Acast buys Podchaser: we talk to both CEOs (and ask about spam); plus, Alby, the simple cryptowallet for podcasters Artwork

Podnews Weekly Review

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Every Friday, James Cridland and Sam Sethi review the week's top stories from Podnews; and interview some of the biggest names making the news from across the podcast industry.

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Podnews Weekly Review

Acast buys Podchaser: we talk to both CEOs (and ask about spam); plus, Alby, the simple cryptowallet for podcasters

July 21, 2022 • James Cridland, Sam Sethi • Season 1 • Episode 84

0:00 | 1:14:19

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Special Guests

Moritz Kaminski - Alby
Ross Adams - Acast
Bradley Davis - Podchaser

Show Notes

Acast is to acquire Podchaser, the “world’s most comprehensive and authoritative podcast database” in a deal worth $34m. Podchaser, which is expected to make a profit next year, will continue to operate as a separate brand: it contains data of more than 4.5m million podcasts, including advertising information. The integration will bring additional data to Acast’s advertisers.
The podcast landscape is ever shifting!
Alby, a browser extension for cryptocurrency, has added its own podcaster wallet. The service allows you to earn from your listeners as they listen. The company has written a full guide to enabling your podcast.
Audioboom’s H1/22 financials were released, showing revenue was up 79% on the same period last year. Profit was $2m, up from last year’s $0.2m, and the company’s doing 124m downloads a month (up 35%).
Pushkin Industries has purchased podcast creator Transmitter Media. Transmitter’s founder and CEO, Gretta Cohn, will join Pushkin’s senior leadership team.
Auphonic and Hindenburg have announced an integration
Which company is sending the most unsolicited commercial email to podcasters, by scraping your RSS feed to gather your email? We have been running a spamtrap on our podcast feed for the last three months, and today, we reveal the podcast industry’s biggest spammer. (No, it doesn’t start with an “A”).
British Podcast Awards: Jul 23 · London, England, UK
The podcast:socialInteract tag has been finalised in the new podcast namespace. It allows a podcaster to attach a link to a “root post” of a conversation, on somewhere like Twitter, Mastodon, or other places. It also allows podcasters to opt out of public comments.