Today, the team behind Pocket Casts, the podcast app that I have used as my main podcast-listening tool for a decade, announced that they are moving their web player and cross-platform syncing features from behind a paywall. Meaning that listeners can now check out any show in their catalog directly in the user-friendly, browser version of the popular app without even needing an account. For podcasters, this means you will now have a public listing for your show that can work for anyone, regardless of what device they're using. In their announcement post, the Pocket Casts folks say, "We’re not just making our Web Player open, we’re making a statement. Podcasting is one of the last open corners of the internet, and we’re here to keep it that way." This is a fantastic announcement, and I applaud them for this decision.
In the summer of last year, Apple Podcasts made a similar move, opening up a fully functioning browser version of their popular podcast platform that even worked on Android. Google has a terrible track record when it comes to supporting podcasting, in my opinion. I have chronicled several of their attempts over the years on this blog, and they repeatedly kill one option after another, the latest being the official Google Podcasts app. So when Apple made their announcement, I was thrilled. I am not a Mac or iPhone user, but I have to say that of the big tech companies, Apple has been a huge player in the growth of podcasting overall.
But this move by Pocket Casts is an even better one, in my view. Their app is one of the best, feature-rich apps for managing podcast subscriptions, and it is available on both Android and iOS. As I said above, I have used the app for over 10 years. Incidentally, on this exact day in 2015, I upgraded to a premium account and it became my primary source for listening to podcasts. You can now use Pocket Casts yourself on an iPhone, Android phone, Windows computer, iPad, etc. And if you sign up for a free account, your listening progress and subscriptions will sync across all your devices too!
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| My Pocket Casts stats |
As a big proponent of the open nature of the podcast medium, I am very grateful to the Pocket Casts team for their commitment to supporting this method of content distribution in this way. Since its launch in 2011 and across the various ownership changes, this app has always continued to iterate and improve things for both consumers and creators. The fact that they are willing to sacrifice potential revenue to make a statement of support for podcasting speaks volumes to me. This move can potentially bring in more listeners to not just Pocket Casts specifically, but to the podcast medium generally, and that's great news for all of us podcasters.
If you have not yet tried out their app to follow your favorite podcasts, give it a try today.
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