Subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | Anchor For many, digital media’s ills are down to broken ad tech and the system propping it up. Adam Zucker-Scharff, director of ad tech at the Washington Post, says it’s more complicated than simply fixing the plumbing: Advertisers are going to have to work at making ad […]
Podcasts

How our VAMP project will tackle the challenges of the voice/audio revolution
The shift towards audio and voice-based digital user interfaces forces publishers to develop new tools, adapt workflows and ensure new ways of monetization. This week, Google DNI has approved to co-fund a €1.2 million open-source project with a collaborative approach we now will be working on until the end of 2020. It is called VAMP — pun […]

The Washington Post tests Rhapsocord – Business Insider
This story was delivered to Business Insider Intelligence “Digital Media Briefing” subscribers hours before appearing on Business Insider. To be the first to know, please click here. The Washington Post is testing a new tool, called Rhapsocord, that automatically identifies areas of a podcast where an ad could be placed and then automatically inserts ads […]

The Washington Post wants to figure out the best places to put ads in your favorite podcasts » Nieman Journalism Lab
Editor’s note: Hot Pod is a newsletter on the podcasting industry written by Nick Quah; we happily share it with Nieman Lab readers each Tuesday. Welcome to Hot Pod, a newsletter about podcasts. This is issue 168, published July 10, 2018. Into the Woods. The rollout for Crooked Media’s first audio documentary, The Wilderness, began […]

The Washington Post creates its own dynamic podcast ad insertion tech – RAIN News
The Washington Post has developed its own internal technology for putting ads into podcasts. Rhapsocord is a dynamic ad insertion tool that can automatically identify pre-roll, midroll, and post-roll spots in a show, then add the spot and update the file. It also stores metadata about each podcast episode, which allows advertisers to target buys […]

Washington Post Builds Tech That Dynamically Inserts Ads Into Podcasts | AdExchanger
Inserting fresh ads into podcasts is challenging and time-consuming. An online article loads fresh ads every time a page loads. But in the podcasting world, readers download content and ads together, which means the two must be stitched together beforehand. Because of this challenge, many older podcasts run with no ads or stale ones, even […]

How NPR Continues to Develop Its Podcasting Ad Game With Data and Branded Content – Adweek
There may not be a traditional media brand that has its podcasting vehicle firing on all cylinders like 46-year-old NPR, which sponsored the Rain Podcast Business Summit in New York on Wednesday. NPR is monetizing the space with ad sales and strategic branded content partnerships. But what’s more interesting is that the organization wants to change how […]

‘Missing Richard Simmons,’ the Morally Suspect Podcast – The New York Times
The logo for the “Missing Richard Simmons” podcast by Dan Taberski. For decades, the fitness guru Richard Simmons was Hollywood’s most accessible celebrity. He was a talk show fixture, a leader of weight loss cruises and an instructor of $12 classes at his Beverly Hills workout studio, Slimmons. He greeted tour buses in front of […]

Radio: The return of “Serial” | The Economist
HOW do you follow up on a phenomenon? At the end of its first series “Serial”, presented by Sarah Koenig and affiliated to “This American Life”, had become the most popular podcast in the world. It was the first to reach 5m downloads from iTunes, and each episode reached about 2.2m pairs of ears. The […]

Human Spectacle 2015 | This American Life
Producer Stephanie Foo speaks to Nasubi, a Japanese comedian who, in the 90s, just wanted a little bit of fame. So he was thrilled when he won an opportunity to have his own segment on a Japanese reality TV show. Until he found out the premise: he had to sit in an empty apartment with […]