While digging through my Spotify profile this past weekend, I came across an intriguing discovery: Gimlet had been republishing five- to seven-minute excerpts of its podcast Science Vs as new, standalone episodes, made specifically to fit into the algorithmic playlist Your Daily Drive on Spotify. These shorter episodes are set aside as an entirely different […]

This Week in Spotify. Yesterday, the company released a feature that lets users “build playlists of podcasts, or add podcasts to existing playlists for a mixed-media experience.” The feature is said to be frequently requested. Playlists are crucial for Spotify, serving as the underlying construct for many of its discovery mechanisms. Think the popular Rap […]

Spotify has made two interesting personnel moves to bolster its podcast development pipeline around two key genres, sports and news, according to a report by The Information that dropped on Friday. Firstly, the company has hired Amy Hudson, most recently the sports media partnerships lead at Facebook, to oversee its sports programming assets. Secondly, David […]

Obviously, we should talk a little more about the Apple business. ICYMI: Bloomberg published a story last week reporting that Apple is apparently planning to “fund original podcasts that would be exclusive to its audio service,” and that the company had already reached out to multiple media companies about those efforts. The report also noted […]

I wrote a preview piece for Vulture last week on The Clearing, a new true crime project by Pineapple Street Media in collaboration with Gimlet Media that’s due to drop on Thursday. The piece focused on the creative hook of the podcast — it’s pretty wild — but what I didn’t get to discuss much […]