New features and services pop into the podcasting world very regularly, but the updates have swamped our inbox lately. It's by no means a complete list, but here's a roundup of some of the latest developments, some from companies you might not associate with podcasting.
Buzzsprout has offered mobile access for a while now, but only on the Apple iOS. Now, it's available for Android platforms as well.
PodLP also jumped into the mobile phone world- but in the old 'dumb-phone' arena. Their new portal for KaiOS and JioPhone users is aimed at developing countries where smart phones aren't widely used.
Spotify announced a price bump, but music and podcast listeners can stick to the old pricing model with the Basic plan, which drops audiobook access compared to the Premium Individual plan (a dollar more at $11.99 per month.) Duo and Family plans, as well as an audiobook-only option, are also available.
Spotify also debuted their Creative Lab, an in-house creative agency to help customers create custom marketing campaigns.
Descript has dropped version 91, with a new user interface design and an AI editing assistant dubbed Underlord.
AI-assisted marketer Capsho's new Capsho NextGen is available in beta. The platform creates marketing assets from audio or video files. It's a revamp spurred by user feedback.
In the captive-market realm of in-flight entertainment, airline Lufthansa has added a selection of podcasts to their FlyNet entertainment portal. They're only available on European flights for now, offered in both English and German. (Lufthansa is Germany's national flag carrier.) Other new offerings for their passengers include digital magazines and live soccer updates.
And finally, a sad orphan update. Stitcher is no more, but their RSS crawler is still dutifully sending queries every hour, according to a screeencapture from Podnews.
Poor little bot.
