 This is Jack podcast. We have a new podcast. And we have a new podcast. Very first podcast. Influencers, celebrities, journalists, random friends of yours. Everyone has a podcast. Spotify plans to spend $500 million on podcast-related acquisitions this year alone. But why is this happening now? Podcasts have been around for over a decade. To understand what changed to make podcasts the phenomenon they are now, we have to... Hold on. This is better. Okay, we have to look at the big picture. So yeah, podcasts came about because of Apple, iTunes, and iPods. We recently announced something new for iTunes and iPod and it's called podcasting. Apple brought podcasts to iTunes in 2005. Podcasting, of course, is a concatenation of iPod and broadcasting. Steve Jobs called podcasts TiVo for radio, which is an insanely dated reference, but can help us contextualize this whole shift. Before podcasting, you had the radio with its ads, unpredictable content, and your favorite hosts timed to specific days with specific shows. But with podcasts... You can download radio shows and listen to them on your computer or put them on your iPod anytime you want. And you can subscribe to these shows too so you never miss an episode. Plus, podcasts are free. Just like the radio. With the release of internet-connected smartphones, people could download podcasts onto their phones directly instead of having to load the audio onto their phone from their computer. And that made listening to shows even easier. Still, in 2009, only 11% of the U.S. population had listened to a podcast in the last month. But then, a podcast arrived in 2014 that changed everything. From This American Life in WBEZ Chicago, it's Serial, one story told week by week. I'm Sarah Koenig. Serial broke with established podcast rules. It was a narrative, mystery crime show that told a single story over many episodes versus just one. And that new format drew listeners in. It became the fastest podcast to ever reach 5 million downloads and streams on iTunes. Around the same time that Serial and other highly produced shows became popular, cars were becoming more connected too, which gave commuters an opportunity and place to listen. Plus, new direct-to-consumer companies had money to spend on podcast ads. The confluence of all of these factors pushed the podcast business to new heights. This week's show is brought to you by Casper. This episode is sponsored by Dell. Turn your great idea into a reality with Squarespace. Last year, podcasts created nearly half a billion dollars in revenue. Maybe you've heard hosts read ads and give you a promo code. That's a main way shows make money, and that code helps advertisers know which show sold their product. Shows make money in other ways too. Some adapt their story for TV, and others host live events. Other than the reporting costs, audio is relatively cheap to capture, particularly compared to video, so it can be a lucrative business. Media companies and individual creators can try out podcasts without risking a ton of cash, and they can publish their shows in the same places that major publishers do. Now that there's so much money in podcasts, companies want more control and visibility into how well their ads actually work. So podcast technology is becoming more sophisticated and the field is changing. Promo codes might not be needed anymore. Advertisers want a more robust way to track ads, similarly to how they do with banners online. That's why the Interactive Advertising Bureau established its Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines in December 2017. With this new standard, advertisers now know what counts as a download or a play, and they can get a real sense of how many people heard their ad. The ads themselves are becoming smarter and dynamic too, which means one ad doesn't have to live inside the same episode forever. They can be swapped out with other ads as time goes on, and podcasters can improve their ad offerings by guaranteeing timeliness. Everything is formalizing in an effort to make the field even more lucrative. Some podcast players are experimenting with exclusive content too, which is a fundamental change to the open-world podcasts have traditionally lived in. Podcasts are starting to be tracked more like the rest of the web, and the content is starting to be distributed more like movies or TV shows. So, why does everyone have a podcast now? Because they're cheap to make, the stakes are low, and the opportunity to make some cash could be big. Plus, who doesn't love the sound of their own voice? So, now that you've just watched this video on podcasts, wouldn't you know it, I have a podcast too, and you should check it out. It's called Why'd You Push That Button? We'll put a link below, and you should click it. See what it's all about. Check it out. Alright, we'll see you later. Bye!