with the largest supplier of podcast inventory – creating the only podcast technology platform that consolidates all the podcast markets into one, making buying more efficient for buyers and sellers of podcast advertising, and creating a unique benefit for the 10,000+ podcast publishers that are part of the Voxnest network today.”

iHeartMedia owned a minority stake in Voxnest prior to this acquisition.

Triton Digital Integrates with Voxnest with Podcast Metrics

~ jen

Triton Digital, the global technology and services provider to the digital audio and podcast industry, announced the integration of Voxnest, an audio technology company specializing in podcasting solutions, with its Podcast Metrics measurement service. Through this integration, clients of Voxnest are able to participate in Triton’s certified Podcast Metrics measurement service and Podcast Reports.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Voxnest on this integration, and to enable our shared clients to leverage Podcast Metrics to reinforce the integrity of their data and increase the visibility of their engaged podcast audiences within the buying community,” said John Rosso, President of Market Development at Triton Digital. “As one of the first to secure the IAB Tech Lab Podcast Measurement Compliance certification, Podcast Metrics serves as the trusted and independent third-party vehicle through which publishers can have their audience data verified, helping to further increase interest and confidence in podcasting as a viable and effective advertising channel.”

“After receiving our own IAB Tech Lab certification, we wanted to prioritize linking arms with other leaders in the industry,” said Francesco Baschieri, President at Voxnest. “As a way to assure our clients of the quality of data they receive from us, we’re proud to partner with Triton, who’s known for their trustworthy and transparent podcast data. Being part of Podcast Metrics will help our clients extend their reach and further monetize their audiences.”

Triton Digital’s Podcast Metrics measurement service is certified by the IAB Tech Lab as complying with Version 2.0 of the IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines. It provides accurate and insightful data around how, when, and where podcast content is being consumed across multiple hosting platforms, with the ability to view metrics by date range, location, device, podcast name, episode title, and more.

Voxnest Partners with Audion

~ jen

Podcast technology company Voxnest and Audion, an audio advertising technology company based in France, revealed their new partnership today. The collaboration gives podcasts in the Voxnest network access to high quality audio ads via Audion’s advertising partners.

As Voxnest’s network of publishers and podcasts continues to grow in Europe, they sought out an advertising partner that could deliver ads to the shows utilizing their dynamic ad insertion technology. The clear choice was Audion, as they continue to pave the way for audio advertising in Europe.

“We offer a unique product to communicate more effectively in this medium,” said Arthur Larrey, Cofounder of Audion. “From radio podcasts and professional media to independent podcast producers, it’s now possible to reach millions of active podcast listeners all over Europe thanks to our technologies and services.”

Both companies focus on dynamic ad insertion, an even newer concept in the podcast advertising world. As the industry begins to recognize the benefits of this delivery mechanism – advertisers can keep their ads relevant and publishers can monetize their entire catalog – Voxnest and Audion want to be at the forefront of the conversation.

“While advertisers in the U.S. have been harnessing the power of programmatic ads on podcasts for some time, we’re now starting to see a significant amount of growth in Europe,” said Francesco Baschieri, President of Voxnest. “As we focus our efforts on this market’s rise, it’s been valuable to find a partner that not only has existing relationships with well-known brands in Europe, but is actively educating the market on the value of investing in this type of advertising on podcasts.”

Voxnest Audience Network is IAB Podcast Measurement Compliant

~ jen

Voxnest announced its Voxnest Audience Network (VAN), a first-of-its-kind marketplace for in-audio advertising inventory, is now certified by IAB Tech Lab for the new 2.0 measurement guidelines for reporting podcast downloads and listeners.

With VAN, Voxnest offers brands and advertisers the ability to target precise audiences through buys across bundles of content, curated based on proprietary data to deliver impressions from a specific demographic profile.

By successfully completing the IAB Podcast Measurement compliance review and being listed among a very select few who are pushing the podcast industry forward, is further proof that VAN delivers higher engagement and guarantees brand safety for advertisers.

Francesco Baschieri, President of Voxnest stated, “We created VAN as part of our ongoing commitment to increasing the value of audio publishing for content creators, advertisers and audiences alike. As audio advertising increases in popularity, having numbers that companies can trust is the first step in building a company’s credibility, and it is an honor to receive this certification from the IAB.”

Voxnest Announces Partnership with Jamendo

~ jen

Voxnest announced that it has partnered with Jamendo, an independent music platform. The deal will have benefits for both companies and their users. Jamendo’s musicians will be able to offer their compositions via Voxnest’s sister platform, Spreaker, and Spreaker’s users will be able to license music from Jamendo.

Jamendo’s users will have the opportunity to create professional sounding podcasts with Spreaker, as a way to promote their music and develop and additional revenue stream, via sponsorship or programmatic ad insertion. Podcasts are the perfect medium for musicians to create a narrative about their songs and tours or build an intimate conversation with fans. Agencies and publishers who are already licensing music from Jamendo now have professional tools to create and distributed branded audio content at their disposal. For Spreaker’s podcasters it means access to 9,000 active artists and more than 200,000 tracks to use in their show.

The collaboration between the two brands is a further move to strengthen the growing ties between spoken audio and music. The blog post from Voxnest mentions Spotify, and notes that its recent acquisitions have “signaled that the podcast business is seen as a way to enrich the music industry.”

I think this collaboration could be good for podcasters. It is very important to make certain that creator of the song you want to use in your podcast has allowed it to be used under creative commons. Some dedicated music podcasts get music submissions from bands and labels, who want the podcaster to play their music on the podcast.

The Voxnest/Spreaker partnership with Jamendo appears to protect the rights of music creators and gives podcasters a way to ensure that they can safely play that music on their shows.

Voxnest Provides a New Professional Solution for Your Podcast

~ jen

Voxnest has a podcasting-focused mission that is driven by a diverse team of tech founders and podcast and media industry veterans. Voxnest has recently acquired Spreaker and BlogTalkRadio.

Voxnet offers a complete set of podcasting tools that can each be integrated into your own professional production process. These tools – Dynamo and the soon-to-come Hive and Cortex – help audio publishers of all grades, from indie podcasters to major media networks, monetize, manage, and track content.

Podcasting is a new media, and we’ve created Dynamo in order to change the game by giving audio publishers the ability to monetize via a new approach to dynamic ad insertion.

With Dynamo, publishers can choose to place ads throughout all their episodes at pre-, mid- and post-roll spots. They can even choose segments to target so that audiences only ever hear ads that correspond to the topics they’re listening to. Furthermore, these spots will refresh with every play, updating with new demo- and geo-targeted ads.

Dynamo works just like Google Adsense. It can be adapted to your content and process, no matter the volume of your production outcome.

Indie publishers can start bringing in profit via their distributed episodes without having to migrate to a different hosting platform. Meanwhile, your content’s quality will stay intact. You can manage the kinds of ads that appear throughout your episodes and choose target segments related to your topic.

Commercials publishers can break into the largest podcast marketplace and maximize revenues by selling your remnant inventory. In addition, you can retain your current production workflow. Dynamo easily integrates with any setup and works side-by-side with your publishing schedule.