To start, here are some problems that I've noticed:
DISCOVERABILITY:
- The best way to discover new podcasts seem to be through curated lists, word of mouth, or recommendations from other podcasts. Haven’t come across a recommendation algorithm that surfaces little known podcasts.
- iTunes, probably the largest distributor of podcasts, has strange algorithms. For example, “New and Noteworthy” is based on # of new subscribers, not # of downloads or reviews [1]. Android users don’t have iTunes.
- A particular publisher’s content is usually organized episodically instead of by topic. This makes it harder to dive deeper or learn more about something that piqued your interest.
REVIEWS / RATINGS:
- incentives to write a review is very low. Lack of reviews contribute to discovery problem
Reviews are scattered across dozens of platforms, few of which have mass adoption
EPISODES:
- Most episodes are long -- 20 min to 2 hours. This makes previewing, skipping, and embedding into other forms of media harder.
SEARCH:
- Can’t easily search through an episode -- this is a general problem with audio searching
- Are podcasts even being indexed by any search engines if there is no transcript on the website?
PLAYER FUNCTIONALITY:
- Sharing an episode on FB/Twitter is hard -- users often don’t even need to sign in to use the podcast app. Sharing a segment of an episode is nearly impossible
- The “Skip” button is contextless and usually just jumps ahead a predefined number of seconds. It should be “skip ad” or “skip to next topic”
While driving, operating the player means gambling with your life.
ANALYTICS:
- Primary metric is # of downloads, not # of listens.
- Ability to know when listeners drop off is nearly impossible
- Whatever little data is out there is scattered across every distributor.
ADS/MONETIZATION:
- Monthly subscription model means losing 95%+ of your listener base. Often this is still economical.
- Ads are doing well-ish ($10-$50 CPM), but fail to attract many advertisers because there is no tracking (unless there is an accompanied coupon code). CPM might be at its peak
- Too much free content available for a “netflix of podcasts” to work
PRODUCTION:
-High quality content, esp storytelling, is expensive or time-consuming to produce
ENGAGEMENT
- Users can’t do surveys, click on links, add tags, “like” or “share”, comment, rate/review, etc through most apps/players.
- No easy direct line to engage with publisher. Nobody goes to the website and writes a comment
- No easy way to engage with the community of listeners
- AMAs and live broadcasts are seen by a small % of fans
- Engaging with the content while passively listening (ie: driving, at work, at the gym, etc) is hard