As you may have heard, Neil Young plans to leave this world with no regrets. He removed his music from Spotify in protest of its continued stance on letting Joe Rogan do Joe Rogan (with the exception of adding a warning message about Covid misinformation to the platform).
If you’re a podcast listener who, like Neil, thinks Spotify is really “F*!#in’ Up” (okay, last lyrical reference), you’ve got new options.
Today Callin launched, a social podcasting app from David Sacks and Axel Ericsson. Sacks, the founding COO of PayPal and Yammer founder, teamed up with Ericsson to bring his vision of an all-in-one social creation and listening platform to the people. Sacks really got into podcasting over the pandemic when he started his “All In” podcast. Like many creators who want to give podcasting a shot, he was amazed to find that the process required six hours of post-production.
Callin combines multiple audio experiences into one. Creators can open up a public or private room, start recording, and immediately start editing audio as a podcast after completion with AI-powered tools. Podcasts can be found on the app, or exported for sharing on other platforms. Within the app, the playbacks maintain their interactivity meaning users can click on avatars to browse profiles.
Callin’s community guidelines indicate that it will “host any user-generated content that won’t get booted off of Apple and Google stores,” explains Amanda Silberling for TechCrunch. So, to be clear, we’re not saying we know how Callin would approach Rogan, but as it so happens, you can listen to more of Sack’s view on the matter in the latest “All In” episode.
Meanwhile, Mark Cuban has been working on his own app called Fireside which emphasizes interactivity. The app has been discussed as a “next-gen podcast platform” and “hybrid between Spotify’s Anchor and Clubhouse.” Fireside targets both listeners and creators with a hub for creating and monetizing their work.
Despite their founder celebrity, Callin and Fireside will go up against tough competition and Spotify isn’t the only giant to face. Amazon owns 13% of the music-streaming market and wants to bolster that with podcasts. It’s been making deals to bring shows, like Guy Raz’s “How I Build This,” to the platform. With Audible and Alexa speakers under Amazon’s wings, Protocol’s David Pierce speculates that Amazon may be the company to watch in this space.
Before we go, we wrote yesterday about preference for all-in-one products versus those that focus on doing one thing really well. If you generally sit in the latter camp, podcast creators can check out Golden Kitty winner, Podcastle, while listeners can check out popular new products, Podopolo and Moonbeam.
Three statements. One of them is a lie.
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2. On Thursdays we wear pink.
3. 2 Truths & a Lie is a new game launched by Thursday for you and your remote team to get to know each other better. You can play the icebreaker game without signing up, installing, or watching ads.
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