Podcasts Are Booming. But Can Someone Solve The Discovery Issue?
It seems like every man and his dog is creating a podcast.
With a quarter of Americans listening to podcasts weekly and podcast creators now numbering greater than a million, podcasting is continuing its march to the mainstream.
However, despite increased levels of content creation and consumption, there remains a need to structurally shift the way audio content is distributed, discovered and monetised. To unlock the power of this medium, the first step is to redefine how audio can be searched and discovered.
Distribution vs. Discovery
A good analogue for podcasting today is where web blogging was in the early ’90s, a time before Alta Vista, Yahoo and Google. A long tail of individuals would produce content but without any efficient way to be discovered. It was only through the proliferation of search engines and blogging platforms that the value of the internet was truly unlocked.
In the world of podcasting, there is an extreme power-law curve across podcast creators — with the long tail of creators struggling to build an audience on audio platforms (Spotify, Podcast App by Apple).
That’s because podcasting was designed to solve for distribution but not discovery.
The simplicity by which podcasts can be distributed (the humble RSS feed) created a trade-off, favouring distribution over context-rich information. Which means discoverability is limited to the show (the episode) or audio platform suggestion engines (e.g. Spotify)
The Opportunity
Unlocking discovery opens up the opportunity for audio content to be distributed in a wider and more targeted way.
The advance of AI and ML (machine learning), especially Natural Language Processing, means that the time and effort required to break down and understand spoken-word audio content is now scalably achievable. We’ve already seen a rise in automated transcript services and subtitle companies provide an opportunity for audio information to be searchable and discoverable.
The combination of the right technology and the explosion of spoken-word audio makes the timing just right for a discovery solution.
The initial use-case for a search-and-discovery solution sits closely with the existing participants in the podcasting ecosystem (creators and platforms). If creators use technology to enrich their content, it will reach a wider audience. If platforms do, they could enhance the user experience by connecting with consumers more accurately. This is one of the key structural hurdles that — if cleared — could see advertising in this market cracked.
There’s a broader opportunity for spoken-word audio content to impact the enterprise. We see the potential of spoken-word audio to form a meaningful part of the corporate knowledge stack. For this to come to fruition there needs to be a meaningful way to index and search.
If you’re working on a business in this area or near-to-it, please get in touch with us here.
