The streaming company expects the finished product to be available to all Pandora users in a few weeks. The new platform is powered by Pandora’s Podcast Genome Project, a cataloging system and discovery algorithm that uses a combination of technology and human curation to deliver personalized content recommendations.
The response to Pandora jumping into the Podcasting space was not all positive. Blubrry CEO Todd Cochrane tweeted: “As a listener would you not want the full catalog of podcasts that are available via all other synidcation sites. This is the same mistake @spotify made in the early days and caused huge hate and discontent. Spotify is open to all podcasters now and making a massive impact.”
CEO Roger Lynch said, “It might feel like podcasts are ubiquitous, but 83 percent of Americans aren’t yet listening to podcasts on a weekly basis, and a majority of them report that’s because they simply don’t know where to start. Making podcasts – both individual episodes and series – easy to discover and simple to experience is how we plan to greatly grow podcast listening while simultaneously creating new and more sustainable ways to monetize them.”
SiriusXM lost a fair amount of talk show content when Clear Channel pulled out. Could this be the next step in filling that void?