The podcasting industry has traditionally lacked public indicators of show popularity, unlike platforms like YouTube, where view counts and subscriber numbers are visible. This ambiguity has been appealing to niche creators. Podcasters have also expressed concerns about inconsistent metrics for what constitutes a "play" across platforms. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) works to standardize these metrics, but Spotify and YouTube have different definitions from the IAB standard. Spotify defines play counts as the number of times users actively engaged with content, with streams and downloads counting after 60 seconds of engagement.
Key takeaways:
- Spotify initially announced plans to display public play counts on all podcasts to attract new fans, but faced criticism from podcasters.
- Spotify revised its plan, deciding to show play counts only for podcasts with at least 50,000 plays, updating at specific milestones like 100,000 or 1 million plays.
- Podcasters are concerned about the lack of a consistent metric for what constitutes a "play" or "stream" across different platforms, with Spotify's definition differing from the IAB standard.
- Amanda Silberling, a senior writer at TechCrunch, covers technology and culture and co-hosts a podcast about internet culture.