These exclusives, locked in to their respective apps, could blow the podcasting world apart.
Amazons audiobook companynow offers a subscriptionthat doesnt include any audiobooks.
This marks Amazons play for a slice of the podcast market, which isred-hot and growing.
Eugene Sokolenko / Getty Images
The thing is, these arent podcasts.
While Audible (and also Spotify) might call its audio shows podcasts, they are not.
RSS powers news and podcast apps, and its an open standard usable by anyone.
Most podcast apps use Apples podcast directory, but this directory is itself open.
More importantly, anyone who makes a podcast app can access this directory to provide search features.
Networks like Audible, Luminary, and Spotify only allow users to listen using their own apps.
Audible
Would a website be a website if it only worked in one companys net internet ride?
Why Are Audible and Spotify Doing This?
Every time you play a song on Spotify, Spotify has to pay the copyright owner.
Its not much money, but it all adds up.
If you instead spend your time listening to a podcast, then it costs Spotify nothing.
Second, by offering its own content, Spotify locks you into its service.
But put enough of these together and they have you locked in.
Audible itselfpromisesover 68,000 hours of content and 11,000+ titles from across the content spectrum.
What Does This Mean for Listeners?
The first problem for listeners is fragmentation.
More important is the issue of tracking and privacy.
So far, podcasts have resisted the worst practices of the internet ad industry.
Podcasts are counted by downloads and thats about it.
Ads are sold based on the number of shows downloaded.
Advertisers, of course, want more detailed tracking.
And this will result in significant privacy violations for you, the listener.
