Zack Reneau-Wedeen who is Product Manager at Google Podcasts spoke about his view of the new reality that is emerging around the world as on-demand audio offerings become more comprehensive, convenient, and personalized.
He said people are ‘as prepared to listen, as they are to read and watch’ – whether they’re out and about on headphones, or in their homes on a smart speaker.
He also said that as platforms have grown, we’ve had an explosion of creativity in podcasting. Google has taken an interest in this – despite the fact that only 22% of Americans are listening to podcasts every week – because they can see its growth. They’ve integrated podcasts into Google search on android phones particularly, to try and grow the podcasting pie.
He said that the goal of their team, is to double worldwide podcast listening. He cited their new ‘full coverage’ idea as central to this – it allows you to look at news stories and topics from all angles; videos, news articles and podcasts. Google hopes to ‘make podcasts a first-class citizen’ across devices.
He said that searching for podcasts in the future may revolve around; short-form, educational and foreign language topics.