Morning Coffee Reading: the video podcast is back, baby, back!

The return of the video podcast

Those of you of a certain age might remember the brief rise of the video podcast. After Apple introduced its first video iPod in 2005, a small group of video podcasts became briefly poplar, before being essentially swept away by the all-consuming power of YouTube. Names like Rocketboom, Tiki Bar TV and Geek Brief TV were the stars in this short-lived firmament.

But anyone who has been tracking podcasts over the last 18 months will be aware that the video is very much back on the agenda for podcasters. For most, it's about short video snippets from the recording on social media. But, for an increasing number, it's about giving people the whole thing as a video.

We come full circle…

250,000 Video Podcasts and Counting: Creators and Audiences Are Embracing Video Content on Spotify — Spotify

As one of the most powerful forms of human expression today, video ​​is becoming core to the global Spotify experience. We have been steadily investing in the format to connect creators and fans in new, deeper ways on our platform, from the recent launch of music videos in beta to testing video-based learning courses in... Read more »

SpotifyStacy.Goldrickgroupsjr.com

The original sin of social media driven content

This is a lovely look behind the scenes of the height of the social media-driven traffic age. It's an era that's now passed, but what makes me so very sad about this is so much effort was put into generating interest and traffic from social media, but so little was then put in to converting those mediated relationships into direct ones. Because titles never thought the traffic hose would dry up, they didn't prepare for it to do so.

When we look back at journalism in the 2010s, we'll look at that as our single biggest mistake.

What Game of Thrones did to the media

“It becomes a snake eating its own tail. It really does homogenize media.”

The Verge