Podcast 2.0 apps + your new call to action

Today’s episode is all about new podcast apps + podcast 2.0.

It’s a big topic, and a bleeding edge one for most of us, suffice to say this one episode wouldn’t do the whole of it justice. However, if there’s one thing I leave you with, it’s that you’re encouraged, as podcast creators, to go out and explore. If you’ve been hearing more and more about this from other shows you listen to but are still left scratching your head, well, allow me to illustrate it for you.

To do that, lets start with a quote from friend of the show Evo Terra:

“Apple Podcasts has been fumbling the ball since April of 2021. Treat their non-stop stumbling as a gift. Anchor/Spotify is now making RSS feeds optional for all new podcasters that join their platform. Again, take that as a gift.

They’re distracted. They’re doing their own things which may not align with the larger podcasting ecosystem. It’s up to you, to me, and to and the companies we pay to host our podcasting content to take advantage of these gifts and push podcasting to the next level. Podcasting 2.0, even.

As I’ve said for years on this program, please spread this idea with other podcasters and get them as excited about the future as you are. “

The podcast industry’s perfect storm

“Treat their (Apple’s) non-stop stumbling as a gift.” That’s a thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

Let’s face it, Apple’s backing of podcasting in the early days helped make podcasting more mainstream. Lots of us wouldn’t have jobs if _Steve Jobs_ didn’t take the stage showcasing the pod fathers first show.

Watch Steve Jobs demo podcasting in iTunes for the first time

But the Trillion dollar brand has meandered along the last decade barely giving us a working portal to submit our shows, let alone advance the industry. A feeling which has compounded during their updates to the platform earlier in the year where podcasters were left scratching their heads:

“Where is my show?”

“Why are my episodes disappearing?”

“Why can’t I submit a new podcast?”

Questions which still don’t have answers.

I know this because I see our support desk at Castos, and Apple’s lack of effort with transparency costs us time, money, and in some cases customers. Suddenly, “we” all start looking around and begin to question…“does apple even care?”

As the all too familiar feeling of “Oh God, another major platform failing creators”starts to set in, out on the horizon, a ray of hope appears in the form of an open-source movement called Podcast 2.0.

I talked about this on previous episodes of Audience, if you follow me on YouTube.com/castos you’ve seen me demo and explain some of the features. Features which Castos will be adopting in the very near-future. If you’re seeking out who the real innovators are, aside from podcast hosting companies, look no further than the podcast 2.0 movement + enhancements to the RSS namespace.

If that sounds too technical for you, well, it kinda is and that’s a topic for a different episode. Just know that Podcast 2.0 efforts work to keep podcasting open, where the stark contrast of Spotify shutting down popular RSS feeds is the complete opposite.

The fact of the matter is that, when you combine the efforts of the Podcast 2.0 movement along with new podcast listening apps, you start to unlock the _real_ innovation happening in our space.

But, we can’t have one without the other!...