According to a leaked pitch deck, YouTube is thinking of establishing its own podcasting platform, in an attempt to more clearly integrate podcasting into the platform.
Podcasts are already a massive genre on YouTube, offering the addition of visual as well as audio, with creators simply uploading footage of their conversations to YouTube as an extra piece of insight.
YouTube appears to want to create a subsection of the platform, found at the moment defunct youtube.com/podcasts, where users can scroll through podcasts like they do videos, featuring trending topics and showcased creators.
Creators could be able to submit their audio shows via RSS, and YouTube can provide audio ads, analytics, and more features to make it easier to get noticed.
You might think that Spotify is the be-all and end-all of podcasting platforms, but there are actually a lot of podcast-dedicated platforms out there like Luminary, which acts as a sort of Netflix for podcasts, taking subscriptions for access to a catalogue of podcasts (see post on YouTube vs Spotify).
And then there is the fact that a lot of social media platforms are looking to accommodate podcasts in their spaces. We’ve covered, for example, LinkedIn creating a space for B2B podcasting.
Why podcasting?
You could argue that YouTube has a monopoly on long-form video content, and has done since its inception in 2005, but this expansion into podcasting indicates more than ever YouTube’s desire to create a more well-rounded creator entertainment platform.
Podcasting in itself has a lot of benefits. The number of people listening to podcasts cannot be overstated, with a wide demographic, which makes for a lot of marketing opportunities. And the format itself is a marketing opportunity, with a lot of businesses launching their own podcasts. Even our own here at Affiverse .
