Episode 7 (TWIP) - Spotify Adds Podcast Playlists, Smart Speaker Podcast Challenges, and More.

t’s Friday August 23rd. Welcome to This Week In Podcasting where we discuss this week's podcasting news and tips, all in under 10 minutes. This episode is provided by Sounder.fm, the Smartest way to Podcast. Let’s get started.

This week we discuss, Spotify adds podcast playlists, Smart Speaker Podcast Challenges, and the top random podcasting thought of the week.

Spotify has announced another podcast related feature that allows listeners to add podcasts as a playlist on their iPhone app. Podcast playlists can feature multiple episodes from the same podcast and, perhaps more importantly, episodes from *different* podcasts. These can also be shared with your friends.

According to InsideRadio and Voicebot, there are approximately 66 million Americans that own a smart speaker.  However, as it relates to podcasts, only 40% have tried to listen to a podcast on their smart speaker and only 26% have been successful. Bret Kinsella, CEO of Voicebot, says he believes that’s because most podcast listeners simply need to learn a new habit. “Most podcast listening today is people accustomed to listening on the smartphone,” he said. “They have to become aware of it.” The good news is that when podcast fans do cozy up to smart speakers, they’re likely to listen to more shows. “It’s incremental listening,” he added. “Yes, it’s a small amount, but each of these segments grows every year.” 

This week’s random podcasting thought of the week is about the history of podcasts. How did all this get started?

You can trace the birth of podcasts back to Dave Winer and Adam Curry, the godfathers of the podcasting industry. Dave Winer was then a software developer and an RSS evangelist. Podcasting came to fruition in 2000 as a result of a meeting between Dave and Adam where they were discussing the distribution of automated media.