Spotify is acquiring two major podcast tech platforms

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The Verge:

Spotify is making more podcast acquisitions. The company announced today it’s acquiring both Chartable and Podsights — two of the most prominent podcast marketing and ad attribution companies. The deal price hasn’t been disclosed, but this marks the first major acquisition the company has made this year in a long line of audio purchases.

We’ve seen how Spotify has been strengthening its position in the podcasting world.

Spotify has been on a podcasting acquisition spree in recent years, spanning across advertising technology, audiobooks, and top creative talent. Last year, the company bought Whooshkaa, Podz, Findaway, and Locker Room to offer and promote more spoken audio content, which followed its purchase of the major podcast ad platform Megaphone in late 2020. At the same time, Spotify has been scooping up major talent and shows to run ads on, including Joe Rogan’s podcast, as well as Gimlet, Parcast, and The Ringer.

While it is great that good content creators get to benefit from this, it is also important that podcasting remains an open ecosystem. Remember what Google did to RSS?

Independent publishers and loyal readers have kept RSS feeds alive, but it is a shadow of how vibrant the ecosystem was. I hope RSS would recover and become used more widely as people start to move away from closed platforms. Likewise for podcasting.

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