Spotify Podcasts Are Podcasts birchtree.me

@mattbirchler You make a good point. I’m fine with calling them podcasts, but I won’t listen to them. For example, I subscribe to The Athletic, and they have several podcasts that you can only listen to through their app.

I’ve listened once. I just forget they’re there.

@mattbirchler Blogging faced something similar with Medium. Again, I think I’ve read two posts on Medium.

And this isn’t about paying for content for me. I regularly support the content I read.

The medium does impact the message.

@mattbirchler Excellent thoughtful analysis, as always.

And I really enjoy your podcast. Thanks for all the hard work.

@mattbirchler I agree. There are loads of companies that produce good “podcasts” which are exclusive to their platforms.

I don’t like the idea of exclusivity as a user. But, as a biz, they gotta do it for their bottomline.

@russwinn I don’t understand the fuzz around Medium. I guess, it has died down a bit now.

@ryanroars the content wasn’t worth the barriers to access for me.

@russwinn I couldn't agree more! Medium is littered with "content" and not may meaningful articles to read outside their paywall.

@mattbirchler You raise some interesting points. I’m in the camp that it’s a podcast if it’s open/distributed. You’re right, that defines it by the technical standards, but it’s definition goes back to the origins of podcasts themselves.

The comparison I’ve been thinking about is tweets. If I export my tweets from Twitter and put them on my blog, they’re no longer tweets. They’re blog posts.

@chet That’s a good comparison too, and I think it’s what makes this more complicated than it appears on the surface. 🙂

Also how historic do you want to go with the name? They are “pod”casts because they were primarily played on iPods. The word is definitely fluid.

@mattbirchler I of course want everything to be free... but I understand people need money. There are many different avenues. Free and open is my preferred.... but content, I think is King. I may switch to Spotify from Apple Music because of this.

@mattbirchler If it's only available behind a paywall, on a single app, it's a serial audio show. No longer a podcast.