![]() You can learn more about Pocket Casts on the company’s website. I still use (and recommend) Pocket Casts today. I stopped using Pocket Casts after its disastrous version 7 upgrade in early 2019-I moved temporarily to Castbox-but returned a year or so later after all the user experience mistakes it had made were corrected. A consortium of public radio companies that included NPR purchased Pocket Casts in 2018, and it was subsequently sold to Automattic a year later. ![]() Pocket Casts plans to continue adding new features, fixing bugs, and expanding its paid Plus membership as well.Īfter a rough few years, Pocket Casts seems to have found a good home at Automattic, the parent company of WordPress. As to what they expect to get out of it, Pocket Casts says that open sourcing its code should lead to bug reports, feature requests, and outside contributors helping them fix issues. “After all, the company’s creed includes the phrase ‘I know that open source is the most powerful idea of our generation.’ We believe that podcasting can not and should not be controlled by Apple and Spotify, and instead support a diverse ecosystem of third-party clients.”Īutomattic cofounder and CEO Matt Mullenweg, arguably one of the most decent people in upper leadership in Big Tech is an outspoken proponent of open source, so this change is perhaps not surprising. “We’ve been eager to take this step since we joined Automattic last year,” the Pocket Casts team writes in the announcement post. We’re thrilled that we can continue to give our users a multitude of ways to tell and engage with stories that matter.Pocket Cast announced that it has open sourced the mobile versions of its popular podcast apps using the Mozilla Public License. “As part of Automattic, Pocket Casts will continue to provide you with the features needed to enjoy your favorite podcasts (or find something new),” Automattic’s Head of Apps Eli Budelli said. “We will explore building deep integrations with and Pocket Casts, making it easier to distribute and listen to podcasts. ![]() Integration with may be on the horizon but it’s currently in the exploration stage. The company has also demonstrated a growing interest in podcasting-related technologies with its recent investment in Castos and partnership with Spotify’s Anchor podcast creation platform.Īcquisition announcements often include assurances of no changes for current customers but Automattic’s post made no promises and did not share many details regarding its plans for Pocket Casts. After acquiring Tumblr and Day One, Automattic is starting to gain a reputation for buying up apps that people love to use and giving them a fighting chance at financial stability and longevity. How WordPress and Tumblr are keeping the internet weird, with Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Decoder with Nilay Patel Business Matt Mullenweg is the CEO of Automattic, the company that owns, which he co-founded, and Tumblr, the irrepressible social network it acquired from the wreckage of AOL, Yahoo, and Verizon. No financial details of the acquisition were disclosed but Automattic may have gotten a bargain on Pocket Casts if its other owners were also losing money. The board governing the company met in December 2020 and agreed to sell Pocket Casts. BBC Studios also held a small ownership stake in the platform prior to Automattic’s acquisition.ĭespite being widely regarded as one of the best podcasting apps available, NPR’s financial statements and auditor’s report from 2020 shows a net loss of more than $800K. In May 2018, Pocket Casts was acquired by public media organizations NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Life. Its creators have been monetizing the app through its Pocket Cast Plus tier, which gives users access to desktop apps, cloud storage, watch playback, and themes and icons for $9.99/year. ![]() Previously a commercial-only app, Pocket Casts has been free since it switched to the freemium model in September 2019. The app allows users to keep all of their podcast subscriptions together in one place and sync between platforms. Australian co-founders Russell Ivanovic and Philip Simpson are staying on to continue leading Pocket Casts as a part of the acquisition. Automattic has acquired Pocket Casts, a popular podcast listening, search, and discovery app for Android and iOS.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |