Podcasts are becoming the standard for quick communication, it seems. With podcast platforms, such as Anchor, emerging, it is now much easier to record podcasts. Audio, in itself, is becoming the standard interface for voice commands-based home assistants, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Siri, Cortana. Because audio is so important for these platforms, podcasts may have a bright future coming up. They can become a fundamental part in the business environment too.
#1: Podcasts are easier to create
A couple of years ago, it used to take a desktop computer, editing software, and something to create a podcast feed. In 2017 all it takes to create a podcast episode is a mobile phone. That is a huge improvement. As stated above a platform like Anchor or Spoken make it incredibly easy to create new episodes, and, at the same time, distribute new episodes to your team.
In the business environment audio communication is a useful tool as well. Many managers enjoy the ease of bringing new ideas to their team using the audio format. It is quick, it is easy, it works on the go, new things new things are delivered as they happen.
#2: Audio is the default input for home assistants
Whether it's Siri, Google Home, or Amazon's Alexa. They share a common feature: voice is what makes them work. In a more utopian view, we could imagine a Star Trek-esk future, where we communicate with the computer using our voice only. Right now the systems are still somewhat limited, but they show where we can go with these things. As your home assistant becomes more intelligent, its utility increases too.
We're still somewhere at the beginning, but due to the recent emerging of AI and neural networks we see that computers become better at certain tasks very quickly. Companies already explore which applications neural networks have for consumers and the business field. We're going to see new products as early as two to three years from now, and grownup products in ten.
As a reminder: these home assistant can play audio too, and thus they can play podcasts. What better way to communicate with your audience than podcasts?
#3: Apple now has competition
Podcasting has been an Apple thing from the very beginning. iTunes is still the number 1 podcasting platform. But they've now got some competition! Google got into podcasting by providing customers of Android a podcast directory. Audible has started "podcasting" too – they call them channels. Spotify now also has podcasts. These are just some of the big companies which have gotten into podcasting. Podcasting has become so important that Apple (finally) felt pressured (hopefully not rushed) to release new for an improved iTunes podcast portal. Podcasts Connect is a new portal where podcasters will be able to view statistics and other data collected anonymously from the millions of iTunes users. This is going to help professional podcasters immensely since Apple has the biggest directory, and they are therefore the biggest standard.
Doing podcasts on the go is super easy! We have tested many apps for businesses, customers, and clients. This is a brief list of mainly iOS apps, that you can check out:
GarageBand is a nice entry-level app for podcasters. Customers have reported they are doing quite well with the app. Mastering is not so easy but doable. Some send us their podcasts for the mastering and delivery process.
Ferrite is currently my favourite app. It has professional tools, an editor, and a couple more whistles and bells that make it an outstanding app. From the same developer comes Hokusai Audio. A slightly less beautiful app, that has editing as its main focus but it's nonetheless very useful for a couple of tasks. I personally very like its ability to interface with Audiobus, which allows it to use external effect apps.