PodMov Daily: Monday, February 1

Episode 362: Your Monday Mix

On Twitter, Boundaries are a Podcaster’s Best Friend

In this field, there’s little separation between personal and professional Twitter. According to Cassie Josephs of Discover Pods, podcasting is full of parasocial (one-way) relationships. Who’s reading, and how will your posts land? Josephs explains where conflicts tend to happen and how to stop short.

“Many people feel like everybody they follow is their friend, particularly when that person follows them back,” Josephs writes. “And when you’re in a field where it’s easy to directly interact with the people whose work you admire — and even to receive a response from them — that feeling gets even stronger.”

This dynamic often plays out in two ways, Josephs says: “being personally upset when someone does something you dislike and trying to act overly familiar with a stranger.” Giant public drama starts this way, but so do smaller hiccups. The solution is private communication in a sea of public awkwardness.

When Copyright Gray-Area Dissects the Joke

The History of Sketch Comedy, a new podcast by Keegan-Michael Key, adds a new layer to the third-party copyright struggle. As Bill Rosenblatt explains in Copyright and Technology, the Audible-exclusive show includes new performances of the text of recorded comedy works. As it does, gray-area gets meta.

“Because the prodigiously talented Key is doing his own performances of classic radio and television sketch comedy material on The History of Sketch Comedy instead of using audio from the actual clips, he doesn’t have to clear the rights to them,” Rosenblatt writes. Two startup companies disagree with that assumption.

Spoken Giants and Word Collections argue that Key would need to license parts of the underlying text. Good news: This is an unlikely scenario for most podcasters. However, “in some instances where people want to use portions of podcast scripts for various purposes,” Rosenblatt points out that it’s possible.

Happy almost-anniversary to EarBuds Podcast Collective, and mark your calendar for next weekend’s fun, free community hang-out.

Here's what else is going on:

• Feel heard: Spotify’s “invasive” new speech-recognition patent is not unprecedented, writes Bryan Walsh of Axios. “Whether or not this capability ever makes it into Spotify, companies are increasingly exploring technology that purports to recognize emotional states through voice tone.”

• Trophy case: Registration opens today for the 16th Annual Podcast Awards, which has added 10 new categories in 2021. According to Podnews, “The awards will also be honouring the five most influential podcasters for podcasters, and the five most influential podcasters for listeners.”

• Triple scoop: Entries will open this week for the 2021 Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition, a celebration of non-fiction audio storytelling since 2001. Increased collective pricing options make this year’s the “most financially accessible entry process ever.”

• No rush: “I think it is a little too early to say that anyone has paid too much for a podcasting investment,” says Edison Research SVP Tom Webster. Citi’s recent letter to investors about Spotify says more about Wall Street, which “has never been good at valuing” technology or content.