Podcast History: Why Apple Has Dominated – PCI 350

Speaker 0 00:00:00 If you wanted to listen to a podcast, you really had to set that little device on your desk, plug it into your computer's, u s b port, and then run some software that we did in the middle of the night, wee hours of the night, go grab the new podcast, and then if everything worked perfectly , the, uh, the new episodes would be waiting for you in the morning on your device. You could leave for the office or whatever. And you had new podcasts to listen to.

Speaker 1 00:00:27 You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast, bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting. With the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2 00:00:41 Hi, I'm Mike Dell, the VP of Customer Relations here at Blueberry.

Speaker 0 00:00:45 And this is Todd Cochran, c e o and co-founder of Blueberry Podcasting. Today, we are going to go back to 2005 and tell the story of how Apple came to dominate the podcasting landscape for such a very long time. We're dating ourselves when we start talking about things that were happening in 2005, actually, you

Speaker 2 00:01:08 Know? Oh yeah, for sure. But, uh, you know, it's interesting that, you know, it's been so long since the word iTunes was sort of deprecated from Apple, although there is still the iTunes desktop on Old Mac and Windows machines, but we get a lot of new podcasters. I always wanna make sure my show is on iTunes, and it's, it's just amazing how that has stuck in the podcasting world for so long.

Speaker 0 00:01:38 You know, if we think about, um, really going to the beginning and how it was so very difficult to start a podcast and, and not only difficult to start a podcast, but also quite difficult to listen to a podcast and all the way up until, I believe it was June of 2005, um, really there was a handful of apps. They were pretty rudimentary. There was no, remember, there was no iPhone yet. This was pre iPhone. This was iPod timeframe. And if you wanted to listen to a podcast, you really had to set that little device on your desk, plug it into your computer's USB port, and then run some software that would, in the middle of the night, we hours of the night, go grab the new podcast, and then if everything worked perfectly , the, uh, the new episodes would be waiting for you in the morning on your device. You could leave for the office or whatever. And you had new podcasts to listen to. That was, uh, quite a nerdy geeky. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:02:46 Most podcasters back then and listeners alike were, were geeky. I mean, you know, they had to be, you know, kind of on cutting edge. I still, I have my first iPod in my hand right now, . It's one of the old iPod shuffles. Do you remember those? That kinda look like a stick of gum.

Speaker 0 00:03:04 I do, I do. Yeah. I

Speaker 2 00:03:05 Ha I have it right here and it still works. Believe it or not,

Speaker 0 00:03:08 I was broke. I couldn't afford a regular, you know, hard drive type iPod in those early days. So I had like a little hand stick had like 256 K in memory. But anyway, really what happened was Steve Jobs decided to add podcasting to the then product iTunes. Yes, it was a major, major inflection point. You

Speaker 4 00:03:32 Could try to sell podcasts, but the whole phenomenon is so great, it's free. Okay. And I think what we're gonna see is an advertising supported model emerged just like free radio. Here's another, Adam Curry is, uh, one of the guys that invented podcasting and uh, he has a podcast called The Daily Source. Lemme go ahead and subscribe to that and uh, we can go listen to his latest one, you know, just click on it. What's your daily

Speaker 5 00:03:51 Source code? Show number 180

Speaker 6 00:03:54 Something remarkable is happening here. Radio is springing free of the regulated gatekeepers who've managed what you can hear since radio was invented. It's jumping into the hands of anyone at all with something or nothing to say,

Speaker 7 00:04:10 With $16 million worth of airplane strapped my ass. Then the next generation radio content in my ears, we don't need. No, I like to think I'm flying into the future. Podcasting. It's Adam Curry.

Speaker 5 00:04:25 That's right. It's show number 180 and it's Friday everybody. Thank God I've actually had to restart the show three times. My Mac has been acting up like a,

Speaker 7 00:04:37 I dunno what's going

Speaker 5 00:04:38 On. I think it's, uh, something to do with, uh, the file system.

Speaker 4 00:04:42 Okay.

Speaker 7 00:04:43 Now how do you,

Speaker 8 00:04:47 How do you control say dirty stuff? I mean,

Speaker 4 00:04:51 We're gonna have an explicit flag on these, like we do the music so you can know if it's explicit,

Speaker 8 00:04:56 So I could find it easier. Yeah, right.

Speaker 0 00:05:00 Immediately everyone, every podcast and how many of, there was maybe two, 3000 at the time saw this mass of influx of brand new listeners just because the podcasts were in iTunes and it made it much, much easier to do the, so had to do the sync, but it just, it just put podcasts right on everybody's desktop and every and on every Mac that was available. Or running Windows too.

Speaker 2 00:05:28 Yeah, you could do it on Windows and you know, it was mainly iPods, but you could use other devices. There was a lot of them like that. But I remember, you know, I had a, my little podcast going before Apple added it to iTunes and, you know, I was getting reasonable amount of downloads and, and whatever, what I could tell from Web stats, I really didn't have true podcast statistics back then, but I just remember it just exploded when Apple came online because pretty much there was 3000 shows you're bound to be found amongst 3000 shows, . And it was just, it was, it was crazy times. Uh, I thought, you know, it's just like, wow, this is, this is really gonna take off. And, uh, look where we are now,

Speaker 0 00:06:14 And a lot of people don't appreciate this, but it was that one click to subscribe function where you could have a single link on your website and people could click that and it would open iTunes, subscribe you to the podcast and immediately download the last five episodes of your, of your podcast and then it would sync automatically to a device. That was what was truly evolutionary was that that one click. And it's one of the things why we a number of years later did, uh, one click subscribe on Android because we, we wanted to replicate that functionality for Android users because, well, you know, Android came in later, but you know, this was before social media, before YouTube. It was, you know, it was early and they just defaulted to find us in iTunes. That's what we said when we said find, you know, find us, find us in iTunes. That's where you could find the show.

Speaker 2 00:07:13 Yeah, well people do that now too, which is not a good idea.

Speaker 0 00:07:17 , right? ,

Speaker 2 00:07:23 It was, it, it was interesting, like I said, when Apple came in there and then what happened basically with podcasting technology is everybody looked at Apple and either replicated it or went, you know, went with their plan. So for the longest time, innovation was driven mostly by Apple, you know, like when, you know, they added more tags to the namespace that they were using. I know that's geeky, but, uh, when, when they added features, uh, you know, a lot of the podcast companies and apps and you know, that, that weren't, iTunes did add these things, but it was driven mainly by Apple. And I think that's what's kept them forefront.

Speaker 0 00:08:07 It's true because even big companies adopted many of their tags that were direct competitors to them. So today though, I think, you know, with the podcasting 2.0 initiative that's going on, retaking, reclaiming that innovation that was happening in those early months of podcasting to me is very, very exciting. But at the same point, if we go, go again, go back and look at this from a historical standpoint, if Apple had not added podcasting to iTunes, uh, I think the space would look very different today.

Speaker 2 00:08:45 Yeah, it would be very, very different. Cuz you know, the, what we had prior to iTunes was some cobbled together things that, uh, probably would've improved, you know, remember iPod and, uh, what was the, uh, lemon was another one, but there was a, a few Miro I remember for a listening app and, but all of them still synced with the iPod, right? So that was, you know, before the iPhones and Androids came out, uh, iPods were, were the thing. Not everybody had 'em, you know, cuz I remember, I, what is it, IRI was that the little one that, uh, looked like a thumb drive

Speaker 0 00:09:24 The I River was a player Uhhuh, but then it would tie to any of those other, you know, because it synced via USB as long as it come up and looked like a hard drive when, uh, the, uh, the podcasting apps would try to sync the media, you know, and to think about now we, you know, we don't even, we don't even worry anymore if something's being synced. You know, the only time I check really now to make sure that there is media on my iPhone is when I'm getting ready to go on a flight and I wanna be, make sure that that media that has downloaded and is there and is residing and I, I don't have to worry about it not being available in the air. So

Speaker 2 00:10:02 Yeah, we've made it a lot easier and I think, thank goodness, the past, you know, the past few years, ,

Speaker 0 00:10:07 It's been interesting too to watch Google because Google has really tried three or four times to get into podcasting a compelling way, and they've never really gotten the traction. And it, and I truly believe the reason is, is there's never been a native podcasting app on Android.

Speaker 2 00:10:24 Yeah, Google podcast was close, but they didn't make that in the default load. So there wasn't this podcast button that people would discover natively unless they knew, you know, that they, they wanted to listen to podcasts, then they could download Google Podcasts or some other app. But that's probably one of the big things when Apple made that a mandatory app on iPhones that also exploded some, some listening.

Speaker 0 00:10:53 And it really, what it did is it, if you think about this, if you have this worldwide deployed platform, uh, literally hundreds of millions of phones, and then you drop the podcast icon right onto the front page when you, you know, first turn on your iPhone when it's brand new, just all of a sudden people said, you know, oh, what's that? You know? And if they hadn't seen or listened to podcasts prior to that, gave 'em the opportunity to explore. And it's, it was, you know, probably one of the things, again, another huge, huge inflection point for, for podcasting was really the, the inclusion of the podcasting app by default, that didn't have to be downloaded separately.

Speaker 2 00:11:39 Yeah. That, uh, definitely, like I said, I saw another boost and you know, we did, I was working at Blueberry at the time when, uh, apple made that primary, uh, a primary app. But, you know, they've, they've been able to hold a lot of their market share through the years, and I think, you know, it might be a case of early on and the impetus of growing podcasting since they, uh, they embraced it. And I think part of their motivation for doing it was they didn't have all the record contracts, you know, record company contracts in place for iTunes music service, and they added podcasting to get some stuff in there to get people to use it. And that's not a bad plan. I mean, Spotify's replicating that now, you know, they add podcasting just because it's a free source of entertainment and you know, why not?

Speaker 0 00:12:31 If you remember in the early days of iTunes, most of us brought our own MP3s, , you know, we brought our own collections to, and, and, and no one does that anymore. You know, everyone just pays by the month, uh, to get access to Oh, screened

Speaker 2 00:12:45 And

Speaker 0 00:12:46 Right. But I think really here, what we've seen and, and to give Apple credit, um, you know, there's definitely been movement in the space for people to use a variety of new apps and services. Um, but if you look at the top 10, maybe even the top seven, those generally make about about 90% of the total podcast listenership globally across different apps and platforms. And obviously Apple is still leading that and Spotify is, is number two. And then a variety of different apps, uh, kind of make up the rest of that, that percentage. But, um, and when I say Apple, I'm saying Apple as a, as a general consumption platform,

Speaker 2 00:13:29 Right? Right. Because, you know, there are other apps on Apple that get podcasts and Apple TV and iPads and iPads not so many iPods anymore. I don't even think they make 'em, do they?

Speaker 0 00:13:40 Yeah, I think they do. But, uh, I think limited models, but it's, it's been an exciting time. You know, if you think about, uh, over these past, oh, what, 18 years or so? It's been a, been a wild ride, but I think it's good to go back and kind of talk about some of this history. Sometimes it's, most people are like, okay, that's kind of cool. But I think it makes us all realize how far we've come and, and, uh, how easy now it is for listeners to be able to get access to the content that they wanna listen to wherever they wanna listen to content, whether it be on Apple or, or other platforms,

Speaker 2 00:14:16 Right? What what's great about it now is, you know, I can tell my, uh, nearly 80 year old mom, Hey, I heard this podcast the other day, here's the link, and she knows what to do with it.

Speaker 0 00:14:27 That's big. But she, you know, she's kinda got the, the number one podcast support guy helping her too, but yeah, but still at the same time

Speaker 2 00:14:35 I said, per push the purple button and search for this. And I mean, that's really all, it's,

Speaker 0 00:14:41 Well, that doesn't get more basic than that,

Speaker 2 00:14:43 Right? And, you know, Apple's made it easy, and a lot of the other apps are making it easy as well. So if you're on pretty much any phone, you know, Android devices, you gotta work a little bit, but not too much. And once you have an app on there, it works the same. Yes, it's, uh, it's really quite slick, uh, how, how we've made this easier over the years. And I say we, but I really didn't have a lot to do with it, but I've been, uh, watching it and enjoying it. And I do thank Apple for having the foresight to, uh, embrace podcasting. It's, it, it was really a, a good thing. And, and they're still doing it pretty well now.

Speaker 0 00:15:22 Well, anyway, that was just a little time capsule back into history of podcasting, and many of you maybe already knew that or didn't. Uh, but if you want us to cover more inflection points like this, uh, uh, the serial inflection point, again, the apple, the iPhone inflection point, we'd be happy to talk about that in the future. But

Speaker 2 00:15:41 Oh, definitely. I, I like talking history. Sometimes it makes us seem like old farts, but whatever, .

Speaker 0 00:15:48 So when was the first time you as a listener or as a podcaster, listened to a podcast for the first time and what app did you use? That is the question of the day. Thanks every bud.

Speaker 1 00:16:00 Thanks for joining us. Let's meet up next week and in the the meantime, for more information to subscribe, share, or follow, check out the show notes@podcastinsider.com to check out our latest suite of services and help Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease.