Twitter buys "social podcasting" app Breaker to help build its audio platform
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Nano vibes... Podcasts are as old as the 2004 iPod — the term is actually a mashup of "iPod" and "broadcast." But the Big Pod Boom came more recently: global monthly podcast listeners grew from 287M in 2016 to 1B+ in 2020 — and they're expected to hit 1.85B in 2023. Audio streamers can profit more from pods than from songs, since they don't have to give record labels a cut. That's partly why:
- Spotify has shelled out $700M+ over the past two years to buy pod-related companies like The Ringer and Parcast.
- Apple, the pod OG, is reportedly amping up efforts to produce Apple-original podcasts. It now hosts over 1M podcasts, nearly double from 2018.
- Amazon is snatching up podcast network Wondery to make Amazon Music more pod-pular.
@ me (in my ears)... Now Twitter is buying social pod app Breaker, which lets users comment on episodes and follow friends. The actual Breaker app is getting shut down this month, and Twitter is getting Breaker's staff and tech (so: more like an acquihire). It'll use the fresh talent to help with its new audio-based social project, "Twitter Spaces." Because we can't wait to hear Twitter out loud.
Podcasting needs a social breakthrough... Podcasts have communities of listeners, but they're one-way convos. You have to go to a social network (cough, like Twitter) to try to engage. Barely $1B/year is spent on pod ads, because targeting on pods is way less precise than social targeting. If Twitter's audio Spaces can can bring social + pods together, that could significantly boost ad sales both for pods and for Twitter.