Voice has been key to communication since time immemorial; from something as basic as stories that conveyed the history of a community to voice notes that today allow us to speak with people on the other side of the world. Voice is once again the protagonist thanks to podcasts. And we wanted to try it out.
As New York magazine noted in an article about the rise of online podcasts , “these humble sound bites have emerged as the most significant and exciting cultural innovation of the new century.” There are an estimated 660,000 podcasts currently in production , which equates to some 28 million episodes available on demand. We have a world of possibilities in the form of audio pieces that cover a wide range of topics and attract a loyal audience.
But first of all… what is a podcast?
The word podcast comes from combining iPod (remember them?) and broadcast , to refer to these audio pieces that emerged at the same time that digital music appeared in our lives. The first to coin this term was journalist Ben Hammersley in The Guardian newspaper in 2004, although the date of birth is unclear. Some say that Adam Curry, a VJ for MTV, and software developer David Winer were responsible, who began distributing podcasts through an RSS feed that same year.
By definition, an online podcast is a periodic digital cambodia phone number data audio publication that is downloaded from the Internet. It is, so to speak, like a radio show that is posted on a website or on platforms such as iTunes and Spotify so that the user can download it and listen to it whenever they want.
These are usually focused on very specific topics that attract very segmented audiences and that, over time, become loyal followers. Thus, we can find podcasts about almost anything that interests us: digital marketing, technology, sports, literature...
Is it the same as a radio show ? The answer is no, although they obviously have some things in common. Firstly, podcasts are not usually broadcast live, but are recorded and uploaded to the corresponding platforms to be listened to when it best suits the user. And, as we said, they usually deal with very niche topics that are not usually found in regular radio programming.
“The variety of topics is very important. There are a limited number of radio stations now and they have to follow a very specific formula at an economic level to become profitable, so they tend to have the same theme. Podcasts allow us to address very different topics in greater depth ,” says journalist Ángel Jiménez de Luis, co-founder of Cuonda, in an article for Marketing Directo .
These two distinguishing features are precisely what have led more and more people to adopt the habit of listening to podcasts in their free time or while doing other activities. This format allows them to inform or entertain themselves with flexibility and, furthermore, on specific topics that are of interest to them.