Podcast Wars: $100 Million Startup Luminary To Launch Tomorrow Without Some Publicly Available Popular Podcasts (theverge.com) 71
Luminary, a $100 million venture-backed podcasting company, will debut its service tomorrow. It offers two tiers to customers: subscription-based shows without ads or podcasts for free but deal with ads as a price. But it has already ruffled some feathers. From a report: When it rolls out to the public on iOS, Android, and the web, Luminary's podcast app will be missing some of the industry's biggest shows, including The New York Times's The Daily and Gimlet Media shows like Reply All and Homecoming. Shows by Anchor's network of smaller creators won't be on the app, nor will series from Parcast, both of which are owned by Spotify. By withholding their shows, the Times and Spotify are setting Luminary up to fail -- or at least struggle to get off on the right foot with users. It certainly seems like the first shot fired in the inevitable premium podcast war and could destabilize one of the first buzzy, well-funded entrants before it can make a dent in the industry. The decisions that happen now will reshape the way podcasts are distributed in the future.
Not a zero sum game (Score:4, Interesting)
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Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
The VCs figured that a podcast aggregator app is worth $100 million?
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Yeah, if the app has ads, why would you use it? Podcasts usually are free and there are plenty of ad-free apps to listen with.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, if the app has ads, why would you use it? Podcasts usually are free and there are plenty of ad-free apps to listen with.
The ads are in the shows themselves, not the app. And I really don't think many people have been clamoring for ad-free podcasts. The ads support the shows directly, and are usually related to the subject matter.
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The days of podcasters reading something they half-heartedly believe in at the half-way mark are dying. Podcast advertisers are seeking ways to track and profile listeners, and to determine if and how their ads are actually played (i.e. Remote Audio Data [RAD]), and 'customized' ads are currently being injected on-the-fly by redirecting downloads to advertisers (adswizz.com) for some podcasts.
For now, one can get podcasts from an RSS feed. It's not improbable to s
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But if a podcast suddenly became available on a single walled garden, it would surely die, wouldn't it?
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I rarely find the ads sufficiently related, so I'm usually left clamoring for ad-free podcasts.
With the breadth of my consumption appetite, it's almost impossible for the ads to be pertinent, as my learn over spend ratio is extremely high. I bet you'd be surprising how much podcast demand originates from people whose learn over spend ratio is simila
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The VCs figured that a podcast aggregator app is worth $100 million?
Yeah, things have been looking more and more like the original Dot-Bomb era for some time now... except the ridiculous dollar evaluations are even higher.
Too bad Easel didn't wait 15 years or so... they might've gotten a billion for Nautilus.
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Still... it's a podcast aggregator. No blockchain or AI. The pitch doesn't even seem to mention social media or the network effect.
I assume they at least have a .com and use Linux somewhere. How 2000s.
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The VCs figured that a podcast aggregator app is worth $100 million?
Venture Capitalists don't know shit from clay, they're just gambling that they can line some rube up to buy shares when it goes public.
If they spend enough money on PR they can make it the next hot thing and some trust-fund baby will splurge some of Daddies' money on it.
The people behind Snapchat are in the same situation, except they might have trouble finding enough idiots.
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except they might have trouble finding enough idiots
When has that ever been a problem?
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Why use up storage space on your phone when you can just stream (download and listen while it finishes) the episode.
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Why use up storage space on your phone when you can just stream (download and listen while it finishes) the episode.
Because an SD card costs $10 whereas a higher tiered data plan costs far more.
"Podcast" is not a word. You mean ... (Score:1)
Audio RSS feeds, or audio blogs.
Stop acting like Apple invented sliced bread! ;)
(And wasn't that Microsoft's thing? E.g. "ActiveDirectory" or "TransactSQL"?
Why would anyone need a 3rd party website for that? Just upload it into a directory of your home page server, and publish it as a RSS feed. It's trivial and usually even built-in to popular homepage builders for noobs.
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T-SQL was inherited from Sybase - MS bought a license for the source of a particular version and forked it as SQL Server. ActiveDirectory seems like a reasonable enough brand name for their LDAP/Kerberos implementation, given they were on an "Active-" prefix binge, with Active Desktop, ActiveX, ActiveSync, and so on.
lolz must be submitted by a shill (Score:2)
Is this some investor whining? No one gives a shit if your stupid yet-another-podcast venture is allowed to include Times or anything else.
Wrong business model (Score:2, Insightful)
If I'm paying for podcasts I expect the money goes primarily to the producers and a little to the distributor.
It really shouldn't matter if have to get those podcasts from 1 or N distributors.
But if their business model is to charge high enough that I'd only want to "shop" in one place, keep most of it and give pennies to producers, I'm not interested at all in that.
It would be like having to choose between buying shoes at Target, Walmart, or Payless. I want to have all 3 as a choice so j can't give my enti
Why Listen to an NYT Podcast? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you want to listen to a New York Times [battleswarmblog.com] podcast about, well, anything? Podcasts are for listening to mutant otaku obsessing over their weird passions, or at least someone like Joe Rogan [battleswarmblog.com], who's actually willing to do in-depth interviews with a wide-range of people, from Andrew Tang to Bill Burr to Ben Shapiro, to actually listen to their opinions rather than condemn them for wrongthink.
If I want the NYT's carefully curated collections of received urban elite opinion, I can just pick up an issue, I don't need to listen to their podcast. Listening to an NYT podcast is like picking up a copy of Wal-Mart Presents The Best of Punk Volume 2: Poor imitations of better things to be found elsewhere.
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As a mutant otaku, I thought my Sailor Moon podcast was quite well received by the 5 people who listened. If only Toei hadn't issued that DMCA takedown notice, my purple prose would still be available to all!
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That is why I have 14,000 podcasts mostly on science and engineering from about 70 different podcasters. All downloaded for free using RSS and currently with gPodder. 372 Gb should keep me going for a while after these fuckwits destroy the content. May I recommend Omega Tau, This week in Virology and all of the medical podcasts from the BMJ (British Medical Journal) - all ad and dumbed down bullshit free. With any luck this company will fail.
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But he smoked a doobie with Elon....
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Without podcast ads... (Score:2)
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Nobody wants to hear about your undies.
An "app" for "podcasts"?? (Score:2)
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"Podcasts" are just an mp3 or a streaming mp3. Why the hell would anybody need an "app" for that? Just go to the damn web page and click the link.
An app makes it easier for you to discover and manage several podcasts that you are interested in, and do this management/discovery in one place. An app also provides a consistent experience for playing or rewinding podcasts, and you can even combine episodes from multiple podcasts into a single playlist.
Of course, if you don't listen to many podcasts, or listen infrequently, then it's perfectly fine visiting the website to listen.
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There is a web site (many actually) that already aggregates podcasts and categorizes them. You don't need an app for it you moron.
I don't believe they understand podcasts at all (Score:3)
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They probably think they can bribe popular podcasters on to their network thus gaining a Disney+ style captive audience.
I think they woefully overestimate people's tolerance for bullshit. But, who knows, maybe they do like Clear Channel did with the Ron Burgandy Podcast or get someone popular like Joe Rogan that people will show up for.
"Spotify isn't playing nice" (Score:2)
Like what? This is like saying Netflix isn't playing nice by allowing Amazon to stream its original content.
The article is filled with idiotic other statements like this one:
Other companies, like Stitcher, the BBC, and Spotify, have also made exclusive content a priority, but Luminary was the first company to structure its entire launch and marketing pitch around the idea.