The big tech companies have been on the receiving end of a wave of criticism from all corners, much of it relating to their size and market power. Antitrust suits are being filed and lawmakers are holding hearings.
Now we have a bi-partisan group in the House, of all places, introducing a package of bills that would beef up antitrust laws that would impact companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google:
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google could be forced to overhaul their business practices under an expansive set of antitrust reforms introduced by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Friday.
The package of five bills, draft versions of which were reported by CNBC and other outlets, would make it harder for dominant platforms to complete mergers and prohibit them from owning businesses that present clear conflicts of interest. The legislation represents the most comprehensive effort to reform century-old antitrust laws in decades.
The pressure is mounting and it will be interesting to see the details.
Discoverability remains a challenge in the podcasting industry. Apps are generally getting better, but it’s still very difficult for new podcasts to be noticed.
As a result, SEO can be a very important tool to help listeners discover your podcast. But SEO also presents a challenge, so you have to utilize best practices when posting your podcast and podcast episodes. Here are a few tips:
Create show notes with a descriptive episode title
Too many podcasters pay little attention to the show notes. Other get way to clever and creative with episode titles.
Think about what someone would use to search a podcast with the topic of your episode, and then make sure those key words are in the episode title. A clever title can be fun, but without descriptive key words you’ve made it very difficult for anyone to find the episode with a search.
Also, you’re helping listeners who find your podcast pick an episode they would find most interesting. Remember, podcasting is essentially on demand audio. Tell everyone what the episode is about, and then make sure to get to that topic quickly in the episode, or at least make it clear in your show notes the minute mark where you start discussing the topic.
This is where show notes can be critical. Show notes can enhance the podcast experience by providing useful references and links for someone who want to know more about the topic. It can also be a guide to all topics addressed in an episode. Remember, let listeners know what they can expect to hear in an episode.
With everyone stuck at home, any business that aims to replace brick and mortar activity with electronic transactions has a change to gobble up new busness.
That’s certainly the case with the fintech business area, as more people look to manage money electronically and avoid going to the bank. And we’re seeing more activity in that area as companies like Paypal and Venmo see a surge in new sign-ups.
Those of us who remember the Web 1.0 world also remember when you could get decent CPM rates for banner ads. Yes, that seems like a lifetime ago, but prior to the Great Recession and the introduction of the iPhone and social media, website owners and bloggers could make decent money on internet advertising.
Tom Webster poses the question as to whether the same thing can happen in the podcasting business:
Great content is expensive to produce, and great advertising native to that content’s form and delivery is well worth a premium. But if several large players in the space start taking poorly executed, irrelevant ads at ultra-low (for podcasting) CPMs, that’s going to have repercussions on the economic feasibility of great audio content.
And that, my friends, is what worries me the most.
Ad delivery technology is progressing rapidly in podcasting, with companies like Megaphone leading the way with dynamic ad insertion and programmatic ads that make it easy to pump ads through tons of podcast episodes. Over time, ad rates for these ads will come down, and then we’ll see if podcasters can still command premium CPMs for host-read ads. So far, the intimacy of podcasting and listener loyalty to hosts has led to excellent performance for these ads. Time will tell . . .
Microsoft’s massive acquisition of LinkedIn offers some interesting opportunities. Below Reid Hoffman discusses the potential synergies, including real integration with Microsoft Office.
But there’s also real potential to overreach and create real problems as well. LinkedIn has stagnated a little in recent years, and perhaps this will inject new life into the platform. It’s certainly a must-use platform for many professionals and recruiters.
