Spotify grows its podcast ambitions with two new acquisitions

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Spotify is building its podcast business through two new acquisitions. The music streaming service acquired Gimlet Media and Anchor. The former is a startup podcast network, while the latter provides creators with tools to help them build, publish, and monetize podcasts. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek claims the company is now the second-biggest podcasting platform and that its podcast users “spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music.” And it wants to provide these users with more original programming as well as entice potential listeners to turn their platform into “the world’s number one audio platform.”

The company plans to invest more into podcasts this 2019 and said that it’s willing to spend around US$500 million to grow its podcast business. According to Recode, Spotify paid around US$230 million on Gimlet alone.

Google launches Podcasts app for Android

After killing off its first attempt at a podcast app back in 2012, Google is trying once again with the aptly named Podcasts app. While you can play podcasts through Google Play Music, Zack Reneau-Wedeen, product manager for this standalone app believes it “could as much as double worldwide listenership of podcasts overall.”

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Downloading podcasts for offline listening is now live in the Google app

We reported late last month that searching and listening to podcasts is now an easier affair using Google app. We mentioned then that you could download episodes for offline listening but it wasn’t live yet at the time. That changes now as the said feature is live. Aside from being able to download episodes, you can set automatic removal of the downloaded shows, whether you listened to the episodes or not. By default, completed episodes will be removed after 24 hours and unfinished ones will be taken out after 30 days. You can extend the former to seven days and the latter to 90 days. Or if you’d rather keep episodes with you, you can turn off this option.

Source: Android Police

Google lets Android users listen to podcasts right from search results

Google is making it easier for Android users to listen to podcasts right from their mobile devices. All you need to do is search for the podcast you want to listen to and your search result will float at the top or near the top information about the podcast you were looking for. It’ll also show the latest episodes with a play button to their right. This provides a simple playback options but also the ability to download podcast episodes for offline listening. You can even subscribe to these podcasts and these will be added into a list you can curate. The easiest way to access the podcasts you subscribe to (or what looks like the only way to access at the moment) is adding the podcast shortcut to your homescreen.

The feature also lets you find and return to episodes you haven’t finished listening to. The podcast page also shows you suggestions based on genre, publisher, and popular ones based on the podcasts you’re subscribed to. As expected, the feature also works with Google Assistant, so you can use voice commands to find, play, and resume episodes. It isn’t clear yet if this is getting a full app experience or whether it’s coming to iOS. For now, it’s an easy way to get into podcasts or check out shows you don’t want to commit to yet.

Source: The Next Web