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.

Answer questions relevant to your listeners

Here’s a great tip from a recent article from Stephanie Burns:

In order to get more listeners (and potential customers) you need to use your podcast to answer the questions that keep your audience up at 3am. In the Google search bar, type in the first few words of a common question you think is relevant to your listeners, and then let the search engine autofill the rest. You’ll see which pain points are most popular and how many people are searching for answers to the questions your podcast can answer. Then focus on answering those questions in upcoming episodes—especially in your website “show notes” for your episode.

“You can also use the language of the specific question so Google crawlers will find and reward you. You’ll want to make sure your keywords are popular—but not too popular—so you’re not competing with too many others so you can dominate a category,” suggests Whittstock. “Consider also creating short audio snippets or ‘vignettes’ that answer the question because Google Search is increasingly focused on audio questions and answers—a massive and underutilized opportunity right now.”

This process can also help you think about new topics or new ways to present topics you want to discuss, all while improving the odds that new listeners will find your podcast.

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 . . .

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.

But here we have Bill Gates discussing how Microsoft can make LinkedIn as successful as Facebook, which seems like a silly goal. The two platforms are so different and are used for very different purposes.

Let’s see how this develops.

Mary Meeker’s latest report has generated a lot of buzz as she points out how Internet growth is slowing, which has significant ramifications for parts of this industry such as smartphone sales.

While this saturation means certain aspects of the Internet market are maturing, it also points to the reality that the connectivity of the modern world. The prevalence Internet infrastructure is affecting many other industries and cultures as connectivity alters things such as our politics along with countless businesses.

This issue is addressed in the video above as it relates to NPR. The bottom line is that great talk radio content now gets turned into podcast episodes, and consumers love it. I love being able to go to the ESPN radio app for example and listen to shows on my own time, and the shows are also broken down by topic so I can ignore topics that bore me (like the NHL) and focus on topics I like.

Give Mark Zuckerberg credit – he realized Facebook was behind when it came to mobile and he forced his company to adapt quickly. It’s reminiscent of Bill Gates coming to terms with the web back in the 90s.

The mobile story for Facebook isn’t a new one, as the company has been killing it in the mobile space for over a year. But the results keep improving. The latest earnings report is spectacular, as we see Facebook becoming a must-use platform for advertisers on mobile.

As a contrast, consider all the problems facing Twitter, and you see one company with a clear focus and the other without much of a clue.

When Ev Williams launched Medium, we had high expectations give his track record with Blogger and Twitter. The video above has a great interview of Williams by Kevin Rose as they discuss the path he took to Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship.

Since then Medium has methodically found its place in the online publishing landscape. The notion of long-form writing that could be collaborative and stimulate real discussion as opposed to idiotic comment flame wars was one worth pursuing, and Williams and his team have made real progress here. Politico has noted how Medium is being used more frequently by politicians and activists to publish Op-Eds in place of traditional newspapers.

Recently he announced new initiatives, such as improved apps and an impressive option to use the Medium publishing platform as your own blog through your own URL.

The momentum seems real, so let’s see if this continues. With so much shouting going on these days, at least there’s a place for more thoughtful exchanges.

There’s been plenty of hot air lately over the notion of whether we have another tech bubble on our hands. Like most topics these days, much of this is driven by the need to talk about something to fill airtime and drive clicks.

Mark Cuban fueled the fire with a recent rant on his blog about how this tech bubble was worse than the one back in the late 1990s. Cuban is more of an entertainer these days, and he loves making provocative statements. Much of it is hot air, but he’s a smart guy so he does draw attention when he puts himself out there.

Cuban sees a frothy market for apps as everyone seems to have one they’re pitching, and he’s troubled with so many small investors entering into the angel market for these types investments where there’s very little liquidity. He probably has a point, but comparing this to the destructive tech bubble that burst in 2000 is pure hyperbole.

Steve Case address this on CNBC and then in a follow up article. He puts much of this in context and frankly provides and more sober and accurate analysis of what is going on with tech investing and angel investing. Check it out if you want to learn more about this.