Future of Podcasting

Saqib Naveed
3 min readFeb 9, 2021

The future of Podcasting is going to be promising in the future; with over 850,000 podcasts currently available on the internet. We listen to them in our daily life routines while driving, working, and even try to not miss out on any favorite episodes. Only in the US, millions of people are listening to podcasts every month.

Now you can imagine how many people from other countries are listening to podcasts. A recent study shows that 39 percent of people in the United States had listened to a podcast in the last month,

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You might wonder why podcasts are popular and have a growing demand in the world? Keeping all the concerns in mind and listening to the upcoming series in the background, we will find answers by hopping into a brief glimpse of the history and future of podcasting.

History of Podcasting

Back in the 1980s, podcasting was known as audio blogging turned out to be more accessible for both listeners and producers. After the release of the iPod in the 2000s, it became popular because of its audio files uploading to portable audio devices or by simply attaching to RSS feeds. Recently, Christopher Lydon, a journalist at The Guardian, joined the word “podcast”. He simply joined the two words “iPod” and “broadcast” together and come up with a term that we all use, also named it as an “Audible revolution”.

Another milestone was achieved in 2005 when Apple released a podcasts directory with 3000 free audio programs. In the same year, the commercial potential of podcasting was revealed, and it became mainstream. During the next few years, podcasting enhances its momentum, with the release of “Serial” an American Life podcast. More precisely, it became one of the most popular podcasts, with over 400 million downloads. Now it’s only been 17 years since the word podcast was introduced and thousands of programs are available at our fingertips.

The Substantial Future of Podcasting:

Converging feature of podcasting

Some exciting stories already exist that you cannot expect that they’re based on podcasts. Taking the example of a TV show “Dirty Jhon” on Netflix having the same name podcast as Christopher Goffard’s. This show has positive responses in bulk from listeners.

However, the story with the podcasts converging doesn’t end here. The story continues with recent productions of podcasting companies, in which Gimlet is renowned that introduced Gimlet Pictures.

An excellent speaker will push the boundaries

A podcasting agency, Pacific Content, surveyed industry leaders to make predictions of podcasting. Survey results in a finding that most of the people used to listen to an hour-podcast because they want to get rid of their phones and avoid going through them. But now, we have to appreciate excellent speakers and they end up making an era of short podcasts and opening a new opportunity.

Recently, New York Times launched new podcasts on Amazon Alexa known as “The Daily”. Also, the latter has presented some templates that gives the facility to podcast producers to create content on Amazon Alexa in a minute consumption of time.

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Moreover, voice technologies are not limited to food speakers. Spotify voice assistant provides quick and easy access to podcasts. In a nutshell, voice commerce will grow more in the next couple of years, as companies are aiming to provide a personalized experience and a facility of cross-platform.

More investments and launch of podcasts from the companies

The significant advantage of podcasts is they provide a useful tool for the communication of brands because of their popularity. For instance, companies like Financial Times are using podcasts to grab more subscriptions and reaching more customers. Also, podcasting can be useful for creating huge brand awareness and get connect with more audiences and converting them into clients.

In a nutshell, this industry is quite young and in a couple of years, it will move to the next level. They are a completely pure piece of content that gives a bunch of innovations and an eagerness to break ground as more investments and technological improvements are yet to come.

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Saqib Naveed

A passionate writer, who writes articles on Lifestyle, Humanity, Marketing, Health, and Pets. I believe that "It is not what you write it is the way you write".