Spotify, the Swedish music and audio streaming giant, has extended its reach further into the growing podcast market with its formal acquisition of the Ringer, a US sports and pop culture platform.

Although Spotify announced the acquisition at the beginning of this month, more details of the deal emerged this week in a filing with the Security and Exchange Commission.

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Storytelling is powerful.

With the influx of media—both social and traditional—getting consumed in a 24/7 news cycle can be overwhelming and optional. The concept of time seems irrelevant lately leaving our fingertips free for endless scrolling, a particularly slippery slope for mental health during this global pandemic.

Individuals, families and communities worldwide are learning how to grapple with the effects of a changing social paradigm, seeking ways to stay connected and safe.

Adaptability during this new paradigm is key and many tech companies are stepping up to the plate to perfect, iterate, and improve on products to keep up with a new normal and compete in an evolving landscape.

In 2018, businesses spent $497 million on podcast advertising in 2018, and it’s estimated that by 2020, podcast ad spend will go up to a whopping $1 billion. So, podcasting is clearly big business.

How do you launch a business podcast?
So, there are a few steps when it comes to launching a podcast for your business – and it all starts with thinking about your aim.

What are you trying to achieve from your podcast? Is it to build trust with customers, or to drive more awareness with new prospects? In my case, I wanted to better position myself as a leader in the sales enablement space – so in addition to my blog over at Contemsa and posting on LinkedIn, I wanted to have a few different streams of content where my audience could gain insights about sales enablement.

With that aim in mind, it was important that my podcast was not about selling anything. Instead, it was about sharing insights and tips on B2B sales enablement topics such as How to Involve Sales Teams in Your Sales Playbook Process, for example. As you can see in this example episode, I am not selling anything: I am giving away useful tips and support for my customers and prospects.

JD: Podcasting — then and now; what do you make of its evolution?

DC: It has gone from being passive to a very personal on-demand commercial work. We have the ability to totally integrate content and commercials - it’s a good mindset. It went from a Howard Stern read to a re-envisioned, re-engaged conversation. It is the new native, a really positive, advertorial. We have the ability to weave in the right message at the right time and see more organic growth for both the listener and the advertiser. If you can think of a subject, there's a podcast for it and more coming on daily.

Sony Music has been signalling its podcasting ambitions with a series of partnerships over the past year. Now it has revealed nearly 40 new shows resulting from those deals – and they’re all launching this year.

The unveiling happened at the major labels first IAB Podcast Upfront presentation, with shows in categories including true crime, politics, current events, and social / racial justice, as well as music.

On the latter front, two of the new shows talked about at the upfront presentation were My 90s Playlist with hosts Tracy Clayton and Akoto Ofori-Atta, and a music/sports show from NFL reporter Lindsay Czarniak.

The COVID-19 restrictions that many countries had to endure forced many people to seek alternative forms of entertainment. One such form is podcasting which has grown in popularity over recent years. According to the most recent financial reports, Spotify reported that 21% of the monthly active users (MUA) have engaged in at least one podcast in the past month.  Data presented by Stockapps.com breaks down the rise of podcasting.

Spotify Records 5% Increase in Podcast Engagement between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020

The Joe Rogan Experience – the title of Rogans podcast, was the highest-earning podcast of 2019 with revenue of $30M. In September 2020, Joe Rogan officially began his podcasting contract with media giants Spotify, which will eventually see his entire library of content migrate to the platform. The deal is reported to be over $100M.

Spotify has been expanding its podcasts catalogue as they continue to see strong growth in that particular segment. The rate of consumption of podcasts has been growing by triple-digit percentage numbers for the last few years. In Q4 of 2019 16% of Spotifys monthly active users engage in podcast content, by Q2 2020 that number had jumped to 21%.

The concept behind podcasting is simple: combine the best qualities of what we love about a radio show with the immense capabilities offered by the digital revolution.

And with this simplicity, comes great diversity. Podcasts come in all shapes and sizes, across languages and borders, dealing with an enormous variety of topics and speaking to the hearts of an ever-growing global audience.

It is no wonder that they have become one of the most beloved and popular media in the 21st century. But how did it all start – and where are we now?

A simple idea: a brief history of how podcasts came to be The advent of the internet and new digital tech has naturally played the biggest part in establishing the podcast industry.

While the concept of audio blogging and on-demand listening to audio and video files has been around since the 1980s, primarily in the context of education and research, podcasting as we know it didn’t really exist until the 2000s. Its existence was in big part thanks to the iPod device launched by Apple in late 2001, which inspired a whole new way of listening to music and audio files.

MTV VJ Adam Curry and developer Dave Winner are widely considered to be the pioneers of the podcast revolution, when they teamed up to develop a software dubbed iPodder in 2004 – and the rest is history.

Original podcasts from SiriusXM that chronicle sports greatest rivalries, comedys biggest legends, country stars humble beginnings, and gripping first-person tales from medicines front lines

Plus, influential podcasts from FOX News and popular podcasts from leading creators and providers including Stitcher, NBC News, CNN, NPR, ViacomCBS, The Wall Street Journal, HBO, Wondery, ESPN, Barstool, TNT, Joel Osteen Ministries, WNYC Studios, Slate, TED, Westwood One, PRX, and many more

After months of working from home, and with many more months to go for most companies, keeping employees, customers and partners connected is more important now than ever before. One way brands are looking to stay engaged is through podcasting.

Podcasts are an intimate medium that allow listeners to feel more connected to the host and engaged with the topic. Here are four best practices for how to make company podcasts effective and engaging for the long run:

1. Empower your team.
2. Provide consistent, accessible and digestible content.
3. Pay attention to feedback.
4. Put in the work.

Music streaming companies have seen stellar growth in user numbers. We ask Morningstar equity analyst Neil Macker if the trend can continue.

Some of the key findings are, as you said, the music industry has rebounded because of simply the streaming industry itself. Music streaming has exploded over the last few years, and because of that, record labels have moved from a declining business in terms of revenue to a growth business over the last five years.

MacWise terminal emulation supports AppleScript commands. Many functions of MacWise can be controlled by a script (such as transferring data to and from the host and sending commands to the host.

MacWise now has SCO ANSI emulation for Macintosh. All emulations now work with SCO ANSI. (Wyse, Viewpoint, VT100, VT220, Televideo). SCO ANSI colors, cursor positioning and a 25-line screen are supported.

MacWise font now works correctly in Tiger ( OS X 10.4 ). The symptom in previous versions of MacWise was that columns did not line up correctly. The other symptom was that the flashing cursor did not completely erase the cursor line when it flashed on and off.

MacWise terminal emulation for Macs with Intel and Power PC processors.

Dial into your office computer using your Bluetooth phone and MacWise terminal emulation.

Use Your Mac Powerbook to Connect to the Internet using your Motorola Razr V3xx Bluetooth Phone and a 3G High Speed Internet Connection .
(Browse the Internet and check your email)

MacWise supports standard Wyse and Viewpoint fkey programming from the host. You can program the fkey title and command for each fkey..

French localization added. MacWise can now use English or French Menus and Dialog Boxes....

There have been several requests to create a MacWise iPhone app. Unfortunately, that would require a jail-broken iPhone and a year of programming time. But the next best thing is actually very cool and has advantages over a limited-function iPhone app. It uses Virtual Network Computing (VNC) to let you see and control your Mac screen from anywhere on your iPhone. It's just as if you were sitting in front of your Mac using MacWise via your iPhone.

If you select "Function Key Sets" from the Emulate Menu in MacWise, it will open a Finder window with several sets of keys.
There is a set called "VT220 Fkeys W/Do Key"
Double click on that to load the fkey set.

Older versions of the 3ivx video codec may cause MacWise to crash.
Install the latest version of 3ivx to prevent crashes...

Virtual Network Computing apps have been on the iPad since day one. And I have recommended them for use with MacWise. But there is a new kid on the block that really improves the experience with MacWise...

My first computer was an Apple II. I progressed to an Apple IIgs and then to Mac. But I still have my Woz Signature Apple IIgs and a box full of floppies with games and AppleWorks data.

If you are like me and no longer have the IIgs monitor, you may find it difficult to find one again.
But all you need is about $50 in parts and you can make your flat screen monitor work with your Apple IIgs.

Discover The Easy Way To Learn To Read Piano Music That Is Helping Children And Adult Beginners Around The World

Using my 15 years of experience as a health and nutrition coach and hours of research, I discovered the secrets to exercising and eating for pregnancy.

bi-weekly mortgage, biweekly mortgages, biweekly mortgage payments, bi-weekly mortgage, mortgage reduction

Welcome to the latest news from FeedForAll!

New FeedForAll v2 Beta Released
It is finally here! A new beta release of FeedForAll has been released the latest beta includes iTunes support, auto-detects the mime types, and a host of other features. Get the latest download!
http://www.feedforall.com/beta.htm

SQL2RSS
SQL2RSS has joined the RSS Scripts Directory. THe new PHP script will allow you to create RSS feeds from MySQL databases. When using SQL2RSS the publisher has complete control over the content in the resulting RSS feed. Administrators and publishers control the database query which allows them the flexibility to determine what data is inserted into the RSS feeds from the database.
http://www.feedforall.com/sql2rss.htm

New Script Versions
We have released new versions of both the rss2html and RSSmesh are avaialble. Make sure that you are using the latest ones!

New Logo Templates
A group of rss2html logo templates have been added to the RSS2HTML template directory. The new logo templates take presentation of RSS feeds in an HTML web page a step further, by adding a graphical image to the layout. New templates are added to the template directory on a regular basis so be sure to check out the newest templates.
http://www.feedforall.com/rss2html/index.htm

RSS & Podcasting Knowledgebase
A New Podcasting Knowledgebase has been added to the FeedForAll website. The podcasting knowledgebase at http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-knowledgebase.htm joins the current RSS knowledgebase available at http://www.feedforall.com/knowledgebase.htm

RSS feed for Podcasting Knowledgebase - http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-knowledgebase.php
RSS feed for the RSS Knowledgebase - http://www.feedforall.com/knowledgebase.php

RSS Tutorials
We have added a series of video tutorials for FeedForAll Mac. Our Mac developers have been working to add new video tutorials every few weeks so be sure to stay tuned. http://www.feedforall.com/tutorials/index.htm

New MIME Type Extensions
If you are creating a podcast or video feed you will need to include the appropriate mime type, the proper format is indicated below.
http://www.feedforall.com/mime-types.htm

Free Social Bookmarking Tool
New! Free social bookmarking chicklet creator. Social bookmarking has quickly become a popular way for frequent internet users to share their favorite websites with the public. Having a website added to a bookmark directory can increase traffic significantly. Bookmark chicklets are a newer creation that help remind those viewing a website to add it to the social bookmarking directories. It makes the bookmarking process easier for those who have found a website that is a good source of information or services.

The tool is easy to use for even novice web designers. It can also be used to add chicklets to blogs. Creating the chicklets is instantaneous when using this tool. It is a free service available to anyone. For more information or to use the tool visit http://www.feedforall.com/social-bookmarks.htm

Article(s)
New Article(s)
RSS Feed Tips to Help with SEO
RSS feeds are a great communication medium, and when properly managed, web feeds can bring in significant Internet traffic. RSS feeds should contain compelling themed content with episodic titles that are united in common broad theme. Use RSS feeds as an online marketing and search engine optimization tool. Just as optimizing an HTML web page will increase exposure, so too will an RSS feed that is properly optimized and promoted. Use these simple tips to improve your web feed exposure.
http://www.feedforall.com/feed-tips-seo.htm

Webmaster Tips
According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don't know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google but writes an independent blog and shares information related to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately, of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking, there are only a few that webmasters can actually control.
http://www.feedforall.com/webmaster-tips.htm

New RSS Directories
Be sure to check out these new vertical RSS directories:
Medical Feeds - http://www.medical-feeds.com
Security Feeds - http://www.security-protection.net

Webmasters
Realizing that many of our readers our webmasters we thought we would share some of our favorite webmaster resources:

Small Business Tips - http://www.small-business-software.net

We'd like to thank you for your continued support. It is through customer support and your suggestions that we've been able to continually improve the NotePage product line.
Thank you for your continued support!
FeedForAll team

WRITING ARTICLES SHOULD BE YOUR #1 FORM OF PROMOTION! But once you've put your masterpiece together, who should you send it to? Now there's a list of Ezine Editors who are simply crying out for your quality articles.

Email 81 Million recipients SPAM free with one click of the button. Guaranteed 1500 Increase in traffic

Try NoAdware for FREE and see for yourself if your PC is infected!

Pop Up Stopper, the free popup killer. Get the original Pop-Up Stopper popup stopper and other privacy and pop up, popup blocking software. Stop popup, popups, pop-up windows, x10 pop-under and other unwanted popup ads with PopUpStopper! Block spam with anti spam software SpamWasher.

Instead of trying to explain Podcasting to your audience, for a donation of $50, you could distribute this tool with your podcasts pre-loaded. Branded already. Great, great tool... when I'm done with my review I'll let you know. It's a great idea - thanks to the cats at the Internet Warriors forum for putting the word out about it.

Clip ==> Basic Set Up1) Launch Audio Hijack Pro and create a new session.2) Select Audio Device in the first popup menu of the Input tab.3) Set the Input Device to the appropriate device, your microphone. You'll also want to set an Output Device, either a pair headphones (to avoid feedback) or Silence Output.4) Now, adjust the settings in the Recording tab as you desire. For a talk program, an

Come with me if you wanna live. Shifty beats, dark bass and atmospherics.

Is someone watching over you? Acoustic bass led track with trippy beats. Second new song of the year!

It’s wonderful when the kids reach school age and you’re working at home. Suddenly you have all this time to work on your job or home business. But then winter comes, and sometimes that means you get hit by a snow day. It isn’t always fun to cope with...

The post How to Cope With Snow Days When You Work At Home appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Farmscape for November 13, 2024

A professor with Dalhousie University suggests Canada will need to work with the United States under the new Donald Trump administration to ensure benefits to Canadian agriculture.
“Navigating the Maze: Agri-Food Trends and their Impact on the Pork Industry” was among the topics discussed last week in Saskatoon as part of Saskatchewan pork Industry Symposium 2024.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, a professor with Dalhousie University, says Canada followed the United States in terms of food inflation but Canada is now higher, the result of Canada's own food policies.

Quote-Dr. Sylvain Charlebois-Dalhousie University:
Dairy, meat are pushing food inflation higher and they're all pretty domestic.
That's why, during my talk I really focused a lot on the concept of competitiveness, because I don't think that right now that we're helping agriculture.
We're just making agriculture more expensive so farmers are struggling.
Right now, things are good for the pork industry but they're not going to remain the same so we've got to be ready for that and, with America becoming even more competitive under a Trump regime, we're going to have to follow.
I know there's a lot of rhetoric around tariffs and things like that.
I don't pay a whole lot of attention to that.
I think what's most important is the fact that we do have an American administration looking at deals, looking for deals.
Donald Trump is very transactional.
He's very predictable and so I think we need to capitalize on that as much as possible.
But I do think that the world is likely going to get more interesting as a result of what we're seeing in Washington and that's going to probably benefit Canada over time.
But we've got to be in lock step with the Americans.
We can't just be at odds with them.
We're at odds with India, with China.
The last thing we want is to be at odds with the Americans.

To access Dr. Charlebois's work google "Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University."
He notes all of the reports are available in both French and English at no charge.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers

Even as Sony renews its determination that its new DVD format Blu-Ray will not to relive the painful Betamax experience of losing to VHS, Samsung seems to be positioning itself as a quiet arbiter of standards cross-compliance for consumer electronics...

It's super strong, fennel-flavored, as transparent as water -- and in many households across Sardinia it's still produced illegally.

It's a place of terraced lemon groves, a paradoxically warm mountain breeze, and a powerful fat-killing gene carried by a few lucky residents.

ProfitCalc for eBay has helped thousands of sellers cut their ebay fees in half and increase their profits.

For the past several months I’ve been co-writing a book that was recently published by O’Reilly. Called Getting Started with Artificial Intelligence: A Practical Guide to Building Enterprise Applications, the book is currently offered by IBM as a free download. Written with Josh Zheng to introduce developers and technical managers to using artificial intelligence when […]

The post Getting Started with Artificial Intelligence: A Practical Guide to Building Applications in the Enterprise first appeared on Tom Markiewicz.

This Wednesday I’ll be speaking at AltConf on Machine Learning on iOS: Integrating IBM Watson with Core ML. Here’s the abstract I submitted: Apple recently announced a partnership with IBM to integrate Core ML with Watson, allowing visual recognition to run locally on iOS devices. The ability to use machine learning while offline opens up […]

The post Altconf 2018 – Machine Learning on iOS: Integrating IBM Watson with Core ML first appeared on Tom Markiewicz.